Art Roulette: Cleveland

I can't find a whole lot that's interesting from my usual sources this week, so I'm trying something new: Art Roulette! I'll pick an random city, Google its name next to the word "art," and choose something interesting from the results.

This week, Cleveland! The Cleve; the Forest City; the butt of so many 30 Rock jokes. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer (best newspaper name ever, by the way), a local gallery is shaking things up by questioning what art has to do with objects. Spaces gallery (an apt name if there ever was one) wants to bring art beyond the gallery space. Their most recent exhibit, "...in a most dangerous manner"--which unfortunately ended today--confronts economics, class, and power in texts, off-site installations, and events.

In my job at the MFA Boston, I field ever so many complaints from crusty longtime visitors about how so many things have Changed, capital C, and what a shame it is that things can't stay exactly the same as they were when they visited in [insert your favorite year here; I've heard everything from 1948 to 2006]. As for Spaces Gallery, I hope this experiment in boundary-pushing works out for them, because it's going to be difficult--even for fans of contemporary art--to walk into a favorite gallery and find that it doesn't include objects anymore (or at least not the sorts of objects they're used to).

That being said, though "art without objects" is a high concept to grasp, Spaces is making room (haha) for participation and hopefully increased accessibility. Not confident in your ability to talk about contemporary art? The gallery sponsors outings ("Space Invasions") to area museums for group discussion and critique. Always aspired to be an artist yourself, but not sure where to start? Join Corrie Slawson's Work Party as she transforms vacant midtown industrial spaces and assembles found objects from the lots back in the gallery. It sounds like so much fun, it almost makes me want to move to Cleveland! Cool roundup of the project here.

But the only downside to art without images is that I couldn't find a relevant image to put on this here blog post. So I'm all bland and black-and-white today. Blame Spaces--or fist-bump them? Hmm.

Child's Play

My trusty Vulture feed informed me today that there is a three-year-old named Ruby Ellenby with her own gallery show in San Francisco (profiled here in the San Francisco Chronicle; above photo by Ms. Ellenby herself). And I screamed (internally, of course): Where is my frickin' gallery show? I'm 28! And my photos are so much better than hers!

Also, my assessment is that these pictures could have been taken by practically anyone with a medium quality digital camera. Come on, Ruby Ellenby, weak sauce. If you're going to have a retrospective at the age of eleven, you've gotta step up your game.

In all seriousness though, more children should be exposed to art-making at home, because goodness knows they aren't always going to have the opportunity at school. And thanks to her photographer parents, this little gal has a heck of a head start.

But again, where is my frickin' gallery show? Because taking pictures makes me feel like a princess, too.

How many Elvises can dance on the head of a pin?

The CBS Sunday Morning show: not just for old people anymore! This past Sunday, Mark Strassman profiled British "micro-sculptor" Willard Wigan, who makes art so tiny he once accidentally inhaled it. You can't see most of his art without a microscope. His pedestals are the eye of a needle or the head of a pin; his paintbrush is hair of a dead fly. Behold: Tiny Elvis! YES!!!

Reverse trompe l'oeil is cool; creeps me out

Alexa Meade doesn't paint canvases. She paints real, live people to look like canvases. And while I think this is amazing and sooo unique, I gotta say that seeing this in person would scare the bejeezus out of me, especially if I just happened to run into this guy on the subway on my way to work:

New Post! Wooo!

Hello, 2010! After skipping a year of life, I have officially quit grad school, and thus I am resuscitating my blog. (Now with less inane commentary! More posts that way!)

With March comes Spring rain, pretty flowers, and potholes. And some British dude named Pete Dungey (who clearly needs to pay the Bay State roadways a visit) has been prettying up potholes with tiny guerilla gardens. Which, while beautiful, make last summer's basil plant failure that much more depressing to yours truly. Check them out!