Rules, as implied above: an authentic collage posted as a jpeg showing an ice bucket challenge performed in an old master painting. Please make the jpeg 72 dpi, 550 pixels wide or 500 high, whichever is greater. The donation will be made to the ALS Association of Greater New York. Donation doubled if you also post to (and please like, if you haven’t done so already, once there) our Facebook page. And follow us on Instagram.

The post An Ice Bucket Challenge in which Connoisseurship Remains Dry appeared first on artcritical.

We are vessels both. I want what you have and you’re submitting. You’ll give yourself completely to me, but I must be patient, patient. I’ll fill my cheeks with your insides. You are pure sweetness. What are you made of? Mysterious brown liquid: the secret concentrate, caramel color, phosphoric acid, kola nut extract, vanilla… your coca extract and caffeine excite me most. I forgive you for your high fructose corn syrup, for what is love without forgiveness?

I forgive your blatant consumerism, your ties to capitalism. One cannot be blamed for where one comes from. This love is between you and me, and we are really so small even together. Let me hold onto you! You are all I have. You make me new. I’ve been told I have ancient features, I look like a face on an Athenian vase. With you I am relevant, with you I have meaning.

I want to engulf your curves, take all of you in, but slowly, slowly. Let me drink you dry. Once I do, and we wait, what emerges? Between you and I we could produce perfect spawn, little candy cola bottles with faces, their gaping mouths crying out “Drink me! Drink me!”

The post Love is in the Mouth of the Beholder appeared first on artcritical.

No one will say our mystery artist had his or her fifteen minutes. His/her 2011 New York show consisted of a single and singular piece that was nothing if not timely according to artcritical’s review.

Forename clue: “unless presented in the present […] art is dead.”

For an acrostic of the mystery artist’s family name, assemble letters from the clues below. All the clues relate to articles you could have read here in 2011.

HINT: The first letter of their family name is shared by our mystery artist and the artist transcribed in Cohen’s drawing.

SECOND HINT: If curiosity or the desire to win gets the better of you, use artcritical’s search box to send you to the articles from which our quotes are culled—and don’t worry, thusly “cheating” helps our visitor stats!

CLUES:

first letter of the family names of the following artists:
Insect Immigrants consists of a collection of found white doilies, each hand embroidered with a different insect and displayed to face the wall, making visible the painstaking production of each loop and knot.

One mottled, stony white figure seems part Casper the Friendly Ghost, part Ken Price sculpture… Rifling through the last 100 years of painting with indexical panache, [these] biomorphs also nod to Picasso’s 1930’s beach bathers, Miró, Arp, Richard Lindner and Elizabeth Murray but function together as if [the artist] snapped a shot at the right moment at a party.  There is an interesting tension between what is guided and what is a more randomized gesture.

[the artist’s] “efforts at attaining an art free from form and style was dirty and laborious business. These deeply emotional canvases present bewilderingly dense surfaces in which energy feels trapped, pulsing beneath craggy mountains and cavernous pools of oil paint… There is a sense of a slow, forceful swirling motion, like a maelstrom gathering energy

”The artist’s speed of production mirrors [his/her] interest in the rate at which new technologies reach obsolescence, a theme central to his practice.  Equal parts hacker and historiographer, X’s meditations on authenticity, access, and authorship speak to [his/her] politics of open source culture: the exhibition “catalogue” is a downloadable PDF and the artist encourages the viewer to reproduce [his/her] works at home.

[painting] “uses color and stain to denote distance and differentiate the play of light and mist on receding hills with the polite subtly of a watercolor, despite its nine feet width and its being acrylic on canvas.”

first letter of this artist’s forename:
“The projecting and hanging rock formations, partly body, partly landscape, bring to mind venerable traditions of Chinese art: landscape painting, certainly, with rocky heights floating among clouds, seemingly disconnected from the earth, but more specifically the miniature rock formations that became popular during the T’ang Dynasty.”

first letter of the author’s forename and of the mental condition cited
If you’re prone to fits of [mental condition], the 25th floor of the John Hancock Center may not strike you as the ideal location for an art gallery.  But staying abreast of the latest shows in Chicagoland requires precarious treks across neighborhoods, dizzying sprints up skyscrapers, and even trips across time-zones, all while maintaining your balance.  On rare occasions, it means facing your fears.

