Hasta La Ideas

If art imitates life, then we suppose this falls under the “art imitates art imitating life.” In seeing the new George Clooney-directed/starring film, Ides of March, which concerns the inner-workings of a presidential campaign for an inspiring progressive candidate, the LA Times‘ David Ng noticed the regular appearance of a silkscreened poster featuring Clooney’s congressman character with the word “Believe” underneath. It looks familiar because it’s apparently a near-exact copy of the Obama “Hope” poster that catapulted already popular street artist Shepard Fairey into becoming a household name, as well as landing him in a whole mess of trouble with the Associated Press for basing the poster off of an image taken by one of their photographers. This whole thing gets a little extra familiar when you recall that, before telling the truth about where he’d based his “Hope” image from, Fairey said that it was from a photo of President Obama sitting next to, you guessed it, George Clooney. Whatever strange back and forth there is, Ng looked into the film’s poster and while he didn’t receive too many details, its similarity was clearly not an accident. Here’s a bit:

Fairey didn’t design the poster for the movie, according to the artist’s spokesman. But the artist’s signature aesthetic is unmistakably present throughout the movie, with the “Believe” poster highly visible at the Morris campaign headquarters and various political rallies.The similarity between the two posters is no doubt deliberate and gives the movie a sense of verisimilitude and immediacy. Obama shares some similarities to the Morris character, a left-wing politician whose platform includes pro-environment reform and a reduction in U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

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Bill Powers purchased his first work of art—a Terry Richardson photo of “ToeJam the Clown”—in 1998, shortly after taking the editorial helm of Blackbook. Since then, he’s built an art collection that includes works by Richard Prince, Elizabeth Peyton, Dana Schutz, and Irving Penn; opened New York’s Half Gallery with partners Andy Spade and James Frey; and co-founded Exhibition A, the online art hub that offers affordable editions by some of the big names on Powers’ own walls. Tonight he is back on Bravo to dispense more good-natured yet constructive criticism on the cable network’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. So which of the new contestants should we keep an eye out for? “We’ve got Michelle, who has worked for Marilyn Minter and had also been an assistant to Josephine Meckseper. It’s interesting to see someone with that background,” he says. “Or Kathryn, who went to Yale grad school for photography, versus a toymaker, The Sucklord. I think it really is a nice spectrum.” We chatted with Powers about the reaction to Work of Art, the judging process, and what’s in store for the new season (KAWS!).

1. How would you characterize the reaction—particularly that of the art world—to the first season of Work of Art?
I understand people’s skepticism. I mean, it is reality TV, right? Personally, I was really flattered at how many contemporary artists I admire watched the first season, whether it’s Cecily Brown or Rob Pruitt or Jeff Koons or Rachel Feinstein. That meant a lot to me that those people would watch and get into it. People said that the show reminded them a lot of grad school and that a lot of the personalities and the work that was produced was reminiscient of that. There’s always somebody getting naked. There’s always somebody tackling social issues. And there’s a photographer, who’s probably better suited to commercial photography, making fine art pictures.

2. Are there certain aspects of season two that you think will surprise people?
I was always surprised by the range of materials employed, and what somebody can make in four or five hours is pretty impressive. And I would ask viewers to remember that it’s a lot of pressure to say, “OK, here’s the theme of the show this week, now make something and we’re going to show it tomorrow as if we’re picking people for the next Venice Biennale.” I feel like people at home or on blogs sometimes can be looking at this work as if someone had a year in their studio to make it. They have five or six hours sometimes to make what you’re seeing. I know that’s part of being a part of a competition series, but to see something that you like and that someone made in a few hours? Most working artists today spend weeks if not months putting together a piece. I think that people are, if I can borrow a term from Jerry [Saltz], “demonstrating radical vulnerability” by their participation on the show.
continued…

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(Photo: Andrew Eccles/Bravo)

Work of Art is back! Tonight the Bravo reality competition series returns for its second season of searching for “the next great artist” with a fresh crop of 14 contestants mentored by the ebullient Simon de Pury, who continues to give Tim Gunn a run for his money in the scene stealing department. Host China Chow joins veteran judges Bill Powers and Jerry Saltz to evaluate and critique the works produced in response to creative challenges, and tonight’s is a doozy. The artist-contestants are charged with breathing new life into a piece of “bad” art—chosen from a hilarious assortment that includes a painting on velvet of a wizard, a ceramic frog, and a mirror-flecked pastel abstract that we swear we’ve seen on the wall of a faded Palm Beach hotel. The guest judge is none other than photographer Mary Ellen Mark.

