Just who is this man?

Who is this grizzly, grumbly mountain man?



This is Carl Baratta. And in his hand he holds the new installment of the long lost, but not forgotten TOP TEN LIST.

! ! !

That's right, the tradition is not dead. It took this peaceful warrior to drag it out of its cave, though. So get ready.

focus: More Uncomfortable than Thanksgiving with the inlaws

focus: Maureen Gallace at the Art Institute of Chicago opened yesterday. Art or Idiocy? took some snaps at the reception, quite possib-lie the most sophistimatakated opening camera-phoned yet. It followed what was quite possibly the most awkward and emotionally tense lecture of all times. It took place in a tiny auditorium, the sound was a bit off but worst was the hollers from the audience. Yes, hollers. "Speak up!" "We can't see the artist!" "can you repeat that?" And perhaps the most amazing question ever asked ever: "What medium do you use?" This came about 45 minutes in from a very asseretive and annunciated interrogator. This isn't such a bad question, but it did come after much discussion of oil and panel had occurred much earlier. The artist didn't seem particularly in the mood to be on stage, and this only made her shut down more. Some artists make great work, but can't talk about it for shit. This is definately the case with Maureen Gallace. Luckily it was structured as a discussion and curator James Rondeau and Artforum critc Bruce Hanley were also on stage. They provided a lively conversation, interesting annecdotes on her work and most importantly, insightful commentary.

The show is very good, and definately worth a visit.

IMAGE:
Maureen Gallace • Down the Road from My Brother's House • 2002 • Collection of Nancy Lauter McDougal and Alfred L. McDougal (apparently who owns it is more important than medium or dimensions. It is oil. On panel(?) and is small, like 8x10inches)

• Art Openings Photoset on Flickr

More on Robert Heinecken (1931 - 2006)

After checking with the Art Institute, we have found Heinecken did not teach there, although he may have sat on a few critique panels. His wife, Joyce Neimanas was a professor of photography. Both artists were in the 2001 exhibition Contemporary Art & Celebrity Culture at the School’s Betty Rymer Gallery.

Heinecken’s work in the show was striking and of particular note. On view was a magazine intervention he had done in 1970. The series consisted of taking popular magazines and subtly screen-printing a single image on every page. The image was transparent and looked like it was showing through from the other side of the page. The altered magazines were then left in public, along with others in waiting rooms for instance. Unsuspecting readers would slowly become aware of the odd situation. And upon close examination realize what was going on. The image was of a soldier holding two severed heads. It was from the Vietnam War, which was still dragging on at the time.


This process led to a successful juxtaposition. Particular moments of knife twisting gallows humor are instances where the image is merged with an ad. One reads, “This is the way love is in 1970.” “A happy user of our waterproof eyeliner,” reads a Chanel spread covered with the vacant oozing stares of the dead.


The gesture is so effective because it is done in a universal way. Heinecken did not pick and choose which pages to do, he did them all, with the same treatment. It is pure chance, he has only arranged the chance meeting of two images on a printed page. It was society and culture that made the cruel joke of commercial excess simultaneous and synonymous with death. The image of the soldier is at first unreal. It can’t actually be a man holding to severed heads, but it is. It seems like it must be a staged photo and the heads are props. This is like the few times you see actual straight on depiction of violent death. Oftentimes what a real severed hand looks like is closer to a B-movie rubber dummy with fake blood than a Hollywood special effect. The situation also works because it is not blatantly an American holding Vietnamese heads. (It actually appears to be a Viet Cong) The identities are obscured, so it reads as a generic image of violence in war. So it is not anti-American or anti-patriotic, it is not even necessarily anti-war. It is just factual. It happens to pertain to the Vietnam war because that was the war at the time, and that was where the image was from. But it is really just saying this, death, murder, this is also happening. Even though you are looking at cheap magazine, it is still happening. Everything else is inferred. A message can be pretty clearly gained, but it is the genius of Robert Heinecken’s approach to only set things up and not give us an answer. This is how good political art is done.

