I only wish more people were like this crow.. (source)
This is proof that they are watching us… always. Constantly trying to blend in with us so that when the assimilation is complete we will never suspect their world-comination plan coming.
I for one welcome our feathered environment-concious overlords
man, teenaged girls aren’t allowed to have a genuine interest in anything without being ridiculed for it. if a girl likes ugg boots and starbucks she’s stupid and stereotypical, but if she likes combat boots and obscure coffee houses she’s a hipster wannabe and is trying too hard. if a girl listens to boy bands and other popular artists she’s a dumb follower, if she reads comics or plays video games she’s a poser/fake geek girl, if she likes sex she’s a slut but if she doesn’t like sex she’s a prude, if she wears makeup she’s fake but if she doesn’t wear makeup she’s a slob, if she has low self-esteem she needs to learn to love herself but if she has high self-esteem she’s overconfident and vain, if she’s interested in politics she’s a crazy social justice warrior but if she prefers to stay out of social matters she’s a dumb airhead. girls are literally mocked for every single thing they like or do, no matter what those things are, and i’m really really sick of it.
Because locking up youth is easier than dealing with your own broken systems...
Oh, wait! Locking up youth is PART of your broken systems!
via Osiasjota
A 14-year-old middle school student in Holiday, Florida, was arrested this week and charged with "an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access," which is a felony. The student reportedly used an administrator password to log into a teacher's computer and change the background image to a photo of two men kissing.
The student also revealed his secrets after he was caught – the password was the teacher's last name, and the teacher had typed it in in full view of the students. The student said many other students used these administrators' passwords (their teachers' last names) so they can screen-share and video chat with other students. The student was briefly held in a nearby detention center, and the county Sheriff warned that other teenagers caught doing the same thing will "face the same consequences."
Jorge Luis Rodriguez and NYC Mayor Ed Koch at the dedication ceremony of “Growth” in 1985 (photo courtesy the artist)
2015 marks the 30th anniversary of Jorge Luis Rodriguez’s “Growth” and the public art program that initiated its creation. “Growth” was the first project completed under the auspices of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs’ (DCLA) Percent for Art program (PFA). Growing out of the cobblestones of East Harlem Artpark on Manhattan’s East 120th Street, its image now serves as the program’s logo — and fittingly so, as the harmony of its design with the daily activities of the neighborhood comes as close as any project has to what the program’s founders had in mind.
PFA’s near flawless relationship with the public (more on that qualifier in a moment) was challenged a few months ago when a torrent of social media responses to an online presentation of sculptor Ohad Meromi’s “Sunbather,” proposed for Long Island City’s Jackson Avenue, migrated from the blogosphere to the community and subsequently to City Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer. The result was the only amendment ever made to the original 1982 law. Drafted by Van Bramer and current DCLA Director Tom Finkelpearl (who directed PFA for six years in the ‘90s, and whose current office oversees the program), it passed the City Council last month, adding a public meeting early in a PFA project’s design process and other enhancements to the advertising of hearings.
Rendering of Ohad Meromi’s “Sunbather” (screenshot of the artist’s proposal)
Following a trend that began in 1959 in Philadelphia, the creation of New York’s PFA program required patience and persistence. Introduced as a sketch by Mayor Robert Wagner in 1965 and developed sometime later into a bill that, to no one’s surprise, sat idle during the fiscal mess of the mid-’70s, the Percent for Art program finally garnered the necessary council votes in 1982 (and soon after inspired a number of other local and state agencies). No controversies marred the creation of Rodriguez’s “Growth,” or the 300 other projects that have been completed since 1985 — with one notable donnybrook in 1991 that ended in the removal of John Ahearn’s bronze figures from a site in the South Bronx.
