Hasta La Ideas

(Image courtesy EarthCam)

Raise your Warhol-themed bottle of Perrier, because Andy would have turned 85 today. We think the artist would have gotten a kick out of one morbid, panoptical take on a birthday party: live-streaming footage from his elaborately landscaped Pittsburgh gravesite. The footage–which is also available in high-definition 16-megapixel and pop art-style formats–is a collaboration among EarthCam, the Andy Warhol Museum, and St. John Chrystostom Byzantine Catholic Church (home to a temporary “ChurchCam” in honor of the birthday boy, who was baptized there). “I think my uncle would have been jealous. He would have said, ‘I should have been at Marilyn’s gravesite filming everything,’” said Donald Warhola, Warhol’s nephew, in a statement announcing the birthday grave webcam. “It pays homage to one of his most famous and controversial projects, the ‘Death and Disaster’ series.”

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Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” (1995-2009)

“I did that piece [“Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn”] truly as a joke. I had three cameras that I brought back to China. And the camera could take, like, five frames every second. And, like most things, I did it quick, no plan. People think everything’s planned, but it was spontaneous. We dropped one and we didn’t get it because the photographer was paying too much attention to this valuable vase. So we had to do another one. We had two of them. Then I forgot about those photos for a while. At that time, there were no galleries, no art. I never thought I would become an artist again, you know? I started collecting old Chinese cultural relics, like jade, bronze, beautiful things. I was a top expert on Chinese antiques. Few people had my skill. That’s what I did in the ’90s. On my résumé, I don’t have a show for more than 10 years. I don’t really have any work. I did my first art show after returning to China only in 2003, in Switzerland. But now those photos have become, like, iconic in a sense. But it’s kind of kitsch, huh?”

-Artist Ai Weiwei in an interview with Christoper Bollen in the August issue of Interview

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Federico Mauro has created a cool little collection of Famous Guns in Pop Culture

“In my project Miracles et Cie (2002) I settle my scores with the supernatural. My images are an ironic homage to the touching facet of the history of photography, which has been used to fake the presence of ghosts and spirits: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many crooks used photography’s powers of persuasion to ‘demonstrate’ their paranormal powers. But this work’s critical objective consists of an outrageous reflection on how the current whirlpool of beliefs, cults, rituals, and superstitions has set us adrift. Here, by using conjuring effects, photography becomes the document of the illusion.”

-Catalan artist Joan Fontcuberta, interviewed in Cabinets of Wonder by Christine Davenne (Abrams, 2012)

Pictured: Joan Fontcuberta, “The Miracle of Dolphinsurfing” (2002)

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The artist with a study model of the Marina Abramović Institute. (Courtesy OMA)

“In the life of an artist, it’s very important to think of the future,” Marina Abramović has said. “When you die, you can’t leave anything physical—that doesn’t make any sense—but a good idea can last a long, long time.” Her good idea? Purchase a crumbling old theater in Hudson, New York (check!), get Rem Koolhaas and OMA on board for a gut reno (done!), and channel 40 years worth of pioneering performance art into the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation for Performance Art, a living archive-cum-laboratory that will explore “time-based and immaterial art,” including performance, dance, theater, film, video, opera, and music. To help achieve that last part, the artist has launched a Kickstarter campaign, where her goal is to raise $600,000 by August 25.

“I feel like I’ve become a brand, like Coca-Cola,” said Abramović of her decision to name the institute after herself. “When you hear ‘Marina Abramović,’ you know it’s not about painting. It’s about performing art, and it’s about hardcore performing art.” Hardcore donors to her Kickstarter effort (those who pledge $500 or more) can receive thank-you gifts such as a tour of the MAI and OMA offices, an eye-gazing experience via webcam, and lunch with the artist, but there’s something for everyone, including an 8-bit Pippin Barr video game version of the institute ($5 donation) and access to live-stream demos of Abramović Method exercises ($25). Our favorite performative bonus is reserved for those who pony up $10,000 or more. They’ll be treated to a life event called “Nothing”: “Marina will do nothing. You will do nothing,” notes the website. “You will not be publicly acknowledged.”
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