If this season opener is any guide, the producers (Magical Elves, with Sarah Jessica Parker‘s Pretty Matches) have realized that it can be awfully enjoyable to watch people make art—as opposed to, say, cook up and plate an entree in the Top Chef kitchen—particularly if they’re good at it. And so the bulk of the episode is concerned not so much with personality-baring confessionals or judging huddles but with following the artists’ diverse paths to their final works. Art and design lovers will delight in the tight shots of making, from drawing and painting to sculpting elaborate paper creations and deconstructing a cat statuette. The range of the artist-contestants is part of the sophomore season fun. “I think it’s interesting to have people outside the bubble, so more self-taught artists versus grad school/MFA kids, and that’s an interesting clash on the show—to see outsiders versus insiders,” Powers tells us. “I also think it’s interesting to pit sculpture against photography against painting, because can you say that this painting is better than this sculpture? That’s another interesting dialogue.”

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A recent shakeup at one of the world’s largest and most well-known art fairs is still making waves into this week, with the news that the Venice Biennale‘s chairman for the last four years (and for two years back at the end of the 1990s), Paolo Baratta, has been let go. The Art Newspaper writes that Baratta has been largely responsible for turning the exhibition around, making it not only more successful but more approachable as well, by providing and thinking through the necessary logistics to pull off such a large event that regularly pulls in more than 300,000 visitors. However, as of January 1st of next year, he’ll be replaced by Giulio Malgara, a food importer and founder of a successful company that tracks television ratings. Given Baratta’s legacy, this change hasn’t been received the most favorable of responses, with the AN reporting that Venice’s mayor has publicly criticized the move, claiming that it reeks of political lobbies in “this rotten system” and that “Giulio Malgara is an unsuitable person to carry out the role of chairman of the Venice Biennale.” As the next exhibition isn’t until 2013, we suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out, or at least until the cracks start showing, if at all.

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Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch’s immersive video installations captured in their first monograph

“A glorious mess;” “manic and often overwhelming;” a “tumult of video, furniture, music, extreme makeup and insistent jabberwocky”—reading reviews of Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin’s touring show “Any Ever” might make the printed page seem like an impossible format (if not totally antithetical) for showcasing their work. While there’s nothing quite like watching the spastic films unfold as you sit in a room decorated with the excesses of suburban culture, through a feat of design, the new book manages to capture the essence of the emerging art stars’ aesthetic.

Using a variety of layouts and experimenting with text, the experience of thumbing through the monograph’s pages evokes a similar sense of today’s information chaos, as equally fraught with aggressive optimism as with streaks of dark humor. Playing with fonts and punctuation makes the publication look more conversational, accomplishing the tricky feat of giving a sense of which imaginative character is saying what, and the characteristically Trecartin way in which they say it.

A heavy use of black backgrounds similarly evokes what it’s like to see the frenetic scenes unfold onscreen. As a supplement to seeing the show, the book nicely functions as if you’ve hit pause, recording some of the best dialog—”i totally cry’real tears, ijust haven’t Designed them YET:” and “Watching the Gift Economy tie Strings, 2my NECK!”—for those who didn’t take notes.

The clever design, coupled with commentary by some of Trecartin’s supporters (including Rhizome director Lauren Cornell and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s Jeffrey Deitch) as well as an interview with Cindy Sherman, helps position the young artist and his work at the forefront of the contemporary art scene—not that the upstart is having any trouble.

“Any Ever” opens at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris on 18 October 2011 and runs through 8 January 2011. If you can’t make it, Trecartin’s Vimeo page has Any Ever in its entirety, along with the genius piece that put him on the map, “A Family Finds Entertainment.”

Pick up Any Ever from Amazon or Rizzoli.

Installation image from the P.S.1 show by Matthew Septimus