Unfortunately this not a historical relic of a bygone era. Instead, the act of merging images of war and consumerism has become more urgent, and made more disgustingly apropos.

Robert Heinecken 1931 - 2006

Carol Becker, Dean at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has issued this email:

As many of you may already know, our dear friend and colleague, artist Robert Heinecken, died last week in Albuquerque. Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife Joyce Neimanas, who was a Professor in Photography at the School of the Art Institute for many years. Robert was an integral part of our community during the times he was in Chicago.



Art or Idiocy? is checking on this, but we believe Heinecken himself was an instructor and/or graduate advisor at SAIC as well.

Image pictured from the collection of the MCA
V.N. Pin Up (#1 of 2)

Christopher Knight, LA Times
obituary

Review: Art School Confidential

Head film buff guru Erik Wenzel reporting



Art School Confidential is based on a four-page story Daniel Clowes did in his comic Eightball. Most of the jokes were used in the movie Ghost World, based on his graphic novel of the same name. ASC, Like Ghost World is the work of Clowes and Terry Zwigoff (the director of the David Lynch produced Crumb).

I went to art school, I am an artist, I enjoyed it, it was fun. Like all portrayals of the art world and artists, there are inaccuracies and holes. This is fine; all popular depictions are riddled with errors. Think about the accuracy of movies and TV shows about cops, doctors or war.

It is a pretty flat movie with 2-dimensional characters. ASC lays on sarcasm so thick it’s almost sincere. And to follow the quote from Ghost World: ASC is so sarcastic it’s sincere and gone back to sarcasm. This is strangely apropos as that is very much a characteristic of work made in art school, and popular art star art.

But ASC also does have grains of truth. John Malkovich’s character, one of the few that the audience might care about, lectures the protagonist on the difference between selling out and actually working on your art. It ends in a joke because it took him 25 years to “get” triangles, but the point is still valid. Making lots of money and being an art star don’t make you a great artist. Just like fame and fortune don’t make you a great actor, they make you a celebrity.

What bothered me most is that one art school character was conspicuously absent from the ruthless parody: the comic artist. There are always cartoonists, and the number is only growing, at art school. Clowes and Zwigoff spared themselves from critique. That is kind of lame.

The character of the successful art star coming back to be an asshole to the students and dismiss faculty as losers was indeed very mean. It seems like the character is Clowes just fantasizing about going back to Pratt and telling everyone off. It’s not clear if the shitty art the star does was set decorated intentionally that way. Or if they think that is what successful contemporary art looks like. Most likely it is just based on the Bad Boy painting that was so popular in the 80s when Clowes was studying at in Brooklyn.

I was just by Pratt in March, and that part of town is just about as bombed out as the fictional Strathmore depicts it. And where did that imaginary school name come from? Why Strathmore art supplies of course! Notice all the extras carrying the trademark sketchpads.

And finally, the best chuckle was to see Artforum review the movie in the film section of its current issue. Artists definitely need to be able to laugh at themselves. Art School Confidential, while at times mindless ludite teasing, is good humor for the art crowd. If only Clowes and Zwigoff could have turned aimed that attitude at themselves as well.

The nifty Art School Confidential website

Art or Idiocy?s earlier indepth post

More Revelry

Be sure to check out the snazzy new features on the side bar.
Features include: • quick references to recent posts • new links • and FINALLY, the archived links to the historic artLedge TOP TEN TOP TEN LISTS LIST!

We were out at all the hot art openings this weekend. WERE YOU? Now you can live vicariously in week two of Art or Idiocy?s grand experiment in live photo-blogging the social sphere and partying and so on. Blah.

Enjoy!

Art Openings photoset

Some Updates

Senior Chief Executive Correspondent Erik Wenzel reporting

MORE ART FAIRS
Firstly, in the Chicago Reader, Deanna Isaacs reports in The Business, that gallerists have already lined up to sign on to next years Art Chicago in the Mart. In conversation with me, people have expressed concern, though, that the Merchandise Mart will make it too designy and couchy.

