Saturday, April 30, 2011

ArtTraveler´s Spanish funky furball feral feline friends photo gallery

"Presa" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2008)
"Just Chillin´" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2007)
"Get Your Own!" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2008)
"I Don´t Like the Looks of This" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2007)
"Silver in the Garden" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)
"Spare Some Food?" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)
"Our Place" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2006)


"Cat & Friends," Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2007)

Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
 
Contact me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 951 067 703; from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Latin art digest: California graffiti duo tags taco joint, "We are beautiful!"

Yes, we are!


“Somos Bellos/We are Beautiful,” by graffiti anonymous duo, “You are beautiful,” a mural-tag in Homewood, California.

A few weeks ago, Ty Taylor commissioned the urban artists to paint a mural at his Homewood, Ca. Pinches Taco restaurant to spread “a positive message to the Latino population." 

Tyler told the artists do what you want, but make the message clear and positive.

In other happenings affecting Latin American artists:

Roberto Fernandez Dorticos, solo show at Amsterdam Whitney Gallery of International Art: opening reception on 5 May in New York.

Untitled by Roberto Fernandez Dorticos


Dorticos, born in Havana, Cuba, says he rarely gives titles to his works. “My work falls under the spell of the individual who appreciates it; so who better than to bestow a name upon it?” 

Hard to overcome that logic.

Dorticos has staged one-man shows at Miami´s Art Fusion Gallery and others.
Wishful Thinking.jpg
Carlos Estévez, from "Encrypted Messages," a solo show at his gallery, running through 28 May

Cuban Visions, group contemporary art show: 26 May – 1 June, New York.

Curated by Mailyn Machado and Yandro Miralles, more than 50 works opens at the Metropolitan Pavilion in the city, featuring: 
"Los Ciegos," from El Libro Oscuro by Juan Carlos Alom
 

Untitled by Cirenaica Moreira

Hola, Havana! Brooklyn Academy of Music festival: 20 April – 20 May, New York City.

“Santos y Pecadores: Cinematic Drama in the Mexican Portfolios of Paul Strand and Leopoldo Méndez:” running through 5 June, Wellesley College Davis Museum, Wellesley, Ma.

Print by Mexican printmaker Leopoldo Méndez
Some consider Strand (1890 – 1976) a pioneer of the American Modernist movement.

His 20 photogravures, his “Mexican Portfolio” circa 1940 is on show.

RISK at work
Méndez´s “Rio Escondido Portfolio,” circa 1948, includes 10 linocuts made for the title sequence of a film by Emilio Fernández.

“Magic Realism,” group Latina American art show, Henan, China:

The City of Zhengzhou hosts this show featuring Fernando Botero and Iturria among others. The Museum of Art of Chengdu and Guan Xing Art Gallery in Zhengzhou co-venue the exhibition.

Argentine artist Luis Benedit, dead at age 73 on 12 April. 
 
The conceptual artist, architect and sculptor was the first Latin American asked by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1972 to stage a solo show.

“Street Cred: Graffiti Art from Concrete to Canvas:” Pasadena Museum of California Art, opening 15 May, featuring works of RISK, Chaz Bojorquez and others.
Take another RISK
 
“Memories of Overdevelopment,” Miguel Coyula, film maker, Landmark Cinema, at this month´s Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Achy Obejas (www.wbez.org) favorably reviews the indie docu-production showing life on the island nation during its socio-economic depression during the 1990´s after the USSR´s support vanished. 

Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
 
Contact me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 951 067 703; from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.



Thursday, April 28, 2011

“Opera Aperta/Loose Work,” collaborative Dutch Venice Biennale project, opens 1 June in Venice


Photograph by Achim Hatzius

CORRECTION: The above photograph when originally posted incorrectly identified the author as "Johannes Schwartz." The work is by Achim Hatzius. I regret the error.


Schwartz, a contempary fine art photographer, has exhibited widely and published art books, like "Passion," released in 2010.


Photograph by Johannes Schwartz (2010)


Eurostat this month revealed the Netherlands has a high number of working artists and writers compared to its total population—1.3 percent, or 110,000.

In total numbers, the Dutch ranked fifth behind Germany with 330,000; UK, 200,000, France, 180,000 and Italy, 120,000—all countries with much larger populations.

