Artwriting & Anthony Haden-Guest

Tonight, Wednesday the 15th, Anthony Haden-Guest is giving a reading at HP Garcia, a newish gallery in New York’s garment district. Haden-Guest is variously described as a reporter, cartoonist, art critic, poet and socialite. Something tells me that socialite might be the most significant, given the gossipy, insider stuff he has written about the art world. He was, back when Studio 54 was still alive, a champion party-goer. These days, he is the editor of Charles Saachi’s online magazine. That is mostly what anyone needs to know about him. Continue Reading
American Qur'an

IT IS HARD, SOMETIMES, to know whether to cry or curse. Cursing satisfies the soul but a heart-felt expletive is better when it is blurted out loud. It just does not look right in print. A good curse deserves to be said in full, not weakened with bowdlerizing fig leaves: @#$!%!!  Besides, there really are not enough bodily orifices up which Sandow Birk should be advised to stow his Qur’an project. His head. And his promoters’ heads. So I cry instead. Continue Reading
One Artist in Search of a Theory

A reader sent me this listing posted yesterday on Craigslist. It came with the simple word “Yikes!” That is about as eloquent as you can get over a post that is almost too forlorn for words. The listing appeared, appropriately enough, all in lower case. Diminished punctuation suits the pathos of the quest:
performance artist looking for an art theorist to coach me on understanding and articulating the intellectual underpinnings of my work. i am looking for someone who follows current art world trends, ideas, themes and artists, especially the recent interest in performance art.
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THIS IS A SOBERING LABOR DAY. We have seen the employment statistics. Somewhere under the rubble of numbers are artists—semi-employed, underemployed—supporting themselves with every imaginable odd job: a part-time adjunctcy here, another there; waiting tables; house painting; dog walking; carpentry—you name it. Yet institutions of so-called higher learning, keep turning out M.F.A. candidates on the false assumption that a faculty position awaits them. Exploiting popular delusion, Texas Tech University trumpets itself as the first to offer a doctorate in fine art.  Continue Reading
poster: what makes an artist

PRESENT AN ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE with an illustrated time line of Western art—from, say, Theodoros of Samos to selected offerings from any museum of contemporary art. Ask the fellow if he can tell which end of the time line is the beginning. [It is not a trick question. We just do not know whether aliens read from left to right or the other way around.] If the frequencies along his optic nerves run as ours do, and if he has his wits about him, he will choose, with confidence, the contemporary stuff as the slime from which Theodore eventually emerged. Continue Reading