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Bad Santa: Rare art by Warhol and Lichtenstein stolen from Greenwich Village Apartment
12.25.2010
02:30 am
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Christmas Eve bummer. It wasn’t Bad Santa that came down the chimney. It was art thieves burrowing through the walls of a Greenwich Village apartment. Prints by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were among the valuable pieces stolen.

The New York Times reports:

On Thursday night, the NYPD was in Greenwich Village investigating a major art heist. They said works by Andy Warhol and other famous names, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, were stolen from an apartment near 9th Avenue, reports CBS 2’s Dave Carlin.

Police said creepy is the right way to describe the art thieves who ransacked a home in a swanky section of the West Village. Investigators said while the owners were out of town during the final week of November, the burglars carved their way into an apartment from an adjacent hallway. They eventually came upon an art collection worth close to $1 million. Once the opening in the wall was large enough for crooks to gain entry, the crafty criminals looted luxury items.

Clearly rare prints of several important works of art by modern masters including Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were what they were looking for. “Those kinds of thieves are going to go for that kind of merchandise,” West Village resident Mitch Ely said. “The people who are going to go for this are going to have a clientele that is going to buy it.”

Police said the burglars must have known they’d be on film because they also stole a video recorder attached to surveillance cameras.”

Via NYT

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.25.2010
02:30 am
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O, You Pretty Thing: The Wonderful World of Andrew Logan
12.20.2010
09:44 pm
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I once met the artist, sculptor and jewelry-maker, Andrew Logan at a Divine concert in Edinburgh, circa 1984. He was charming and delightful and showed me a selection of his jewelry designs, including a ring with a tiny book attached. He told me there was nothing written in it yet, and full of youthful enthusiasm, I offered to write him something. I did, but never sent it. A pity, for opportunity only ever comes once.

Andrew’s work mixes Pop Art with Neo-Romanticism, and a pinch of English eccentricity. He is the only living artist with a museum in Europe, of which music maestro Brian Eno said:

‘Andrew’s work doesn’t offer that much to the would-be catalogue mystifier: if you start saying anything too pretentious about it, it sort of laughs in your face. It’s hard to place, because it doesn’t really quite belong anywhere, guilelessly straddling a number of heavily contested boundaries - such as those between art and craft, between art and decoration, between pop and fine, between the profane and sacred. But I don’t think this straddling is some sort of ideological position that Andrew has contrived - it’s just where he happens to find himself when he makes the work he wants to see.’

While the art critic and writer John Russell Taylor said:

‘Logan has achieved something beyond the reach of any other 20th Century British Sculptor, even Henry Moore: he has managed to open his own museum, dedicated entirely to his own work and carried it off with showbiz flair.’

Born in Oxfordshire in 1945, Andrew studied to become an architect at the Oxford School of Architecture, graduating in 1970, he then gave that all up to start a career as an artist, believing:

“Art can be discovered anywhere.”

He mixed with Duggie Fields, and Derek Jarman, and became an influence on Jarman’s early Super 8 films, which documented the social scene around Logan and Jarman’s studios at Butler’s Wharf.

In 1972, he started the now legendary the Alternative Miss World, a creative, free-reign competition, which was more about transformation than beauty. The event was filmed and made Logan rather famous.

But his work as an artist continued, and he was acclaimed for his beautiful and fun jewelry, used by such fashion designers as Zandra Rhodes; while his fabulous sculptures celebrated classic form with whimsy. 

Logan has generally found himself near the front of cultural developments. In 1976 his studios were the setting for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s Valentine Ball, at which the Sex Pistols made their debut.

Since then, Logan has exhibited his sculptures and designs across the world - from London to St Petersburg, California to Baltimore.  His lifesize horse sculptures, Pegasus I and Pegasus II were displayed at Heathrow Airport, and his Icarus sculpture hangs in Guy’s Hospital. His jewelry was presented by Emmanuel Ungaro in Paris, and more recently it inspired designs for Commes Des Garcons.

This short documentary from Channel 4’s 1980s series Alter Image gives a delightful introduction to the wonderful world of Andrew Logan. Enjoy.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.20.2010
09:44 pm
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Jiří Trnka: The Walt Disney of the East
12.15.2010
07:03 pm
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His book illustrations and animations have influenced generations of children. Understandable then that Czech artist, puppeteer and stop-motion film-maker, Jiří  Trnka was known as the “Walt Disney of the East.”