Romania has the fewest working artists and writers: 0.1 percent of their population.

In other happenings affecting Dutch artists:

“Opera Aperta/Loose Work,” collaborative Dutch Venice Biennale project: 1 June – 27 November,  Venice, Italy.

Photograph by Joke Robaard
Guus Beumer, director of Marres, the Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, has named a multi-disciplinary team of eight people to collaborate and link notions of national identity and community.
By Barbara Visser



Beumer´s team: Visual artists Joke Robaard, Johannes Schwartz and Barbara Visser; designer Maureen Mooren; architects Herman Verkerkh and Paul Kuipers; author Sanneke van Hassel and composer, Yannis Kyriakides

"This is not a Damient Hirst" by designer Maureen Mooren


Pieter Wellevrede donates 50 of his paintings to Mumbai, part of a pledge he made to his late spiritual mentor, Harish Johari:  At the Ganga Natural Heritage Museum in Rishikesh, India from 14 April.

Graphic designer Wim Crouwel, “A Graphic Odyssey:” Design Museum, London—until 3 July.

This is Crouwel´s first major retrospective in London. 

Born in Groningen in 1928, Crouwel began his career as a painter, later creating his New Alphabet in 1967.

Deisgn by Wim Crouwel


Dutch artist Ted Noten, Ornamentum Gallery, Hudson, New York, shows off his “Uzi Mon Amour,” 24-karat gold plated weapon at a mere $92,000, a real gun, one of five. 

Noten´s  “Lady K,” an equally upscale pistol for your purse, sold for $52,000 in 2008. Is the Uzi worth more after or before the Great Crash of ´08?
"Tedwalk" by Ted Noten



Dutch fantasy author and artist, W. J. Maryson (born Wim Stolk), age 61, died on 9 March.

He received the 2004 Elf Fantasy Award for best fantasy novel. Maryson is survived by his wife and four children.

Getty returns Nazi stolen painting to Dutch-Jewish art dealer´s heir
 
Once confirmed that the Getty Museum possessed a painting stolen by the Nazis from Jacques Goudstikker, part of Hermann Goering´s infamous cache of looted art, Getty agreed to return it.

Recently in San Francisco at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the ex-Getty painting joined 44 others in: “Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker,” part of a national tour.

Gabriel Lester (b. 1972, Amsterdam, NL) recently completed his residency at The Rijksakademe, Amsterdam.
by Gabriel Lester



Until 8 May, his show, “Suspension of Disbelief,” continues at Museum Boljmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Gerrit Rietveld, an Italian retrospective: 14 April – 10 July at the National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome.

The show features more than 100 works of architecture, design, drawings, photos, models of the Dutch maestro (b. Utrecht, 1888 – 1964).

Co-curators: Maristella Casciato, Domitilla Dardi and Ida van Zijl.
By Gerrit Rietveld

Dutch designer Joris Laarman and Japanese design group, nendo, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga: 4 June – 21 August.

Laarman´s “Digital Matter” and nendo´s “Visible Structures” join a larger show, “Modern by Design.”

Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
 
Contact me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 951 067 703; from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Larry Gagosian & Richard Prince face millions in damages on 6 May in NY

"Millionaire Nurse" by Richard Prince


It´s really not a blurred image you ´mined;´ it´s simply not yours, Richard.

On 6 May in a Manhattan court, Larry Gagosian, age 61, and his misappropriating high-earner artist, Richard Prince, age 62,  face (through their lawyers) a lengthy hearing on how much they owe infringed-upon photographer and author Patrick Cariou.

On 18 March, after three year´s of litigation, New York federal district judge Deborah A. Batts ruled that Prince and Gagosian in bad faith ripped off Cariou, violating U.S. copyright laws.

Cariou´s images first appeared in his 2000 book, Yes, Rasta.

A third defendant, Rizzoli Publications, was found jointly responsible with artist and gallerist for damages which could run into tens of millions of hard currency.

Leaving a trail of conflict with a pot of gold

Ripping off other people´s work and then applying the soft edges of transformational image law with a little acrylic paint here and there, and with a swish of a magic brush, has earned Prince and Gagosian millions of dollars.

