November 19, 2008. From Artforum.com, and also from from Christian Science Monitor photo feed.

THE WAY THINGS GO
20 November to 20 December 2008

Python is a popular programming language that makes a chunk of our world
work, but not always dependably. It runs youtube.com and is a staple of
Google and Wall Street. It is named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and
by tradition, examples showing how to use the language quote from Monty

PIPILOTTI RIST
Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)
November 19, 2008–February 2, 2009
Museum of Modern Art, Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, second floor

Tuesday, November 18, 2008. Don't look now, but MoMA seems to be entering the Relational Aesthetics sweepstakes with their installation of Pipilotti Rist's Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters). It opens about a month after the Guggenheim's group foray into RA, theanyspacewhatever.

I missed today's press opening, but as Rist outlines the project in the attached video, she definitely envisions it as an interactive work. She wants people to "bring their bodies to the museum", to come into the huge atrium and feel "stretched". She hopes to "redirect" the institution "to the body of the visitors". Her images, loaded onto hard disk and edited into various sequences, are arranged into seven distinct programs, thrown by seven banks of video projectors, to create a seamless 25-foot-high enveloping projection that covers all four walls.

In the center of the atrium is a large round seating and lounge area, a sofa that encloses a central padded platform with additional throw pillows. Rist feels that it resembles an eye, the dark interior pupil surrounded by a larger white circle. She expects people to orient themselves in various directions and in various postures as they watch her video unfold, and cites rolling, singing and the practice of yoga asanas as particularly apt viewing responses.

The video is ten minutes long and non-narrative, condensed from an original fifty minute loop. The protagonists include one human, one pig, several earthworms and two snails, and the soundtrack - squishy, synthesized "body" sounds in addition to a more melodic portion - will be played by speakers arranged within the seating area, to better contain the work within the museum. Pour Your Body Out uses shots and sequences from a narrative feature film that Rist plans to release in 2009.

Investigating ruptures in the art poltical grid

Submissions

Nictoglobe accepts submissions the year around

Currently we ask for submissions for our Winter 2009 issue, related to but not exclusively confined to:

::: Investigating ruptures in the art political grid :::

Plazaville is a new media video art work. It is based on the classic 1965 movie Alphaville by Jean Luc Godard. It is set in 21st century New York City. The scenes from the original Alphaville are being re-enacted, interpreted and improvised upon by the artists, actors and videographers. The piece uses the internet as one means of distributing the short video clips. This is somewhat like a serialized program but is not in any order. Viewers can download new scenes as they become available on iTunes and youTube. The videos can be viewed on iPhones, computers and large screen HD televisions.

My comments on Seven Days in the Art World, a new book by Sarah Thornton published by W. W. Norton, appear below the cover image. They were first posted online in a thread on the book on Artworld Salon.

He said, she said. When Ms. Thornton indicates she "worked hard to gain access" I do believe her. She seems to have established first name basis, in relatively short order, with a whole slew of movers and shakers, from auction house honchos to art dealers, from globe hopping curators to critics and academics, from magazine editors to museum directors, from artists to collectors.

Jerry Saltz was allowed an overnight stay at the Guggenheim Museum in the context of theanyspacewhatever exhibition, which I have previously discussed on these pages, but have not yet seen.

My comments below were first posted online in response to his review of the exhibition, and the experience, in New York Magazine.

Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out
that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had
come to an end.

If, that is, they happened to read a "special edition" of today's New
York Times.

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million
papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged

By an executive order ironically announced on Election Day, the Bush administration opened up 360,000 acres of land in Utah to oil and natural gas drilling, scheduled to begin in December. One can only begin to wonder about the favors being paid back by this lame duck cowboy wannabee, and the harm he can still do as his powers diminish and his days are waning. It recalls Saruman in Lord of the Rings: even after he is dethroned and banished from his fortress, he still harbors enough residual malice to ravage the Shire.

http://www.lacoste.com/visionaire/

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this means. Zaha Hadid is designing shoes for Lacoste and I really want that Thomas Demand polo. So it seems as if I've found myself at some crossroad. As of this moment I don't know if the wearable magazine will be available at Macy's but we're having a big meeting Wednesday so maybe I'll know after that. But wouldn't Warhol be thrilled? Too bad he's dead.

If you would like to discuss the aesthetic implications of this I'm in residence at the Macy's Lacoste on 34th Street in New York, 2nd Floor Men's Store:

TUE 11/11 1:15 AM - 9:30 PM
WED 11/12 10 AM - 6 PM
THU 11/13 10 AM - 6 PM
MON 11/17 12:45 PM- 9:30 PM
TUE 11/18 8 AM - 4:45 PM
WED 11/19 2:15 PM - 11:00 PM
THU 11/20 10 AM - 6:45 PM
SAT 11/22 10 AM - 6:45 PM