John Ahearn’s South Bronx bronzes (photo by Tom Finkelpearl, courtesy NYC Department of Cultural Affairs) (click to enlarge)
What was so troubling about the Ahearn episode was that the artist and PFA had followed established protocols to the letter. Too much space would be taken here to list which agencies and community representatives had approved Ahearn’s design over its six-year gestation. Yet the day the sculptures were installed, the people who actually lived nearby complained so emphatically that the work was removed on request by the artist before the week was out. His imagery was judged demeaning and racist. Ahearn and the PFA program staff were genuinely shocked at the response. Somewhere in what seemed a soundly formulated, if not overly cautious process, a giant miscalculation had been made. Considered an anomaly at the time, the incident did not prompt any changes to PFA’s design development process.
Though the “Sunbather” dustup is not burdened by anything as personal as the ethnic undercurrents exposed during the Ahearn affair, a PFA project has once again brought the program to the barricades of public disapproval. A post online of the artist’s rendering of the proposed sculpture was met with a flood of blog posts ranging (as blog posts tend to range) from articulate outrage to sophomoric sarcasm. Predictably, some hated the way it looked. Many others resented the half-a-million-dollar price tag. “Why not a piece of performance art, where they throw $450,000 directly into a toilet, instead?” read one comment. Another characterized the piece as “an enormous pink bowel movement.” Local issues were raised: “This money could have gone to completing the still unfinished (for years now) Hunters Point Library”; “My kid goes to the local school in LIC and they don’t have art in school. That money could have employed several art teachers and provide supplies for the kids, rather than have parents and teachers pay out of pocket.” Aside from a few too many references to poop, most sentiments were firmly grounded in community concerns.
Artwork on Jackson Avenue protesting Ohad Meromi’s “Sunbather” (photo by Arthur Nersesian)
According to Ryan Max of the PFA press office, Meromi has taken the criticism seriously, making personal appearances at no fewer than three public meetings about the proposed sculpture, including a reportedly well-attended town hall gathering at nearby MoMA PS1. Max further offered that “’Sunbather’ is still going through the Percent for Art design process and will be presented to the Public Design Commission for preliminary review later this year. Percent artists refine their proposals between conceptual and preliminary review based on feedback from the community and other stakeholders.” It will be interesting to see how or even whether Meromi’s final work will reflect concessions to any of the complaints leveled at it.
Richard Serra, “Tilted Arc” (1981) (image via Wikipedia)
The changes recently made to the law imply that the PFA and other local officials interpret the problem as one that could be corrected by more effective public exposure to future proposed projects, an interpretation that assumes — portentously, considering the Ahearn case and others outside the purview of PFA — that the public can always be persuaded into accepting the will of an artist. That argument was made often and eloquently by a small army of supporters during the “Tilted Arc” (1981) hearings, and yet “Tilted Arc” is no more. The federal office of the General Services Administration had it removed in 1989 — or destroyed, as its creator, Richard Serra, more accurately characterized the action.
It bears noting that the “Tilted Arc” chapter is not the whole story of public art projects stirring up trouble. Carl Andre’s “Stone Field Sculpture” in Hartford, Connecticut, caused such an outcry of public disapproval following its installation that it is remembered by some as the Great Art Debate of 1977. Protestors had trouble reconciling the materials — large boulders in neat rows — with the cost of the project, which personally netted Andre about $87,000. The sculpture prevailed, due in no small part to the fact that its funding came from the private Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the National Endowment for the Arts, not local tax revenue. Minimalist sculptor Robert Morris was not as lucky. He had to sue the Veterans Administration in 1982 for expenses he incurred while fulfilling his obligations as the contracted artist to design a sculpture for one of their hospitals. Apparently the art committee was surprised to learn months into the contract that Morris planned to use the two surviving steel casings of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the sculpture.
Though unique in significant ways, each example reveals the hazards of placing confidence in the outstanding reputation of an artist, and in the notion that all it takes for the public to accept assertions by the avant-garde is time and patience. New York’s PFA design process, though cautious to a fault, shares a similarly optimistic belief that public resistance is never permanent. It is as if one of public art’s undervalued and poorly recognized functions is to test the idea that no matter how negatively people perceive a work of art at first, they will in due course acquiesce. Public response to public art remains the last challenge to this irrational yet firmly held article of faith.
