Muppets seem to be a popular way to express your ideas. I blogged earlier in the semester about the popularity of “Avenue Q” an award winning Broadway Musical that has friendly looking puppets in very adult situations. The newest muppet show to hit the theatre world is “Baby Universe: A Puppet Odyssey”. This show is a sci-fi piece about the last humans on earth trying to move to a new universe that is untouched by pollution. The show is meant to make a point about all the problems plaguing our planet. The planets are the characters themselves and the humans are also heard constantly making radio broadcasts into space. The show centers around the infant universe as it “grows up” like a regular child. Baby Universe recently premiered at Baruch College. It was written by Kirjan Waage and Gwendolyn Warnock and is being put on by the Wacka Wacka theatre collective. It seems like a very interesting sci-fi story with a clear message about the state of our planet. I would definitely be interested in seeing this.

Coming up soon a new website called Figment.com will be unveiled by Jacob Lewis and Dana Goodyear, a staff writer from “The New Yorker”. Figment is like a super blog where young writers can post extended written works such as novels, poems, etc. The website focuses on getting works of fiction written by young writers out there for others to read and draw ideas from. Figment is based on the trend of writing novels on cellphones (aptly named cellphone-novels) that Goodyear witnessed in Japan. Goodyear and Lewis are attempting to Americanize this idea with Figment.com. The creators hope to learn about trends in teenage literature and help young writers get recognized by notable publishers. Figment also allows publishing companies to advertise new works (for a small fee). I feel that this site can develop into a great hub of literary ideas if it is maintained. If people are allowed to ramble and the site goes un-monitored, I fear it will join the ranks of all the stupid blogs on the internet these days.

Check out Figment.Com.

Where does literature play into our modern world? Well, we have Kindles and iPads and the Internet and a thousand other ways to never own a book. According to a recent article in the New York Times, entitled “Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers“, technology now has another application in the literary world.

Dan Cohen and Fred Gibbs, two historians of science at George Mason University, have begun a project which aims to chart how frequently certain words — such as “God,” “love,” “work,” “science” and “industrial” — appear in British book titles from the French Revolution in 1789 to the beginning of World War I in 1914.

They hope to use these findings “to test some of the most deeply entrenched beliefs about the Victorians, like their faith in progress and science”.

However, there are also those who are very much opposed to and fearful of this area of research. They question whether such an analysis will reduce literature and history to a series of numbers and key words.

I believe that this area of research is a truly innovative one, and while I am excited about its potential, I am also fearful. Research will certainly be much easier, and I am sure many interesting connections may be unearthed between pieces of text. However, I hope that such collection of data will not discourage people from reading texts for the sake of texts. I, for one, am an avid reader and I would hate to imagine a world where literature holds lesser significance.

This past weekend I was home in my nice New Jersey community. Regardless of who I was with it seemed like everybody was talking about the same thing, The Maccabeats and “Candlelight”(the video from David’s post).I had recently watched the video and thought it was very well done, but had no idea it would have the acclaim(at least locally) that it appeared to have. I soon found out that there YouTube video was nearing 1.5 million views(now near 2 million) and many prominent newspapers had written about them. Yesterday the Jewish acapella crew made an appearance on CBS.Their single has even jumped into the iTunes Top 100. All of this happening after just one week! How has this gone so viral? I think that part of their appeal is that their song is well written with catchy easy to understand lyrics that don’t stray very far from Taio Cruz’s original. However, good lyrics alone would not result in such an explosion of attention. The professional quality of their videography is what makes a person watch, and then insist that others follow suit. The timing is also perfect, as many Jews crave a better Hanukah song than those supplied by Adam Sandler. “Candlelight” is a fun and hip song with cultural relevance that Jews can sing proudly, while surrounded by the multitudes of Christmas songs(many in face written by Jews). I also personally know four members of the group(and one of the Greeks in the video), including the musical directer and videographer. So if you guys haven’t seen the video check it out now, and stay tuned I heard a rumor they might be on Leno soon.

