Bits: Putin in Panties, Hurricane Perry

Konstantin Altunin's portrait of Medvedev and Putin in drag. 

• After police seized paintings that, among other topics, depicted Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev in women's underwear, artist Konstantin Altunin has fled Russia and is reportedly seeking asylum in France. Also removed from view, a painting of lawmaker Vitaly Milonov titled Rainbow Milonov. It was Milonov who made the complaint that led to the confiscation of Altunin's art. His legislative claim to fame: he authored the bill, signed into law by Putin in June, that fines those who promote "sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors” in St. Petersburg up to 500,000 rubles ($15,150). Russia, of course, will be spreading Olympic spirit in Sochi next winter by prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”--i.e. any expressions of homosexuality or displays of solidarity with LGBT people.

• In case you missed it, here's a photo of Tilda Swinton holding a Pride flag in front of the Kremlin last month.

• Artist Mishka Henner uses Google web tools like Street View and Google Earth to open up conversations on transparency, secrecy and surveillance.

• Hurricane Rick Perry: What if hurricanes were named after climate change deniers?

• Yemen's 12th Hour graffiti campaign surfaces political issues on city walls.

• Minneapolis security expert Bruce Schneier on why the UK government did what it did to Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda: "They're lashing out: sending a message and demonstrating that they're not to be messed with -- that the normal rules of polite conduct don't apply to people who screw with them. That's probably the scariest explanation of all."

• Your moment of: Edward Snowden folk songs.

Bits: Žižek, YACHT, Questlove, Drones

Adrian Piper, Imagine [Trayvon Martin], 2013

• Žižek: "Assange, Manning, Snowden… these are our new heroes, exemplary cases of the new ethics that befits our era of digitalized control. They are no longer just whistle-blowers who denounce illegal practices of private companies (banks, tobacco and oil firms) to the public authorities; they denounce these public authorities themselves when they engage in 'private use of reason.'"

• The music duo YACHT (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans) has put out the protest dance song "Party at the NSA," available for free download, along with a limited-edition shirt (with art by Tim Lahan and designer Sang Mun's OCR-thwarting ZXX typeface), with process supporting EFF. They tell Nothing Major why they made the song a protest "party jam":

It evokes the classic punk-rock satires we grew up loving, like the Dead Kennedys's "Holiday in Cambodia," or the Descendents' "Suburban Home." To have fun at the NSA's expense while simultaneously doing something active, raising money, to fight against it—in our minds, this is a combination that works. A lot of people are subconsciously deterred from involvement in these kinds of issues because the very thought of what is actually happening in this country makes them anxious, and they'd rather ignore it. We want to reframe that impulse, giving people an engaging, spontaneous, expressive context for protest. Poetic terrorism, if you will.

• Questlove from The Roots spoke about racial profiling, stop-and-frisk, and Trayvon Martin on Democracy Now this week. Must-watch. Earlier: Questlove's Facebook post that went viral. On the George Zimmerman ruling: "i dont know how to not internalize the overall message this whole trayvon case has taught me: you aint shit."

• From Gizmodo, here's what they're hawking at the world's largest drone fair. 

• Also, don't call them drones, says the drone industry.

Bits: Art Smackdown, Drone Speedtrap, Lego Architecture

Speed Enforced by Drones, a guerrilla sign project by Stephen Whisler

•  William Powhida and Jade Townsend's newest collaboration--on view through Sept. 7 at New York's Freight + Volume gallery --illustrates in Boschian detail the various art-world feuds going on today. Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes features an apocalyptic landscape of burning Artnet offices, a ruined Relational Aesthetishop, and a Hennessey Youngman tank. Look for Nato Thompson, a King Robbo graffito, Jerry Saltz, and archers disguised as as Warhol and Picasso. So good.

• During yesterday's Day for Detroit--which included art blogs and museums (including Eyeteeth and the Walker) posting favorite shots of works from the Detroit Institute of Arts' colleciton that could be threatened if the city moves to sell art to settle civic debts--included a guerrilla action: artist Jerry Vile slapped a "for sale" sign on Rodin's The Thinker and other sculptures at the DIA. Staff quickly took it down.

