"What's your favorite 'Paul Schmelzer,' Paul Schmelzer?" On Sunday, that's the question BBC London's Gaby Roslin posed to me on the air, in regards to my quest to get famous people to sign my name. Listen to our conversation about Signifier/Signed :
Over the course of six hours on Labor Day weekend, Twin Cities-based graffiti writer IMPEACH—subject of my recent profile at Medium.com's re:form —created this commissioned mural on my family's south Minneapolis garage. It's an amazing piece of handwork, and so fitting for our growing family in our new home (new big brother Kai, below, approves). Take a look:
From " Keeping Track: The Political Railway Graffiti of IMPEACH ," my new piece at re:form : “While most of us click away on keyboards and phones to spread news of the latest injustice on social media platforms only seen by people that we already know and [who] largely agree with us, IMPEACH grabs those same headlines and covers trains with them,” says [artist, curator, and Justseeds founder Josh]…
For the fourth installment of the Walker Art Center's Artist Op-Eds series , I invited Ron Athey to share his perspective on the 1994 Minneapolis performance that all but blacklisted him at US art venues for a decade, his life with HIV, and the realization that the disease wouldn't kill him after all. The result, " Polemic of Blood: Ron Athey on the 'Post-AIDS' Body ," marks the first time Athey…
Just hours to go until ArtPrize reveals its winners for 2014, and there's been a flurry of response to news that finalist Steve Lambert will be donating his winnings to a Grand Rapids–based LGBT organization. The most noteworthy: Hrag Vartanian, an ArtPrize judge in Lambert's category and Hyperallergic founder/editor, applauds the move, but cautions against generalizing about an entire…
ArtPrize 2014 finalist Steve Lambert , as I reported yesterday, has vowed to give away his prize money —either $20,000 or $200,000—should he win at tonight's awards ceremony. His interactive mobile billboard Capitalism Works For Me! True/False is shortlisted in the "time-based" category (along with Mel Chin and others). His designated beneficiary: the LGBT Fund of the Grand Rapids Foundation.…
ArtPrize seems like an apt venue for artist Steve Lambert's Capitalism Works for Me project. Arguably the art world's most populist high-profile event, the annual Grand Rapids–based festival allows visitors to vote on their favorites works, with winners in both juried and public-vote categories taking home anywhere from $20,000 to $200,000 . Lambert's project, a mobile billboard/voting machine…
Erik Brandt, Ficciones Typografika , 641–643 (72”x36”). “It’s a community of people who are — it sounds so corny — just dreaming," says designer Erik Brandt of Ficciones Typografika , the international design poster show he's been curating on his Minneapolis garage for the past 15 months. "People experimenting and doing something idiosyncratic, for no other reason than that they want to do it.”…
Duluth slowcore trio Low launched a pre-government-shutdown meme on Twitter Monday, suggesting that Congress be replaced by a “nice grouping of cheese.” Since then, dozens of other ideas -- equally as absurd, but appropriate, given the irrationality of congressional tea partiers -- surfaced, from an ore boat to a biodegradable fork to “ a lazy Boston terrier .” Hashtag: #replacecongresswith
Godspeed You ! Black Emperor. Photo T om Øverlie,NRK P3 , via Flickr • The amazing (and reclusive) Montreal collective Godspeed You ! Black Emperor was awarded the Polaris Music Prize Monday night for their album Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! The band didn't show up to receive their jumbo-sized check, though. Instead, they sent a rep from their record label who announced they'd be using the…
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…
As you read this, there's a good chance that On Kawara is in the midst of painting today's date: Aug. 28, 2013. Just about every day since since January 4, 1966, he's done so—painted the date, which usually takes all day, on a small canvas, rendering the month in the language of the country this frequent traveler happens to be in—as a meditative act and an ongoing work of conceptual art. The…
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…
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…
Marcel Duchamp, Photorelief , 1935 (printed 1953) Those who view art in the Detroit Institute of Art 's collection with dollar signs in their eyes -- and the city's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, who announced Monday he's hired Christie's to appraise some of DIA's art for potential sale, may be among them -- seem to miss a key point: that the arts can, and likely will, play a key role in the…
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…
Graffiti reading "Kill the hippies," which appeared on a wall in Minneapolis' diverse (and admittedly lefty) Powderhorn Park neighborhood last month, recently got buffed and re-tagged. Here's the exchange: July 2013 August 2013
• 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…
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…
Culturejammers the California Department of Corrections has modified a Pacific Rim movie billboard, putting a new twist on the film's tagline: " To fight monsters, we created monsters: The National Security State. " (Via AnimalNY .)
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…
• 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. •…
James Dolence, Bryce Wilner, Zach Collins, Ficciones Typografika 019-021 , installed 07.04.13. Graphic designer and design blogger Erik Brandt 's work has been celebrated around the world. A design professor at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design and a member of the prestigious AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale), his work has been featured in publications from Maurizio Cattelan's Charley…
Eugenio Merino 's response to a lawsuit by the Francisco Franco National Foundation (FNFF), seeking €18,000 in damages for his sculpture of the late dictator preserved in a Coca-Cola refrigerator? A group art show--mounted just days before the trial is set to begin--of anti-fascist art, including the debut of Merino's own depiction of a punching bag shaped like El Generalísimo's head. On July 11,…
Minneapolis-based cryptographer, blogger, and security expert Bruce Schneier has joined the board of online civil rights group EFF . Schneier, whose site Schneier on Security is a must-read, says, "EFF is one of the leading organizations fighting the government's unconstitutional spying, marshaling legal and technological expertise to battle surveillance in the courtroom and in Congress. I'm…