Art

“Gilbert and George are taking the piss, aren’t they?” asked Billy Bragg on his song Take Down the Union Jack. It’s a pertinent question, but not the only conundrum surrounding the notorious but much loved artistic double act. Since meeting at St Martins College in London in the late ’60s, Gilbert and George have led a confounding, contradictory existence. At once remarkably transparent — presenting themselves as “living sculptures,” with their matching suits and exclusive artistic focus on their own bodies and the half-mile area surrounding their shared East London home — and frustratingly enigmatic, their works are intimate yet commercial, offering wry social commentary in the same breath as scatological schoolboy humor. Continue…

From pasty faced teen outcasts in Sisters of Mercy T-shirts and ill-fitting velvet leggings, to impeccable neo-Victorian dandies like the Horrors or Ipso Facto, the gothic tendency has been responsible for some of the very worst and best of fashion excess. Gothic: Dark Glamour, which opened at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s museum last month and is scheduled to run through Feb. 21, wisely focuses on haute couture that is reflective of the wider gothic tradition of romance, dandyism and libertinage, rather than simple gloominess and an unhealthy obsession with bats. Continue…

It was business as usual under the Frieze big top this week in London – with dealers front and center, and collectors, curators, art enthusiasts and revelers buzzing about. The Frieze Projects, curated by Neville Wakefield, were less flashy and more subversive this year, ranging from Cory Arcangel’s Wonka-esque golden ticket project (awarding a Frieze booth to one of the hundreds of galleries that had unsuccessfully applied) to foot rubs from artist Bert Rodriguez (who we also saw at the Whitney Biennial this year), and artist Norma Jeane’s clear plastic smoking booths, complete with water coolers and an ashtray, Continue…

Britain’s Turner Prize is known more for the controversy it invariably provokes — think Tracey Emin‘s bed or Chris Ofili‘s elephant dung portraits — than its supposed role as arbiter of the country’s finest contemporary art.

Seen in that light, the work of the four 2008 nominees, currently on display at Tate Britain in west London, is a disappointment. Continue…

You’d be forgiven for glazing over at the mere mention of the words ‘video art’, suggesting, as they do, interminable fixed shots of barely moving water or grainy, handheld footage of naked men doing jumping jacks. No such worries with Jesper Just: the Danish artist’s 16mm works — as evidenced in Romantic Delusions, a recently opened showcase at the Brooklyn Museum — are lushly lit and beautifully acted mini-epics that present accessible, if ambiguous, treatises on the Big Themes of life. Continue…