From the moment he could hold a pencil, Trnka drew pictures. But drawing wasn’t enough for him, no, he wanted to bring his pictures to life. So, he started making puppets and opened a wooden puppet theatre on Prague’s Wenceslas Square. It was here in 1945, that Trnka and his colleagues started making stop-animation films based on the ideas and stories developed in the theatre. Trnka was legendary, as Studio Director, Zdena Deitchova recalled in 2007, “[he] was the symbol of a great artist and a great illustrator, and everybody in the studio in those days looked at him really with great admiration.”

In 1947, Trnka made The Czech Year (Špalíček), which told six separate folk tales of Czech life. It was a defining moment for Trnka as he won several international awards three years running across Europe. Trnka’s next film was the Song of the Prairie, and then, in 1949, he made The Emperor’s Nightingale a beautiful, poetic and unforgettable film, adapted from Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, and voiced by Hollywood star Boris Karloff.

Though he worked with puppets, Trnka’s unique drawing skills were still very evident, as author Edgar Dutka recalled in a memoir:

“He transferred this style of book illustration into puppets, so they are very typical. If I see Trnka’s puppets, I say: ‘Oh, that’s Trnka. His roots are in Czech village, in Czech culture, so those puppets are villagers: short legs… farmers…’ They’re lovely. It’s a special style. That’s why his fairy tale won the Grand Prix in Cannes in 1946, because it was something new.”

Over the next ten years, Trnka made four of his best known works, The Merry Circus (Veselý Cirkus, 1951), Old Czech Legends (Staré pověsti české, 1953), The Good Soldier Svejk (Dobrý voják Švejk, 1955) and arguably his greatest film A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sen noci svatojánské, 1959).

Then in 1965, he made his last film The Hand (Ruka), with which he moved away from traditional Czech tales to a political critique of his country under Russian domination. It was a controversial and very dangerous film to make, one that:

...was an unexpected and surprising break in his work thus far. It was something completely new in content and form. The Hand is a merciless political allegory, which strictly follows story outline without developing lyrical details as usual; it had a strong dramatic arc with deep catharsis…

...When The Hand was released it was officially declared as Trnka’s criticism of the Cult of Personality (Stalin), but for all people, it was an alarming allegory of human existence in a totalitarian society. The film had the strong up-to-date story about the Artist and the omnipresent Hand, which only allowed the Artist to make sculptures of the Hand and nothing else. The Artist was sent to a prison for his disobedience and pressed to hew a huge sculpture of the Hand. When the omnipresent Hand caused the Artist’s death, the same Hand organizes the artist’s State funeral with all artists honoured. Trnka, for the first time, openly expressed his opinion about his own inhuman totalitarian society. The Hand was one of the first films that helped to open the short Prague’s Spring.

In The Hand Trnka predicted his own fate, as he died at the early age of fifty-seven in 1969. Like the Artist in his last film, he was buried with full State honors. This documentary gives a fascinating insight into Trnka’s brilliant creative world.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Jan Švankmajer - Dimensions of Dialogue


 
Part 2 plus Trnka’s ‘The Hand’ after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.15.2010
07:03 pm
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Members of Russian Performance Art Group ‘Voina’ Arrested and Charged
11.25.2010
07:30 pm
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Two leading members of Russia’s radical art group Voina (“War”), Oleg Vorotnikov, 32, and Leonid Nikolaev, 27, have been charged with “criminal mischief”, after turning over police cars in St. Petersburg as a protest against police corruption, last September.

Nikolayev and Vorotnikov were arrested at a Moscow apartment on 15 November, and brought to St. Petersburg the next day, where they have since been held in custody at a pretrial detention center.

According to witnesses, the pair were handcuffed and had bags put over their heads when arrested. The police searched the apartment and confiscated computers, hard drives, USB flash drives, cell phones and various papers.

The police said that the damage inflicted on the police cars totaled 98,000 rubles ($3,146).

If convicted, the two artists could face up to five years in prison. The charges have surprised members of Voina, as the arrests come two months after the car-flipping incident and the police targeted only two of the seven individuals involved. The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Nikolayev and Vorotnikov’s lawyers appealed the artists’ pretrial detention Tuesday, according to the web site Free Voina, which is campaigning for the release of the artists.

Both have refused to speak to investigators, referring to the Constitution, which guarantees the right of accused people not to give evidence against themselves, the site reported.

According to the web site, investigators have expressed their intention to re-arrest another Voina artist, Natalya Sokol, who was briefly detained on 15 November but was released because she has a young son.

In emailed comments to The St. Petersburg Times, Voina’s spokesman Alexei Plutser-Sarno described the charges as “illegal.”

“The criminal case was filed for the artistic stunt ‘Palace Revolution,’ when the artists demanded, metaphorically, the reform of the Interior Ministry and an end to police arbitrariness,” he wrote.