The Bidness also reports that DMG has announced plans to launch their own fair next year. This is the London based company that just bought SOFA, the sculptural objects and functional art show (READ: design and furniture). This is also the company Thomas Blackman tried to sell Art Chicago to at the last minute when it was [insert naval reference: sinking, running aground, taking on water]. The SOFA guy (Mark Lyman) said that DMG had planned a fair for ‘08 but has just stepped up the date to next year. Maybe that is why it passed on the offer from Blackman. Or maybe Blackman knew about the plan and that is why he approached them. It boggles the mind! Well, not really.

Lyman also said that the DMG fair would likely be at Navy Pier. What is up with everyone and the Pier? There was The Fair at Navy Pier, The Chicago International Exposition (those two might be the same show) then Art Chicago took over at the Pier. And when they got booted Chicago Contemporary and Classic went there. Is this some symbolic thing? Who will control the hold the Pier?! There’s the Armory Show in New York, which is only a few years old, and it is at two piers. What is it about the idea piling tons of valuable art on a strip of concrete jutting out into open water that is so appealing? Is it the danger? The irony that the last thing you would want to happen to you collection is to have it get near water and here you are having a whole show on it? Of the art fairs I've been to (in Chicago, New York and London) the absolute best was when the Stray Show was at the warehouse on Kingsbury here in town.

Isaacs went on to report that interviews for an executive director were held in New York last week; I am assuming this is for the DMG show. London, New York. They must think it is worth bringing this kind of stuff out to little old over here. We’ll see. We’ll see what sort of galleries are involved, what kind of art is being shown. Until then, it is all just Business.

Last Nites' Party

NEW PHOTOS added from Saturday's opening at Butcher Shop Dogmatic!

You should have been there. You really should have. But now you can. We are trying out the miracle of photoblogging and live blogging and what not. There were openings last night, and we uploaded some shots to Flickr right from the galleries. Now they are arranged in a photo set HERE

This may be lame, but technology and gadgets are fun. This may become a "thing." So visit the Art or Idiocy? Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artoridiocy/

and our sweet Art Openings photo set.

No one brings you the art scene like Art or Idiocy? does.

40000 Looses its HomeBodybuilder Rebuilds

40000 director Britton Bertran posted an announcement recently that the gallery was to find a new space after the current location was sold to a new owner and a restaurant was to replace it. The bulletin promises that the programming will not skip a beat. Now the site reports that 40000 is officially moving to the West Loop. Just moments ago the announcement appeared on the 40000 website that its new home will be in the famed 119 north Peoria which holds Wendy Cooper, Bucket Rider, Three Walls and Bodybuilder and Sportsman.

Tony Wight of Bodybuilder has also just posted an announcement that after its concurrent solo shows close, the gallery will move to appointment only. Bodybuilder is building out a new space on the second floor of 119 which is adjacent to its current place. The new exhibition gallery will open in September. Rumors about these two developments have been circulating recently. Now that they have both been confirmed in official announcements, the logical step is to put two and two together. And to speculate that 40000s new 119 locale is the soon-to-be old Bodybuilder space. Visit their websites for the full press releases.

40000 PRESS RELEASE

BodyBuilder & Sportsman PRESS RELEASE

MCA Gets Gursky Photo the Hard Way

Andreas Gursky • Avenue of the Americas • 2001

The famed photography collection of the now defunct Refco Inc. is being auctioned off in pieces. One piece on the block was Andreas Gursky’s Avenue of the Americas (2001). The piece had been acquired by Refco in 2002 from Matthew Marks Gallery for a low low price due to an institutional discount. The deal had been that the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago would immediately get a 10% stake in the piece with the promise of getting the whole thing by 2008. When Refco went belly up, this whole plan was thrown up in the air. Reports on the Refco auctions listed the piece going for $374,400. We contacted the MCA today and learned that the museum was indeed able to win the piece. According to a Tribune article we were also directed to, the MCA is believed to have paid around $340,00 for the mammoth photographic work it was once supposed to have acquired as a gift.

