Hasta La Ideas

Call a somnambulance. The multimedia goodness of the Sleepwalkers box.

Doug Aitken is up to his old tricks: enveloping museums in high-definition video projections that illuminate their facades and mesmerize passersby, which in the case of his latest project may include President Obama. The Los Angeles-based artist has transformed the National Mall’s Gordon Bunshaft-designed concrete donut (also known as the Hirshhorn) into a 360-degree convex-screen cinema aglow nightly through May 13 with his “SONG 1.” Meanwhile, the Seattle Art Museum recently commissioned Aitken to wrap a corner—the northwest, bien sûr—of its downtown HQ in a jumbo LED display that will debut early next year. The months between these Washingtonian works provide ample time to savor the Sleepwalkers box, an ultra-covetable multimedia remix of the public artwork that took New York by nocturnal storm in 2007.

Part deluxe commemorative edition, part DIY-spirited artist’s book, the Sleepwalkers box is a bold collaboration between Aitken, the Princeton Architectural Press, and DFA Records. The perforated cardboard cover reveals and conceals a fold-out poster of scenes from the five urban narratives (starring the likes of Donald Sutherland, Tilda Swinton, and Chan Marshall, better known as Cat Power) that were projected onto the exterior of the Museum of Modern Art. Set that aside to discover a turntable-ready vinyl “picture disc,” which the strong-willed will manage to avoid framing as an art object. A book of “fragments, markings, and images” from the making of Sleepwalkers includes breathtaking full-bleed images as well as an interview in which Aitken discusses the installation with Jacques Herzog. “Your work needs an ideal architectural conservation to unfold its quality,” advises the architect.
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The serious scene with a down-home spirit

A recent invitation to the Dallas Art Fair piqued our interest initially by the range of 78 participating galleries and artists like Erwin Wurm bringing his “Beauty Business” from the Bass Museum in Miami, and Zoe Crosher creating a site-specific installation of her Michelle DuBois project as part of the simultaneous Dallas Biennale.

While we didn’t expect to encounter a domestic event in the scope of Art Basel Miami or New York’s Armory Show, Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne clarified that wasn’t the point. “The hope is that by presenting the local, national, and international galleries on an even playing field that the viewer has an important role in evaluating the art on its own terms,” he says. After experiencing the fair among a swirl of strong sales, serious parties filled with decked-out Texas-style socialites, football stadium art tours and a glimpse at some serious private collections, we’ve discovered a Dallas that is, indeed, all its own when it comes to an art scene.

Dallas Art Fair

With galleries representing cities from Berlin to Milwaukee, New York, LA, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Marfa and Waxahachie, TX, the digestible smaller Dallas Art Fair, held in the Fashion Industry Gallery (or simply the f.i.g. “if you want anyone to know what you’re talking about”, a cab driver told us), presented a truly eclectic blend of big-ticket classics and new work by unknown artists. We were pleased to see a thread installation by Gabriel Dawe, as well as the 2009 graphite drawings of another thread artist gaining traction, Anne Lindberg, at Chicago’s Carrie Secrist gallery. Local Fort Worth Artist Helen Altman had her torch-drawn animal prints on display at Talley Dunn gallery out of Dallas, while New York galleries like Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld Gallery featured Richard DuPont‘s polyurethane heads and newer work by Ouattara Watts, and Josee Bienvenue featured cut-paper grids by Marco Maggi.

In the three years since its inception the fair has grown with quality, not quantity in mind, boasting this year’s solid headliners in and around the fair like Wurm and Crosher, as well as Jacob Kassay, Adam McEwen and Dallas-based Erick Swenson. “There’s no grand plan with a push pin map of the art world. The fair starts to generate an organic life of its own with a visual coherence and cohesion as a byproduct of that independent life,” says Byrne.

Goss-Michael Foundation

The long-term relationship of ’80s pop legend George Michael with his former partner Kenny Goss, who happens to be a Dallas-based arts patron and former cheerleading coach, gave the city another of its idiosyncratic art contributions. The non-profit Goss-Michael Foundation was founded in 2007 to support British contemporary art and expose a larger community beyond collectors to the works of the so-called YBA movement. Adam McEwen opened his show during DAF, on the heels of an impressive roster that in the Foundation’s tenure has included the likes of Marc Quinn, Nigel Cooke, Tracey Ermin, Damien Hirst and others.

