Last year’s museum offerings may be difficult to match, and
though 2012 is shaping up to be no slouch, things don’t really shift into high
gear until the spring. There are multiple photography shows, several
exhibitions that focus on the 1960s – will we ever escape them? –
and a year that looks relatively free of blockbusters from institutions under
renovation, leaving the door open for local curators to strut their stuff and
shine. Multidisciplinary organizations like Intersection for the Arts, the
Mission Cultural Center and SoMArts are mounting niche shows, and the
development of an arts district in the so-called Mid-Market area (Civic Center
to Powell St.) appears to be on the verge of becoming a reality. A number of
groups have signed up to relocate, including SF Camerawork, which opens in
their new space there Jan. 13.

Without further adieu, here are highlights of what to look
forward to in the New Year.

Sculptor Stephen De Staebler in his Berkeley studio, 2009. (Photo: Philip Ringler)

The de Young Museum
has a packed schedule that launches with Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of
Stephen De Staebler (Jan. 14-April 22), a retrospective of the
50-year career of the noted Berkeley sculptor who died last year. It includes
some 55 figurative ceramics and bronzes that reflect his preoccupation with
nature, mortality, the history of art and religion, Renaissance humanism,
existentialism and ancient Egyptian monuments; The Fashion World of Jean
Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk (March 24-Aug. 19) is the fashion blast of the season. Ever since
Madonna aimed those pointy cone-shaped breasts at an unsuspecting public,
Gaultier, the openly gay enfant terrible of fashion, has been synonymous with provocative and subversive rock
and roll hauteur. In his androgynous gender-bending styles, he takes on
transgender and gender issues and the underside of the sexual revolution, while
generally knocking your socks off. Only Alexander McQueen: Savage
Beauty, the wild kick-ass shocker of a show
at New York’s Metropolitan Museum last spring, could top this, and
unfortunately, we won’t get to see it; previously thought to be a lost body of
work, Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964 (March 3-June 3) immerses us in the spring and summer of 1964, three
years before the Summer of Love, when this skilled documentary photographer
shot pictures of people spilling onto the streets of the city, participating in
chaotic rallies and demonstrations as locals witnessed the circus and carried
on with daily life. Tress developed some of his more than 900 black-and-white negatives
in a darkroom in the Castro. Saddled with an unfortunate title that conjures a
garden party sponsored by the DAR, Bouquets to Art
(March 12-17) is, in fact, an extraordinary event
featuring 150 imaginative, aesthetically beautiful floral designs that respond
to works in the collection; Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina
Collection (June 16-Sept. 16) is drawn from
the dynamic collection of S.F. native Trevor Traina. Most of these 100 pictures
were shot by iconic photographers of the 20th century: Diane Arbus, Robert
Frank, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, William Eggleston, Cindy Sherman,
among others.

Legion of Honor: The
Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860-1900 (Feb.18-June
17) investigates the evolution of the British Aesthetic Movement, from its
beginnings among a coterie of forward-thinking artists and poets through the
achievements of architects and painters to its impact on fashion and the home.

Asian Art Museum: Phantoms
of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past (May 18–Sept. 2)
utilizes themes of cosmology and spirituality to connect histories, cultures
and religions found throughout Asia by juxtaposing traditional art with
contemporary works.

“Main Street, Saratoga Springs, New York”
(1931) by Walker Evans, gelatin silver print. (Photo: Walker Evans Archive, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Cantor Arts Center: Walker
Evans (Feb. 1-April 1) The Great Depression was defined by the
austere, unsentimental images captured by this profoundly influential American
photographer. The retrospective covers his 50-year career, including his
memorable documentation of the Depression era and his work with James Agee on Let
Us Now Praise Famous Men; his experimental
photographs from 1928–30; the subway series, later published in Many
Are Called; photo-essays for Fortune
magazine and rare Polaroid SX-70 prints
from his final years; Sculpture from the Fisher Collection
(Feb. 29, 2012-Oct. 13, 2013): While SFMOMA is in
the throes of its expansion, undertaken, in part, to accommodate the holdings
of late Gap founder Don Fisher, the Cantor and others are hosting portions of
the immense collection. The long-term installation here exhibits pieces whose
innovation established the reputations of artists such as Jenny Holzer, Sol
LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg and the late John Chamberlain.