Commenting on the Friday night sale, Pritzker Director Robert Fitzpatrick, said that the Gursky "is an iconic work that is now back where it belongs, in the MCA collection, where it can be shared with the public." Avenue of the Americas joins another important work by the German artist in the collection, Chicago Board of Trade II (1999).

• artnet's info on Avenue of the Americas HERE

• Art or Idiocy?s original post on the story from February 1st HERE

Thank you to the MCA's Karla Loring

Little Comfort

FROM THE VAULTS: Some of Art or Idiocy?s first pieces
• The SCREAM Report
(From when we knew a lot less about blogging and HTML) The result of extensive online and book paper stuff research.
• Nothing Much to SCREAM About
(The follow up story, please pardon the inconvenience of scrolling down a ways) Before our offices and staff grew to rival those of the Midwest's premiere artblog: Art and Wheat.

Thank you KleeGirl2 for emailing us a link to the NYT story. Reuters reports on the convictions of two men in the infamous Stolen "Scream" Case. It is a hollow victory. Most likely these paintings will never be seen again. Stolen artworks are like kidnapped children. If you don't find them in the first day after the crime took place, chances are you won't. The artworks may even have been destroyed long ago as the perpetrators were trying to avoid incarceration. After all, the Scream and Madonna are unique pieces of evidence. The only hope then is that they turn up in about 50 years in some tiny antique and junk shop in Scotland or Belgium.

The Munch Museum's version of Edvard Munch's The Scream

Here is the Reuters story:

OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian court ordered two men to pay $122 million in damages on Tuesday after convicting them for the 2004 theft of Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream'' and ''Madonna'' and then jailing them for seven and eight years.

The Oslo court also convicted a third man for providing a car for the day-light armed robbery, but did not order him to pay damages. It acquitted three other men.

The two 1893 paintings have not been recovered despite a 2 million Norwegian crowns ($325,900) reward.

Five of the men had been charged with planning or taking part in the daylight robbery, and the sixth had been accused of handling stolen goods.

The six had pleaded not guilty in February.

Two gunmen walked into Oslo's Munch Museum on August 22, 2004, and pulled the two paintings off the walls in front of dozens of stunned tourists who were forced to lie on the ground. A third man drove a get-away car which was later found.

Presiding judge Arne Lyng sentenced Petter Tharaldsen to eight years in prison, Bjoern Hoen to seven years and Petter Rosenvinge to four years for their part in the robbery.

"The verdict is unanimous,'' Lyng told the court as the accused sat stone-faced listening to the judgment.

He said Tharaldsen drove the car, and Rosenvinge sold the car to Hoen who knew what it would be used for. Rosenvinge had also been accused of providing weapons for the robbery, but the court said it could not prove that.

All three said they would lodge appeals.

The court did not identify the two armed men who entered the museum, threatened museum employees with their weapons, yanked the pictures off the walls and walked out to the get-away car.

Lyng ordered Tharaldsen and Hoen to pay the City of Oslo 750 million Norwegian crowns ($122.2 million) in compensation for the paintings within two weeks.

It did not order Rosenvinge to share in the whopping bill for damages because it found that he did not know that ``The Scream'' and ``Madonna'' were the targets of the theft.

The city had sought damages of 500 million crowns for "The Scream'' and 250 million for "Madonna,'' two of Munch's most famous works.

"The Scream,'' showing a waif-like figure clutching its head under a swirling blood-red sky has become an icon of angst in a world scarred by horrors from the atom bomb to the Holocaust. ''Madonna'' shows a bare-breasted woman with long black hair.

In 1994, another version of "The Scream'' -- Munch painted two famous versions of his masterpiece -- was stolen for several months from Norway's National Gallery by thieves who broke a window and climbed in with a ladder. It was recovered by police posing as buyers.

The Munch Museum has since undergone a 40-million crown security upgrade.

This quite probably will go down as the greatest loss of art to theft in history. There is the early Lucien Freud portrait of Francis Bacon, which has never been recovered as well. But just about all the historic cases popping up these days, the long forgotten ones that are now case closed, none involve such immediately recognizable images. And none involve such an audacious daytime raids.