• Architecture Studio, a new set from Lego, "comes with 1,210 white and translucent bricks. More notable is what it lacks: namely, instructions for any single thing you’re supposed to build with it. Instead, the kit is accompanied by a thick, 277-page guidebook filled with architectural concepts and building techniques alongside real world insights from prominent architecture studios from around the globe."

• ArtPrize's Kevin Buist interviews Creative Time's Anne Pasternak.

• Artist Fritz Haeg and author Michael Pollan talk ethical clothing, specialization, folk microbiology, and reviving the domestic.

• And here's a new video on Fritz's yearlong residency at the Walker Art Center. 

Bits: Trickle-Down Art, Fast's Drones, Sekula

Still from Omer Fast's 5,000 Feet is the Best, 2011

•  Trickle-down theory--aka "Reaganomics," once derided as "voodoo economics" by George H.W. Bush--is what's behind the notion of selling off part of the Detroit Institute of Art's collection, writes Christopher Knight:

The claim of such a plan goes like this: Privatize a great art collection owned by the public, and the benefits will trickle down to the people...  Will we fall for it again in Detroit? Supplying art masterpieces to a booming luxury-goods market will supposedly mean ponies and party hats for pensioners. Fat chance.

• For its inaugural exhibition, the Imperial War Museum's new IWM Contemporary program presents Omer Fast's 30-minute video 5,000 Feet is the Best. On view through Sept. 29, the piece draws its name from an interview the artist did with a Las Vegas-based Predator drone operator, who (under condition of anonymity) shared what he believes to be the optimal altitude for the unmanned aerial vehicles. "It is a lot like playing a video game," he told Fast. "But playing the same video game four years straight on the same level." GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says the US has killed 4,700 people using these video-game-like weapons. Commonwealth Projects shares a 9-minute excerpt from the video, which blends interview footage with actor dramatizations, while The Guardian offers another.

• With the launch of its Open Content Program, the Getty is "making roughly 4,600 high-resolution images of the Museum’s collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose."

• Your moment of private escape--a book read on your Kindle or Nook--isn't so private, writes James Bridle. According to EFF's most recent E-Reader Privacy Chart, "almost every service tracks searches for books, meaning not just what you read, but what you're interested in, is stored" for corporations to use and/or sell.

• Speaking of Bridle, here he is discussing his Balloon Infrastructures workshop with Fabrica. 

• RIP Allan Sekula, artist, photographer, educator, writer.

• Your moment of: bullet cross-sections.

Bits: Bromides, Tasered for Graffiti, Herzog's PSA

• Miami Beach police tasered to death 18-year-old artist and graffiti writer Israel Hernández-Llach early Tuesday morning. His crime: writing an R -- that's as far as he got in writing his tag, "Reefa" -- on the side of a shuttered McDonalds. “The officers were forced to use the Taser to avoid a physical incident," said the chief of police.

• Werner Herzog takes the dreaded driver-safety PSA into new territory with From One Minute to the Next, a new 35-minute documentary, which offers an unflinching and distinctly Herzogian cautionary tale about texting while driving. He forgoes the genre's usual scare tactics, instead opting for humane portraiture of both victims and perpetrators. It's every bit as engrossing as Grizzly Man or Into the Abyss, making the haunting case that any one of us could find ourselves an unintended killer for checking the iPhone one more time.

• Edward Winkelman posted this remarkable story on Facebook: a Russian man, displeased by the terms of an unsolicited credit card offer he received in the mail, scanned and modified the agreement -- to include terms like a 0% APR and no fees -- and mailed a signed copy back. The back approved a card, apparently without reading the fine print. Long story short, it's now two years later and he's suing the back for $727,000 for breach of contract.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/07/v-fullstory/3548779/graffiti-artist-dies-after-tasering.html#storylink=cpy

• PJ Harvey's new single "Shaker Aemer" -- available as a free download -- draws attention to the plight of the last British resident in Guantánamo: Held without charge or trial and cleared of any wrongdoing in 2007, Aamer has been locked up for 11 years. The song recounts the 46-year-old's four-month hunger strike and forced feedings.

• Of its Jay Z/Taylor Swift "Picasso Baby" mashup, Pop Culture Pirate writes, "I love that both artists use their status as outsiders to connect with audiences despite being very much ‘insiders.' I think that dichotomy resonates with the art world attendees as well."

