June 22, 2010 

SITE SANTA FE BIENNIAL -- ONLINE
People are calling it the first video-art biennial -- and a lot of the vids are now viewable online. The Site Santa Fe Eighth International Biennial Exhibition, "The Dissolve," June 20, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011, presents 26 works by 30 contemporary artists, plus four historical animations, all displayed in a 15,000-square-foot warehouse space redesigned by architect David Adjaye. The show recognizes a "paradigm shift in contemporary art" that mixes traditional visual arts with dance, music and film -- i.e., animation -- according to curators Sarah Lewis (a critic, curator and art historian grad of both Harvard and Oxford who is working on her Yale PhD) and Daniel Belasco (assistant curator of the Jewish Museum, where he’s organizing "Feminism and Painting" for September 2010).

Among the highlights of the show that can be watched from your desktop are Robert Breer’s spirited abstract animation from 1986, titled Bang!; Paul Chan’s celebrated 2006 video 4th Light, famously evocative of 9/11; Maria Lassnig’s 1992 semi-autobiographical cartoon, which features the artist herself singing a folksong (in German); and a 2005 animation by Raymond Pettibon in his signature cartoon style. Sadly, many of the videos are not posted online; you’ll actually have to go to Santa Fe to see the works by Thomas Demand, the Edison Manufacturing Company, Fleischer Studios, Laleh Khorramian, Robin Rhode, Cindy Sherman and Dziga Vertov, whose 11-minute-long film from 1924, Soviet Toys, actually criticizes Lenin’s New Economic Policy.

Also on the calendar for the biennial is a lecture by Artnet Magazine correspondent Jerry Saltz on June 29, 2010. To hear an interview with David Adjaye, produced by Ellen Berkovitch for her new website for Southwestern art, Adobeairstream.com, click here.

NEW DIRECTOR AT SITE SANTA FE
As the Site Santa Fe Biennial gets under way, the art space welcomes its new director and chief curator Irene Hofmann, who officially takes the reins on Oct. 1, 2010. She succeeds Laura Steward, who has headed the organization for the last five years. A grad of Washington University in St. Louis and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hofmann was executive director of the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, from 2005 to 2010, where she most recently organized the exhibition "Bearing Witness," a survey of works by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry. Other shows she curated at the museum includes "Cell Phone," a museum survey of artworks made with cell phone technology; "St. Cecilia," a touring exhibition of works by Joseph Grigely; "Broadcast," a touring show of art for radio and television; and "Cottage Industry," a show focusing on the artist as entrepreneur. She was curator of the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, Ca., from 2001 to 2005. There she co-organized the museum’s California Biennial and the show "Girls’ Night Out," which featured contemporary photography by women.

"PAINTING AND FEMINISM" AT THE JEWISH MUSEUM
When Jewish Museum assistant curator Daniel Belasco isn’t working on the Site Santa Fe Biennial, he is preparing his own museum’s major fall exhibition, "Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism," Sept. 12, 2010-Jan. 30, 2011. Promising to place feminist art in a larger context as well as explore its roots in Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Minimalism, the show presents over 30 paintings by 27 artists, including Judy Chicago, Louise Fishman, Leon Golub, Eva Hesse, Deborah Kass, Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson, Elaine Reichek, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero and Hannah Wilke.

NEUENSCHWANDER’S "WISH A WISH" GOES ONLINE
One of Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander’s most popular works is I Wish Your Wish (2003), a participatory artwork that features hundreds of colorful ribbons, each marked with a wish, that a viewer can take and tie around his or her wrist -- with the wish coming true, according to Brazilian folk legend, when the ribbon falls off. Now, as part of Neuenschwander’s new exhibition at the New Museum, "Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other," June 23-Sept. 19, 2010, web-surfers can participate in the work online -- by inserting their own wishes via cyberspace, and by watching the cascade of wishes from others. Check it out, here.

MORE "GENERAL HOSPITAL" FROM JAMES FRANCO
Say one thing for cult actor and heartthrob James Franco, he really does seem to like the art world (he was arrested as a teen, his publicity points out, for "tagging"). His recurring role on the ABC soap opera General Hospital comes to a head (of a sort) this summer, when his character -- Franco, an artist and serial killer (?) -- makes an appearance in "SOAP at MOCA: James Franco on General Hospital," a live taping of a performance work devised by Franco himself (not his character) taking place on Pacific Design Plaza in Los Angeles on July 22, 2010, at 2 pm local time.

According to the synopsis, the Franco character is having an exhibition at MOCA Pacific Design Center and. . .  well, never mind. But the show-within-a-show takes place during Jeffrey Deitch’s debut as director of MOCA -- will he be making a cameo? -- and is accompanied by a musical performance by Kalup Linzy, who is of course celebrated for his drag cabaret performances as well as his melodramatic black-and-white films. Full episodes of General Hospital are viewable online at abc.com the day after their appearance on the network.

NEW SCHOOL REIMAGINES OROZCO
Did you know that we are celebrating the Bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution? Parsons the New School for Design does, and to mark the event is presenting "Re-Imagining Orozco," June 25-Sept. 12, 2010, at the Johnson Design Center at Fifth Avenue and 13th Street in Manhattan. Organized by Silvia Rocciolo and Eric Stark, curators of the New School art collection, the show begins with José Clemente Orozco’s mural cycle, A Call to Revolution and Table of Universal Brotherhood, the only public commission by a Mexican muralist in New York City. The exhibition features a new body of works based on the Orozco murals by Enrique Chagoya, who is a visiting artist at the school, as well as a wide variety of contributions from New School students.

BAER FAXT INVITATIONAL GOLF CLASSIC
The art world is finally having its very own golf open. Art-market reporter Josh Baer, publisher of the Baer Faxt newsletter, is organizing a benefit golf tournament to take place at the Manhattan Woods Golf Club in West Nyack, N.Y., on Monday, Sept. 13, 2010. "The Andrew Glover Youth Program Real-Life Mulligans," as it is called, boasts a "golf committee" that is impressive, to say the least: Max Davidson IV, Glenn Fuhrman, Howard Greenberg, Ronnie Greenberg, Adam Lindemann, Harry Macklowe, Neal Meltzer, Eli Wilner and several others. The Glover Youth Program is a community-based nonprofit that helps youthful offenders on the Lower East Side and East Harlem. The entry fee per player is $500; for more info, contact Josh Baer at baerfaxt@aol.com.

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