Various Places that have showcased the Maccabeats

Literature plays a profound impact on our artistic world. It could be debated that Harry Potter, written by J.K. Rowling, has defined our modern generation. And of course, you have the classics such as George Orwell’s 1984 and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, to name a couple, whose texts have transcended years and continue to remain important pieces in today’s society and education systems.

One particular classic, which I would like to share with you, is the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery. Just over a hundred years old, this series has won the hearts of millions of young children, especially girls. Anne of Green Gables, for me, was the most influential book of my childhood. I could never get enough of Anne and her fiery personality. I remember racing to the library to pick up each new development in the series once I finished the preceding novel.

So what makes Anne Shirley, the protagonist of this series, and Montgomery’s writing so special?

Mark Twain, for one, called Anne “the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice”, and time has shown that this series has remained a memorable one in the hearts of kindred spirits everywhere.

Books like Anne of Green Gables question the role of literature in our society and writing as an art. If you have not already done so, I would very much encourage the reading of this timeless tale. Anne is a character to fall in love with, as boys and girls throughout the past hundred years agree.

Most people think of diamonds or jewelry or other very expensive things when they here the name Tiffany. At least I do. However, the Queens Museum of Art has a furniture exhibit of Tiffany pieces focusing on glass as the main material of construction. The exhibit, aptly named Tiffany: The Glass, consists of eleven lamp shades, two windows and over two hundred sheet glass mosaic pieces. This is proof that some companies still strive to live up to there reputations no matter what. This company can produce beautiful, almost artistic items out of common, commercially available glass. The Tiffany company has a furnace in Corona where they do most of there work. The pieces in the Queens Museum of Art were made there. The textures and the colors of the glass were picked and mixed to emulate nature and elements from the world. Louis Comfort Tiffany has provided artistic direction for all of the pieces in the museum. It’s amazing how common sheet glass can be turned, by someone with talent, into beautiful artistic pieces (I’m sure it bumps up the price of the glass a little too)

I’m a bit of a dork when it comes to really big machines. As far as I’m concerned, few things on the planet are as awesome or beautiful as a powerful and intricate piece of machinery: the bigger the better. So naturally, I find it really cool that someone else would think of the mac-daddy of all big and powerful machines, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as art.

Starting next year CERN has plans to set up an artist in residency program, where artists and scientists will have the opportunity to, as one CERN representative put it, “[explore] the absolute boundaries of the known world [together].” Featured above is artist Josef Kristofoletti’s three-story-tall (and incredibly, only 1/3 scale) mural representation of the LHC’s ATLAS particle detector, painted directly onto the ATLAS headquarters building.

In fact, CERN scientists have become known for their own creativity ever since a rap song on the LHC created at CERN hit over 6 million views on YouTube. Check it out below.

So much for the idea that science and art don’t mesh. For more info click HERE.

What a terrific performance! I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did. the Met Opera is such a wonderful place. Did you realize that you were attending what is sometimes regarded as THE best opera in the repertoire at one of THE premiere opera houses in the WORLD!! The costumes and sets were great, the singing was splendid, the orchestra was fantastic and the pacing of the opera was, I thought, really wonderful. The action MOVED (as a comedy should) but there were some very tender moments when Mozart’s music was allowed to breathe. I will post some pictures later, but for right now, I wanted to share an email I received from a gentleman sitting just in front of me! We started talking and it turns out he was a language professor from Staten Island College (CUNY) and he had a particular theory about how the final moments of Cosi should be staged:

Dear Professor Smaldone,

It was a pleasure to meet you at the opera. Here is Chapter 12 of my THE BLESSED HUMAN RACE, which is about why I think Fiordiligi should wind up with Ferrando.

