August 27, 2009
Maybe both. And that’s a good thing. Nearly 30 years after the U.S. artist barged on the scene with “readymade”-style installations (a basketball floating in an aquarium) and seemingly kitschy artifacts (a gaudy sculpture of “Michael Jackson with Bubbles” the chimp), cynics are still saying, “That’s not art, that’s just a guy making money.” Koons has certainly made a lot of it. In 2007 Luxist declared him the world’s top-selling auction artist. But an exhibit soon to close at London’s Serpentine Gallery yet again puts Koons squarely in the legitimate pop-art tradition of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and – the absolute pioneer- Robert Rauschenberg. “Triple Popeye” is a wide-eyed play on pop surfaces.
And it’s funny. Is Koons’ work merely “kitsch”? That is, does it poke fun of art for people with unsophisticated tastes? Koons said no, in a recent interview with The Daily Beast’s Anthony Haden-Guest: “I don’t believe in kitsch if the word is used to make judgment and to segregate. My work really embraces. No judgments.”
Make your own judgment. “Michael Jackson with Bubbles” is on display at L.A.’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum. And a 70-foot replica of a steaming locomotive, suspended 160-feet in the air, is coming to L.A. County Museum of Art in four years.
Here’s a gallery of recent work.
August 25, 2009
Finally. People are drinking less bottled water. Nestle recently reported nearly a 5 percent drop in sales of Poland Spring, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, and Deer Park. Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani had weakening sales as well. It’s about time, according to Boston Globe’s Derrick Z. Jackson. He reminds us: not only is most bottled water straight from municipal taps, but “the energy costs of delivering bottled water to a consumer in Los Angeles were 1,100 to 2,000 times more than the energy cost of tap water, depending on how far away the filled bottles traveled.” Add to this wasted energy, the pure waste of bottles themselves: three-quarters of water bottles end up in landfills.
Also today, Daily Finance riffs of a recent Mother Jones article about Fiji Water. This company, apparently, has cozied up to the island of Fiji’s military dictatorship in its efforts to Read More
August 20, 2009
The economy is struggling to regain its footing everywhere, but polls show Southern states remain hardest-hit in some categories. That includes healthcare. A new Gallup poll shows higher percentages of Texas, New Mexico, and Mississippi residents are without health insurance — roughly one in four — than is true for any other states in the U.S.” New England states tend to be best off, with Massachusetts – where all residents are required to carry health coverage – home to just 5.5% without insurance . That is lowest in the country. (California clocks in at 21%, pretty shabby.) So how do low rates of uninsured compare with attitudes toward insurance reform? Huffington Post connected the dots and linked Gallup with a Daily Kos poll. It shows more people in the South and Midwest are more prone to believe healthcare reform myths than are other regions. 26 percent of Southerners said they think President Obama and Congress are proposing “death panels,” requiring elderly patients to meet with government officials and be subject euthanasia. The death panel charge – completely false – was made popular by ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and promoted by right-wing media such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. No major Republican leader has come forward to refute the charge.
August 19, 2009
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has released news on how the Federal Stimulus Act can green the economy and school buildings at once. “Students gain directly from more comfortable environments because they improve learning outcomes,” says Tim Dufault, chair of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on Architecture for Education and president of Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A. (as quoted in Reuters news service and green websites such as Matter Network).
Dufault points to studies showing that better lighting, ventilation and indoor air-quality in schools contribute to higher student achievement. Of course, the economy is choking funds to school districts across the country. But the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February, allocated $53.6 billion to school modernization. Now’s your chance, districts.
Pictured: The Watts Learning Center, sustainably designed by Cuningham Group Architecture.
August 12, 2009
In the light of mega bank bailouts, and the bad P.R. that has haunted AIG and other institutions when they have held corporate events, this was probably the next step: These banks are still sponsoring events and holding retreats… only now as quietly and ashamedly as possible. According to the New York Times’ Leslie Wayne, at last week’s U.S. Open golf tournament, “Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley all brought clients to watch the tournament and dine at a buffet and open bar.” Together, the banks paid $1/4 million for tables in the Heritage Club at the Bethpage Black private club. But they tried real hard not let anyone know they were there, for fear of public backlash. No logos, no big signs, no free coffee mugs. The biggest trend, says one event planner, “is Read More
August 11, 2009
Blog Downtown previews L.A.’s monthly Downtown Art Walk. The event is always a peak street experience, with dozens of galleries and thousands of art peeps. The blog’s lead item to preview? The event at Gary Leonard’s Take My Picture gallery (860 S. Broadway). Photographer Leonard’s gallery will host “a cross night of Real Estate and Advertising poetry alongside ‘The Billboard Show: Selling the So-Cal Lifestyle. Photographic Landscapes of the 1950s and 1960s.’ ” Blog Downtown goes on to note that this event, Ad/Verse Reactions, will feature Ed Rosenthal, the Poetbroker of Downtown Los Angeles performing real estate poetry, and, Jack Skelley, Senior VP of Paolucci Communication Arts (and Hot Sheet editor), performing advertising poetry. Providing music are members of The French Semester, who just returned from Europe and a gig at Joel Bloom Square. MC for the experience is Tom Gilmore, developer/mayor of the Old Bank District.
August 10, 2009
Associated Press, the world’s largest news wire service, recently announced it would try to crack down on websites using its stories for content unless they pay for them. Like many industries – from music business to the porn business - free online content is devastating the news business, with large aggregator sites like Huffington Post linking to stories from around the world, including AP stories to which they didn’t subscribe. AP plans to use digital rights management (DRM, which the film and music industry also employ) to track down the culprits. But AP’s main rival is doing the opposite: Chris Ahearn, President, Media, at Thomson Reuters, is embracing what he calls “the link economy.” Jabbing at AP Chairman William Dean Singleton, Ahearn wrote in his blog last week, “Please feel free to link to our stories – it adds value to all producers of content. Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations across Read More
August 6, 2009
Someone had to do it. But did it have to be Wal-Mart? That is, create a sustainability index measuring the environmental friendliness of consumer products. According to Inhabitat, “Wal-Mart is working with the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University to begin a Sustainability Consortium, which will provide the academic research to back up their efforts.” Mega brands such as Proctor & Gamble have been asked to join the consortium of groups participating in the rating system, as have competing retailers such as Target. The idea is pressure brands to measure their environmental impact, in the same way Wal-Mart already pressures brands to reduce prices if they want to get sold by the world’s most powerful retailer. According to Slate magazine, “Wal-Mart plans to use a tool known as Read More
August 5, 2009
Sure, it’s hard to pick one. But the Guggenheim museum – with the best Kandinsky collection anywhere, and the closest personal connection to the 20th century Modernist master – will help us make up our minds in September. That’s when the New York museum opens the first, full-scale retrospective of Kandinsky’s career in the United States since 1985. There’s nothing like ascending the spiral, Frank Lloyd Wright galleries of the Guggenheim to be transported by Kandinsky’s paintings.
August 4, 2009
Americans with health insurance are getting squeezed. Meanwhile those thrown off the rolls or who can’t afford it are dying by the thousands. Insurance reform is at the top of concerns in most polling. So why are Congressional reform advocates seemingly losing the public debate? Well, besides the fact that lobbyists have watered down proposed legislation - making it hard for anyone to get behind the cause – the ads created by reform advocates are just lame, according to L.A. Times advertising maven Dan Neil: “The insurance industry’s ads are more effective. They are big, scary, threatening. Reform gets rolled like the British at the Somme by this ad. Liberal progressives and advocates are going to have to get down and dirty if they want to win this fight.”
