The Now Museum

I took part in an international conference held at the New Museum in New York earlier this year, and there's now video up of the participants (who included some great speakers on contemporary art - Paul Chan Philippe Vergne, Claire Bishop, Bruce Altschuler, Terry Smith etc) Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the final panel on "Artists and the Museum" for my paper.

ArtStar

From Chris Heaney's Harland and Wolff series

I'm really excited about working with ArtStar, a great NY-based company who promote affordable art prints, especially as it means I get to support work I love. My first "curator's pick" is a photographer whose career I've followed since art school in Glasgow. Chris Heaney photographed the (then recently-decommissioned) Maze prison back when he was an undergrad, and his work has grown ever more haunting beautiful since then.

What I admire most is how he blends a successful commercial career with his art practice. I don't see a division between "art photography," "documentary" and "commercial." The most compelling photography blends these elements rather than creates divisions (this is the truncated version of my thoughts on this, maybe for another, longer post). Here's my short interview introducing his work, where you can also find links to his prints on ArtStar if you want to take a peek.

From The Switch Room series

From Incarceration series

My writing buddy

And this is who has been keeping me company while I write. Harry, our year-old cat and the apple of our eye. Quite a sweetheart. As I've been researching Mayan archaeologists for my lecture on Ancient Maya Art, I came across the wonderful Russian epigrapher Yuri Knorosov who also seems to have had a Siamese Blue kitty too. Pretty wonderful expression on his face.

New Website for Writing

I finally have a site where all my writing projects are collected, hurrah! I've added some new pieces in the last few months, with more to come as I keep myself busy over the summer. And, this 'ere blog will be in use more as I begin another project that has been pushed back until this summer vacation - building a cache of teaching materials after my first year of teaching art history survey. More to come! For now, I'm excited about my new website.

New Writings for Art 21

Whoops! The new semester started and I forgot to post to this blog in the whirlwind of new classes, new teaching assignments, and new writing assignments. I've been writing on Art 21 as a guest poster this spring, find some of my ramblings here. My latest post concludes with Hennessy Youngman breaking down Relational Aesthetics for the general populace. This stuff is the best I've seen on the internet in ages. Check out his other videos: an obituary for Louise Bourgeois ("another fallen soldier"), Curators, and Post-Structuralism.

Getting ready for Back to School

It's called procrastinating, but I'm getting ready to go back to school by making loooong trips to Staples to pick out pens, paper, binder and highlighters. I stopped by the MoMA design store on my way home to pick up a birthday present for my lovely BF's lovely mum and found this. Totally getting one for the new school semester for me too!

People's Biennial

Alert! Awesome new show organized by Independent Curators International! Curated by Jens Hoffmann and Harrell Fletcher, People's Biennial is touring across the U.S. for the next two years. Read all about it here.