“In response to this demand, the Interior Minister is insisting that prosecutors demand [five] years in prison. Effectively, the artists are charged with ideological hatred against the social group ‘corrupt authorities.’

“Previously, the Interior Ministry’s official representative was talking about 500 rubles ($16) of damage — one broken mirror and a flashing light. Now the cost of the used mirror of the police Lada has increased up to $3,000 and continues to grow. Apparently, the mirror was set with diamonds; it’s a pity that the artists didn’t notice that.”

Earlier this week, a campaign demanding the release of the imprisoned artists and raising funds for them was launched.

Voina is a highly controversial conceptual art group, of up to sixty different members, including poets, artists, journalists and students. The group was founded in 2007 by philosophy students at Lomonosov Moscow State University, under the leadership of Petr Verzilov and Oleg Vorotnikov.

Voina has achieved considerable notoriety in their homeland since their first event on 1st May 2007, when a group of activists threw dead cats inside a McDonalds restaurant in Moscow. 

In 2008, they made international news with their performance piece Fuck for the Heir Puppy Bear, in which five couples (including a heavily pregnant woman) had sex in the State Museum of Biology. The event was staged the day before the election of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose last name is derived from the word medved, “bear” in Russian.

More recently, Voina staged In Memory of the Decemberists - A Present to Yuri Luzhkov, which presented the hanging of two gay men and three Central Asian guest workers, as a direct attack against Moscow Mayor Luzhkov, whose policies have been denounced as racist and homophobic, and the frequent murders of guest workers in the city.

Also, as Dangerous Minds’ Marc Campbell recently reported:

Russian performance artists and political activists, Voina, demonstrate how to liberate food from the supermarket using a woman’s vagina. Perhaps inspired by Divine in Pink Flamingos, these chicken snatchers have developed a simple but effective way to provide their collective with free nourishment.

A more subdued act took place earlier this year, when the group painted a giant phallus on a drawbridge leading to the headquarters of the Federal Security Service in Saint Petersburg.

The news of the arrests has shocked certain parts of Russia’s art community, but it is yet to be seen what affect the possible loss of one of the group’s leaders will have.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Woman Liberates Chicken from Supermarket by Hiding It in Her Vagina


 
More work by Voina after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.25.2010
07:30 pm
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Artist Ai Weiwei Under House Arrest
11.05.2010
09:43 am
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The artist and digital activist Ai Weiwei is currently under house arrest in his native China, according to the Guardian. Weiwei, who has embarrassed Chinese authorities on several occasions with his campaigns on sensitive issues, says he has been placed under house arrest until Sunday night because he planned to hold a party to mark the demolition of his newly built studio.

Earlier this week Weiwei, best known for his bird’s nest design for China’s Olympic Stadium, and his Sunflower Seeds exhibition,  was ordered to demolish his recently completed $1.2m studio in Shanghai, which had been built after a personal invitation from the local mayor two years ago. The studio was to form part of a new cultural area, where Weiwei was to teach architecture. Authorities now claim the studio had been erected without the relevant planning permission and has to be demolished. In response Weiwei said:

“I was very surprised because the whole process was under government supervision and they were very enthusiastic in pushing it,” he said.

“Two years ago quite a high official [from Shanghai] came to my studio to ask me to build a studio in this newly developed cultural district in an agricultural area. I told him I wouldn’t do it because I had no faith in government, but he somehow convinced me, saying he had come to Beijing from Shanghai, and so I said OK.

“Half a dozen artists were invited to build studios there because they wanted a cultural area. I’m the only one singled out to have my studio destroyed.”

Weiwei decided to hold a huge party before demolition work began, today Ai tweeted that national security officers visited him to say he could not leave his Beijing house until midnight on Sunday - the day of the event. As the Guardian reports:

They appear to have been concerned by the size of the party as well as its nature. Thousands of people had said they wanted to attend after Ai issued an open invitation via Twitter. Chinese authorities are always nervous about large unauthorised gatherings.

“They came last night and tried to interview me, saying I should not do it because it was getting too big,” he said.

“I told them: ‘I cannot cancel my party, because it is our only chance before the building is destroyed.’ Then they suggested I said I was under house arrest. I said: ‘This is ridiculous, because I’m not under house arrest and I’m not going to lie to the public.’”

Ai said he suggested they could either let the party go ahead and stop it if there was any wrongdoing, or ask the Shanghai government not to demolish the building – even if it were only a temporary stay of execution. Had they done so, he would have called off the party.

The police returned today and announced he was under house arrest after he reiterated that he would go unless they stopped him by force.

“They said it was an order they had received … They were very polite and very embarrassed,” he added.

