Gutai: Splendid Playground, now on view at the Guggenheim until May 8, 2013, showcases the artistic experimentation and engaged aesthetics of the Gutai Art Association, postwar Japan’s most influential avant-garde collective. The group’s name, “Gutai,” translates as “concreteness,” and its members sought to confront and… Read More
The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a special exhibition highlighting the African works acquired by the New York avant-garde and its most influential patrons during the 1910s and 1920s. At the beginning of the 20th century, the appreciation of African artifacts in the West shifted… Read More
Sound artist and architect Machinist, a.k.a. Zeno van den Broek is fascinated by spaces. In his music, video art and paintings, he is always looking for ways to create new spatial experiences. Together with Lasse Gerrits and Sven Schlijper, Zeno founded PAUME; a Platform for… Read More
This summer, the Whitney Museum of American Art presents Oskar Fischinger: Space Light Art – A Film Environment, on view from June 28 to October 28, 2012. The exhibition is curated by Chrissie Iles, the Whitney’s Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator, in association with Cindy… Read More
Alexander Rodchenko, the Russian avant-garde artist, abandoned painting in the early 1920s in favour of photography. He was convinced it would better express the new visual and social realities emerging at that time. His experiments in photography and photo-collage influenced artists and photographers throughout the… Read More
Ubu found a tape from legendary Charlotte Moorman‘s old answering machine. It recorded all kinds of sweet messages from some of her friends, including John Lennon, Yoko Ono and John Cage. A fascinating recording from the private life of a mayor artist. The highlight has to… Read More
In Tango with Cows: Ferro-Concrete Poems (Tango s korovami: Zhelezobetonnye poemy), poetry and cover by Vasily Kamensky, imagery by David and Vladimir Burliuk (Moscow, 1914)Vasily Kamensky, 1914, The Getty Research Institute MetaFilter: “Tango With Cowsis an exhibition by the Getty Museum of the book art… Read More
ARTnews: “With invented provenances, unreliable certificates of authenticity, and “rediscovered” works by artists who are lost to history, forgers are flooding galleries and auction houses with Russian avant-garde fakes. A six-month ARTnews investigation reveals that inauthentic works now outnumber authentic ones”
BBC Podcast: “The term avant-garde is no longer considered de rigueur as a description of boundary-testing artists, but that does not mean that an artistic underground has ceased to exist. However, finding out about those artists who test the boundaries of their art is not… Read More
(Video from 1962) Wikipedia: “Christiaan Karel Appel (25 April 1921 – 3 May 2006) was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was one of the founders… Read More