Berkeley Art Museum:
Tables of Content: Ray Johnson and Robert Warner Bob Box Archive
(Jan. 27-May 20) In 1988, collage artist Warner began an unusual mail
correspondence with Johnson, who sent him hundreds of collages, a piece of
driftwood and 13 cardboard boxes tied with twine. They and their contents
– tennis balls, T-shirts, beach trash – plus letters, drawings and
found objects are displayed in a show that sounds every bit as eccentric as its
subjects; State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970
(Feb. 29-June 17) is a comprehensive primer on
Conceptual Art as expressed in both Southern and Northern California, which may
as well be two separate countries, right? It features surveillance
installations, performance documentations, soundtracks, videos, films, artists’
books and archival photographs.

SFMOMA: Alluding to
the urban landscape, gender, race and class, Mark Bradford
concentrates on the artist’s monumental collages on canvas, made from expertly
manipulated, salvaged materials, and early works influenced by his family’s
beauty parlor in South Central (Feb. 18-June 17); for her portraits and videos,
Rineke Dijkstra photographs people in transition, new moms, army recruits and
especially adolescents (Feb. 18-May 28); The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster
Fuller and the Bay Area considers the
design legacy and inventions of a genuine non-conformist and idealist who
thought out of the box but never achieved the success he desired (March 24-July
2012). Using herself as subject and blank canvas, Cindy Sherman
is a mistress of transformation with a legion of
imitators. Her career trajectory is traced through 170 photographs drawn from
her varied bodies of work, multiple guises and personas, beginning with her
student days in the mid-1970s to the present (July 14-Oct. 7). Jay
DeFeo encompasses the full scope of the Bay
Area artist’s 40-year career with paintings, sculptures, photographs, works on
paper and a re-examination of her best-known painting, “The Rose”
(Nov. 3-Feb. 3).

YBCA: In What
Suits Us, John-Mark Ikeda deconstructs the uniform of the upwardly
mobile, stripping an iconic symbol of power down to its essential elements and
pinning it to the wall like a biological specimen (Jan. 26-July 8).

OMCA: A pair of
companion shows, All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San
Francisco Bay Area and The 1968 Project
explore posters as an art form and vehicle for
debate during a renaissance of the form that started in the mid-1960s. (March
31-Aug. 19); Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes
(April 14-Aug. 12) is an imaginative installation
showcasing hundreds of drawings by Oakland’s own Daniel Clowes, a cartoonist
known for giving the graphic novel literary cred and adapting his comic book Ghost
World for a film directed by Terry Zwigoff.

Contemporary Jewish Museum: Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought examines
the tree in Jewish tradition and its role in contemporary art (Feb. 16-May 28).
The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats: Inspired by Asian art, haiku and his experience of anti-Semitism and
poverty in his youth, Keats, the award-winning Brooklyn author and illustrator
of beloved children’s books, created the first full-color picture book with an
African-American protagonist, a work produced at the height of the civil rights
movement (Nov. 15-Feb. 24, 2013).

Article source: http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=general&article=177

In China, James Cameron’s movie “Avatar” was so popular and its message seen as so subversive that the government suppressed its presence in movie theaters and came out with its own blockbuster alternative about the exploits of ancient scholar “Confucius,” known for promoting obediance to tradition. Modern China has developed its own cultural superstars, but Western entertainment also has an overwhelming presence in the country, from movies to pop music. Recently, this tide of Western culture has spurred the Communist Party towards some new posturing against it — according to Reuters, in the latest issue of the party’s “top theoretical journal,” “Seeking Truth,” Chinese president and general secretary of the Communist Party Hu Jintao published an inflammatory essay decrying Western influence, describing what he sees as an escalating culture war.

“We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration,” Hu said. The president’s essay is meant to fortify Chinese cultural production along the pre-established lines of party politics. But what could the motivation for this tough new policy line? Below, ARTINFO discusses three implications of these new rumblings.

The Communist Party Is Worried About Losing Its Grip

The notion that the party is concerned about the intrusion of overly Western culture is not new — the paranoia of influence is encoded in the party’s DNA, since it began out of a struggle to cast off Western colonizers. So why is Hu taking this moment in particular to call out the West? One reason might be that the party is worried about losing its grip on increasingly global Chinese citizens during a time of internal instability. Hu is leaving his post as the party’s general secretary in 2013, and along with him, “seven of the nine members of the party’s highest decision making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, are expected to retire,” points out Critically China. This includes current premier Wen Jiabao, whose most likely replacement is vice-premier Li Keqiang.

