Art – Page 3 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Dispatches from Ray Johnson at MoMA PS1, September 2013

October 13, 2014 No Comments

Walking through the doors of MoMA PS1 for the New York Art Book Fair can be an exercise in sensory overload. On tables situated in the museum itself, along with the outer courtyard, attendees could purchase anything from limited-edition t-shirts to issues of literary magazines. The space abounded with people: it was simultaneously an artistically-inclined bibliophile’s fever dream and the cataclysmic nightmare of the severely claustrophobic.

Art, Comics, music

Where Album Covers Meet Great Comics

October 10, 2014 No Comments

Earlier this year, Neko Case and Kelly Hogan released a collaborative single, “These Aren’t the Droids.” The cover art came via Lynda Barry, whose distinctive style can be seen in a host of books, and whose approach to teaching has been written about in the New York Times. This was the latest example of an artist known for their work in comics taking on an album cover. It’s far from the only one, though; read on for more examples of this kind of overlap.

Art

Taking Mom to the Art Gallery

July 10, 2014 No Comments

I’m too cynical about the art world and my upbringing to give “Another Look at Detroit,” a massive exhibition in Chelsea on view at two wealthy art galleries, Marlborough and Marianne Boesky, a fair assessment either way. The show errs on the side of positivity, censoring any images of urban blight, industrial waste or poverty, which is admirable if not entirely accurate. Todd Levin, a Detroiter and veteran of the New York art world, organized it. Ms. Boesky’s father is […]

Art, Book Review, Books, reviews

Lessons in Collaboration and Inspiration: Notes on “You Are the Friction”

June 24, 2014 No Comments

You Are the Friction foreword by Sean Michaels Sing Statistics; 216 p. The process of inspiration is something that never fails to grab my attention. By which I mean: wear your influences on your sleeve and it’s liable to pique my interest. Years ago, I fell hard for Chris Eaton’s novel The Grammar Architect, which he’s described as a cover of Thomas Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes. More recently, John Darnielle’s book in the 33 1/3 series took Black Sabbath’s Master of […]

Art

Checking Out “Dismal Plight” at Cleopatra’s

June 6, 2014 No Comments

Do I like visual art? I do. What about sequential narratives? Those, too. This is probably why I so enjoyed Dismal Plight, which features work from Jonas Lipps and Mark van Yetter. It’s currently on view at the Greenpoint gallery Cleopatra’s through June 8th. The gallery refers to it as “[a] series of etching and linoleum prints loosely employ the format of a comic book as a means to create a narrative” — and that’s a pretty spot-on description.

Art, Book Review, Books, reviews

A Literary Collage, Evoking Scenes Artistic and Literary: A Review of “Living Well is the Best Revenge”

April 16, 2014 No Comments

Living Well Is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins MoMA Books; 149 p. It is a particularly strange fate to be best-known for the fictional character you inspired. That is, arguably, the case of the late artist Gerald Murphy, the inspiration for the character Dick Diver in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. While Calvin Tomkins does not shy away from Murphy’s literary afterlife in his recently reissued 1974 book, Living Well Is the Best Revenge, he also makes […]

Art, Books

Reading “The UnAmericans” and Revisiting John McPhee’s “The Ransom of Russian Art”

February 18, 2014 No Comments

There are many reasons to read The UnAmericans, Molly Antopol’s terrific debut collection; many of them are covered by Jason Diamond’s recent piece on the book. For me, one of the side benefits to reading it was through its invocation of another notable book: John McPhee’s The Ransom of Russian Art. McPhee’s book, first published in 1994, focuses on the curious life of Norton Dodge, an economist who, during the Cold War, smuggled numerous works of art out of the Soviet Union, […]

Art, Books

“The Shadows Took Shape” Has a Book Club

January 7, 2014 No Comments

In news of art with a literary connection, it’s worth noting The Shadows Took Shape, currently up at the Studio Museum in Harlem. If you haven’t read it already, Chase Quinn makes the case for why you should check this out at Hyperallergic. Alternately: do you like the idea of art that takes an aesthetic cue from the likes of Sun Ra, Octavia E. Butler, and Samuel R. Delany? Then this is an exhibit to which you should pay a […]