Art Thou Aware
By Joanne Hinkel
THE REAL ART WORLD
Wicker Park has been a protest battleground over more than one reality-based program this summer. The owner of the Flat Iron Building, a residence for over 100 artists, has installed cameras in his building's hallways and plans to broadcast the comings and goings of its residents on a giant TV outside, at a coffee shop, in The Note, and eventually on a special website. While several tenants have complained about the cameras, one tenant has been evicted. The lease for the Revolutionary Communist Party Publications office will not be renewed this year after Jesse Davis, the manager, publicly protested that tenants' privacy rights are being violated. Owner Bob Berger claims that his Big Brothering of the Flat Iron is merely an attempt to raise interest in the Wicker Park art community, oh, and in his building for prospective tenants. First MTV, now landlords, who will exploit Wicker Park next? (See this month's Puce Naugahyde for more on this.)
F*CK THAT FCC
Since the Federal Communications Commission revised their decency standards earlier this year under the new Bush administration, Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" has been under attack. A case that has received less press coverage is the $7,000 fine issued to a Portland radio station in May for playing poet Sarah Jones' song "Your Revolution." Ironically, Jones' song, which states that "your revolution will not happen between these thighs," protests the very misogynistic and violent attitudes in rap music for which Eminem's song has been condemned. Go ahead and issue fines, FCC that just makes us more interested... now we really want to hear "obscene songs," we'll play them more and louder just because you don't like it.
ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET
In other freedom of speech news, we'd like to remind you that September 23 thru 29 is annual Banned Books Week. Since 1982 bookstores and libraries across the nation have joined this event with displays and readings of books that have been banned or threatened, including such works as the Bible, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and most recently the Harry Potter series. Try celebrating by re-reading some of those childhood favorites that you can't imagine having had to live without. Perhaps revisit a book that has remedied much adolescent angst, like Judy Blume's Forever or unwind by referring to the much-challenged Anarchist's Cookbook for a recipe of relaxation.
MADE A FOOLIANI
Á La Big Apple
What would an art news column be without the mention of Mayor Giuliani's latest brush with art? This time the artists are fighting back. Earlier this month a federal judge ruled that street artists who display their work in parks or on adjacent sidewalks in NYC do not need to have permits. Since 1998 officers under the Giuliani administration have been issuing summons, arresting, and confiscating the artwork of permit-less vendors. When artists gathered outside the Metropolitan Museum to celebrate the repeal, artist Robert Lederman held up a rather unflattering painting of Mayor Giuliani showing him as somewhat of a Nazi.
En London
Unflattering characterizations of the New York mayor are popular across the ocean as well. When Jo visited the infamous Saatchi Gallery this summer, one especially entertaining display was an entire wall dedicated to illustrations lampooning the infamous mayor for his efforts to shut down the Sensation exhibit in 1999. Perhaps Saatchi will lend out this body of work created by British artists, so that Americans will get the chance to see their favorite mayor chopped up and preserved in formaldehyde and painted shit brown with elephant dung.
GOT GEORGIA ON MY MIND
A former SAIC student and feminist icon has inspired the creation of a center dedicated to research in American Modernism. This summer the Georgia O'Keefe Museum Research Center opened its doors in Santa Fe, New Mexico to offer art historians an on-site library. The library will contain archives of materials relating to the modern artist and her contemporaries. Starting in December the center will be accepting applications for its six annual stipends which will be awarded to historians of modernism.
ILL WILL
German philanthropist Gustav Rau rewrote his will in 1999 so that his entire art collection of more than 700 paintings and sculptures, including masterpieces by Fra Angelico, El Greco, Fragonard, Monet, Renoir and Munch, would be left to the German branch of UNICEF. The Swiss government and lawyers that manage his Swiss foundations have been disputing Rau's will by claiming that the 79 year-old, who suffered a stroke years back, is mentally incompetent and was confused when he rewrote it. Who cares whether or not the old bag is senile? Shame on you, greedy Swiss government. And yeah to a random act of kindness in the name of art!
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
That-s Art Amore
Summer heat and smelly canals haven't kept arts enthusiasts from attending the 49th International Art Exhibition. Within the first month of this year's Venice Biennale, 45,000 people visited its exhibition halls, ranking the event as the second most visited art event in Italy (behind a Caravaggio exhibit currently on display in Rome). First-time countries Jamaica, New Zealand, the Ukraine, and Singapore have proved suprisingly popular. The Singapore exhibit alone received over 15,000 visitors in June.
Souvenirs Anyone?
There have been several problems concerning installations in the Arsenale exhibition area this year. Both Chris Burden's and Stan Douglas' installations had to be taken down due to technical difficulties. Biennale visitors seem to be taking down the Cracking Art Group installation themselves: A Venetian noticed a passer-by carrying one of the 1200 gilded tortoises that should have been fixed to the ground of the Giardini as part of this work back to his luxury hotel. Apparently, it's hard to tell these days when an artwork is meant to be interactive.
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