The Chinese government’s recent activities — among them arresting dissident artist Ai Weiwei and cracking down on protests in the western Muslim region of Xinjiang — leave little room for hope that the party is softening on freedom of speech. To make sure their policies are continued, Hu and Wen must ensure that their successors toe the line, which this public statement may help promote.

More Government Funding for ‘Correct’ Cultural Production

Hu’s essay is more defensive than offensive: he calls on Chinese culture to protect and reinforce itself against Western intrusion. To that end, Hu writes that Chinese cultural producers should focus on creating arts and entertainment that can attract the attention of mainstream China, and meet the “growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people.” In other words, China’s artists, filmmakers, and musicians must outdo the West. This could mean a renaissance for locally developed culture, but more likely it means that the funding in the party’s coffers will flow freely only to enterprises that they approve of, with less than outstanding effects.

This move would have clear precedents: the formerly provocative film director Zhang Yimou, who now enjoys the party’s full support, was commissioned to direct the 2010 Beijing Olympics’s blockbuster opening ceremony, a tremendous spectacle that served as a statement of China’s cultural might. A  more unfortunate example is China’s aforementioned answer to “Avatar,” the historically minded period piece “Confucius,” which proved to be an epic bomb. Think: more re-education, less fun.

Further Censorship?

Despite his defensive posture, Hu’s language is forthright. Of the culture war, he writes, “We must clearly recognize the seriousness and difficulty of this struggle, sound the alarm bell… and take effective measures to deal with it.” What these ominous “effective measures” might be is unclear, but the current measures employed by China to restrict free speech are well known — the Internet-restricting Great Firewall, police intimidation for those willing to speak out, and disappearance for repeat offenders. With Hu’s intensified line, these policies could get worse. Just as the government yanked “Avatar” from theaters after it became a rallying cry against Chinese developers evicting people from their land, the party could pull access to other forms of Western media (or anything that smacks of Western values like democracy — last year, the Party canceled the show reality contest show “Happy Girl,” allegedly because audience voting smacked too much of democracy).

The good news is, though, that Internet-savvy Chinese have always been able to find a way around the Great Firewall, and it’s pretty hard for the government to monitor the contents of every pirated DVD. And there are a lot of pirated DVDs in China.   

Article source: http://artinfo.com/news/story/755039/what-hu-jintaos-new-manifesto-against-western-culture-could-mean-for-chinese-arts

Courtesy of Tim Matheson

And so Godot has arrived.

After half a century of waiting, Samuel Beckett’s seminal work of absurdist theatre is firmly clasped in the hands of the establishment. Waiting for Godot, debuted in 1953, had once courted controversy for flaunting theatrical conventions.

Now, as acknowledged by Blackbird Theatre’s artistic director, John Wright, the play is as much part of the Western canon as Shakespeare.

Blackbird’s mounting of Godot is unfailingly faithful. The sparse, minimalist set gives reverence to Beckett’s instructions: “A country road. A tree. Evening.” With this production, Wright sets out to “give full value of the comic in this ‘tragicomedy’”, with reason.

Vladimir and Estragon, the bowler-clad vagabonds holding vigil for the eponymous Godot, claim some relation to Laurel and Hardy and the vaudeville tradition. The dialogue is replete with humour. Ranging from bawdy—as when Vladimir entertains the idea of suicide by hanging, “Hmm. It’d give us an erection”—to sly—when he refers to the auditorium as “that bog”.

Yet, the constant goodwill becomes straining. While some silliness with a rope inspired guffaws, the performance tries so hard to wring laughter from the audience with every line, only to be met with mixed results. The terror and desperation of the two protagonists are not always felt.

Simon Webb and Anthony F. Ingram give consistently stellar performances in the lead roles. The bickering duo display convincing chemistry, abusing and amusing each other as they wait. Webb’s Estragon, in particular, was excellent, subtly shifting from anguish to ennui to hope, and pronouncing his ruminations with just the right weight.

