Hi Crowd!
Here’s a quick roundup of a bunch of ArtBasel reports because I wasn’t at ArtBasel and have to live vicariously through all the reports from people who were at ArtBasel and also distract myself from that by playing The LA Trail way too much. This of course is a fun new remake of The Oregon Trail, but in modern day LA and made by the artist CloudVamp who has an incredible website you should visit. Speaking of incredible artist websites, Rudxane just launched a new one and it’s probably my favorite artist website I’ve seen in ages. Immediately thinking about how to rip it off. It’s that good. His current participant driven work Residual Notes is also worth diving into.
So onto Basel. There’s an abfab overview in The Observer talking about what curators Eli Sheinman & Trevor Paglen are trying to get at with the historical framing at Zero 10. With his Le Random piece Let the Barbarians In, Peter Bauman reflects on the framing of several meta-conversations and questions who the barbarians in this situation really are, the gates in question, and who should have access to what. If that’s not enough, and no that’s not enough,
Museum Ghost has a fair diary which is thoughtful and considered, and kind of shows how what was attempted was received. It’s a nice round trip.
In non-fair art news fellowship talked to Sougwen Chung about her ongoing practice and resulting work, JM Phaihon talks about the (ongoing) shaping of the digital art cannon, and Shepard Fairey did the cover for Time’s celebration of the USA’s 250th birthday, a challenging task in today’s climate which I think nailed. His thoughts about the work are here.
To end on a low note, I just learned that we lost Om. It feels like he’s been a constant voice in my head for 20+ years now, either through his articles, newsletter(s) or friendly face when we crossed paths. I had many thoughtful conversations with him over coffee in SF, and he was a constant voice of reason on so many things. He will truly be missed. This on the heels of separate but similar news from old friends yesterday, not the kind of week I like but sadly more common as we all keep getting older.
-s