art hoarders face the music ... reluctantly

Andy Warhol

5 Coca Cola Bottles, 1962

Today’s NYT’s story “’This Space for Rent’: Arts Must Now Woo Commerce” reports on the crisis European museums face as government subsidies and corporate contributions dry up. To remain viable, European museums are now renting their facades and facilities to advertisers and corporate sponsors.

The sellout hasn’t gone without an outcry. Famous architects and museum directors petitioned Italy’s Minister of Culture last summer to remove huge ads that detract from Venice’s classic views. And, at least in one instance of the unseemly coupling, the aesthetic yardstick was levered against the commercial barbarians. The Musée d’Orsay may have sold out to Chanel No. 5, but drew a line when it came to Coca Cola. “The flacon of Chanel is beautiful because it is made in three dimensions and moves with the wind,” said an insider at d’Orsay. Take that, Andy Warhol!

Link: The New York Times

def art

Judith Scott
(1943 - 2005)

cowboys in Paris

Jerry Hall in Vivienne Westwood Opus
Link: Stylefrizz

Wandering in cyberspace, El Chamizo stumbled on a fabulous yarn about a couple of Texans who end up in Paris kicking it with mother of punk fashion Vivienne Westwood. Moral of the story: Be your hick self and the doors of "Hoite Coiture" will open wide.

"In my early days while living in Paris, France, my roommate W and I made friends with the director of one of the most popular nightclubs in Paris that went by the name of Le Bain Douche which actually means “the bath house" which is what this prime night club was in its early days. This club director was an American who had been living in Paris for a number of years before we showed up in the city. Her name was Beverly and she became a really good friend of ours mainly because she was American and spoke English! One day Beverly called my roommate and I and asked if we would like to escort her to a Vivienne Westwood dinner to celebrate Vivienne’s new line of fashion for that season. I asked Beverly over the phone, 'Who in the heck is Vivenne Westwood?'..."

Read on: My time with Vivienne Westwood and her husband, Andreas Kronthaler

travels and cosmic messaging

True to her nature, El Chamizo has tumbled south along with fellow artists and museum representatives as part of an exchange program between Chiapas and Chicago organized by the National Museum of Mexican Art.

First on the agenda was a group show at the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (UNICACH). Among many local artists, we met Robertoni Gómez, whose lyrical clay sculptures grace many public spaces around Tuxtla. Robertoni was kind enough to escort our group to El Zapotal, one of Tuxtla's ecological preserves that also houses a zoo. We ended the day at his studio, a rambling property where sculpture and daily life mingle effortlessly.

You can see Robertoni's work on his blog, including the phenomenal Escultura Astroarte. Made of four concrete slabs facing the sun like open books on lecterns, Astroarte projects, by means of reflective surfaces, an image of the earth that comes together as a puzzle and falls apart again in a matter of minutest only during the Spring and Fall equinoxes.

in memoriam

Photo source: Theresa Duncan, The Wit of the Staircase, January 3, 2006

El Chamizo Volador dedicates this post to the late Theresa Duncan (October 26, 1966-July 10, 2007), pioneer video game designer, filmmaker, culture arbiter and compelling author of The Wit of the Staircase blog. Her style and fierceness have left a mark on this blogger.

Duncan left her hometown in Lapeer, Michigan for work at the World Bank in D.C. where she discovered new media and its potential for story-telling. She soon partnered with illustrator Monica Gesue and together they authored Chop Suey, and interactive CD-ROM for girls. Other games followed. In 1999, Duncan and her romantic partner, the artist Jeremy Blake, collaborated on The History of Glamour, an animated film about a young rocker who moves to N.Y.C. in search of stardom but ultimately chooses "grammar over glamour."

Duncan's own biography resembles the story of her film's heroine. From the outside, she seemed to have what many only dream about. She was beautiful, intelligent and sophisticated. Her relationship with Blake seemed idyllic. Her blog entries conjure up a chic lifestyle amidst the art intelligentsia of L.A. and New York. Inexplicably, she took her life on July 10, 2006. Blake followed her a week later by walking into the ocean.

Links:
The Wit of the Staircase
The Golden Suicides

tumbling tumbleweeds

Chamizo volador is the name given in the north of Mexico to the tumbleweed, that icon of cowboy life and American westward expansion. But tumbleweeds are not native to America (neither are cowboys!). They are an invasive species introduced as a stowaway in a shipment of flax by Ukrainian farmers living in South Dakota in the late 19th century. I learned this while reviewing the NMMA's recent show A Declaration of Immigration. I was particularly captivated by Juan Angel Chávez' Trojan Tumbleweed. The sculpture's title is genius, likening the invasive nature of the shrub to the Trojan horse all the while challenging and complicating our ideas about immigrants, immigration and U.S. history. Trojan Tumbleweed is a beautiful conceptual work that is also wholly approachable on an experiential level. It is one of the inspirations for this blog.