As the imperious buffoon Pozzo, who interrupts the pair’s vigil, William Samples gives an appropriately hammy turn. However, it was his abused servant Lucky, played by Adam Henderson, that nearly stole the show. In his lengthy monologue, Henderson delivers the hodgepodge of legal and philosophical jargon as if he was flailing on the verge of lucidity.

Blackbird’s Godot is a perfectly competent rendering of a classic and an unfortunate reminder that becoming a classic is not without its costs. Vivian Mercier had famously praised Godot for having “achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats.”

But, there was a detectable restlessness and audible rustling in the auditorium. For the modern audience, could it be that a play known for being outré and iconoclastic is now, dare I say it, too safe?

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Article source: http://ubyssey.ca/culture/waiting-for-godot-vancouver-6631/

WASHINGTON – The Marriott Wardman Park hotel here last week was swarming with philosophers.

Women were in the distinct minority — and as a controversial event, a reception sometimes referred to as “the smoker,” was getting started Wednesday night at the American Philosophical Association’s Eastern Division meeting, a fair number of women could be seen leaving the hotel. They were generally of an age at which they were more likely to be on search committees than seeking jobs.

Over the years, the reception at the APA eastern conference has functioned as a job fair of sorts, where, over free-flowing booze, candidates talk to potential employers.

For weeks, philosophy blogs had been alive with discussions about how women job candidates feel vulnerable at the reception, how some of them had been hit on as they talked to recruiters, and the sheer awkwardness of trying to navigate job interviews with a beer bottle in hand. While many disciplinary meetings feature departmental receptions, they tend to be for alumni gatherings and outreach as much as anything; the philosophy reception is one event where candidates say they are urged to schmooze simultaneously with hiring committees, random others, and competitors for the jobs they want.

Jennifer Saul, head of the philosophy department at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, who runs a blog about being a woman in philosophy, said she avoids the reception like the plague. Rebecca Kukla, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University, said she — and her university — would not be there either.

But despite the swirling conversations online and the women philosophers who chose not to attend, 86 universities had paid for tables at the reception.

“Free beer,” announced a man checking badges at the door when the doors to the cavernous Marriott ballroom opened at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

“Sweet,” said a waiting grad student.

The smoker was on. (While the event’s official name has not been “the smoker” for years, that remains the way many refer to it.)

Many designated tables remained empty an hour after the event had started. Out in front of the ballroom stood the candidates, making small talk as they eyed other candidates and tried to figure out who was talking to whom. Some wandered aimlessly, bottle in hand.

By 10 p.m., the “interviewing” had begun in earnest. The candidates milled around the circular tables. Some could be seen rushing out, stopping en route to drink a glass of water before exiting the smoker.

Defenders of the smoker have said that it’s a pleasant and efficient way for job candidates and hiring committees to mingle — and that most candidates don’t mind. But interviews with those on the candidate side here suggest that most find the situation unpleasant at best, but feel they have no choice but to attend.

A female graduate student said she had heard horror stories about the reception. But she wanted a job, and there was no way she was going to miss an opportunity to network.

“There is a big power divide here,” she said. “The women are younger and many are looking for jobs. The men are more established.”

Men, both young and old, far outnumbered the women at the ballroom, a reflection of the gender imbalance in philosophy, where about 25 percent of faculty members are women.

Another woman, from a Midwestern university, felt that a candidate’s chances might be hurt if she did not show up for the reception.  Her voice then dropped to a conspiratorial whisper: “If you have an interview the next day, do not talk to them now.”

When this reporter approached another grad student, she declined to talk. “I just can’t take the risk,” she said.

Amidst this hubbub of anxiety, David Schrader, the executive director of the APA, walked around shaking hands and making conversation.

He pointed to the lights and said “not dim”, referencing a blog post where a pregnant job candidate had complained about the minimal lighting at the smoker.

He said the reception played an important role and enabled colleagues to socialize. “I’m planning on stopping by some of the tables myself, to see how some of my friends are doing,” Schrader said.

He noted the concerns of some women and said there had been informal discussions at the APA. Some had suggested a cash bar instead of free alcohol as a way of tempering bad behavior by making it a bit difficult to drink too much. (A similar reception Thursday evening had a cash bar.)

“There are a few who will misbehave,” he said. “We are not sure if we can do anything about the placement process spilling over to a reception or whether we can ask job candidates not to talk to an institution in a social setting.”

