Don’t Mess with Texas Art Contest for Kids

What:

Texas elementary school students enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade are invited to participate in the Texas Department of Transportation (“TxDOT”) and Keep Texas Beautiful (“KTB”) (collectively “Sponsors”) Don’t mess with Texas® Elementary School Art Contest (“Contest”) to create artwork for the 2016 Don’t mess with Texas Calendar.

Entries will promote the Don’t mess with Texas and/ or Keep Texas Beautiful litter prevention slogans in order to encourage the protection of our Texas roadways and environment. The purpose of the Contest is to inspire our future leaders to refrain from littering, advocate litter prevention, and keep Texas beautiful.

Designs will be judged based on creativity and uniqueness, inclusion of a litter prevention message and interpretation of theme, overall visual appeal, composition, and age appropriateness. Winners will be announced online in May 2015.

Students who create the top 13 winning designs will have their artwork assigned to a month, or placed on the cover of the 2016 Don’t mess with Texas Calendar. Each will also win an iDeaUSA 8 tablet donated by H-E-B and Central Market. All student winners and runners-up may be showcased on the Don’t mess with Texas and Keep Texas Beautiful websites and social media sites, at the 2015 Keep Texas Beautiful annual conference, in media announcements, and through other means, as appropriate.

Teachers representing students who produce the top 13 designs will each win a $100 H-E-B and Central Market gift card. See Contest Official Rules for details (PDF, 115 KB).

When:

The contest begins January 12, 2015. All entries must be submitted by April 18, 2015. Winners will be announced in early May 2015, and prizes will be distributed by May 22, 2015.

How:

Elementary school teachers across Texas should set aside class time for their students to create artwork appropriate for the 2016 Don’t mess with Texas Calendar. This project can be completed in one day or several days to give students enough time to finish their design. After the students’ artwork is submitted, it will be judged by Keep Texas Beautiful affiliates, teacher volunteers, and graphic design professionals.

Download the full Contest Official Rules (PDF, 115 KB) and Contest Entry Form and Agreement (PDF, 238 KB) for students and parents/guardians, and display a flyer (PDF, 2.5MB) in your classroom or school hallway to create buzz!

Why:

Did you know that Texans ages 16 to 34 are the most likely to litter? We need to do all we can to motivate young Texans to keep our environment free from trash. This contest is a great way to share the Don’t mess with Texas and Keep Texas Beautiful messages with your elementary school students so that they learn good habits from an early age.

The purpose of the contest is to encourage our future leaders to prevent littering, protect our roadways, and keep Texas beautiful. Download a Litter Fact Sheet (PDF, 124 KB) to use during class discussion.

Questions?

Call Keep Texas Beautiful at 1 (800) CLEAN-TX or email info@ktb.org.

Visit the Keep Texas Beautiful website.

Why Self-Censorship of Controversial Artwork is Wrong

Photo via: National Review Online

Photo via: National Review Online

Following the shocking events of the massacres and sieges in Paris, a debate has raged over whether or not to publish images of the prophet Muhammad for fear of reprisals, apparently from whichever shadowy fundamentalists might be out there.

So, the latest news, that London's Victoria & Albert Museum quietly pulled from its website a reproduction of a 1990 Iranian poster depicting Muhammad, held in the V&A's collection, is dispiriting. Citing the level of “security alert" the V&A has to operate under, a spokeswoman defended that the work, “as with most of our reserve collections, would be made available to scholars and researchers by appointment."

The fractious discussion that has arisen on the subject of whether or not media organizations pulling or refusing to publish supposedly blasphemous images are “chicken" has generated more heat than light in the last few weeks; and revelations about how art museums put images on display is only going to provoke similar revelations in the future and put museum staff even more on their guard.

But while we desperately need an open debate about free speech and the freedom to offend in our society, the obsessive focus on Muslims, religion, and blasphemy has diverted attention away from the bigger question of how we handle offending and being offended as part of a big, broad society where not everyone is going to agree.

And that that takes us right into the question of how many parts of society have become hyper-ready to be offended at every expression that crosses a line for them. It also exposes how the idea of what it means to live as part of a “general public" has been confused, and presses at the real meaning of tolerance.

In an interesting blog post for the Guardian, Lois Keidan (head of London's Live Art Development Agency) reports how, due to the increasing use of social media, she increasingly receives messages of outrage from people who have unwittingly attended live art events whose content they subsequently found upsetting, traumatic, or offensive.