Use the comments box below to submit your answer.  The prize cannot be won by employees of artcritical LLC  though they are welcome to play.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Congratulations, Juan Manuel Bocca, on being the first reader to identify the mystery artist.  Jim Walsh and Erika Schneider got it right the next day and will receive runners up prizes.  Everyone else, please continue to play and a sketch might finds its way to you, too!

The post Quiz: How closely did you read artcritical in 2011? appeared first on artcritical.

Josephine Baker-Heaslip:

To: Tilted Arc
Federal Plaza
New York City

03/15/1989

Since hearing the news of your immanent sentence, I am now aware that I have left it too late to write this letter. Your presence in my life has been unavoidable, and perhaps we may not have one last moment together before your removal. I know that most people don’t understand you and consider you an eyesore, but I appreciate your beauty and your seemingly precarious existence enthralls me. Although many have objected to your austere and uncompromising appearances, I must say I admire your integrity to not conceal your physical properties – unpolished steel is nothing to be ashamed of.

When you’re here I feel that every move I make with you resonates in the whole environment we inhabit. Every step I take is a new experience, every surface a voyage of discovery. You continuously challenge my very impressions of space, but because of this I hope you will not consider conscious human emotion too conventional. I understand that your manner of expression does not allude to or promote romantic acuity, yet I cannot help asking: You must be aware of what you are doing to me, and no doubt to many others! If your conditions for creation are abstract, then perhaps you empathize with such emotions that defy figuration and resolution?

Despite your immeasurable size, I think together we could achieve a balance – my love for you is on par with the city itself. When I am closely navigating your slender bulk, you sensuously curve toward me as if in an open embrace. You exist in a perpetual climax, which never grants a resolution or even closure to our relationship – sometimes I feel that my love for you is more of a hindrance than you are to the public.

I can understand that the specificity of the site is paramount to your existence, for it is the medium with which you have been created, but why should the conditions of your maker still prescribe your individual life? You cannot live without the direct experience you have been made to create, as I cannot live without experiencing you.

———————————————————————————————————–

Jim Walsh:

Dear Blue,

I nearly missed you in Matisse’s Red Studio, tucked up there in the corner.
And with Picasso it was all about you, wasn’t it? The closest I could get was being Rose…
Kelly brought us together, side by side, if only for a moment, but too close as the purple gulf ensued that always happens when we mix.
I’ll find you again, Cerulean Majesty, please rely on that! And then the sparks will fly!

Always burning for you,

Red

The post Love Letters: Winners of artcritical’s Valentine’s Day Competition appeared first on artcritical.

Write a love letter to a work of art, an oeuvre, or from one figure or element within an image to another (the vertical to the horizontal in Mondrian, Venus to Mars in Botticelli).  The best piece received by St Valentine’s Day will be published at midnight.  Plus a romantic mystery prize.

submit your text in the comments box below, or via email here

The post St Valentine’s Competition appeared first on artcritical.

If you’d like to play the quiz just for fun then don’t look below but click here.

How closely did you read artcritical in 2010?  Play this acrostic puzzle and find out.  The first three readers to email us the names of MYSTERYMAN and his FRENEMY win a copy of “A Swinger’s Guide to London” by regular artcritical contributor Piri Halasz.  (Use comment box below.)  Originally published in 1967 and newly reissued by the Authors Guild under their Backinprint.com imprint, this period-piece riot of a travel guide, savvy in its hip heyday, remains surprisingly valid half a century hence as many of the attractions are still “swinging.”  Those that aren’t are fun to read about and compare to what is.