George Jochnowitz

Chapter 12
Reconsidering Così Fan Tutte

“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel,” said Horace Walpole. Così fan tutte is certainly a comedy. Its librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, was a man who thought; its composer, Mozart, was without any question a man who felt. Da Ponte was a genius, but Così fan tutte is performed and loved today because the greatest of all geniuses, Mozart, gave us its music—music that at times is comic, at times light, but at other times passionate and profound.

Così fan tutte means “so do they all,” with tutte (all) in the feminine. What is it that they all do? Don Alfonso, the cynical baritone who organizes the practical joke that forms the plot of the opera, thinks he knows what all women do: they are fickle. To prove his point, he persuades the heroes of the opera, Ferrando and Guglielmo, to leave their fiancées, return in disguise, and steal the hearts of Dorabella and Fiordiligi away from the men they are engaged to marry.

This is the kind of nasty plot that is typical of the comedies of the 17th and 18th centuries, a plot involving disguise and deception, in which the reality of human emotion is denied and mocked. Contemporary audiences generally dislike comedies of this period—after all, there is more feeling as well as more humor in an I Love Lucy program.

The early scenes of Così fan tutte are standard 18th-century comedy. Guglielmo tells us his beloved is perfection, the phoenix: “La fenice è Fiordiligi.” Ferrando thinks it is his fiancée: “Dorabella è la fenice.” Neither the music nor the words suggest men in love; what we hear instead is fun and energy.

Ferrando and Guglielmo, who have been teased by Don Alfonso into going along with his gag, pretend to leave for war. They come back wearing ridiculous disguises and proceed to woo the ladies. It is not clear at this point which gentleman is after which lady, but the way they go about showing their love is by pretending to commit suicide. They are “saved” by the maid, Despina, who disguises herself as a doctor and cures them with a giant magnet. All in good fun.

In Act I, there are solo arias, duets, trios, sextets, and a chorus. One thing is missing: there are no love duets. Nowhere in the opera does Ferrando sing a love duet with Dorabella, nor does Fiordiligi ever sing a duet with Guglielmo. Why should they? They don’t love each other. If they did, it would break the mood. There is no place for love in 18th-century comedy.

Something significant happens in Act II. The young women do not recognize their disguised lovers, but there is a different thing they recognize. They know which of the two they prefer: neither prefers her finacé! Dorabella will take the dark one: “Prenderò quel brunettino.” Fiordiligi likes the blond one, “il biondino.” Dorabella, the mezzo, has chosen Guglielmo, the bass. Fiordiligi, the soprano, likes Ferrando, the tenor. The situation at the beginning was all wrong. Can a mezzo ever wind up with a tenor? Ridiculous.

Not too much further into the second act, Guglielmo and Dorabella sing a duet, “Il core vi dono” (I give you my heart). It is the first male-female duet in Così fan tutte. We can hear the hearts beating in the words and in the music: “Perche batte batte batte qui?” (Why is it beating beating beating here?). In literature, when we say two hearts are beating as one, it is merely a figure of speech. In music, we hear it; we feel it; we know it has to be true. This love duet is one of the most beautiful in all opera. But it is more than that. It is also the most convincing. The music has taken us from the coldness of comedy to the warmth of love.

When the women fall in love, they become real. Each has her own personality. Dorabella has given in to her passion. Fiordiligi cannot come to terms with her emotions. Her great second-act aria, “Per pieta,” is filled with doubt and turmoil. When Fiordiligi finally surrenders to Ferrando, it is not because she is fickle. She has found the great love of her life. She tried to be loyal to Guglielmo as long as possible, but she failed. Besides, Guglielmo never deserved her loyalty, nor did Ferrando merit devotion from Dorabella. Both men had casually agreed to play Don Alfonso’s game. The initial pairings were wrong from the start.

Don Alfonso has won his bet. He makes Guglielmo and Ferrando sing after him “Così fan tutte,” to the notes E F A D E. We heard almost the same theme in the overture: E F A D G E, a sequence of half notes, marked andante. It is neither a light nor a comic melody. Rather, it sounds solemn, almost ominous. Is that the appropriate music for asserting that women are fickle and love is a joke?