• Painter Rich Barlow tells MN Daily about his "Daily Bromides," a series of  watercolor postcards he sends out anonymously -- one a day for a month to a random recipient -- depicting William Henry Fox Talbot's Reflected Trees, one of the first photographs ever made.

• Apparently, today is go-armed-to-Starbucks day.

Bits: León Ferrari, Trayvon's Hoodie, Youssef Abdelke

David Hammons, In the Hood, 199

• The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, now under construction in Washington and expected to open in 2015, hopes to acquire and present the hoodie worn by Trayvon Martin the night he was killed. Director Lonnie Bunch -- who has gathered civil rights touchstones from handcuffs used to restrain Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 2009 to a guard tower from Angola State Penitentiar -- says the hoodie became "the symbolic way to talk the Trayvon Martin case. It’s rare that you get one artifact that really becomes the symbol. Because it’s such a symbol, it would allow you to talk about race in the age of Obama.”

• Vice reporter Tim Pool says his hacked Google Glass is the biggest change to his reporting toolkit since the iPhone. Pool--who with his organization The Other 99% started Occupy Wall Street's livestream--has used Glass to cover conflicts in Cairo, Istanbul, and New York. “Glass allows me to keep my focus--When I'm running, having my hands free is particularly important," he says. "When things get intense with plastic bullets, I don't want to stare at a camera, I just hit record. It puts me more in the moment when I have a POV shot.”

•  Hours before he was arrested by Syrian regime forces July 18, artist Youssef Abdelke signed a pro-democracy petition that called for "the departure of Bashar al-Assad." Petitions are appearing online calling for his release, and artists in the region are rallying in solidarity. One, Syrian artist Houmam Alsaye, says, “From the point of view of the regime, Youssef is a weapon – one that uses pen and paper.”

• George Saunders gives a commencement speech: "Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.  Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial."

• RIP León Ferrari: the Argentine political and conceptual artist whose work tackled issues from human rights abuses by his government to the "barbarism of the West" has passed away at age 92. Best known for his sculpture showing a nearly-life-sized Christ crucified on a Vietnam-era US fighter jet, his work often used religious imagery. Highly critical of Argentina's military rulers, he left the county to live in exile in Brazil from 1976 to 1991. His son was taken by the military and is presumed dead. Of the political nature of his art, he once wrote:

“The only thing I ask of art is that it helps me express what I think as clearly as possible, to invent visual and critical signs that let me condemn more efficiently the barbarism of the West. Someone could possibly prove to me that this is not art. I would have no problem with it, I would not change paths, I would simply change its name, crossing out art and calling it politics, corrosive criticism, anything at all, really.” 

Bits: Lefty Hoarders, Pirate Utopias, Artist Pay

Docked raft at night. Photo: Tod Seelie

• In the spirit of the Miss Rockaway Armada and Swimming Cities of Serenissima, Swoon and her band of DIY eco-art rafters are heading out on another excursion next month, accordint to crew photographer Tod Seelie--this time down the Willamette River in Portland. Wired looks at this "Burning Man Aquatic" through Seelie's photos documenting these "pirate utopias."

• The Interference Archive--begun as the personal collection of activist ephemera of "lefty hoarders" Josh MacPhee and his late wife Dara Greenwald--now houses some "12,000 posters, 7,500 books and 7,500 pamphlets, zines and other objects" from radical social movements from modern American history. “Use is its own form of preservation,” MacPhee (of JustSeeds) tells the New York Times of a collection that visitors to its Brooklyn location can handle without gloves. (Note to Josh: This non-New Yorker would donate to a crowd-funding campaign for digitization.)

• Regardless of how well art institutions or art markets are doing, most artists aren't the beneficiaries. Alexis Clements writes for Hyperallergic about five models for change, ranging from a renewal of artist labor unions to certification programs that ensure “ethical payment practices" (like the one W.A.G.E. proposes) to going off the grid altogether.

• For his show at the Natural History Museum in London, Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado is showing works that depict the “stunning mosaic of nature in all its unspoilt grandeur." Surprising then is the show's sponsor: mining company Vale, which is accused of despoiling the Amazon and was dubbed company with the “most contempt for the environment and human rights” in the world by the Public Eye in 2012.