Noting that one of these was “an evening of queer body art," Keidan argues that all the events in question “were under the radar, artist-run, and aimed at specific ‘communities of interest.' "

Yet those offended assumed that, while they had attended an event aimed at a particular “community of interest" they may not have shared, their own sensitivities trumped those of the rest of the audience and the artists. Keidan concludes that today many people “feel entitled, not just to enter spaces and places where they do not necessarily belong, but also to demand censure and closure if they don't like what they find there."

Keidan makes the fair point that not all art is made with everybody in mind, but by and for particular groups. It's also fair to ask that if you turn up as a member of the public, you accept that you might not encounter artworks that totally fit your worldview. And, yet, Keidan's point of view only really works if one assumes that every artwork should only be seen by those “attuned to it," those who are part of its “community of interest." And the trouble with that is that to demand such “safe spaces" for “underground culture," as Keidan does, eventually means shutting the whole of our cultural life into little boxes marked “niche interest," in which different groups get to make culture as if nobody else mattered. And the flipside of this is often that, when particular groups decide that they're entitled to make art for themselves, nobody else has the right to express any view that is critical of their own position or self-identity.

But boxing up art and culture to suit each and every “community of interest," safely shutting it away so it offends nobody on the “outside," becomes the easiest response in any time where it appears no one can agree about anything, and in which the first reaction is to shut people up or shut artworks down.

And—coming back to Charlie Hebdo—where might fundamentalists get the idea that you can shut down those public expressions you don't find palatable? Maybe one should look no further than our "liberal" culture, in which regardless of whether it's topless models in a tabloid newspaper, or tableaux-vivants in an art gallery, the response everyone seems all too happy to reach for is “shut that down, I'm offended!"

Maybe we are offended. It happens. Public life is not always a pleasant place to be. We should discuss, argue, criticize. But “shut it down"? Before we know it, everything we want to say, every artwork we want to present, will find itself shut up in a box, a sign on the door marked “by appointment only to the appropriate community of interest."

Maybe we could start by taking back the ideal of tolerance that makes public life livable; that we acknowledge one another's differences, that we're not always going to agree, that we're going to find certain opinions and expressions hurtful; and that this is better than being confined to a cell. That it would be better, as that great American phrase would have it, that we “deal with it."

Less Is More: Ad Reinhardt’s 12 Rules for Pure Art

Zhong Yao, Spirit Above All 1-93A, 2012, acrylic on denim.©THE ARTIST. COURTESY PACE LONDON AND WHITECHAPEL GALLERY

Zhong Yao, Spirit Above All 1-93A, 2012, acrylic on denim.
©THE ARTIST. COURTESY PACE LONDON AND WHITECHAPEL GALLERY

“Twelve Rules for a New Academy”
By Ad Reinhardt

How a well-known abstract painter would “give certain rules to our art” in order to “render it pure”

Evil and error in art are art’s own “uses” and “actions.” The sins and sufferings of art are always its own improper involvements and mixtures, its own mindless realisms and expressionisms.

The humiliation and trivialization of art in America during the last three decades have been the easy exploitations and eager popularizations by the American artists themselves. Ashcan- and Armory-Expressionists mixed their art up with life-muck-raking and art-marketing. Social- and Surreal-Expressionists of the ‘thirties used art as an “action-on-the-public,” but succeeded mainly in expressing themselves, and Abstract-Expressionists of the ‘forties and ‘fifties using art initially as a “self-expression,” succeeded in acting upon the whole world. The business boom of the ‘twenties orphaned the alienated artist but the great depression of the ‘thirties witnessed the tender engagement of art to government. Ten years after that, the ardent marriage of art and business and war was celebrated with Pepsi-Cola in ceremonial contests called “Artists for Victory” at America’s greatest museum of art. By the ‘fifties, armies of art’s offsprings were off to school and Sunday school, crusading for art-education and religious decoration.

From “Artists for Ashcan and Dust-Bowl” to “Artists for America-First and Social Security” to “Artists for Victory” to “Artists for Action in Business, Religion and Education,” the portrait of the artist in America in the twentieth century shapes up into a figure resembling Al Capp’s “Available Jones,” who is always available to anyone, any time, for anything at all, at any price.

The conception of art as “fine,” “high,” “noble,” “free,” “liberal,” and “ideal” has always been academic. The argument of free or fine artists has never been between art and something else, but “between true art and art submitted to some other, quite different, values.” “There are not two arts, there is only one.” “No man can embrace true art till he has explored and cast out false art.” The academy of art, whether the Western or Eastern ideal, has always aimed at “the correction of the artist,” not “the enlightenment of the public.” The idea of the “academy” of art in seventeenth century, of “esthetics” in the eighteenth, of the “independence” of art in the nineteenth century, and of the “purity” of art in the twentieth, restate, in those centuries in Europe and America, the same “one point of view.” Fine art can only be defined as exclusive, negative, absolute and timeless. It is not practical, useful, related, applicable or subservient to anything else. Fine art has its own thought, its own history and tradition, its own reason, its own discipline. It has its own “integrity” and not someone else’s “integration” with something else.

