I Attended a Screening of Iron Man 2 Last Night

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Well, Pepper Potts has a thing for modern art: I noticed, not only the Barnett Newman she alludes to, but also a Motherwell and a very nice Giacometti.

There is a funny little scene when the very vain Tony Stark, having sold off half of the corporate art collection, pushes his luck by removing the Barnett Newman from the wall and replacing it with a poster of IRONMAN done in the style of Shepard Fairey.

I wonder if, within a round of art collecting jokes, it is fair use to copy Fairey’s now very recognizable treatment of the notorious Obama photo?

Oh and the fight scenes with Scarlett Johanson? Amazing.

ESSAY: How to Say Hirst Was First

Making history is not easy, and not for the faint of heart. Damien Hirst’s biggest first was this: he addressed a topic most artist wouldn’t touch: money.

TREND: Street Art, Outsider Art, and URGENCY

With all the Banksy, Fairey hubub this year, all the Darger-loving last year, and the current, frequent calls by curators for art that’s made from a sense of “urgency,” I’m taking away the message that art’s new direction lies in a reaction against (<– always a good jumping off point for a convo about art) academic, heavily conceptual art on the one hand, and factory style, assistant/money-driven art on the other hand.

So, out with the Gregg Crewdson budget, the Jeff Koons assembly line, the Damien Hirst branding, and in with the heartfelt scrawls and scribbles, or hard-won wheatpaste murals.

Artists Cut Out The Middleman

Crump’s work looks a lot like Philip Guston with it’s goofy graceless forms. It’s got a bit of the Carrol Dunham about it as well. With a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, Crump’s colorful spacemen and robots lay no claim to any high concepts, but Crump does try “infuse ideas about the mind into the paintings.”

Quote of the Day: Mary Boone

“Get them into debt … Get them to buy lots of houses, … get expensive habits and expensive girlfriends and expensive wives.”
~ Mary Boone (on how to get artists to produce)