Throughout this latest debate, Ohad Meromi has maintained a respectful and modestly independent attitude. He told Hyperallergic that the proposal published online, the one that instigated all the noise, “was abandoned a while ago for a slightly more horizontal version.” He is currently “working on the full-scale figure, giving much consideration to the surface and details,” adding further that, “It’s been hard to work in this atmosphere, but as this is a public piece and these are public funds, I am accepting this as part of the process. And I am still very excited to be making it.”
Jorge Luis Rodriguez’s “Growth” (photo courtesy the artist)
PFA is currently working on 80 new projects. Last weekend they dedicated an hour or so to a ceremony at Harlem Artpark to mark both the installation of Jorge Luis Rodriguez’s “Growth” and the beginning of the program’s extraordinary contribution to art in New York City. In recognition of his symbolic position in that history, Rodriguez was invited to install a temporary piece in Tompkins Square Park that will remain there until next May. John Ahearn’s removed bronzes currently stand just inside the entrance to Socrates Sculpture Park, where one can assess in less fraught circumstances what may have caused the residents of a South Bronx neighborhood to find them offensive. And we will all get to see the final version of “Sunbather” on Jackson Avenue in spring 2016 — as well as how the neighbors respond.
The Rude Pundit isn't available for much punditry of a rude nature today, having to deal with things of a more personal, less political nature.
However, in response to right-wing websites ululating in joy over the discovery of Clinton-Gore 1992 campaign buttons with the Confederate flag on them, let's all remember a more recent election and contemplate the meaning of this button in the context of who was running:
It's real. The source is a website about presidential campaign buttons.
Lithwick has an entertaining account of Monday’s major 4th Amendment ruling. It’s somewhat unusual for Kennedy, rather than Scalia or Thomas, to be the swing vote in a 4th Amendment case with a positive outcome. But on another level it’s not surprising, since Scalia is most receptive to Fourth Amendment claims that involve individuals and their personal property. Particularly given that the kinds of hotels he would stay at are much less likely to be subject to warrantless searches, his vote was pretty much inevitable. The bigger surprise is Kennedy, whose record in Fourth Amendment cases is pretty lousy.
Finding out on behalf of the public why it is impossible to fire a leering monster like Bill Kristol used to be the work of people called "journalists", but now "journalists" are the ones who keep Mr. Kristol's secrets for him.
The same is true of today’s capitalists. We should take their money if they want to give it to us. And I suppose I’d rather Bill Gates give his money to global health than invest it in that other status symbol of the two Gilded Ages, a huge art collection. But that doesn’t mean our primary evaluation of these people shouldn’t be on their behavior when collecting that loot. For many capitalists today, there is a whole lot of sin to answer for.
Many prominent online retailers have vowed to remove all items bearing the Confederate flag from their websites following a mass shooting last week at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. So far, eBay, Wal Mart, Sears and Kmart have...
Vainius Kubilius handcrafts lamps that don’t only light a space, but transform the feel of an entire room, casting elongated patterns on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Each lamp is created from coconut, suede, and cork, unusual materials that give each twisted creation an almost snake-like appearance.
The coconut forms the head of each lamp, drilled with thousands of holes to allow the light to spill out in a variety of intricately formed patterns. Kubilius explains that he must blow the dust from each hole he drills, enabling the viewer to get a sense of how many breaths he took in order to produce each handcrafted lamp.
Kubilius is inspired by Polish artist Przemek Krawczński who carves lamps out of gourds in equally dazzling patterns. You can see more of Kubilius’ lamps on his Etsy shop. (via My Modern Met)
The New Jersey Palisades (photo by Doug Kerr, via Flickr)
The unbroken vista of cliffs and trees on the New Jersey Palisades will be preserved after LG Electronics agreed to redesign their headquarters in a settlement with conservation groups. LG’s proposal to build a 143-foot building would have sliced through the foliage, which is directly across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Cloisters medieval art branch in Manhattan.
Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said in a statement that “LG’s hearteningly responsible decision to lower the height of its planned new headquarters in Englewood Cliffs ensures that this remarkable natural wonder will endure unscathed — without inhibiting corporate expansion in New Jersey.”
A rendering of the Palisades currently at top, followed by the proposed LG Electronics building, and conjecture about future development after LG (via Protect the Palisades)
The modified plan succeeds years of opposition following the 2012 zoning approval for the Korean electronics company. When John D. Rockefeller donated the land that is now Fort Tryon Park around the Cloisters as well as the view across the Hudson in the 1930s, all subsequent development was kept under 35 feet. Opponents to building beyond that included the National Park Service, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, groups like Protect the Palisades, and Rockefeller’s grandson Larry Rockefeller. National attention increased with a listing on the 2014 Watch of the World Monuments Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2014 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Stephanie K. Meeks, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said in a statement: “It is heartening to know that the place where some of the country’s earliest conservation efforts took place will remain unspoiled.” The plan has hopefully found a balance between providing an economic boost to Englewood Cliffs in New Jersey, while maintaining the only Manhattan view that resembles the natural landscape Henry Hudson sailed into long before a river was named for him. It’s also encouraging for other preservation plights that may seem like local issues, but can have national significance in how natural vistas and zoning are respected in new development.
View to the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
View to the Palisades from the Cloisters (photograph by Herbert Maruska, via Flickr)
Crimes of the Art is a weekly survey of artless criminals’ cultural misdeeds. Crimes are rated on a highly subjective scale from one “Scream” emoji — the equivalent of a vandal tagging the exterior of a local history museum in a remote part of the US — to five “Scream” emojis — the equivalent of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.
Mural of Same-Sex Couples Vandalized in San Francisco
A mural that Manuel Paul painted on the exterior of San Francisco’s Galería de la Raza, which depicts two same-sex couples and a transgender man, has been repeatedly attacked by vandals since its completion earlier this month. “We’ve had endless emails and phone calls from as far away as Arizona and Texas telling us not to give up,” said Galería de la Raza director Ani Rivera. “We know there’s a community in need of this, the visibility of LGBT Latinos.”
Verdict: If such a mural isn’t even safe in San Francisco, we’re in trouble.
Crooked Banker’s Basquiat Brazil-Bound
The Jean-Michel Basquiat painting “Hannibal” (1981) and a Roman Togatus statue that once belonged to Banco Santos founder Edemar Cid Ferreira — currently serving a 21-year sentence in Brazil for committing crimes against the national financial system and money laundering — were repatriated from the US to Brazil. The artworks are the latest items returned to Brazil as part of an ongoing effort to seize any goods Ferreira, his family, friends, or business associates may have bought with funds illegally obtained through Banco Santos.
Verdict: Using Basquiats to launder money is so 1990s.
Painting That Failed to Sell at Auction Successfully Stolen by Supposed Super
A man posing as a building superintendent signed for and stole Harold Wong’s “Calming Freshness,” a painting valued at $40,000 that failed to sell at Bonhams last year (where it had an estimate of $19,000–32,000). The work was in the process of being returned, via FedEx, to Manhattan real estate developer Bill Brodsky.
Verdict: Those who can’t buy at auction dupe the FedEx guy.
Shots Fired, Sans Permits
Last month the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar fired 21 shots at paint cans placed alongside blank canvases in Geneva’s Bärtschi & Cie gallery as part of a performance. While the the gallery’s neighbors had been warned, the dealers failed to procure the necessary permits, and now gallery partner Barthélémy Pralong has been summoned by Switzerland’s Arms, Explosives, and Authorizations Service.
Verdict: Let this be a cautionary tale for all firearm-inclined artists — do your gunshot art in the US, where it’s been an accepted art form since 1971.
