NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Found Art (Nolita): Unmonumental 287

Found Art (Nolita): Unmonumental 286

Life After Artforum

via NY Observer:

Life After Artforum

By Michael H. Miller

May 24, 2011 | 7:23 p.m

When La Monte Young performed with the Forever Blues Band at the Kitchen in 1993, he played a two-hour set without stopping. The song—more of a movement—was "Young's Dorian Blues in G," composed of the familiar 12-bar chord progression of the titular genre, beaten into nonrecognition through Young's strange tunings and the resonance of his Korg synthesizer playing against the electric guitars of Jon and Brad Catler. Reviews described the trancelike state of the audience after the monotony—eventually transcending to a hypnotic groove—of a chromatic scale played for so long with few, if any, changes to structure. Incense was burning. Young looked like some villainous biker from a postapocalyptic film, his stringy white beard hanging in knots past his chin, a black bandana covering the top of his head. He was seated and hunched over his keyboard wearing a torn black-denim vest. The room was lit pink.

Tim Griffin, the former editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine who will take over as director and chief curator of the Kitchen in September, was in the audience, awestruck. At the time he was working on his MFA in poetry at Bard, where he was receiving a more or less comprehensive education in the arts, studying not only with Lydia Davis, but also with Yvonne Rainer. He was on a self-proclaimed "La Monte Young tour." He takes the art world as seriously as he takes criticism and he does not see taste and discourse as mutually exclusive. Mr. Griffin left Artforum last summer and was replaced by senior editor Michele Kuo; his reason for leaving, he said at the time, was to "devote more energy to writing and teaching" (he told The Observer, in a reflection of his seriousness, he "was afraid [he] was going to start repeating himself"). There is talk, which he won't confirm, that he's at work on a book. At the magazine, Mr. Griffin focused on the intersection of art and politics during the Iraq war, while at the same time questioning the usefulness of such conversations. He once devoted nearly an entire issue to Slavoj Zizek. He sees becoming a curator for the first time, at a venue as celebrated as the Kitchen, as a logical extension of being an editor. People tend to agree that he is the shot in the arm the venue needs to reinstate its international reputation. 

"I did really think about the editing of that publication in terms of curating," he said. "You wanted to assemble groups of essays and projects that would reflect on each other and begin to generate greater meaning than their individual parts. In fact, in the magazine, one of the questions I was always aware of was, how do you make certain that the issues around art have meaning for people? Almost in an existential way. How does it make you resee the world that you're in? That's a task for the arts as well."

The Observer met Mr. Griffin, who is 41 and married to Johanna Burton, the director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard, on a damp, gloomy day. He is a large, pale man, with a bald pate—his face is boyish nonetheless—and the kind of thick, plastic glasses one expects a magazine editor to wear. He was dressed predominantly in black. His face is stern, reflecting his shy and serious demeanor. He had a reputation at Artforum of shutting the door to his office, which was famously so filled with books that it was nearly impossible to sit inside of it, and drawing the blinds. He and his staff would work 10 to 12 hour days, sometimes more. He was editor-in-chief for seven years, which, as one of his fellow editors has said, "has a nice biblical ring to it." He often talks in the second person, slightly drawing attention away from himself, and asks rhetorical questions. 

"The real question is, can you have a public sphere?" he said after The Observer asked him about the marked increase in political interest at Artforum during his time there. "Can you have a community that has meaningful dialogues about art and has some exchange thinking through the arts in counterpoint with developments of culture at large? My hope is: yes! So at an institution like the Kitchen, you're trying to create a place where there are dialogues among artists. Some of those already exist and you try to act as a catalyst, and you make connections. Because you have to ask questions that other people might not have asked."

[read full article...]

Tyson's moko draws fire from Maori

Mike Tyson poses alongside a poster for The Hangover Part II at the premiere last week in Los Angeles. Photo / AP

 

About a month ago, Techdirt reported the seemingly absurd case of the tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill suing Warner Brothers over their parodistic use of his design for Mike Tyson's facial tattoo in The Hangover Part II. The first thought to cross my mind was: parody = fair use; the second thought was: the tattoo artist is ripping off Tā moko from the Māori. Indeed, it looks like another case of an artist *believing* their work is 'original' when in fact it's not even close. As a commenter on Techdirt's latest post on the suit notes:

People often speak of copyright infringement as being a form of "theft", but taking from the public domain while claiming exclusive ownership is a lot more like theft than is copyright infringement.

