Crude Behavior: How Big Oil Tries to 'Artwash' Itself

As British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig spewed enough crude into the Gulf of Mexico to be seen from space in late April 2010, the Tate Britain saw fit to celebrate their long-standing sponsorship by BP at their annual summer party. While oil stuck to shorelines and wildlife, the black mark of ecological destruction failed to stick to BP, at least for that night. Artist-activists Mel Evans and Anna Feigenbaum and the Liberate Tate crew crashed that party with performance art protesting both the polluters and those who associated with them. Now, five years later, Evans revisits the relationship between “Big Oil” and “Big Art” in Artwash: Big Oil and the Arts. Evans accuses Big Oil of focusing more on cleaning up their image than their business’ collateral damage and charges cultural institutions that take Big Oil sponsorship money as accomplices to that crime. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Crude Behavior: How Big Oil Tries to 'Artwash' Itself."

Vision Loss: The Forgotten German Prophets Secretly Behind Modern Art

 The forgotten aspects of art history will always be the most intriguing. Digging up the dead storylines of art history, whether in the distant or the recent past, will never end, mostly thanks to forces that buried the facts, if not the bodies, for whatever agenda. Artists and Prophets: A Secret History of Modern Art 1872-1972 at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt resurrects German visionaries and Jesus wannabes from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to look at how their exploits and artistic creations helped shape the course of German and European modern art. It also shines light on how the impact of those figures fell into obscurity as another casualty of the ideological war waged by that most unfortunately unforgettable of German messianic aspirants — Adolf Hitler. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Vision Loss: The Forgotten German Prophets Secretly Behind Modern Art."

Can a Classic Museum Really Be Made Modern?

Every new cultural institution hopes for “The Bilbao Effect”—the economic boom the faltering, former industrial city of Bilbao, Spain, enjoyed after the 1997 rise of architect Frank Gehry’s game-changing design for the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. But even old cultural institutions want some of that same magic. So, when Gehry came to see Barnett Newman’s The Stations of the Cross with artist friend Ellsworth Kelly at the Philadelphia Museum of Art back in 2006, the museum’s then director and CEO, Anne d’Harnoncourt, approached Gehry about “doing something special” there, too. However, instead of a new signature “Gehry” look, d’Harnoncourt requested “a quiet intervention”—an underground “Philadelphia Effect.” In Making a Classic Modern: Frank Gehry’s Master Plan for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the PMA finally unveils their “master plan” for revitalizing their classic main building first opened in 1928 for the 21^st century. The big question hanging over this whole decade-long, estimated half billion dollar project remains: can a classic museum really be made modern? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can a Classic Museum Really Be Made Modern?"

Is Performance Art the New Religion?

According to a Pew Research study, if you count people who change from one type of Protestantism to another, “44% of American adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.” This “very competitive religious marketplace” promises to only get more competitive, as percentages of young people either unaffiliated with a faith or totally unaffiliated being even higher. Why are these people taking their faith to the marketplace? What are they looking for? Is it some kind of different or higher experience? With the stir surrounding Marina Abramović’s current performance art piece, Marina Abramović: 512 Hours at the Serpentine Gallery in London, England, being described frequently as a “religious experience,” is it possible that performance art—the most often ridiculed, poorly understood, but perhaps most vibrant art form today—could be the new religion? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Performance Art the New Religion?"

Andy Kaufman: Greatest American Performance Artist?

Like many Americans of a certain age, for me, Andy Kaufman (shown above) was first, and in some ways forever, Latka Gravas, the lovable garage mechanic with the endearing misuse of English and disturbing multiple personality disorder on the award-winning sitcom Taxi. Kaufman overruled his instinctual dislike and distrust of the sitcom format in hopes of wider success, which he soon enjoyed, but at the price of typecasting, which he forever fought against. On Creating Reality, by Andy Kaufman, an exhibition running through February 16^th at Maccarone in New York City, tries to rewrite the reality of the Latka-izing of Kaufman by presenting Andy’s full oeuvre in a manner as individual, unconventional, and perhaps cringe-inducing as the man himself, whose claim to genius beyond comedy seems to be finally catching up with him nearly 30 years after his death. With this exhibition, perhaps it’s time to ask whether Andy Kaufman was America’s greatest performance artist. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Andy Kaufman: Greatest American PerformanceArtist?"

Will the Tate Tanks Bring Performance Art into the Mainstream?

Performance art and film art have always been the afterthoughts of museums—the new kids on the block with no room of their own in the big culture houses. Institutions designed to house paintings and sculpture usually need to find some temporary corner to stage a performance or screen a film, implying to the viewer, however subconsciously and unintentionally, that those media don’t rank a room of their own. With the opening of the Tate Tanks at the Tate Modern in London, England, performance art and film finally have a big stage all of their own—one that not only celebrates those media but can, in return, inspire practitioners to create knowing where they’ll be working. With such a significant venue for significant pieces, will the Tate Tanks finally bring performance art into the mainstream? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Will the Tate Tanks Bring Performance Art intothe Mainstream?"

[Image: Washing Brain and Corn, Sung Hwan Kim, 2010, video still. © Sung Hwan Kim.]

 
[Many thanks to the Tate Modern for the image above and other press materials related to the opening of the Tate Tanks with the Art in Action program from July 18 through October 28, 2012.]