Sculptural Bench Smashed
Jim Osman’s “Corbu Bench” during Bushwick Open Studios 2014 (photo by @Art Observed/Instagram)
A maintenance worker in Connecticut used a hammer to destroy “Corbu Bench,” a sculpture by Jim Osman that was installed along the coastline as part of the annual public art exhibition The Sculpture Mile, and then tossed the remnants of the piece in a dumpster. The worker responsible for the destruction told his supervisor he mistook the sculpture for something that some skateboarders had left behind.
Verdict: Even a newbie skater knows you can’t grind on a sculpture covered in grass.
Auschwitz Thieves Fined
Two 17-year-old British boys who stole objects from the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz in Poland have been fined and sentenced to a year of probation after being arrested and spending the night in a youth jail.
Verdict: At least they didn’t further desecrate Auschwitz by posing for naked photos.
Belarus Blocks Culture Blog
Belarus’s Information Ministry has blocked access to the website KYKY — an art and culture blog — from within the country for allegedly “distributing information that can damage national interests.”
Verdict: Overzealous censorship of the media remains the most effective way to damage national interests.
Sacred Art Swiped from Swedish Churches Seized
Eleven wooden engravings and one wooden chest have been recovered from the home of a 63-year-old man in Spain’s Canary Islands. The objects are among 46 total artifacts that went missing from churches in Sweden earlier this year, and the man was arrested in May.
Verdict: They say the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, but the stolen Swedish engravings fall mainly on the Canary Islands.
Windy City Art Thieves Blow Through Festival
Thieves struck some 30 booths at Chicago’s recent Gold Coast Art Fest in an overnight heist — though all the cash and most expensive artworks had been preemptively removed from the site, so the most valuable piece of loot lost may have been a mountain bike.
Verdict: When art thieves try so hard and still come up empty-handed…
Laser technology developed by the Digital Nature Group have developed a small floating hologram which could be used for volumetric graphics or interfaces:
We present a method of rendering aerial and volumetric graphics using
femtosecond lasers. A high-intensity laser excites a physical matter to
emit light at an arbitrary 3D position. Popular applications can then be
explored especially since plasma induced by a femtosecond laser is
safer than that generated by a nanosecond laser. There are two methods
of rendering graphics with a femtosecond laser in air: Producing
holograms using spatial light modulation technology, and scanning of a
laser beam by a galvano mirror. The holograms and workspace of the
system proposed here occupy a volume of up to 1 cm^3; however, this size
is scalable depending on the optical devices and their setup.
Super Opinionated.
Many prominent online retailers have vowed to remove all items bearing the Confederate flag from their websites following a mass shooting last week at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. So far, eBay, Wal Mart, Sears and Kmart have...
A mural that Manuel Paul painted on the exterior of San Francisco’s Galería de la Raza, which depicts two same-sex couples and a transgender man, has been repeatedly attacked by vandals since its completion earlier this month. “We’ve had endless emails and phone calls from as far away as Arizona and Texas telling us not to give up,” said Galería de la Raza director Ani Rivera. “We know there’s a community in need of this, the visibility of LGBT Latinos.”
Hannibal” (1981) and a Roman Togatus statue that once belonged to Banco Santos founder Edemar Cid Ferreira — currently serving a 21-year sentence in Brazil for committing crimes against the national financial system and money laundering — were repatriated from the US to Brazil. The artworks are the latest items returned to Brazil as part of an ongoing effort to seize any goods Ferreira, his family, friends, or business associates may have bought with funds illegally obtained through Banco Santos.
Last month the Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar fired 21 shots at paint cans placed alongside blank canvases in Geneva’s Bärtschi & Cie gallery as part of a performance. While the the gallery’s neighbors had been warned, the dealers failed to procure the necessary permits, and now gallery partner Barthélémy Pralong has been summoned by Switzerland’s Arms, Explosives, and Authorizations Service.
Eleven wooden engravings and one wooden chest have been recovered from the home of a 63-year-old man in Spain’s Canary Islands. The objects are among 46 total artifacts that went missing from churches in Sweden earlier this year, and the man was arrested in May.