• Impeach returns with more boxcar graffiti: this time an obituary for the middle class.

• Your moment of stripes: Italian street artist Mimmo Rubino paints the rotating tank on a cement mixer.

Bits: US Stasi, Trayvon, #occupygezi

• Berlin police say they've opened an investigation following artist Oliver Bienkowski's protest over US spying Sunday night: he projected the phrase "United Stasi of America" on the exterior of the US embassy, which may violate a law against "insulting organs and representatives of foreign countries." The words were accompanied by the image of Kim Dotcom, the hacker icon and internet activist.

• "I decided today that until the 'stand your ground' law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again," Stevie Wonder told concertgoers in Quebec Sunday night following the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case. "As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world." His boycott, writes Slate's Jack Hamilton, is "politically savvy, morally righteous, and it could be enormously important."

• The latest installment of Erik Brandt's Ficciones Typografika--a poster series by global designers rotating on his garage wall--takes on a local political issue: an ICE investigation into the Spanish daycare chain Jardin Magico that lead to the departures of some 60 teachers—40 percent of the staff. Designed by Brandt, the triptych features three languages stating "No human being is illegal." He writes:

A set of three posters dedicated to the teachers and staff of Jardin Magico that lost their positions due to pressure from the Department of Homeland Security. Their dedication to educate children in a bilingual environment was exemplary, inspiring, and loving. This action does not make our country safer, indeed, it threatens our immediate future. No human being is illegal. These posters are the voice of my family. We demand amnesty for all immigrants and an immediate end to this betrayal of the promise of America. 

• "Having suffered from military coups and oppressive regimes, our parents raised us to be as apolitical as possible," writes New York–based Turkish curator Ceren Erdem on the Walker Art Center homepage. "I am sorry — no, actually, pleased — to say that it didn’t work." She recounts her experiences at #occupygezi, from the cooperation of disparate activist groups--including anti-capitalist Muslims, LGBTQ people, and women--and creative resistance that took many forms, from the famed Standing Man to "earth fast-breaking," a communal feast in the streets to mark the first meal of Ramadan.

• Eugenio Merino emails to share the results of last week's court ruling on a lawsuit filed against him by the Franco Foundation over artwork it felt disparaged the late dictator: "We have won! But the Franco Foundation is going to appeal ... and they are also going to sue me for the punching Franco work," a reference to a sculpture he made of a punching bag shaped like El Generalissimo's head. Digital Journal has more.

• Artist Florentijn Hofman's outrage over a Chinese knockoff of his giant inflatable rubber duckie is "a curious reaction," writes Hyperallergic's Alicia Eler, "considering that Hofman himself created a work of pop art which is, in and of itself, already a copy of a copy of a copy, ad infinitum."

Bits: 12.27.11

Stress (Monumental), Yoan Capote

• Via @dansinker, a 1995 news report on how the CIA "used American modern art--including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko--as a weapon in the Cold War."
 
• Regine Debatty reviews Art & Activism in the Age of Globalization: Reflect No. 9 (NAi Publishers).

• "Street journalism": Three USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellows, including design writer Alissa Walker, are exploring “a new context for covering arts and culture”—hyperlocal, personal, and accessed by bike, foot or public transit.

• Photographer Larissa Sansour on being removed from the Lacoste Prize shortlist, allegedly for work the luxury goods company deemed too “pro-Palestinian”: “This kind of situation is exactly what I fear. Money ranking over artistic freedom.” Lacoste ended up yanking sponsorship, effectively cancelling the 25,000 euro prize, which was administered by the Elysee Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

• Ever since reading about the arts boom in rural Minnesota, I can't stop looking at the evocative relief works of LeSueur, Minnesota-based artist Gregory Euclide. (You might recognize his work from the cover of the new Bon Iver album.)

• Speaking of art being made outside major metropolitan areas, here's a piece on how Eau Claire, Wisconsin, tops all global cities for the number of pop-music hits per capita (according to Pitchfork's top 100 tracks of 2011): Thanks to Bon Iver's base there, the city has 1.2 hits per 100,000 people. Copenhagen, at number two, is at .517 per 100,000.