Stop Press, January 15: The fourth prize was claimed by Juilee Decker of Georgetown, KY.  January 1, 2011: Congratulations to our first three winners who each receive a signed and inscribed copy of Piri’s book: Kimberly Glass of Omaha, NE; Erika Schneider of Tampa, FL; and Kim Uchiyama of New York, NY.  But do not give up the rest of you: artcritical will give away one more signed, inscribed copy, to one more correct entry, selected by raffle, on January 15 when the answers will be revealed.

Quotes below all come from articles posted at artcritical within the last calendar year.  The missing artist names provide acrostic clues that spell the name of our mysteryman.  The clues about his frenemy follow.  We have thrown in a few visual clues to decorate the page and make life easier.

“Were Clement Greenberg still alive, he might not be as enthusiastic about [Frank] Bowling’s work since the ‘90s.”  His “frenemy” is Harold Rosenberg, see below.

click the author’s name to read the relevant articles from which the quotes are taken.

THE FIRST LETTERS OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS’ NAMES (LAST NAME ONLY)

“[Brenda] Goodman manages to create profound and moving worlds that touch on the core themes of death, loss, pain and longing.” (Eric Gelber)

“[Leon] Golub enlists man’s best friend to help him confront the void of his own bodily demise.” (Stephen Maine)

“[Russell Robert’s signature move is a deliberate, meandering line that blossoms into mutant filigree over membrane-like washes of evocative color.” (Stephen Maine)

“[Thomas] Nozkowski has inadvertently turned himself into a Sophomore conceptualist.” (David Cohen)

“Hard-nosed Canadian empiricism and Brooklyn grit seem to combine in [Louise] Belcourt’s work to undermine stylistic stasis.” (David Brody)

THE LAST LETTERS OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS’ NAMES (LAST NAME ONLY)

“[Ross] Neher apparently perceives little distinction between the convergence of lines on a horizon and how the shifting patterns of light alter the manner in which he sees these persistent linear demarcations.” (Robert C Morgan)

“The sublime must be mediated, or translated, into something visible—in [Gerard] Mosse’s case it is a redefining of color, as well as an understated exploration of perspectival depth.” (Jonathan Goodman)

“[Shirley] Jaffe made off-white her primary ground of choice, creating a seemingly limitless palette of sensuous, creamy variations from the most unassuming of colors to build upon.” (Deven Golden)

“[William] Kentridge embraces crudeness with confident pragmatism in order to split the difference, as no one has before, between drawing as tough-minded singularity, yet also as the sequential driver of cinematic experience.” (David Brody)

A SYLLABLE FROM EACH OF THE FOLLOWING PROVIDES THE NAME OF MYSTERYMAN’S NEAR-HOMOPHONIC FRENEMY

“Rodin tapped opposing powers of photography, to evoke mystery and to demystify.” (David Cohen)

“How could [Don] Christensen with his geometrically-oriented pieces rooted in the kind of visual language evidenced in the earliest fragments of pottery, achieve a relatively reference-free field when that field should, by all accounts, be laden?” (Joan Waltemath)

“In [Michael] Goldberg, the rejection of European taste and pictorial composition became the perquisite whereby extreme content could evolve.” (Robert C Morgan)

The syllables are RO SEN BERG

RIDICULOUSLY BIG CLUE
“One senses that drawing is how [Dawn] Clements comes to grips with her surroundings, whether those stimuli are constructed, imagined or discovered.” (Stephen Maine)

NOTE: Cheating with Google might be bad for your soul but it’s good for our visitor stats! If frustration gets the better of you, or you are that desperate for your free copy of the Swinger’s Guide, just add “artcritical” to keywords from each quote.

No prizes for employees of artcritical LLC or regular contributors, though they are welcome to play.

The post 2010 New Year’s Quiz – The Answers! appeared first on artcritical.

