The Importance of Art Conservation

This photo shows the importance of art conservation by specially trained experts. A work of art was callously destroyed by a well-meaning church lady who was grossly incompetent for the task.

For details, read more here.

Wow! One year passed already!

Hi Readers,
It looks like I have forgotten you.

I'm putting my online efforts at fineart.about.com, so please stop by and take a look.

I haven't forgotten you, Dear Reader

I am so sorry for not posting since last November. I just finished writing a novel (whew!), looking for an agent, plus focusing on writing for http://fineart.about.com. But I hope to start blogging here soon. Thanks again for being so patient.

Fine Art Guide at About.com

Hi Readers,
I just started writing about Fine Art at About dot com, the website owned by the New York Times.

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Please visit and leave a comment on the forum.
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I am writing about the business aspects of working as an arts professional in the field of fine art. So if you work or want to work professionally as an art appraiser, art auctioneer, art broker, gallery owner, museum director, curator, artist, etc., then this site will provide career info and insider tips.

Roberta Smith on Jeff Koons' art of simulated sex

Roberta Smith's biting, emasculating, but insightful take on Jeff Koons art of simulated sex with Cicciolina contains great gems such as:

"Typical of the lowest common denominator of heterosexual convention, it is Cicciolina who does most of the gussying..."

and

"The innocence of the child is replaced by the cluelessness of the man, one who confuses posing and empty exhibitionism with emotional vulnerability."

1945-1998 by Isao Hashimoto

for more info: http://www.ctbto.org/?id=1700

thanks to my readers

I'd like to thank all of you for following "everything is dangerous" and I'd like you to subscribe to my RSS Feed, because you won’t miss out on my blog updates and, because, I'm trying to grow my readership.

I'd also love if you'd stumble or tweet my posts because that will help me get more readers who are as savvy as you are.

Please leave a comment because we all love a smart conversation.

Art, food and politics

Can eating the national dishes from your avowed enemies create peace, love and understanding?
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For a group of artists from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the answer is Yes. They opened the provocative Conflict Kitchen in early June to serve the national cuisines from Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.
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Their debut was the Kubideh Kitchen, a food stall serving Iranian kubideh, a ground beef sandwich served on flat bread with basil, mint and onion. The artists believe that if people taste food from other cultures, they may also get curious about other cultures, which could possibly lead to ..gasp, thinking.
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The sandwich wrappers were covered with the thoughts of the local Iranian community. They also held a community dinner that linked diners in Tehran with those in Pittsburgh via webcam. Over sharing a stew of chicken with pomegranate and walnuts, the diners began talking to each other.
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Read the rest here: http://www.salon.com/food/feature/2010/06/09/conflict_kitchen_restaurant/index.html?source=newsletter (photo courtesy Salon)

Louise Bourgeois RIP

2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize

It was announced at the end of last month that the duo of architectural firm Sanaa, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
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Here's the link to the article. Check out the cool interactive feature.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/arts/design/29pritzker.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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The photo is courtesy: http://www.egodesign.ca/en/article_print.php?article_id=90

a new type of art residency

Hey all of you art types who need some drying out. Here's a new type of art residency. The following info comes from eflux:

"COLD TURKEY – AN INVITATION

From April 1st to 30th, 2010 a drug detox residency will be offered.
Artists, curators, critics and all those professionally related to the arts are invited to apply.
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The Hotel Marienbad suite offers a confidential retreat secluded from the public eye.
Your drug detox will take place under therapeutic guidance and medical care.
Privacy and anonymity will be respected throughout the entire process.
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Medical and therapeutic care provided by Gemeinschaftskrankenhaus Havelhöhe, Berlin.
Please contact us prior to March 28th, 2010 at contact@hotelmarienbad.com
All correspondence will remain confidential.
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A project by Benjamin Blanke & Claudia Kapp
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Hotel Marienbad
Auguststr. 69
D-10117 Berlin

http://www.hotelmarienbad.com
http://www.kw-berlin.de

Alexander McQueen RIP

Open Call for The 2nd Taiwan Int'l Video Art Exhibition 2010—Eattopia

Entry Guidelines:

(1) Entries are restricted to artworks created after the year 2007, and are limited to unpublished works that have not been previously shown in any exhibitions.

(2) Entries are opened to topics related to the issues of food, such as distribution, class system, taboos, ecology, culture, body, consumerism, labor, farmland, etc…

NOTE：For detailed information please refer to the Entry Prospectus

Entry Eligibility: Open to artists of all nationalities 18 years of age or older

Entry Deadline: January 31^st, 2010 (Deadline for entry postmarked by January 31^st, 2010, no submission will be accepted after)

Entry Prospectus can be downloaded from www.twvideoart.org

Entry Submission: By registered mail to Hong-Gah Museum (11F, No. 166, Daye Rd., Beitou Dist., Taipei City, 11268 Taiwan).

http://twvideoart.org

a digression

This blog mainly focuses on contemporary art and culture.
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Today, let's digress a bit. Here is a link to my first published short story. Enjoy!
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http://www.writersblocmag.org/archives_06/kendzulak_never.html

Shaquille O'Neill: Art Curator

Basketball icon Shaquille O'Neill is curating an exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation in NYC titled Size Does Matter and includes work by Ron Mueck, Andreas Gursky and Charles Ray with a catalog essay by controversial author James Frey.
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Many blogs and news sites are covering this story as the crossover of a sports figure to the arts field is noteworthy. Hopefully, this can create more interest in merging sports and art. For example, a sports stadium has a huge and captive audience. What a great condition to project art videos, sound art pieces and perhaps even performance type works at intermission to thousands of spectators.
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Read funny comments here:

http://www.artreview.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1474022%3ABlogPost%3A930561

Taipei Artists Rally for Rights

Organized by conceptual artist Tang Huang-chen, a mass demonstration by artists took place in Taipei on Oct. 31 in which they demanded a trade union for artists be set up.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/local/taipei/2009/11/01/230956/Local-artists.htm

Art and Torture: Vinegar and Oil

What is the purpose of art?

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Surely, it's not made for torture.

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It seems like a no brainer: Art and torture really do not go together. And that's what many of today's artists are saying.

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Artists, in this case, musicians, are rallying together to demand the US government to release the names of the songs used as torture at Guatanamo Bay.

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As Roseanne Cash stated in the Washington Post's provocative article: "It seems so obvious. Music should never be used as torture."

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It is truly disgusting to think that an artist's work was used to torture another human being.

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Read the compelling article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102103743.html?hpid=topnews

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Image courtesy of www.rso.cornell.edu/progressive/articles.php?id=59

R.I.P. Nancy Spero (1926-2009)

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/09spring/joanna-walker.shtm

Age is just a number

There is an imperceptible line between conceptual art and creative writing.
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Conceptual art drips with metaphor and is soaked in narrative.
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But the best thing about being a writer instead of an artist is that your birthdate is not published in a catalog!

blah, blah, blah

Please accept my apologies for not blogging lately: too busy harvesting crops.

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Anyways, who needs art critics? Now there is a site that generates verbose critiques. Just type in a 5 digit number and instantly get a paragraph of text like this:

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"With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive perturbation of the spatial relationships brings within the realm of discourse the distinctive formal relationships."

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Sounds fun, huh? Okay, try it now. The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator at http://www.pixmaven.com/phrase_generator.html