• From MOMA, an interactive guide to prints: woodcut, etching, lithography and screenprinting.

• Rest in peace, Helen Frankenthaler.

• The Tent Centipede: A  modular tent system by Japan's Logos design.

Bits: 12.19.11

"No Man's Land" (2004) from Zander Olsen's Tree, Line

• "Pick your targets well," writes Jonathan Jones in The Guardian of activists' efforts to get the Tate to drop BP's sponsorship. "Museums are beacons of culture. They are not the running dogs of capitalism – and if they can get BP to hand over its filthy lucre for the cause of art, well, it is going to good use."

• BP, meanwhile, has committed £10M (around $15.5 million) to four British arts organizations, the Tate, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Royal Opera House.

• Good luck finding political art at Art Basel, writes Art Threat, although it's there if you know where to look.

• Nice: Murals made by pressure washing a moss wall with water.

• Urban intervention du jour: Four Czech artists turn a billboard into a merry-go-round swing.

• The art world is bloated and gross, the art overpriced and shallow, yet it's not entirely devoid of substance, Roberta Smith contends.

• From the work files, here's me discussing the new Walker website with METRO magazine.

• Occupy: A gallery of poster art, and n+1's Occupy Gazette, featuring writings by filmmaker Astra Taylor and others.

Bits: 10.19.11

• A student at Cambridge in 1979, artist John Devlin was forced to move home to Canada after a year due to mental illness, and ever since he's been obsessed with the university's architecture -- the beauty and mathematics of it; the new book NOVA CANTABRIGIENSIS features Devlin's renderings of reimagined and reconfigured Cambridge buildings as they appear on his imagined utopian island of the same name in Nova Scotia's Minas Basin.

• In his book Pig 05049, Christien Meindertsma tracked all the products made from a single pig -- the title is its tracking number, of sorts -- which ranged from ammunition and photo paper to heart valves and chewing gum. The project is part of the Walker exhibition Graphic Design: Now in Production, which opens Saturday.

• In a similar vein, photographer Dacia Pierson explores the meat industry, noting that a half million chickens are killed for food each hour in the U.S. "Within the American food system, this process is largely hidden by the USDA and willfully ignored by consumers," she writes. "The project aims to create more transparency in this system."

• The Guggenheim diversifies... into house paint.

• What I've been writing at my day job: "The Hippocratic Oath of a Photographer," "Aesthetic Apparatus’ ‘Monotonous’ Poster Installation and ‘Waterfall’" at the Walker, " and "The Art of Letterhead," among others.

• Bookmarkable: The ACLU on the rights of photographers.

• Walker director Olga Viso (full disclosure: my boss) on what the Istanbul Biennial is lacking: "an indefatigable spirit of generosity and faith in the potential of art to not only transcribe the exigencies of the present moment but transcend them too."

• Urban farming... on wheels.

• Your moment of hobo skull nickels.

Bits: 08.25.11

Big Yellow Rabbit, Florentijn Hofman, Oreboro, Sweden, via Juxtapoz

• Damien Hirst's sculpture Charity, a 22-foot girl with a leg brace holding a collection box, has been vandalized in Bristol, UK. The word "HOAX" has been spraypainted on her dress. Via @GroundswellBlog. (Which reminds me: I, too, am on Twitter. Are you?)

• Pete Brook, who runs the excellent site Prison Photography, is fundraising on Kickstarter to fund a road trip to do some 40 audio interviews cross-country with photographers addressing prisons and prison reform. Help fund this worthwhile project.

• Little-known fact about Clara Kim, former REDCAT director and new senior visual arts curator at the Walker: She learned to drive stick shift from a member of Superflex. That, as well as news that she'll be curating a show of video projections by Minouk Lim next May, in Minnesota Monthly's interview.

• The Rochester (Minn.) Art Center has reportedly been getting some unfriendly press over its unsuccessful request from the city for $23,000 in funds to help cover a shortfall in operational costs. Go to the local paper to vote on whether you think the center should receive taxpayer funding.

• The new issue of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, on "Grassroots Modernism," is ready for advance orders.

• Your moment of dogheadwall.