Here was the 2009 installment, which should have been the titled “The Show in Best”.

The post Our annual New Year’s Quiz appeared first on artcritical.

How closely did you read artcritical in 2010?  Play this acrostic puzzle and find out.  The first three readers to email us the names of MYSTERYMAN and his FRENEMY win a copy of “A Swinger’s Guide to London” by regular artcritical contributor Piri Halasz.  (Use comment box below.)  Originally published in 1967 and newly reissued by the Authors Guild under their Backinprint.com imprint, this period-piece riot of a travel guide, savvy in its hip heyday, remains surprisingly valid half a century hence as many of the attractions are still “swinging.”  Those that aren’t are fun to read about and compare to what is.

Stop Press, January 1, 2011: Congratulations to our first three winners who each receive a signed and inscribed copy of Piri’s book: Kimberly Glass of Omaha, NE; Erika Schneider of Tampa, FL; and Kim Uchiyama of New York, NY.  But do not give up the rest of you: artcritical will give away one more signed, inscribed copy, to one more correct entry, selected by raffle, on January 15 when the answers will be revealed.

Quotes below all come from articles posted at artcritical within the last calendar year.  The missing artist names provide acrostic clues that spell the name of our mysteryman.  The clues about his frenemy follow.  We have thrown in a few visual clues to decorate the page and make life easier.

“Were MYSTERYMAN still alive, he might not be as enthusiastic about …’s work since the ‘90s.”

THE FIRST LETTERS OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS’ NAMES (LAST NAME ONLY)

“ARTIST manages to create profound and moving worlds that touch on the core themes of death, loss, pain and longing.”

“ARTIST enlists man’s best friend to help him confront the void of his own bodily demise.”

“ARTIST’s signature move is a deliberate, meandering line that blossoms into mutant filigree over membrane-like washes of evocative color.”

“ARTIST has inadvertently turned himself into a Sophomore conceptualist.”

“Hard-nosed Canadian empiricism and Brooklyn grit seem to combine in ARTIST’s work to undermine stylistic stasis.”

THE LAST LETTERS OF THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS’ NAMES (LAST NAME ONLY)

“ARTIST apparently perceives little distinction between the convergence of lines on a horizon and how the shifting patterns of light alter the manner in which he sees these persistent linear demarcations.”

“The sublime must be mediated, or translated, into something visible—in ARTIST’s case it is a redefining of color, as well as an understated exploration of perspectival depth.”

“ARTIST made off-white her primary ground of choice, creating a seemingly limitless palette of sensuous, creamy variations from the most unassuming of colors to build upon.”

“ARTIST embraces crudeness with confident pragmatism in order to split the difference, as no one has before, between drawing as tough-minded singularity, yet also as the sequential driver of cinematic experience.”

A SYLLABLE FROM EACH OF THE FOLLOWING PROVIDES THE NAME OF MYSTERYMAN’S NEAR-HOMOPHONIC FRENEMY

“ARTIST tapped opposing powers of photography, to evoke mystery and to demystify.”

“How could ARTIST with his geometrically-oriented pieces rooted in the kind of visual language evidenced in the earliest fragments of pottery, achieve a relatively reference-free field when that field should, by all accounts, be laden?”

“In ARTIST, the rejection of European taste and pictorial composition became the perquisite whereby extreme content could evolve.”

RIDICULOUSLY BIG CLUE
“One senses that drawing is how ARTIST comes to grips with her surroundings, whether those stimuli are constructed, imagined or discovered.”

NOTE: Cheating with Google might be bad for your soul but it’s good for our visitor stats! If frustration gets the better of you, or you are that desperate for your free copy of the Swinger’s Guide, just add “artcritical” to keywords from each quote.

No prizes for employees of artcritical LLC or regular contributors, though they are welcome to play.

The post Play the 2010 New Year’s Quiz appeared first on artcritical.