At the end of the opera, the disguises are taken off and the lovers are married. Who marries whom? The libretto does not say. The silence of the text suggests that we go back to the beginning: Ferrando with Dorabella, Guglielmo with Fiordiligi. That is the way the final scene is usually staged. It is in keeping with the comic mood of the opera, the traditions of the times, and probably the intentions of the composer and librettist.

Once in a great while, the final scene is done differently, and the women get to marry the men they have fallen in love with. That is the way it ought to be. We know, because the music has told us so, that Fiordiligi loves Ferrando and Dorabella loves Guglielmo. We know, because the music has told us so, that their love is real. We know that if they went back to their original fiancés, the men would forever resent the women for their betrayal, and the women would hate the men for the cruelty of their joke.

If women are indeed fickle, why should Fiordiligi and Dorabella show loyalty to their original fiancés? If women are capable of true lasting love, then why shouldn’t they stay with the men they love? The answer usually given is that the opera isn’t about real people, that it is a comedy not to be taken seriously. The problem is caused by Mozart’s greatness. He was too good a composer; his music has too much feeling to go with such a silly story. The title, Così fan tutte, says that women’s emotions are not real. Mozart’s music proves that the title is wrong.

What do you think?

See you soon. Have a great weekend.

ES

A couple of times a year, I visit my grandmother’s Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA) senior center and I entertain her and the other seniors with my piano playing. I am asked to play Classical, and Broadway, but the the thing I am asked to play most often is always Klezmer.

For this reason, when I starting reading the New York Times article entitled “Lifting Spirits With Music Passed Down Through Generations“, I was immediately interested.

This article details the story of Dave Levitt, who has also been performing for the elderly Jewish community since he was a young boy. He is now continuing this life path as a music specialist working the Jewish Home Lifecare’s daytime program in the Bronx.

Levitt is determined to preserve the Yiddish language and art of Klezmer music. I think this is incredibly admirable and important. Too many languages and music styles have been neglected over the years and eventually lost. Besides my personal connection to Levitt’s cause, I feel that any effort at preserving art is incredibly important and extremely worthwhile.

Klezmer and Yiddish are very historically important to the Jewish people and I appreciate Levitt’s role in continuing these traditions.

I very rarely get the chance to sit down and read the newspaper anymore. However, every Saturday morning I make a habit of sitting down to eat breakfast with both the New York Times and The Bergen Record(a local paper) in front of me. I will usually read the Sports sections first, skim through the Comics, possibly glance at the front pages, and as of late I will peruse the Arts. I look forward to this treat all week and find it extremely relaxing, but as current exhibit at the New Museum called “The Last Newspaper” has started to make me think….How long before newspapers become obsolete and fall by the wayside? Newspapers have been around since the early 17th century and have served as one of the primary ways people learn information. Besides informing the public about the current events occurring in the world around them, newspapers have served as a medium for artists to get their messages across. Not only that, but the physical properties of newspapers(as well as what they represent) have made them an artist favorite in terms of using them within works of art. Some artists known to use newspapers are Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The exhibit addresses various aspects of newspapers both physically and metaphorically. An explanation of the exhibit that I read describes it best(albeit in a grandiloquent manner)”The artists in this exhibition continue the exploration of the newspaper, but their focus lies in the ideological rather than the purely physical properties of the daily press. They use the newspaper as a platform to address issues of hierarchy, attribution, contextualization, and editorial bias. By disassembling and recontextualizing elements of the newspaper, such as the construction of graphics and text, the artists on view take charge of and remake the flow of information that defines our perception of the world. At its simplest, the artistic impulse that largely informs this exhibition is one of reaction and appropriation; the newspaper provides a stimulus and is itself incorporated into the final artwork.”With the instant gratification addicted society we live in and the ever progressing technology, the tangible newspaper may soon be running its last issue. People can now get all the news and information they could dream of online. Additionally with the popularity of blogs, anyone can play”reporter” and dispense information just by typing away at their desk. Although publications are now putting their newspapers online, I wouldn’t feel the same reading about the latest news buzz while staring at my wonderful Macaulay issued Mac(not allowed on the Sabbath anyway). I don’t know about you guys but for me there is just something special about the smell of fresh ink in the morning.