Dallas Cowboys Stadium

When team owner Jerry Jones opened the roughly 3 million-square-foot Dallas Cowboys Stadium in 2009, it didn’t come as a surprise that the team’s new stomping grounds would become the largest domed stadium on the planet, house the largest HD JumboTron and hold a maximum capacity crowd of 110,000—this is Texas, after all. More surprising was the breadth and depth of its contemporary art collection, and the freedom with which the artists were able to create. The artists were selected by a committee led by Jones and his wife, Gene, the interior decorator for the VIP areas of the stadium, but were given minimal limitations beyond the inspiration of the team’s legacy to create their work. The resulting 19-piece collection spans the entire arena, from massive 2D pieces by Ricci Albenda, Terry Hagerty and Dave Muller over main concourse concession stands; to Olafur Eliasson’s “Moving Stars takes Time” mobile over a VIP entrance and the aptly titled “Fat Superstar” in the Owner’s Club. Lawrence Weiner’s “Brought up to Speed” graces a 38-foot staircase wall, while perhaps most on-brand for the Cowboys, coincidentally, are two acquisitions from Doug Aitken that play to the team’s star logo.

Dallas Contemporary

Running simultaneously with the Dallas Art Fair was the Dallas Biennale—a tongue-in-cheek, one-time presentation of works by Crosher, Sylvie Fleury, Claude Levecque, Gabriel Martinez and more at various venues across the city. While we were curious to see Fleury’s windows at the flagship Neiman Marcus store downtown, the Dallas Contemporary, where Crosher and Levecque presented alongside Wurm, offered an interestingly offbeat, and physically off-the-beaten-track experience in our art wanderings. Located across some sort of freeway network in what’s known as the Design District, nestled on a remote dead-end among gems like the seemingly abandoned Cowboy Bail Bonds and various strip joints, the Contemporary looks like a commercial space that might have a loading dock around the side like its neighbors. Such a spot makes for the perfect intersection of fresh ways of thinking away from the rest of the city’s stereotypically oversized or Southwestern-style neighborhoods, uncovering yet another intriguing aspect of Dallas.

There are benefit auctions and then there are benefit auctions. The one organized by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is of the latter variety, italicized for seriousness of purpose (all dollars earned go to support BAM programs) and seriously covetable art on offer. You have ’til the clock strikes 6:00 p.m. EST on Sunday to bid on the more than 100 works in the eighth edition of the BAMart Silent Auction, for which the organization has partnered with burgeoning online art marketplace Paddle8.com.

With BAM Trustee and megacollector Beth Rudin DeWoody on board as “honorary auction curator,” the 150-year-old performing arts center (America’s oldest) has lined up an eye-popping selection of works, some of which—stunning Pat Steir canvas, we’re looking at you—will move to Phillips as live auction lots. Brooklyn’s own art scene is represented by the likes of Tauba Auerbach, Dustin Yellin, Erik Benson, and Mickalene Thomas, whose “High Priestess in Black Dress” (2011) is a sassy mix of photos, drawings, and vintage wallpaper. Meanwhile, there are plenty of blue-chip works, including those by William Kentridge, Cindy Sherman, and Richard Serra. Stumped for a Mother’s Day gift? Nothing says “I love you” like a “Deadly Fucking Rainbow,” by Michael Scoggins. More traditional types can opt for the Ellsworth Kelly, whose bold lithograph can double as a Romanian flag. And speaking of flags, Maira Kalman offers a charming sea of American versions, in her “2 Million People” (2009-2011).

Pictured: “Baby Jane,” a 2008 watercolor by Mark Chamberlain

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“Everybody likes objects; everybody likes different objects. It comes down to what objects you want to put in your art. [Jeff] Koons and [Claes] Oldenburg both seem to have their agendas with their objects. So do I, I guess. I like them all: high, low, used, new, whichever works. I don’t know if the Lamp/Bear has anything more to do with Koons or Oldenburg than all three of us and everyone else have to do with [Marcel] Duchamp’s liberation of the real thing. Before him, it seems objects appeared in, or maybe as, still-lives. Duchamp’s the guy, the legend, who liberated objects from being second-class citizens. Even if his greatness lies in our imagination and how he built himself to make us imagine his work as we imagine it. His objects are often not very satisfying to spend time with outside of the fictions he created for them.”

-Artist Urs Fischer, whose solo exhibition at François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi opens Sunday

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L’ancien rappeur Ice-T a décidé de réaliser un documentaire sur l’histoire du rap. Appelé “The Art Of Rap“, ce film prévu au cinéma pour juin prochain aux USA donne envie d’en apprendre plus sur les personnages les + influents du hip-hop. Le trailer est disponible dans la suite.

Previously on Fubiz

• Spider Tag
• Street Art by 183Art
• Fubiz Curioos Collection

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