Kenny Schachter, the unique curator and dealer from New York now based in London and known for his ROVE series of art programming, offered a sarcastic and hilarious rant in the Observer about just how bad the new Bravo chanel “reality” show ‘Gallery Girls’ is turning out.  After just two episodes, Schachter slams the show:

“…a few minutes into this program I wished I were doing just about anything else, including having my teeth drilled with no anesthetic and getting shot in the face by a .38, at close range.”

But Schachter is just getting warmed up. In the next paragraph, he drills in further:

“This is lowest-common-denominator television at its cattiest, bitchiest best. I’ve changed diapers on more articulate kids.”

Is the show really that bad? Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?), it’s not available on Bravo in Canada, so we’ll have to just live vicariously through Schachter’s eyes.

You can read the full article from the Observer here. 

The lasting legacy of Steve Jobs extends deeply into the visual arts. For decades now, the Mac computer has unleashed and enhanced the visionary qualities of artists working in film, music, painting and photography. But with the launch of the iPhone in 2007, the ability to be spontaneously and powerfully creative has been overwhelmingly pervasive and has gushed into the mainstream. By some estimates, more than 200 million iPhones have been sold. With each app-enhanced device packing superior computing ability practically tailored artistic purposes, many millions of people who previously neglected their creative impulses now dedicate chunks of their day to creating digital masterpieces.

One reflection of this phenomenon is the Los Angeles Mobile Arts Festival which kicked off last weekend at the Santa Monica Art Studios. Showcasing more than 600 pieces, all of the works displayed were created on mobile device, the vast majority of which produced on iPhones. In addition to photography, more than 100 of the works are digital paintings.

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(For the essay that follows, the Ministry of Artistic Affairs invited Toronto artist Bogdan Luca to discuss his recent experience at dOCUMENTA 13, the highly important exhibition of modern and contemporary art that takes place in Kassel, Germany, every five years.  He sent this essay from Berlin on July 27, 2012.)

Located in the very center of Germany, Kassel is a city where history has a tangible presence, both in the sense of two world wars, and the cummulative history of the twelve Documentas that precede this one. Here you may happen to lean on a basalt pillar, one of 7000 Oaks planted by Joseph Beuys across dOCUMENTA 7 and 8. In the center of the city there is a brass rod driven into the ground during dOCUMENTA 6: Walter deMaria’s Vertical Earth Kilometer. Only the top surface of this metal column is visible, appearing as a small disk on a granite plaza and leaving the actuality of its real dimension invisible and only comprehensible as an act of faith. Reaching deep through geological strata, this piece is a good symbol for an entire exhibition which often pairs new art with select 20th century works as a way to question the new coordinates of the world we inhabit in this 21st century. Kassel becomes part of a network of historically, politically and artistically active sites connected by an effort to redefine and understand anew our roles in creating the world.

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A short film from artist Marcel Dzama titled “A Game of Chess”, 2011

GO Transit, the Province of Ontario’s mass public transportation system, has teamed up with local Toronto dynamic artist duo, Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, to install contemporary art inside and outside train corridors throughout the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).  In a brilliantly out-of-the-box way to encourage discussion about sustainable transportation and the serious transit issues facing residents of the GTA, this new public art partnership combines technology, fresh thinking, and colourful aesthetics.   Video clips, an Android app, abstract billboards, and bright vinyl train wraps will be accompanied by human docents on board to explain the project and encourage participation.

“What we’re trying to do is to reach out to the public to get things started,” explained GO Transit President Gary McNeil, “to talk about why public transportation is important. A lot of people out there just take it for granted that it’s there.”

It’s about time.  Toronto is at least twenty years behind where it should be in the development of its public transportation system and recent public discussions at the municipal and provincial government levels have been marred by shameful and wasteful infighting and lack of grand vision.  This effort by GO Transit to harness the power of contemporary art to push the discussion in a positive direction is a very welcome initiative.

You can read more about this moving, mobile public art project, called “Art Train Conductor No. 9“, at the special website launched by Borins and Marman here and listen to the artists discuss their intent on CBC radio’s Here & Now here.

By Randy Gladman for The Ministry of Artistic Affairs.

You can see more pictures from the project after the jump.

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One aspect of art we are very interested in at The Ministry is how artworks are valued by the market and how this system operates.  Writing yesterday for The New York Times, Adam Davidson (co-founder of NPR’s “Planet Money”) makes an interesting argument that the contemporary art world is a proxy for the fate of the superrich themselves and that the current conditions in this market are similar to the Gold Rush.  ”In the late 1840s, there were tons of people who wanted to find gold,” he writes, “but it was mainly the middlemen, who sold the pickaxes and gold pans, who made money.”

You can read the entire article after the jump.
(Thanks to Ministry of Artistic Affairs member Kevin Kelly for the tip about this article.)

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