anish kapoor for the israel museum

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

More Inside the Renovated Israel Museum

hilarious

by Nina Katchadourian from her Sorted Books Project

night festival: new world 2010

Chicago has Looptopia, Paris has Nuit Blanche, Amsterdam has Museumnacht.. Singapore has Night Festival!

"Dream of the past, be in the present and fantasise the future at Night Festival 2010! Explore and have fun at the reinvented magical playground in the pulsating arts and heritage district. Taking its inspiration from the amusement park of the 1960s, a dazzling spectacle of street theatre extravaganza, magical lights and carnivalesque play will retell the story of this era. Teaming contemporary art and video installations with an exciting outdoor performance that connects us and the Universe, Night Festival 2010 will also reveal a surprising insight to our New World 2010!"

FREE ADMISSION TO ALL GALLERIES at the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum, SAM at 8Q and Peranakan Museum till 2am.

Find the program highlights and booklet here.

the cure for creative blocks

The Cure for Creative Blocks? Leave Your Desk.
by, Jocelyn K. Glei for Behance

Everyday between 8:00 and 8:30am writer Stephen King arrives at his desk with a cup of tea. He turns on some music, takes his daily vitamin, and begins to work – exactly as he began the day before. Using this routine, King has produced well over 50 books, averaging 1-2 novels a year since 1974 when he published Carrie. Clearly, daily routines can be incredibly valuable. That is, until they’re not.

While familiarity, organization, and discipline can be powerful agents of productive creativity, there is a “tipping point” – when these same once-fruitful qualities transform into creativity killers. In his great TED talk on time off, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister recounts the feeling of stuckness that prompted a massive change for him:

“I originally had opened the studio in New York to combine my two loves, music and design. And we created videos and packaging for many musicians that you know… [But] I realized, just like with many things in my life that I actually love, I adapt to it. And I get, over time, bored by them. And, in our case, our work started to look the same.”

But how to battle this stagnation that ultimately sets in with most any creative endeavor? Sagmeister decided to take a yearlong sabbatical every seven years – for the first he stayed in New York, for the second he went to Bali. Of course, there are smaller, more accessible ways to spark new creativity. But they all have one thing in common with Sagmeister’s sabbatical: It’s all about putting some distance between you and your desk.

Read the rest here

you thought we wouldn't notice: plagarized or inspired?

you thought we wouldn't notice: a fascinating site on art law. It's "dedicated to pointing out those things that give you that feeling of ‘haven’t I seen that somewhere before?'"

original

copy

Also watch this TEDtalk on copyright laws in the fashion world: "Copyright law's grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry ... and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley. At TEDxUSC 2010, she talks about what all creative industries can learn from fashion's free culture."

damien hirst audi a1 sells for $524,000

It's like a spin painting... but on a car...

"The 2011 Audi A1 hatchback, with its accessible curves and viral-video associations with Justin Timberlake, does not scream “enfant terrible,” nor does it inspire debate on the limits of abstract expressionism.

A visit to the Gloucestershire, England, studios of the art-world provocateur Damien Hirst, however, can rectify that.

Mr. Hirst is best known for his mixed-media piece “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” for which a tiger shark was suspended in formaldehyde within a glass vitrine.

He was asked to paint an A1 for the annual charity fund-raiser of the singer and activist Elton John and his partner, David Furnish. The event, the White Tie and Tiara Ball, was held June 24 in England, and it raised nearly $8.5 million for AIDS research and treatment, with the Hirst A1 bringing $524,000..."

by, Jonathan Schultz for the New York Times

picasso at tate liverpool

A member of the public looks at The Charnel House as part of the Picasso: Peace And Freedom exhibition
Photo: PA

Picasso: Peace and Freedom at Tate Liverpool, review
by Richard Dorment
Telegraph.co.uk

Picasso’s post-war political activity is the subject of an intermittently gripping exhibition at Tate Liverpool entitled (apparently, without irony) “Peace and Freedom”. If you come out of it as confused as I was, it is because the show refuses to oversimplify a messy topic fraught with contradictions at every twist and turn.

What is certain is that Picasso was never an ideological Marxist. His naïve support of a monstrous ideology was motivated by genuine humanitarian concerns – he also contributed generously to much worthier causes, including the American civil rights movement.

Yet the fact remains that for 30 years the artist whose name is synonymous with freedom of expression placed his genius in the service of tyrants dedicated to its ruthless suppression.

The precise nature of Picasso’s political affiliations has always been a contentious issue. Some art historians have detected evidence of anarchist sympathies in the early work executed in Barcelona and Madrid. But his dealer, Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, was adamant that the young Picasso was “the most apolitical man I ever met”.

The second half of Picasso’s life, however, was largely shaped by the vagaries of European politics. His passionate support of the Republican cause during the Spanish civil war resulted in life-long exile from the country of his birth.

And yet for all his immersion in Left-wing politics, with one glaring exception (Guernica – the monumental canvas expressing his outrage at the Fascist bombing of the Basque village in 1937), Picasso was never conspicuously successful as a painter of political propaganda. That is because effective agitprop requires the simplification of complex issues. Picasso was a poet, not a politician. His is an art of allusion, symbol and metaphor.

Agree? Disagree?

See the whole review here: Picasso: Peace and Freedom at Tate Liverpool, review