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Artscope Magazine | May/June 2021

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Featured

THE BUSINESS OF ART: NFT’S ON THE MARK?

// Artscope Online, Featured, News, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

On March 11, 2021, a 10 second video clip by video artist Beeble, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was sold by Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriquez-Fraile for $69,346,250 in Ethereum Digital currency. He had bought it in October 2020 for $67,000 making quite a nice profit less than a year later. No one to date has bought NFT’s (non-fungible tokens) for their aesthetic value, although Beeble’s work is quite beautiful. “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” a collage of 5000 images produced over 33 years by Beeble, is a unique string of code called a non-fungible token (NFT). Unique to the buyer/owner, it cannot be reproduced or sent to anyone else. Consequently, the artwork can only be viewed by the purchaser, on their computer, or projected on their wall. It carries on the tradition of the Renaissance fresco, only viewable in the Medici or Sforza palace or church, and transferable for … [Read more...] about THE BUSINESS OF ART: NFT’S ON THE MARK?

CURRENT | UNDERCURRENT: PRESSING ISSUES SPOTLIGHTED AT UMASS AMHERST SHOW

// Current Issue, Featured, March/April 2021

by Hannah Carrigan

In “CURRENT|UNDERCURRENT,” an online show at UMass Amherst’s Hampden Gallery on view through May 14, both the acute and the latent pains of an unequal and unhealed America are exposed, dissected and felt. The exhibition, curated by Linda Griggs and M. Charlene Stevens, is overtly personal and political; consequently, it lends itself to vastly different viewing experiences. The show begins with works curated by Griggs which are organized into four themes: the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice, climate change and the economy. These themes reflect “the four key points that then President-elect Biden vowed to address on his first day in office,” and many intersect across and within individual works. The first piece in the exhibition, Christina Marsh’s “One Drop,” features 100 cups containing various shades of chocolate milk. The cups sit in rows on a white painted floor, each … [Read more...] about CURRENT | UNDERCURRENT: PRESSING ISSUES SPOTLIGHTED AT UMASS AMHERST SHOW

SEEING PAST THE PANDEMIC: ROBERT DUGRENIER’S GLASS ART IN VERMONT

// Artscope Online, Featured, Visual Arts

by Marta Pauer-Tursi

If you traveled abroad before the pandemic, you may have stopped in at the Paris Ritz and been awed by the round frosted glass elevator shaft that depicts scenes from the Napoleonic Wars, or perhaps the glass chandeliers at the Divan Hotel in Istanbul, or the serpentine glass installation that runs the length of the bar at London’s Dorchester Hotel. All of those are Townshend, Vermont artist Robert DuGrenier’s work. And that’s only a small sampling of his oeuvre. For more than 30 years, DuGrenier has worked from his glassblowing studio in Vermont and a secondary space in New York City. To say that DuGrenier is a prolific artist, is like saying Tiffany’s sells jewelry — where, in fact, DuGrenier’s work is available. When the pandemic hit last March and shutdowns and stay-at-home orders became the norm, DuGrenier, like many artists, found that his scheduled exhibitions were … [Read more...] about SEEING PAST THE PANDEMIC: ROBERT DUGRENIER’S GLASS ART IN VERMONT

NANCY NESVET’S INS AND OUTS 2020/2021

// Artscope Online, Community, Featured

by Nancy Nesvet

Welcome to 2021, although the bounties of 2021 will not begin until the 20th of January and the second and third quarters of the year. As I compile, at Artscope, my hopes and predictions for 2021, and heartily throw out the disasters of 2020, I’m also contemplative in assessing the larger reasons for changes in the art world, our smaller, but no less important or reflective part of the greater world. 2021 will see Trump and Pence out, and Biden and Harris in, the present First Lady out, and the new First Teacher in, the first Vice President of mixed race, Black and brown in; the Second Lady out, and the Second Gentleman in. Red is hopefully all out, blue all in. Jello shots are out; Covid-19 vaccine shots in. Claims of the biggest inaugural crowd ever are out, and plans for the smallest inaugural crowd ever are in. As we pursue our lone lifestyles, ordering for one — or … [Read more...] about NANCY NESVET’S INS AND OUTS 2020/2021

INTERVIEW: BARBARA ROSE TALKS WITH DON KIMES

// Artscope Online, Featured, Interview, News, Visual Arts

by Barbara Rose

I met Don Kimes in the Nineties and have watched his work develop and change over time in response to both personal and artistic challenges. We have had an ongoing dialogue ever since. Recently I saw the work he is including in his exhibition at Denise Bibro Gallery in New York City and we had a chance to talk about how he views his own work and the contemporary art scene in general. Barbara Rose: How Do you feel your work is related to current practice? Don Kimes: Current practice is wide open. Anything, anywhere, without fixed judgement and dependent only upon personal circumstance and acuity. I still tend to wince at the word “practice”, like it’s an out of place interlocutor in the lexicon, though it became commonly used overnight. But it sounds like a nod to the professions, like being a dentist or an attorney, like I should hang a brass shingle outside my studio door with the … [Read more...] about INTERVIEW: BARBARA ROSE TALKS WITH DON KIMES

JUDY CHICAGO’S ACT OF PRESERVATION: FEMINIST ART ARCHIVES ONLINE AND IN WASHINGTON

// Featured, November/December 2019, November/December 2019, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

On October 17, 80-year-old artist Judy Chicago launched a research portal preserving her archive of feminist art at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The portal will serve to bridge collections of Chicago’s work located at Penn State University, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. , and Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library. Some background: In an early work, “The Dinner Party,” now based at the Brooklyn Museum, Chicago resurrected renowned women of the past and gave them a seat at the formerly men’s-only table. In the “Birth Project,” pieces of which now belong to several permanent museum, university and college collections, she treated the topic of birth from all angles, analyzing and commenting on the process. She dealt with the deaths of her first husband and father, in “Bigamy Hood,” part of her “Car Hood” series. In her … [Read more...] about JUDY CHICAGO’S ACT OF PRESERVATION: FEMINIST ART ARCHIVES ONLINE AND IN WASHINGTON