Hasta La Ideas

If you haven’t heard, seen or tasted, know that the streets of New York are now much more friendly, inviting and architecturally-saavy these days, thanks to the very-welcomed arrival of Coolhaus, the world’s only architecture-themed ice cream truck company. Long a favorite of the Los Angeles set, the company branched out into Austin, TX last year and has now finally made their trek to the other coast, bringing with them their all-natural, handmade ice cream and creations like the Mies Vanilla Rohe (Vanilla ice cream + Chocolate Chip Cookie) and the Frank Berry (Strawberry ice cream + Snickerdoodle cookie). After a slight delay (their blog originally stated they’d be running on the week of April 15th), Coolhaus started roaming the streets of New York last week. So keep an eye out and keep checking their Twitter feed for hints on where they’ll show up next. And for those back in the original home of the company, they’ve announced that their long-awaited Los Angeles storefront, will hopefully be opening this July. Here’s a great profile of the Coolhaus ladies, as shot and interviewed by our former co-editor, and foremost iced-treat aficionado, Alissa Walker:

Would now be a good time to mention Chicago’s burgeoning gourmet food truck scene? It gets warm here too. And we like ice cream also. Promise.

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As we reported last month when artist Ai Weiwei was detained by government officials as he tried to leave his native China, the City of New York promised that his disappearance would not stop them from launching the public art project they’d commissioned from him, which is to sit next to the Pulitzer Fountain just outside of the Plaza Hotel. While everything is largely in place, though still under plastic wrapping, the official opening was delayed at the last minute, given Sunday evening’s unprecedented news that Osama bid Laden had been killed. Instead of appearing at an art unveiling on Monday morning, Mayor Bloomberg and his office decided it was more immediately important to deliver a speech responding to the bin Laden news (here’s the transcript of his speech). However, the Weiwei opening (which will not include the artist, given that he’s still missing), is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30am.

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Given the events of recent days, we’re thinking we should start a new weekly feature called “This Week in Artist Arrests.” We’re hoping we don’t have to, but if things continue as they’ve been, consider this the inaugural post. First up, another detainment by Chinese officials of someone connected to artist Ai Weiwei, who was arrested himself and has now been missing for several weeks. Adding to the growing list of other friends, relatives and colleagues who have been whisked away to points unknown, this week popular Chinese musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou and his wife Xiao Li were apprehended by government officials and have not been heard from since. As the Guardian reports, Zuzhou, a longtime friend of the missing artist, had written a piece for a Hong Kong newspaper entitled, “Who Doesn’t Love Ai Weiwei?” the day before he and his wife were detained.

Closer to home, the round-up of street artists continues in Los Angeles. Following French artist Space Invader‘s arrest last week, the LA Times reports that popular “graffiti writer” Revok has been arrested at LAX “as he prepared to board a plane for Ireland.” The artist was charged with having violated his probation related to earlier vandalism charges and has now been sentenced to 180 days in jail. Both Invader and Revok have pieces in LA MoCA‘s current and controversial Art in the Streets exhibition, which has caught the ire of local officials who claim the show glorifies graffiti and has spawned an increase in vandalism in the area.

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It’s still a difficult period for museums, with endowments still down from their peak in 2007 and cutbacks and layoffs remain a regular occurrence. Case in point, the recent news that the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has been forced to cut 10 staff positions and somehow trim $1.4 million from their budget. Despite those industry warnings and woes, there’s a push to bring a new museum to New York, the MoMath, dedicated to “the wonders of mathematics and its connections with art, science and finance.” The AP reports that the museum is the idea of Glen Whitney, a former hedge fund analyst, who wants to bring math to the people. They need $30 million to launch the museum in the ground floor of a building in Chelsea and they’ve already raised $22 million of that, helped most recently by a $2 million grant given to them by Google. Assuming they can raise the rest, the plan is to open their new home sometime in 2012. In the interim, their trial, traveling exhibition, “Math Midway,” continues touring throughout the country and their site is up and running, of course with a gift shop selling all sorts of math-related stuffs.

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Last week we reported on the ongoing controversy over Los Angeles’ MoCA‘s Art in the Streets street art exhibition, which has seemed to spawn in influx of graffiti in the area surrounding the museum and caught the ire of local officials. Capitalizing on the all-star lineup of street art talent in town for the exhibition, and to paint the totality of Los Angeles’ walls, and likely to help increase their own street cred, LA Weekly commissioned British street artist Ben Flynn, more commonly known as Eine, to tag their building up in his familiar type-based style. Hoisted up by a cherry picker, he stenciled and sprayed a crossword-looking pattern of various words and phrases across one whole side of the building. Here’s an interview the Weekly did with him after it was complete and a very complete slideshow of the work in progress.

Elsewhere, very quickly, the MoCA exhibition, as you might be aware, was co-curated by the Brooklyn Museum, which will be Art in the Streets‘ next stop come next year, starting at the end of March 2012. Apparently New York is already bracing itself for the same sort of influx of new, outside-the-museum street art, as judged by this wonderfully titled and very angry editorial by the NY Daily News, “Plan to Bring Exhibition Glorifying Graffiti Vandalism to the Brooklyn Museum Should Be Tagged ‘No Way’.”

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