Schrader said there were plenty of female philosophers who were comfortable at the reception and had not raised the issues mentioned in the blogs.

Even so, changes may be in the offing. Jeff Bell, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University, who also contributes to the New Apps blog, said there was a petition circulating at the conference that asked for the smoker to be reformed. “We could even do the first round of interviews on Skype, to make it easier for candidates,” he said.

Article source: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/03/controversial-philosophy-reception-goes

Faced with the sticker shock of organic vegetables last summer, Julie Bass of Oak Park, Mich. decided to take matters, and a trowel, into her own hands. Growing some of her own, she figured, would be a way to increase her family’s consumption of fresh and local vegetables, stretch her limited food budget and get some exercise. She constructed raised beds, planted seeds and before long was tending vigorously growing plants.

Because her garden was in front of her house, it attracted attention around the neighborhood. Soon kids up and down the street were helping out and having fun to boot.

Bass’ new front yard look also attracted the attention of city officials, who were no fun. They issued Bass a warning, then a ticket, and finally charged her with a misdemeanor. She faced a possible 93-day jail sentence. A veggie garden, they claimed, violated the city code because only suitable, live plant material can occupy the front yard. Vegetables, while obviously live plant material, are apparently not considered “suitable.”

Growing vegetables, even in front of one’s house, hardly seems criminal activity. What harm would a garden plot do? And considering the potential immediate health and economic benefits, shouldn’t local ordinances encourage them?

It turns out that there are plenty of reasons to fear such gardens. They are indeed a threat. Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, sees gardening for the subversive activity that it is.

Food, Doiron claims, is not only a form of energy (it fuels our bodies), but also a source of power. When people grow some of their own food, they’re taking power into their own hands: “Power over their diets, power over their health, and some power over their pocketbooks.”

When someone takes power, someone else loses some. The very core of subversion. Big actors in our society today wield enormous power over our health and food supply. Gardening means having very direct control over at least some of your food and the means to produce it.

Gardening also represents what Doiron calls a sort of “healthy gateway drug” that can lead to “other sorts of food freedom.”

“Not long after you plant a garden”, he says, “you start of say, ‘Hey, I need to learn how to cook!’”

Before you know it you’re looking into food preservation, freezing some of those greens or squash you can’t keep up with or sun-drying those proliferating Sun Gold tomatoes. Soon you’re becoming a regular at the nearest farmers’ market to supplement your private harvest and trading with other kitchen gardeners.

Now is the perfect time to plan your subversive plot. Cozy up in front of the fire with seed catalogues. They make terrific reading and are guaranteed to get the gardening juices flowing. Talk with neighbors about a group seed purchase.

Don’t have a green thumb? Grow one.

One of our national treasures is the Cooperative Extension system with its offices in nearly every county and affiliated with Cornell. Resources for the novice or experienced gardener can be found on your County Extension website. Search http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/counties.html for nearby resources including the internationally recognized Master Gardener Volunteers program, perfect for the home or community gardener.

The Kitchen Gardeners International website offers a forum of gardeners from around the world and resources to learn how to grow and cook delicious foods.

The extension system, KGI, the Nation Gardeners Association and the Rodale Institute, among other resources, will help us face one of the world’s biggest challenges: producing enough food for a growing population with less water, energy, land and climate stability.

Today, home gardens produce probably less than 2 percent of the vegetables Americans eat. But at the height of the Victory Garden era in the 1940s, vegetable plots at private residences and public parks produced a whopping 40 percent of vegetables consumed nationally.

Convert some grass to vegetables this spring. Start planning now. Your health, household food budget and community will be better off.

And have no fear. A district court judge cleared Julie Bass of all charges relating to her garden.

Jennifer Wilkins, Ph.D., R.D., is the community coordinator and instructor for the Cornell University Dietetic Internship Program. Her email address is jlw15@cornell.edu.

Article source: http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Plant-those-seeds-of-subversion-2434207.php

Article source: http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=10087

But whatever happened to authentically scary, sewer-mouthed, gutter-glam fierceness? That endangered but not extinct form of alternative entertainment has a resplendently tacky old-school flag bearer in Lady Bunny, frugging with infectious abandon on a toxic cloud of Aqua Net in her first cabaret show in 10 years, “That Ain’t No Lady!”