Link Explaining “The Last Newspaper”

A review of the exhibit

In in 79 AD, the city of Pompeii, located near modern-day Naples, was destroyed and buried by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius. This eruption buried Pompeii under 4 to 6 meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for over 1,500 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1599.

Since Pompeii’s discovery, much attention has been give to ensuring that the city’s remains continue to stand as monuments to history. However, apparently this attention has not been enough.

Earlier today, according to a New York Times article, two more walls of Pompeii have collapsed. “Critics say that the government has been remiss in overseeing and financing basic maintenance at the fragile site.”

Pressure is now being placed on the overseers of Pompeii to better care for the city’s remains. Hopefully increased restoration work will be done so these ruins will continue to stand for years to come.

It would be tragic and ironic if the remaining architecture crumbled now while a volcano could not destroy it hundreds of years ago.

Recently, I came across a Youtube video that amazed me. It features the talents of two Irish dancers, Peter Harding and Suzanne Cleary who are known collectively as Up and Over It. In this video, you can see the duo “hand dancing”. To create this, they spent five days working with film director Johnny Reed and then spent another five days rehearsing the skit. The whole film took two hours to film although this video is only 2 minutes and 20 seconds long.

According to the dancers, they are “reinventing Irish dance” by adding electro pop music. Hand-dancing, however, is also not new for Irish dancers because they often learn their dance steps with their hands by beating on their laps or chests. This is how they practice before shows.

I love this video because it appeals to multiple senses. The beat is kept in time although the dancers rarely look at each other. However, they are still partners because they interact with one another. At the same time, I love the background and the choices made by the director because it appeals to my visual senses. I find myself constantly looking back and forth between the background and the dancers. Both are equally as impressive.

I’ve recently found myself getting pretty interested in how physical structures can be used to store information.  It’s a concept that features heavily in everything form computer science to genetics and neurobiology, and its really an all around fascinating topic.  As far as relating to our art blog goes, during my most recent session of internet browsing on the topic I discovered that one of the pioneers of video art based her first pieces on precisely this idea.

Beryl Korot, an artist (and Guggenheim Fellow), has been a leading figure in the field of video art since the early 1970s, and was co-editor of Radical Software (1970), the first publication to discuss extensively the possibilities of the new video technology as a   medium for art.  Among other things, her work tends to focus on exploring the structural relationship between the ancient technology of the loom and computer programming.  Her most recent exhibit, Beryl Korot: Text/Weave/Line, Video 1977-2010 is currently running at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut. 

Her most famous piece is Text and Commentary (1977), clips of which can be seen in the video interview below.

I was in the city yesterday for an AMAZING Michael Buble concert, but that’s not what I’m talking about. My mom and I were walking up and down 7th ave looking for a restaurant and passes the Macys on 34th street. The window theme this year is, you guessed it, Miracle on 34th Street. The windows displayed iconic scenes from the movie and the irony did not escape me that Macys is on 34th street. My mom and the other tourists around me didn’t find it as amusing.
I found this to be art. I mean, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tourists see these windows every year. Something intentionally seen by that many people of course takes a lot of planning and is very beautiful. Here are some pictures of this year’s windows