Bits: 08.24.11

Jerome Liebling, Butterfly Boy, New York, 1949

• Of Lei Yixin's monument to Martin Luther King, Jr., just unveiled in Washington, Hyperallegic writes: "It is the first monument to a non-US president on the National Mall and the first dedicated to a black American, except, well, it is memorialized in white … to fit in, we assume."

• Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, members of the African-American community are protesting a planned sculpture of a freed slave by Fred Wilson, and in Charlottesville, a resident wants a 1919 sculpture of Sacajawea moved inside because it "obviously denigrates both women and Native Americans."

• RIP Jerome Liebling, photographer, filmmaker and founder of the University of Minnesota's film and photography program. Here's Mike Hazard's short film on the photographer.

• Today Tyler Green's Tumblr blog 3rd of May -- which groups headlines with relevant works of art -- links Otto Dix's Shock Troops Advance Under Gas (1924) from his amazing series The War with news about fears of the safety of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

• Warhol contemporary Ultra Violet proposes a Robert Indiana-esque 9/11 memorial.

• Must-read from Pete Brook: How Google's mapping tools have spawned a new breed of art projects, for Wired.

• $278.4 billion: How much "key cultural industries" contributed to the U.S. economy in 2009, according to the NEA.

• Get your geek on: R2D2 sweater.

Bits: 07.25.11

Ceramic milk crate, Matthias Merkel Hess, via C-Monster

• Combat photographer Adam Ferguson in the audio slideshow, "War is boring": "One can feel like a predator working as a conflict photographer, looking for those extreme moments, the ugly ones that ram the absurdity of this war home... War strips the child out of being human, because war talks in absolutes. I guess many grunts can't find that child inside again..." Via Yumi Goto.

• Also via Yumi, the late photojournalist Tim Hetherington's last photos.

• Long silent on his blog and Twitter, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is now on Google+.

• Over the weekend, "Bono and Somali–born singer and poet K’naan met in Minneapolis with several Somali Minnesotans to discuss and draw attention to the growing famine in Somalia, where a food crisis has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people and is putting nearly 12 million more lives at risk. There has been very little coverage of the crisis in the US media to date, despite the gravity of the situation."

• Meet Dyslexie, a typeface designed to help people with dyslexia read. Via Leif Utne on paper.li.

• Jen Graves on bear poop, volunteerism and Mark Dion's living Seattle installation, Neukom Vivarium. Via MAN.

Bits: 07.21.11

Irina Werning, La Negra 1980 and 2010, Buenos Aires

• Irina Werning's been asking people to reenact childhood photos, to awesome effect. Via Andy Ducett on Facebook.

• Clash Music picks up on yesterday's story of the band Sigur Ros using the photographer John Yang's iconic image of a sleepwalking boy for its 2005 album without permission, noting "that Sigur Ros have been the victim of this sort of thing in the past. Publishing an article on their own blog, the Icelandic group bemoaned ad agencies who use 'sound-a-like' versions of their material without giving any credit to the original composition."

• The Mighty Flynn responds via a Tumblr comment to the story with a link to Jonathan Lethem's Harper's essay, "The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism."

• RIP Lucien Freud.

• Fossil fuel interests in Wyoming are none too thrilled by British environmental artist Chris Drury's forthcoming sculpture, Carbon Sink, which will feature a "flat whirlpool of beetle-killed logs spiraling into a vortex of charred, black wood and studded with large lumps of Wyoming coal." A Wyoming mining official said of the piece, which was commissioned by the University of Wyoming: "They get millions of dollars in royalties from oil, gas and coal to run the university, and then they put up a monument attacking me, demonizing the industry. I understand academic freedom, and we're very supportive of it, but it's still disappointing."

• Culturejamming preacher Rev. Billy took his tour -- and his gown-bedecked Earthalujah gospel choir -- to Tate Modern Monday to exorcise the "evil spirit" of BP, a major financial sponsor, from the gallery.

• Worth reading of the day: "Testing the Limits: Cultural Activism in the Gateway City" at Art21. Via Erik Moe.

• Minneapolis exhibition: Finally, We Are All Young Again: Adam Caillier and Michael Mott and Movie: Scott Nedrelow, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, opens tonight Thursday, July 21.

• Also tonight at the MIA: It's Bike Night!