Fine art is not “a means of making a living” or “a way of living a life.” Art that is a matter of life and death cannot be fine or free art. An artist who dedicates his life to art, burdens his art with his life and his life with his art. “Art is Art, and Life is Life.”

The “tradition” of art is art “out of time,” art made fine, art emptied and purified of all other-than-art meanings, and a museum of fine art should exclude everything but fine art. The art tradition stands as the antique-present model of what has been achieved and what does not need to be achieved again. Tradition shows the artist what not to do. “Reason” in art shows what art is not. “Higher Education for artist should be ‘liberal,’ ‘free’ and the ‘learning of greatness.'” “To teach and enlighten is the task of virtuous men.” “No great painter was ever self-taught.” “Artists must learn and learn to forget their learning.” “The way to know is to forget.”

The Guardian of the True Tradition in Art is the Academy of Fine Art: “to give certain rules to our art and render it pure.” The first rule and absolute standard of fine art, and painting, which is the highest and freest art, is the purity of it. The more uses, relations and “additions” a painting has, the less pure it is. The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. “More is less.”

The less an artist thinks in non-artistic terms and the less he exploits the easy, common skills, the more of an artist he is. “The less an artist obtrudes himself in his painting, the purer and clearer his aims.” The less exposed a painting is to a chance public, the better. “Less is more.”

The Six Traditions to be studied are: (1) the pure icon, (2) pure perspective, pure line and pure brushwork, (3) the pure landscape, (4) the pure portrait, (5) the pure still-life, (6) pure form, pure color, and pure monochrome. “Study ten thousand paintings and walk ten thousand miles.” “Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and internally, have no hankerings in your heart.” “The pure old men of old slept without dreams and waked without anxiety.”

The Six General Canons or the Six Noes to be memorized are: (1) No Realism or Existentialism. “When the vulgar and commonplace dominate, the spirit subsides.” (2) No Impressionism. “The artist should once and forever emancipate himself from the bondage of appearance.” “The eye is a menace to clear sight.” (3) No Expressionism or Surrealism. “The laying bare of oneself,” autobiographically or socially, “is obscene.” (4) No Fauvism, primitivism or brute art. “Art begins with the getting-rid of nature.” (5) No Constructivism, sculpture, plasticism, or graphic arts. No collage, paste, paper, sand or string. (6) No “trompe-l’oeil,” interior decoration or architecture. The ordinary qualities and common sensitivities of these activities lie outside free and intellectual art.

The Twelve Technical Rules (or How to Achieve the Twelve Things to Avoid) to be followed are:

1. No texture. Texture is naturalistic or mechanical and is a vulgar quality, especially pigment-texture or impasto. Palette-knifing, canvas-stabbing, paint-scumbling and other action-techniques are unintelligent and to be avoided. No accidents or automatism.

2. No brushwork or calligraphy. Hand-writing, hand-working and hand-jerking are personal and in poor taste. No signature or trade-marking. “Brushwork should be invisible.” “One should never let the influence of evil demons gain control of the brush.”

3. No sketching or drawing. Everything, where to begin and where to end, should be worked out in the mind beforehand. “In painting, the idea should exist in the mind before the brush is taken up.” No line or outline. “Madmen see outlines and therefore they draw them.” A line is a figure, a “square is a face.” No shading or streaking.

4. No forms. “The finest has no shape.” No figure or fore- or background. No volume or mass, no cylinder, sphere or cone, or cube or boogie-woogie. No push or pull. “No shape or substance.”

5. No design. “Design is everywhere.”

6. No colors. “Color blinds.” “Colors are an aspect of appearance and so only of the surface,” and are “a distracting embellishment.” Colors are barbaric, unstable, suggest life, “cannot be completely controlled” and “should be concealed.” No white. “White is a color, and all colors.” White is “antiseptic and not artistic, appropriate and pleasing for kitchen fixtures, and hardly the medium for expressing truth and beauty.” White on white is “a transition from pigment to light” and “a screen for the projection of light” and “moving” pictures.

7. No light. No bright or direct light in or over the painting. Dim, late afternoon, non-reflecting twilight is best outside. No chiaroscuro, “the maldorant reality of craftsmen, beggars, topers with rags and wrinkles.”