Ah the Super Bowl, what an amazing night:football, food, friends,commercials(for some the main attraction), and old guys performing during halftime. That is until this past Friday when the NFL announced that the Black Eyed Peas will be performing at “The Big Game(XLV=45) this year. Personally I haven’t minded the league’s attempts to ensure that another Janet Jackson-esque fiasco doesn’t happen again by choosing artists whose ages hover around a half century. The performances by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Paul McCartney, The Boss, and Prince have been exciting and entertaining even though my little brother and his friends have had no idea who they were. I love all types of music but I can’t say that I would choose these artists while listening on my iPod. I tend to gravitate towards newer more pop infused songs when in the iPod mood. The halftime shows of recent years have reminded me why I love these artists and that I should broaden my musical horizon. I also have found it interesting to see older performers juxtaposed to the immense technology and pyrotechnics used during the Super Bowl’s halftime shows. This wasn’t always case. Many people don’t know it but up until the early 90’s the halftime performers were usually various college marching bands. Only after New Kids on the Block performed in 1991 and Michael Jackson in 1993 did pop musicians become the focus. I guess the league has either ran out of “old people” or that the possible revenue that they can make by using a band like the Black Eyed Peas is worth risking a possible wardrobe malfunction. This is perfect timing for the BEP, whose new album is being released on Tuesday, because The Who’s performance last year was seen by around 153 million people. I don’t hate The Black Eyed Peas’ music and often find it annoyingly stuck in my head, but I kind of wish the NFL chose a performer that I don’t hear every single day on the radio. In the end the Super Bowl is going to be about my Giants winning anyway and the commercials and halftime show are just added “gravy” for the hero I’ll be eating.

Here’s a link to 10 of the most famous halftime performances(including the infamous 2004 Janet and JT show)
enjoy

Highlights of the Giants 2007 victory(I’m sure you will enjoy as much as I did…especially David)
Go G-Men!

Has anyone ever watched the movie August Rush? If you have, you probably remember this scene:

The boy in the video is guitar slapping, which is technique used by many musicians. You’ve all probably heard about slap bass before because it has been around for much longer, since at least the 1920s (it became popular later on in the 1940s). It often combines plucking, muting and slapping of the bass strings and body. Slap bass is used because it provides a “strong downbeat when the string is plucked and a strong back beat when it slaps back onto the fingerboard of the bass.” The noise that is created is very percussive and is great for a lot of dance music and forms of funk/disco. If you recall the show we went to at the 92st Y, the bassist, Victor Wooten, sometimes used the technique.

Now it is spreading over to guitar players. Guitar slapping has become much more popular and you can see it being used by a lot of different artists, such as Kaki King:

In this video, you can see how she combines a variety of slap bass techniques in order to create a beat groove. It often sounds as if two or three instruments are simultaneously playing.

If you go to MoMA’s gift shop, you can see that a lot of the products they sell are very versatile. The products are what you would call utilitarian art, meaning they serve as decorative items as well as tools. I recently also went to MoMA’s exhibition called Action! Design Over Time, which showcased a lot of this type of art. I highly recommend this show because it was extremely different from the usual painting, sculpture, and drawing that you see. The point of the show is to see how “design” in furniture and tools have changed to fit the commercial and modern aspects of our society. I loved the exhibit because it was sort of scientific. There were many creative, innovation and artist designs for almost everything.

Here’s an example.

I’ve also realized that utilitarian art is become more and more common these days. For example, Target has a line created by artist Michael Graves that focuses on design and function. You can see his website below.

The art also looks more and more futuristic. I think this is because we are always fascinated with technology and inventions that help us save time, since everyone is always so busy. Another thing I realized is that a lot of our present day technology is getting smaller and smaller. For example, in the MoMA show, I saw an electric guitar that was basically just a metal bar with strings on it. However, it has all the parts of a functioning guitar, except it is much more portable. It is certainly interesting to see how society has evolved and changed in only a short amount of time.

Click!

Sitting on the right side of the B train as it heads towards the Manhattan Bridge, I stare at whatever visible graffiti I can see covering the tunnel walls.  Then suddenly, without warning, flashes of colors and shapes appear before my eyes.