• Also tonight in Minneapolis: Eat Ramen! Help Japan!

Bits: 07.18.11

• Pete Brook of Prison Photography and Wired's Raw File blog offers a great look at the California Department of Corrections, a culture-jamming group that since 1994 has described itself as "a private correctional facility that protects the public through the secure management, discipline, and rehabilitation of California’s advertising." It's most recent project (above), released as guerrilla bus shelter ads just prior to the July 4 holiday, commemorates the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

• The "Shared Sacrifice" mural at Intermedia Arts has a blog, with posts ranging from developmental sketches and in-process photos of the piece to news stories related to the political themes behind the work.

• Stumbled upon at the Intermedia site, images from photographer Dirk Anschütz's series of portraits of people with cognitive or developmental disabilities, created for Upstream Arts.

• Just like the title says: uglybelgianhouses.tumblr.com.

• Legendary Minneapolis artist Frank Gaard, blogged about here, here and here, has a solo show scheduled at the Walker Art Center. Dates: Jan. 19–May 6, 2012. Here's an (excellent) interview Permanent did for Gaard's (excellent) CO Exhibitions show this spring.

• At OPEN Magazine, the war photographers of India.

Bits: 07.07.11

Evan Drolet Cook, Places I Haven't Been (North America), 2011. 


• I particularly like Evan Cook's work above in light of the revelation that presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has signed a vow to, among other things, ban pornography. According to a 2009 study, conservative states -- like those in Cook's Bible belt (at least that's what I think he's conveying here) -- consume pornography at higher rates. Could Bachmann be killing her presidential bid with this vow? [Apparently, I misread this piece, which actually depicts Cook's drive from Minneapolis to L.A., where he now lives.]

• Greg Allen, of Greg.org fame, has started a new nonprofit, The Jetty Foundation, and its first order of business was to apply to the State of Utah in an attempt to win the lease of Robert Smithson's seminal earthwork Spiral Jetty after its lease expired and with no clear indication that leaseholder and artwork owner the Dia Foundation will get a new one. "In the simplest terms, I'm bidding for the lease because it seems irresponsible not to," Allen writes:

As weeks passed, with no resolution, the possibility that Dia might not automatically get a new lease grew, along with the uncertainty of Spiral Jetty's fate. Once I received assurance that submitting an application would not automatically trigger an open bidding situation, I felt the responsible thing to do was to present apparently undecided State officials with the most constructive, credible set of choices: the status quo, or an independent, locally based institution whose purpose is to manage the site and collaborate with the artwork's owners as they fulfill their own missions.

• Felix Salmon, noting Allen's nod to the Dia Foundation's "undisputed" ownership of Smithson's work, writes that said ownership isn't quite that clear-cut:

Indeed, if Greg’s bid is accepted, there will be no fewer than four entities with ownership claims here: the Jetty Foundation, with the lease to the land; the state of Utah, which owns the land; the Dia Foundation, which owns the artwork; and the Smithson Estate, which owns the intellectual property rights associated with the artwork. Clear? I didn’t think so.

• Kevin Kelly's ever-awesome Street Use looks at what he terms "jailhouse tech," improvised tools -- from weapons to cook stoves -- made out of re-used materials by inmates. Worth an entire post of its own, had I time, the fascinating topic is covered well at Tóxico, which features an interview with Toño Vega Macotela, the artist whose work in prisons unearthed the illegal innovations.

• The Walker interviews its new senior curator for visual arts, Clara Kim. The former director of REDCAT starts in Minneapolis Aug. 1.

• Artist Brad Downey goes from urban interventions into The Studio.

• Design I like: A coffeemug with a plug you remove so others don't swipe it at work. And the "love mattress" by Mehdi Mojtabvi, made of foam slats that make it "possible to wrap your arms around someone without cutting off your circulation, or sleep on your belly while sticking your feet straight down."

Bits: 07.06.11

Ben Venom, Don't Wake Me Lucifer!, quilt, 2010

• Heavy metal quilter Ben Venom, interviewed here, has a piece in Yerba Buena's exhibition BAN6, which opens in San Francisco Friday night. The SFAI grad says he was pondering a piece he was to make for a show in 2008 when, looking at all his metal shirts in his closet and recalling the exhibition of Gees Bend quilts he saw at the De Young, he had a catharsis: "So...I decided to combine the two: Metal and Quilts!"