Playing Tuesdays at La Escuelita Cabaret Theater, this 90-minute set of filthy stand-up and pornographic song parodies strives to awaken the ghosts of a pre-sanitized Times Square. After an opening mash-up of X-rated Katy Perry revisions, the Lady warns, “That concludes the PG portion of tonight’s entertainment.” She’s not kidding. Much of what follows makes “The Book of Mormon” seem like “Bambi.”

Founder of the defunct annual outdoor drag festival Wigstock, Lady Bunny has remained faithful to her signature look, which calls to mind Dusty Springfield rendered as a Thanksgiving parade float on fabulous gams. She and her gargantuan bouffant became New York club fixtures in the 1980s and have since gone on to wider notoriety, recently as Dean of Drag on “RuPaul’s Drag U.” But Bunny is best experienced in a filter-free environment with shirtless cocktail waiters.

She resurrects the “Laugh-In” quickie joke-a-thon format, punctuating her zingers with limber go-go moves, and dips into a seemingly inexhaustible repertory of pop desecrations old and new. She employs video assists to perform her debauched rap parody of Far East Movement’s “Like a G6” and Cher’s “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” helpfully recapping the plot of “Burlesque” for the millions of us who missed it. While her Amy Winehouse tribute is perhaps not the most reverent, one gets the distinct impression that Ms. Winehouse would have been tickled.

Most of Lady Bunny’s best lines are unprintable here, but more than any performer I saw this year “the old pig in a wig,” as she calls herself, made me weep with laughter, often while groaning with disgust. And isn’t that what the best low comedy is all about?

Article source: http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/theater/reviews/lady-bunny-in-that-aint-no-lady-at-la-escuelita-review.html

A SLICE of punk life will be unveiled in Cardiff next month with the staging of a retrospective exhibition looking at the movement that marked a seismic shift in popular music.

The emergence of punk in the mid-1970s was an epochal moment in contemporary popular culture, dramatically changing the game, moving the goal posts and overturning much of the then current overblown and pretentious music of the day.

The prevailing trends at that time lent towards triple theme albums so beloved of progressive rock giants such as Genesis, Yes and Emerson, Lake And Palmer.

There was, of course, some good music around too but punk gave everything in its way a much needed and hefty kick in the pants.

This exhibition has its source in an extensive and carefully compiled archive of related graphics, prints, photographs and memorabilia collected by Gerrion Jones since the early days of punk in 1976 when he travelled as a teenager with some of the most famous groups from this period.

The material covers all its aspects and colours looking at how punk changed the world and evolved from its beginnings to the present day.

“The whole story is told via rare and original work created by artists such as Jamie Reid, James Cauty and Billy Childish, as well as posters of many bands including The Clash, The Damned, The Sex Pistols, above, and more,” explains Gerrion, who was born in Merthyr in 1963 and lived on the Gurnos estate for more than 25 years.

He initially had the idea for Punk Forever as a three-day exhibition to be held at Merthyr Tydfil College. It included many pieces of subversive and destructive art as well as film footage about the evolution of punk. The exhibition was extended from the original three days to six weeks – during that time it attracted more than 1,500 visitors.

Now those who missed the exhibition in Merthyr have a chance to view it when it opens at the Howard Gardens Gallery at the Cardiff School of Art and Design.

Punk Art Forever runs at the Howard Gardens Gallery from Thursday, January 12 until Thursday, February 2. The gallery is open Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm. Entrance is free.

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Article source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/showbiz/2011/12/22/preview-punk-art-forever-howard-gardens-gallery-cardiff-91466-29990829/

The Daily Beast:

Around holiday time, you’ve got to envy the Norwegians. They’ve got real candles on the tree, gobbets of pork fat for Christmas dinner (these are euphemistically known as “ribs”) and aquavit to feed the glow. This year, as an extra Yuletide treat just for them, they’re also getting fresh insights into the most influential artwork of the 20th century.

That’s how Marcel Duchamp’s urinal “Fountain” once polled among experts, and we’re all supposed to know why: In 1917, when Duchamp submitted a store-bought urinal to a New York exhibition, he took a low-end piece of mechanical mass production and, by fiat, elevated it to the status of fine art. All the genre-bending, class-stretching, anti-craft freedoms of contemporary art follow from that moment.


Read the whole story: The Daily Beast

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Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/duchamps-fountain-was-sub_n_1163245.html