It is very delightful and entertaining to look at.  You have to be looking out the windows towards the right of the train, and you have to be angled towards the direction that the train is heading in.  If you’re not, you won’t be able to see the sequences of motion.  Also, the shapes move only when the train moves.  When the train doesn’t, you only see still panels. It is very much like a flip book that way.

Ever since I had discovered this little wonder while on the B or Q train, I have looked for it every time I happened to be going back out to Manhattan from Brooklyn.  But it had only occurred to me to look up more on this mysterious tunnel art work that is not graffiti.  Apparently, this art work is a 30 year old installation called “Masstransiscope”.  It was created and installed by artist Bill Brand in 1980 in an abandoned station that used to be Myrtle Avenue.  It consisted of 228 painted panels viewed through vertical slits in the tunnel walls.  But over the years, it became worn down and covered with layers of graffiti.  But two years ago, the panels were meticulously cleaned and restored, and now it it is up for passengers to enjoy once more.
Here is the article on Masstransiscope
Here is Masstransiscope’s site

As Macaulay students we all appreciate art and culture. As human beings we all love getting free stuff. Even more so we all can truly enjoy the awesomeness of free art.

Doris C. Freedman Plaza

Having said that I will inform you all about three great sculpture exhibitions by The Public Art Fund that are scheduled for this spring. All three will be in easy to find locations and are placed in their respective positions for a reason. As director and chief curator of The Public Art Fund Nicholas Baume put it, “These aren’t site-specific installations; they are site-responsive.” The first exhibit is one pertaining to an artist we have recently seen at the MOMA. There will be a ten foot tall bronze statue of Andy Warhol installed in Union Square from March 30th until October 2nd. The statue will be placed right outside of the building where Warhol once had his factory. It depicts Warhol circa 1970, and even has a camera draped around his neck. Another exhibit will be installed in the plaza at the entrance to Central Park (Doris C. Freedman Plaza). This installation will

A Piece by Sol LeWitt

be sort of a “multidirectional arch” and will rise to around twenty feet. It will serve as a “another gateway between two different worlds of urban experience” and is meant to blend in with its natural surroundings. It will be fashioned out of red, green, and black steel piping and will be viewed from March 1st until August 28th. The third exhibit will be placed in City Hall Park, right near Pace University. This exhibit will be a collection of more than twenty pieces by artist Sol LeWitt. Some of the sculptures on display will be making their public debuts, although many of them date back to the 1960’s. Mr. Baume feels that “There hasn’t been a career overview of his structures,” and has procured pieces from all over the world. The installations can be viewed from May 25th until December 2nd. All three of these exhibits sound very interesting to me and I definitely am going to try to see them come springtime.

NY Times Article

This is one of the weirder conceptual art pieces I’ve heard of in a while.  At first glance, Caleb Larsen’s A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter is just an unassuming, if slightly sinister looking, black cube.  It is, in fact, pretty boring… until you realize that every ten minutes, the cube sends out a signal that connects it to the internet, at which point it puts itself up for sale on eBay. This little quirk is, according to its creator, what makes A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter art; it is also what makes it uniquely appealing to the art collectors who are constantly purchasing, losing, and  repurchasing this piece of uncollectable art.

The piece brings up interesting questions about what it means to own something, and what counts as property in the current age of digital media. A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter is tangibly linked, via Ethernet, to the intangible world of taste, aesthetics and worth. Even if the work becomes astronomically valuable, it’s “owner” is alway inescapably forced to let it perpetually relist itself for auction on eBay until someone else buys it. The argument is you can’t own anything conceptual, neither in copyright or theoretical terms, and the artwork’s logistics ensure that no third party—even the art market itself—can change that.

It’s definitely a cool idea, even if it is a little infuriating to think about something unownable “selling” for thousands of dollars.  For more info, check out Larsen’s site HERE.