“This is the general tragedy of this nation. Everything has to be dealt with by police. It is like you use an axe to do all the housework because this is the only tool you have.”

 

 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.05.2010
09:43 am
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Derek Jarman: A Film by Steve Carr
11.01.2010
05:36 pm
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Derek Jarman died too soon, and his loss has been immeasurable to world cinema.

I first met Derek in 1989, when he was interviewed about his work, by Richard Jobson, on a BBC lunchtime magazine program. It was a coup to get him, more so as he openly discussed AIDs, and his own HIV status, at a time when large sections of the media were spouting hatred and bigotry against the gay community. At the time, Jarman was in Glasgow for an exhibition he was presenting at the Third Eye Center, the show consisted of homophobic front pages culled from tabloid newspapers, plastered on the walls around a tarred and feathered, barbed-wire cage, inside which, two young men lay naked on a bed. The effect was powerful and moving.

Steve Carr, a film-maker and on-line content editor, has made this excellent new short film about Jarman, and as he exclusively tells Dangerous Minds:

The film was part of a work related project. We were asked to produce something that has or had a huge influence in our own life/lives. Derek Jarman’s work influenced my interest in queer art in the late 80s at a time when Britain was dominated by anti-AIDS rhetoric and a Thatcherite run government. My short film is composed of clips from many of Derek’s films and documentaries, compressed into a 10 minute short about his life and the difficulties people had from finding funds to show their work. Derek, being a film maker and being HIV positive was an example of the prejudice he faced in this right-wing Britain of the time.

 

 
Bonus clip of Jarman’s Super 8 footage after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.01.2010
05:36 pm
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A bar of soap from Silvio Berlusconi’s fat
10.09.2010
06:01 am
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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.09.2010
06:01 am
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A Ghost Town In Belgium Becomes A Canvas For Graffiti Artists
07.30.2010
05:07 am
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Doel, Belgium, a town known mostly for it’s proximity to nuclear reactors, has become a virtual ghost town. Fortunately, radiation didn’t figure into Doel’s fate.  The townspeople of Doel were forced to move in order to accommodate the expansion of Antwerp harbor. Other than a handful of diehard citizens, a few businesses, and squatters, the town is uninhabited and will soon be demolished. In the meantime, Doel has become a huge canvas for artists. Cesare Santorini made this short film documenting the incredible and ephemeral street art of Doel.

I wish Santorini’s choice of music in this video had been better. You may want to turn down the volume.

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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07.30.2010
05:07 am
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Pak Sheung Chuen Breathes It All In
07.30.2009
12:00 pm
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Back in June, I was lucky enough to be in Venice for the opening of the 53rd Biennale.  After 3 days of gorging on works from artists both established and emerging, I would have to say I was sucked in most fully by the work of Hong Kong’s Pak Sheung Chuen.  He’s a prankster, for sure, wittily combining Sophie Calle‘s exploration of self with the Situationist mandate to expose (and sometime pick at) the seams knitting our world together.  One of Chuen’s more whimsical works involved his renting of an apartment in Busan.  He lived his daily there as usual, but he collected every single one of his breaths into transparent plastic bags until they completely filled the space.  The project took 10 days to complete, and, by the end, Chuen felt as if, “part of his life was absorbed by the apartment.”

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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07.30.2009
12:00 pm
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Never Fuck With the Goddess
07.16.2009
04:59 pm
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This scene from the Bollywood flick Tu Hi Durga Tu Hi Kaali strikes fear into the hearts of demons and skeezy men everywhere. I love Bollywood?

Posted by Jason Louv
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07.16.2009
04:59 pm
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Luke Haines: Bad Vibes
07.14.2009
03:00 pm
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I may be the last person to find out about this, but since I’m American, it’s OK: Luke Haines, the greatest British songwriter of the 1990s, has released a book detailing his bitter memories of the Britpop years and being completely ignored by the public at large. Entitled “Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall,” the book was released in the UK in February. So far no release in the US, nor is there likely to be, ever, so suck it up and pay the postage.

Haines, who laid down the template that Blur and Pulp would later capitalize on with his band The Auteurs, went on to record such gems of human potential as concept albums about the Baader-Meinhof gang and Oliver Twist, recording under his own name and also with “supergroup” Black Box Recorder.

For those who have never been exposed to the man, try any of his albums, ever: they’re all essential. While Blur were writing about middle-class boredom, Haines was writing one-man nostalgia trips through the lost, forgotten and seamy sides of English history, like a snarling pop version of Peter Ackroyd. Try it, you’ll like it.

The Auteurs: Rubettes music video

Posted by Jason Louv
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07.14.2009
03:00 pm
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