9.17.2011

Bits: 09.17.11

STRICTLY AMERICAN, SCARCITY TERMINAL, Erik Brandt, 2011, part of the MCAD show Supergraphics
 
• In a rare radio interview today, Ai Weiwei said he's considering dropping out of activism. Urged by friends and family to do so, the 54-year old artist and social critic said, "I have to be careful ... because I may lose my life." Detained for 81 days without charge earlier this year, he noted that of thousands of artists in China, "nobody dared ask one question." He advised young artists to leave the country, noting, "This is crazy." On Aug. 31, China's parliament published its plan to make disappearances like Ai's -- detentions without charge or contact with family or legal representatives -- legal.

• Video: Gerhard Richter painting.

• Mike Leavitt's "Art Army" action figure series has some new members, including Ai Weiwei , Barbara Kruger and a sawed-in-two Damien Hirst. [via]

• Kellogg Co. is threatening legal action against a Mayan archeological group for using a toucan image in its logo; company lawyers say the depiction is too close to Toucan Sam, the Froot Loops cereal mascot. Compare the two.

• Minneapolis exhibitions: 2010/11 MCAD–Jerome Fellowship Exhibition: Greg Carrideo, Teri Fullerton, Julia Kouneski, Brett Smith, and Jonathan Bruce Williams, opens Sept. 30, at the MCAD Gallery, and Supergraphics, now on view at MCAD's Gallery 148.

• Your moment of Robert Rauschenberg's chili and John Cage's cookies.

Twin Cities Zinefest, organized by antiquarian photographer and self-described radical librarian Lacey Prpić Hedtke, is next Saturday, Sept. 24, in Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis.

• This week, Modern Arts Notes' Tyler Green asked me what work from the Walker Art Center collection best fits news of the spike in bullying and LGBT suicides in Minnesota's largest school district. Here's what I came up with. 

• Shepard Fairey's art makes a cameo on The Young and the Restless.

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