(Gallery gets 60 percent, Prince, the balance.)
It has also cost Tate Modern a fair amount of spare change.

At Tate in October 2009, Prince put up a show, including his doctored image of 10-year-old nude Brooke Shields.


One of the doctor Cariou images Prince renamed his "Canal Zone Series"


Tate Modern probably lost close to $500,000 on its exuberance to push the boundaries of Prince´s appropriateness and entitled sense of redefined ownership.

´Fair Use´ versus rip-off (copyright infringement)

In court, Prince argued his was “fair use” of Cariou´s images, and besides, Cariou´s  Rasta images, shot over six years in Jamaica, were mere “compilations of facts…arranged with minimum creativity,” unworthy of protection.

(What if I were to transform one of Prince´s transformations and keep on blurring the original? In an ironic turn of fate, would Prince sue me for infringing on his infringement?)

Judge Batts cleared the air. She ruled the new image must be “plainly different from the original purposes for which it was created.”  (Emphasis mine.)

The new, morphed image must also intend to comment and relate to historical context or critically refer to the original, raw art to satisfy the “fair use” exception in the law, defendants´ crucial legal crutch now collapsed.

In the Canal Zone series, Prince recast Cariou´s images for one purpose only: commercial sales, Judge Batts decided.

Prince & Gagosian open two current shows in Paris

This didn´t stop Prince and Gagosian from staging two concurrent shows in Paris, opening 29 March, each running through 26 June.

At the Gagosian Paris gallery: “Richard Prince: de Kooning;” the other, “Richard Prince: American Prayer,” about hippies and punks, at the Bibliothéque Nationale de France, the latter more a potpourri of Prince´s huge collection of acquired ephemera.

I wanted to know how the Gagosian Paris sales were going, given the furor over Prince´s misappropriated cache of Cariou´s art.

The Gagosian Paris gallery did not answer its phone during normal business hours. I tried three times.
These and others of Richard Prince´s inventory of Canal Zone images must be trashed.
 
Nor did the Gagosian gallery´s designated Paris media person answer the phone (two calls) or respond to my e-mailed queries about how the 18 March court order has affected (if at all) Prince´s sales, and also, if the pair intend appealing once the New York federal district court enters a final judgment (one that includes all damages, costs, legal fees, interest).

Lawyers must be writing Prince´s artist´s statements

Here´s the textual wrapping Prince, Gagosian, their lawyers and PR machine put on Prince´s work:

Prince pays homage to one of Prince´s idols, Willem de Kooning; (after describing detailed changes to original images) “…to the original figures that further blur the distinction between de Kooning´s imagery and Prince´s own.¨

The more blurring the better for Prince and his patron.

This is Prince´s artist´s statement for the stolen Canal Zone images:

 “Mining images from mass media, advertising and entertainment since the late seventies, Prince has redefined the concepts of authorship, ownership, and aura.”

So, that´s what we call it now?

“Refining concepts of ownership” by painting in a little aura here and there...mine(d) to refine, says Prince.

Another phrase Gagosian uses online for the Paris show: “Prince´s de Kooning´ series is a process of interaction with the canonic imagery of the Abstract Expressionist idol Willem de Kooning.”

An iconic transported, transformed image redefined as Richard Prince´s


Do you understand this? (Really, if you can translate this, please help me; comment below.)

Adulation, idolatry, reworking and ripping off 

Caveat emptor—if Prince starts calling you his idol, get the best intellectual property lawyer money can buy and dig in or get ready to reap millions you never envisioned from an artful demand letter to lawyers for Prince, Gagosian, others.

But you might have to stand in line.

Jeff Koons stands ahead of you with his misappropriation lawsuit against these image morphers.

Arguably, Prince´s and Gagosian´s vulture-like behavior, bullying their way into the high end contemporary art market in seven  and eight figures, Patrick Cariou, as current court victor, stands to reap a harvest of millions more than he ever dreamed from “Yea, Rasta” royalties.

Judge Batts decided Gagosian and Prince unfairly (and in bad faith) damaged Cariou´s potential market for the latter´s work.

