Wednesday night, Chinese authorities released dissident artist Ai Weiwei on bail, and on condition that he not speak publicly about his 81-day detention at an undisclosed location. The state news agency, Xinhua, said police had released him "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes" and a chronic illness. In an interview before he was incarcerated, Mr. Ai said that his father, … Read the full Story >>
You are what you eat, how you coif, what you wear might be subtext for Lorenzo Vitturi’s Dalston Anatomy. One of the most talked about self-published books of 2013 (SPBH), it made most of the year-end top tens and was short-listed for the 2013 Paris Photo/Aperture Book Prize. This is a photo book as object, from its content—evocations of Vitturi’s gritty east London … Read the full Story >>
In June this year, DART contributing editor, Margaret Morton, reported on the takeover by pro-Russian separatists, of the Izolyatsia Foundation Art Center, in Donetsk, Ukraine. A month later, she reported that the separatists, who had turned the art center into a military training base, had also interfered with the international investigation of the Malaysian Airways Flight 17 crash site. Today she forwarded an article from … Read the full Story >>
At the Visa pour l’Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France, last September, World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch announced that they have set up a joint initiative to honor the late Tim Hetherington. The deadline for applications is October 15. The first recipient of the Tim Hetherington grant will be announced on 7 November. Left: Battle Company / Afghanistan Fire during an attack … Read the full Story >>
As they say, aging beats the alternative, but we still seem to have a difficult time dealing with it. Photography has recently been used as an instrument to explore issues of body image, including the inevitable process of aging and the pressure (from within and from society) to fight it. "As you start to go gray there's a lot of pressure not to be … Read the full Story >>
He was "one of the last myths of the golden age of photography." So notes L'Oeil de la Photographie in a tribute to Life magazine photographer and director of photography John Loengard, who passed away on May 24 at age 86. Loengard edited a number of books tracing the history of Life magazine and its greatest photographers. "Loengard was known in the business for … Read the full Story >>
Gary Baseman: The Door Is Always Open. Enter the fantastic world of artist, illustrator, animator, and toy designer Gary Baseman in this first major museum exhibition of his life and work, which opened yesterday in Los Angeles. On view through August 18, 2013, this exhibition features paintings, photographs, toys, sketchbooks, and videos. These are presented in a novel gallery setting that evokes Baseman’s childhood home, replete … Read the full Story >>
"I’m interested in the people that came to Hollywood full of dreams and hopes which never materialized and now eke out a hard living in the shadows of the 'Dream Factories' without being able to escape their field of gravity." —Michael Dressel Born in 1958, Michael Dressel grew up behind the Iron Curtain obsessed with film and desiring to be a painter. … Read the full Story >>
During the last several years, photographer Roger Ballen has created an increasingly fictionalized world. Founded in the documentary photography tradition, Ballen's hybrid view, which New York Times Magazine picture editor Kathy Ryan has called "a one-man school of photography," veers between portraying a remote world shaped by poverty and isolation to an increasingly surreal universe where people have largely retreated from the scene. Ballen, … Read the full Story >>
When disaster strikes, whom should you listen to? That question lies at the heart of "In the Absence," one of the short documentaries nominated for an Oscar this year. The 28-minute film focuses on a passenger ferry, the M.V. Sewol, that sank while traveling between the South Korean city of Incheon and Jeju Island on April 16, 2014. As the vessel listed and began … Read the full Story >>
Q: Originally from [where?] what are some of your favorite things about living and working in [your current locale]? A: I’m originally from Los Angeles but have been living in Brooklyn for the past five years. There are so many wonderful resources in New York but what I love most about it is my neighborhood and its proximity to the Brooklyn Museum … Read the full Story >>
You are what you eat, how you coif, what you wear might be a subtext of Lorenzo Vitturi’s Dalston Anatomy. One of the most talked about self-published books of 2013, it made most of the year-end top tens and was short-listed for the Paris Photo/Aperture Book Prize. Above: Yellow Chalk #1&2, 2013 (detail), © Lorenzo Vutturi, from the Dalston Anatomy series This is a photo book … Read the full Story >>
Peggy Roalf: Which came first, the brush or the pen? Grace Danico: The pen. It's the tool I've been using the longest! I started writing and drawing at a young age, and the pen has been my trusty companion throughout life. I've actually graduated to using brush pens these days, so it's the best of both worlds. PR: I noticed that you often make … Read the full Story >>
Just over a year ago, photographer Tracey Baran (1975-2008) was emerging from the category of emerging young photographer to the next rung. Born in rural Western New York State, she came to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts in 1993. Her first one-person exhibition was in 1998 at Liebman Magnan Gallery in New York, followed by six more solo shows … Read the full Story >>
As a prelude to the solo presentation of their work at Wetterling Gallery/Stockholm, at the Armory Show this week, Doug and Mike Starn invited collectors, gallerists and friends to visit their Beacon, New York studio last weekend. The artists, identical twins born in 1961 who came to notice at the 1988 Whitney Biennale, started out like most artists have: drawing at the kitchen table … Read the full Story >>
For many of its 12,140 inhabitants, Marysville, California, seems mired in a century and a half of bad luck. Described in an interview by photographer Arne Svenson as “a town on hold, a place waiting for something good to happen,” its fate as the methamphetamine capital of California* and home to the most welfare recipients per capita in the state seems a disquieting echo … Read the full Story >>
Hip Hop was born in the Bronx fifty years ago, when two teens threw a back-to-school party in an apartment on Sedgwick Avenue. Everybody danced to the music of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and The Meters, but something was new: Behind two turntables, the brother Clive, better known as DJ Kool Herc, played two copies of the same record, a technique known as … Read the full Story >>
If you have begun to feel that you’ve become unaccountably distant from life, that is, perhaps you keep finding a phone camera between your eyes and the world, then it’s time to take a good look at yourself and fix this problem. And I don’t mean by taking another selfie. The solution to this anomie for many people, whether they are “artistic” or not, … Read the full Story >>
Meet the Guerilla Girls—the anonymous militant feminists who put on gorilla masks to tackle sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art and pop culture. Using happenings, humor and subversive imagery, they shed light on things that have been kept hidden or overlooked, about an art system prejudiced against women and artists of color. In Guerilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly, a new … Read the full Story >>
DART WILL PRESENT AN OCCASIONAL LISTING of exhibitions and events related to new books and work by illustrators. Herewith our mid-October installment. Illustrations, top to bottom: Mother Nature's Son #3, 2006, by Cathie Bleck Lily, by Marc Burckhardt Untitled, by Zohar Lazar Puncture, by Jonathan Weiner Cover art, Raw #3, 1981, by Gary Panter Open Spaces By Cathie Bleck In conjunction with the publication … Read the full Story >>