• RIP Cy Twombly.

• So Minnesota's government has shut down. What's that mean for the arts?

• PopTech finds a creepy work: "Kyle MacDonald created an app that snapped photos of people who were using computers in Apple’s retail locations in New York, and uploaded them to his site. He logically called the project, People Staring at Computers."

• PRI's The World created a nice audio-visual piece on AFP reporter Rory Mulholland, who spent three weeks documenting anti-Qaddafi graffiti with his iPhone in Libya.

• Radiohead has joined China's largest microblogging platform, Sina Weibo.

• It's no Miss Rockaway Armada, but I've gotta hand it to anti-Scott Walker protesters in Wisconsin, who created a flotilla to bring their voices to Walker's home, the lakeside governor's mansion.

Bits: 06.26.11

José Castrellón, from his series "Priti Baiks"

• Street Use points out a series of photos of highly modified Panamanian "priti baiks" by photographer José Castrellón. Notes Kevin Kelly, "[T]hese guys are too poor to own a car so they soup up their bikes. Note the air horns, normally found on trucks."

• Photographer Brian Ulrich's new monograph is now on press in China and set for a Sept. 30 release. It takes its name from a hand-painted sign Ulrich photographed in the back room of a K-Mart store, one he told me during a 2008 interview is part of the indoctrination that's ubiquitous in corporate retail: Is this place great or what! "It's hilarious to me, because the place looks like a meat locker," he said. "It's definitely a hard sell." It's the first monograph for this Chicago-based winner of a 2009 Guggenheim fellowship (although he's moving to Richmond for a job at Virginia Commonwealth University). Preorder the book at Amazon, or buy it directly later from the Aperture Foundation.

• The lease for the land on which Robert Smithson's earthwork Spiral Jetty sits has expired, or so says the Utah Department of Natural Resources. The work's owner, the Dia Foundation, says it has "promptly paid every annual Spiral Jetty lease invoice, up to and including one sent out by the Department of Natural Resources in February 2011. Although the Department of Natural Resources deposited Dia’s check for this latest invoice, it subsequently took the position that the invoice had been sent in error." A decision on the lease was expected this past week.

• Minneapolis designers ro/lu bring their project A Simple Chair to Mass MOCA's Night Market (now through Sept. 30), fresh off its showings in town at the Soap Factory and Northern Spark. Via Greg.

• Gothamist: "French graffiti artist JR and the Bronx's Hunts Point Alliance for Children have teamed up to present 'Through A Mother's Eyes,' a community art project that involves members of the neighborhood, through images taken by and of Hunts Point residents themselves."

• After a two-month investigation, Mannhattan resident Joseph Waldo was apprehended by police and charged with felony criminal mischief, among other counts. The crime spree requiring such police attention? He wrote the word "moustache" on the upper lips of people featured on NYC subway ads.

• For Minneapolis Pride weekend, a series of same-sex Craigslist personals for sculptures seeking hookups, including the "full figured hard body," the Father of Waters, Larkin Goldsmith Mead's marble sculpture in City Hall.

Bits: 06.16.11

• Minneapolis yarn-art crew HOT TEA forgo spelling out their name on a fence near the farmer's market, instead opting to draw a pair of geese.

• The Atlantic offers a truly amazing photo gallery: "DIY Weapons of the Libyan Rebels."

• The New York Times runs an interactive feature by Roberta Smith that asks readers to comment on artworks in the Venice Biennale using only six words. LA Times arts writer Christopher Knight tweets in response: "Odd: Why would an art critic ask readers to comment on art they hadn't seen?"

• Starving artists often have to hustle to make ends meet. Student Joshua Dickson did just that, signing on for more than 100 medical research tests -- and documenting the entire process in video and photography for an art project.

• In video at the gossip site TMZ, Shepard Fairey publicly dresses down his wife after she revealed that it's been a long time since the street artist, instead of his crew, has been out on the streets installing his work.

• Congrats to Minneapolis-based Highpoint Center for Printmaking on winning an AIA Minnesota Merit Award for its new facility, designed by architect James Dayton.