In short, the guy is a hypocrite and a thief.

Exactly. In fact, S. Victor Whitmill seems to indulge in all kinds of borrowing for his craft/s. If this doesn't convince some, try this article [via National Herald (NZ)]:

Tyson's moko draws fire from Maori

5:30 AM Wednesday May 25, 2011

The man who created Mike Tyson's Maori-inspired facial tattoo is trying to delay the much awaited comedy The Hangover: Part II after claims the film-makers copied his art without asking.

The artist has struck a raw nerve in New Zealand, where people are asking what right he has to lay claim to a Maori design in the first place.

The problems started when one of the key characters in the upcoming comedy appeared with a similar-looking tattoo to the one Tyson has above his eye.

Award-winning tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill said that he retained ownership of the design of Tyson's tattoo - which he describes as "one of the most distinctive tattoos in the nation" - and Warner Bros breached copyright by not asking to replicate it in the film.

He has now filed an injunction to try to stop the film's release but New Zealand experts question Mr Whitmill's right to claim ownership.

Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo, described Mr Whitmill's claims of ownership as insufferable arrogance. "It is astounding that a Pakeha tattooist who inscribes an African American's flesh with what he considers to be a Maori design has the gall to claim ...

that design as his intellectual property," she said.

"The tattooist has never consulted with Maori, has never had experience of Maori and originally and obviously stole the design that he put on Tyson.

"The tattooist has an incredible arrogance to assume he has the intellectual right to claim the design form of an indigenous culture that is not his."

On Twitter, many questioned Mr Whitmill's claim, with National MP Tau Henare weighing into the debate, saying: "The tattooist moaning about the breach of copyright copied it off Maori. Bit rich to be claiming someone stole his 'design'."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, paperwork was filed in a federal court in Missouri last week saying Mr Tyson agreed at the time his tattoo was created that Mr Whitmill would own the artwork and thus, the copyright.

Warners has declined to comment on the suit.

Beyond the Horizon opening @ Deutsche Bank's 60 Wall Gallery

 

Joy Garnett: River (4), 2008, oil/canvas, 26 x 32 inches. Courtesy of Winkleman Gallery, NY

Beyond the Horizon

June 6 – September 23, 2011

Amy Lipton, guest curator

60 Wall Gallery, Deutsche Bank [Link]

MAP

 Artists Reception: Wednesday June 15, 6-8pm

ID/RSVP required for entry: RSVP HERE

ARTISTS:

George Boorujy, Peter Edlund, Joy Garnett, Patricia Johanson, Eve Andree Laramee, Sarah McCoubrey, Jason Middlebrook, Aviva Rahmani, Lisa Sanditz, Charlotte Schulz, Eva Strubel, Sarah Trigg, Marion Wilson

Beyond the Horizon explores contemporary views of nature and habitat expressed through the tradition of landscape painting and drawing. Thirteen New York-based artists in Beyond the Horizon envision specific places from perceptual, historical and conceptual perspectives while at the same time they record the ongoing evolution of human interaction upon the environment. The works on view depict radical changes taking place across our global landscape, with the choice to look just "beyond the horizon" and find either environmental solutions or disasters.

Previously held notions of nature vs. culture have changed for the 21st century and it is increasingly clear that all of life is one interconnected and interdependent system. As such national and geographic borderlines can be perceived as social constructions. The subjective perception of the horizon is effective as an aesthetic device but is clearly irrelevant in a world where global environmental forces trespass all artificial boundaries. Horizon lines remain ever elusive and changing. Underlying the works in Beyond the Horizon is an acute awareness of globally shared ecological issues such as climate change, overpopulation, habitat changes, recycling, waste disposal, and reclamation. Some of the artists are committed to merging their art with action and implementation, while others are more interpretive. Using realism, fantasy or process as a source for imagination and transformation, they seek to create an awareness of loss and beauty in the marginal, the overused and the threatened.

Exhibition tours, an opportunity to 'Meet the Artists' and a panel discussion are planned.