One Chelsea, New York gallery cancelled a planned Cariou show of “Yes, Rasta” images because Prince had beaten the image´s originator to the market with his Canal Zone misappropriations.

Is it time to start sharing the spoils?

Billionaire Gagosian, the art world´s Mr. Big, doesn´t like losing and in this case, paying off Cariou would be prudent and profitable.

The final bill to Gagosian and Prince: +/- $25 million

Let´s crunch some numbers, then we´ll look at the black cloud that might hang over most of Prince´s (mis)appropriations.

Court documents show Gagosian´s sales of Prince´s Canal Zone re-authored Cariou images total about $10.5 million U.S., income from the 41 usurped photographs.

Seven more Canal Zone paintings were swapped for art worth an estimated $6 – 8 million.

With interest, legal fees and costs and possibly a separate trial on the issue of punitive damages, if allowed, the bottom line could conservatively boost to a final bill close to $25 million (without punitive damages).

That´s not all.

On top of this, Judge Batts demanded defendants destroy not only all remaining Prince Canal Zone paintings but everything connected with the raw Cariou´s images, including all digital data.

What´s that worth to the defendants?

It´s the long term that should prompt Gagosian and Prince to have a neatly wrapped settlement package in hand for Judge Batts on 6 May.

Black cloud of litigation hangs over Prince´s works

The most compelling reason: The 18 March order goes to the heart of the Prince´s transformative art market under attack and puts a huge cloud over value and credibility of dodgy art and all players in the chain of title.

Judge Batts ordered all sold Canal Zone works shall not be displayed, worthless on the secondary market, contraband.

The other choice Prince and Gagosian have is appealing and fighting the long battle in the murky and ever morphing area of transformative art law and copyright protection.

Is it better to fight one battle at a time or possibly make bad law that blemishes two careers and may cost artist and gallery huge financial losses?
"Sonic Youth Nurse," Richard Prince
 
Gagosian should capitalize on the bad news and promote new partnerships with blurred image owners rather than spend millions on lawyers and be distracted from making more money elsewhere.

The dark shadow of ongoing litigation isn´t something these two defendants want or need.
Gagosian stages 60 shows annually for his stable of artists, pays 150 employees to handle his affairs worldwide.

He needs Prince´s earnings. Convert bad PR into huge profits, done every day in the western world.

I doubt Gagosian and Prince would seriously hesitate sharing the spoils of (mis)appropriated works with Cariou rather than watching such controversial inventory go to waste.

Patrick Cariou´s "Yes, Rasta" images as modified by Prince


Settlement would also be confidential with a gag order attached. Prince, Gagosian and Rizzoli would admit no liability.

Life goes on.

Sharing might be something Prince and Gagosian should seriously consider in the future, since no doubt arts litigators are busy analyzing Prince´s other appropriations, searching for potential clients, with teams of art students turned paralegals.

At least Prince and Gagosian are among their own kind: Predators.

Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
 
Contact me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 951 067 703; from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.






Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Art Chicago showcases contemporary and vintage works, 28 April - 2 May




Vintage Works will join Art Chicago 28 April through 2 May displaying photographs and paintings be on the 12th floor in booth 12-513 at the Merchadise Mart in Chicago.

19th-century photographers include: James Anderson, Eugene Atget, Edouard Baldus, Bisson Frères, Charles Clifford, Louis De Clercq, William Henry Jackson, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègre, Auguste Salzmann and Felix Teynard.


20th-century and contemporary artists include: Nobuyoshi Araki, Ilse Bing, Brassai, Janusz Maria Brzeski, Anne Brigman, Harry Callahan, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Otto Hofmann, Horst Paul Horst, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Pierre Jahan, André Kertész, Francois Kollar, Dorothea Lange, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Clarence John Laughlin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ralph Meatyard, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Loewy & Puiseux, Barbara Morgan, Helmut Newton, Frank Paulin, Irving Penn, Willy Ronis, Sherril Schell, Osamu Shiihara, Arthur Siegel, Aaron Siskind, Edward Steichen, Josef Sudek, Raoul Ubac, Brett Weston and Edward Weston.



Vintage will also have contemporary work on show by Lisa Holden, Arthur Tress and Mitch Dobrowner.



Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
 
Contact me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 951 067 703; from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.