8. No space. Space should be empty, should not project, and should not be flat. “The painting should be behind the picture frame.” The frame should isolate and protect the painting from its surroundings. Space divisions within the painting should not be seen.

9. No time. “Clock-time or man’s time is inconsequential.” “There is no ancient or modern, no past or future in art. A work of art is always present.” The present is the future of the past, not the past of the future.

10. No size or scale. Breadth and depth of thought and feeling in art have no relation to physical size. Large sizes are aggressive, positivist, intemperate, venal and graceless.

11. No movement. “Everything is on the move. Art should be still.”

12. No object, no subject, no matter. No symbols, images or signs. Neither pleasure nor pain. No mindless working or mindless non-working. No chessplaying.

Supplementary regulations are: No easel or palette. Low, flat, sturdy benches work well. Brushes should be new, clean, flat, even, 1 inch wide and strong. “If the heart is upright, the brush is firm.” No noise. “The brush should pass over the surface lightly and smoothly” and quietly. No rubbing or scraping. Paint should be permanent, free of impurities, mixed and stored in jars. The scent should be of “pure spirits of turpentine, unadulterated and freshly distilled.” “The glue should be as clean as possible.” Canvas is better than silk or paper, linen better than cotton. There should be no shine in the finish. Gloss reflects and relates to the changing surroundings. “A picture is finished when all traces of the means used to bring about the end have disappeared.”

The fine art studio should have a “rain-tight roof” and be 25 feet wide and 30 feet long, with extra space for storage and sink. Paintings should be stored away and not continually looked at. The ceiling should be 12 feet high. The studio should be separate from the home and living, “away from the claims of concubinage and matrimony.” A fine art department should be separate from the rest of the school.

The fine artist should have a fine mind, “free of all passion, ill-will and delusion1.”

Egypt conservationists to sue over 'botched' Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun mask repair

A picture taken on January 23, 2015 shows the burial mask of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt from 1334 to 1325 BC, at the Cairo museum in the Egyptian capital. An Egyptian conservation group said it would sue the antiquities minister o…

A picture taken on January 23, 2015 shows the burial mask of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt from 1334 to 1325 BC, at the Cairo museum in the Egyptian capital. An Egyptian conservation group said it would sue the antiquities minister over a 'botched' repair of the mask of Tutankhamun that left a crust of dried glue on the priceless relic. AFP PHOTO / MOHAMED EL-SHAHED.

An Egyptian conservation group said Friday it will sue the antiquities minister over a "botched" repair of the mask of King Tutankhamun that left a crust of dried glue on the priceless relic.

The golden funerary mask, seen Friday by AFP at the Egyptian Museum, showed the sticky aftermath of what appears to have been overzealous use of glue to fix the mask's beard in place.

A museum official, who spoke anonymously to avoid repercussions, told AFP the beard had fallen of accidentally when the mask was removed from its case last year to repair the lighting.

Museum head Mahmoud al-Helwagy denied that conservation workers had damaged the mask

"This is illogical and inconceivable," he told AFP. "These are conservation workers, not carpenters."

Antiquities Minister Mahmud al-Damaty also denied that the 3,000-year-old relic was treated carelessly.

"The job was done correctly," he told AFP, without explaining why curators needed to fix the mask.

Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist who inspected the mask, said what she saw had so shocked her that her group was taking the matter to the public prosecutor.

"We are presenting a complaint on mismanagement to the prosecutor tomorrow," said Hanna, from Egypt's Heritage Task Force, which has long battled mismanagement and looting of Egypt's legendary ancient artefacts.

According to the museum official, "there seems to have been a lapse in concentration and the mask hit the case and almost fell" when it was removed from its case.

"So (the curator) grabbed it in his arms to break the fall, and the beard separated," he said.

The long braided beard fit into the mask with a peg, and had been separated before, the official said. 

"This mistake can happen. But what caused it to get worse? The curator was scared and he fixed it hastily."

The epoxy glue dried very quickly, said the official. 

"You should use material (that dries slowly) and then support it, maybe over several hours or 24 hours, so you can fix mistakes," he said.

"Renovation work needs an adhesive that is easy to remove in case there is any damage, without leaving any traces."

Museum director Helwagy told the official MENA news agency that epoxy glue is used internationally to fix artefacts.

The death mask of the enigmatic boy king is one of the crown jewels of the museum, which also houses the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II.

The museum used to attract millions of tourists before a 2011 revolt -- centred in nearby Tahrir Square -- brought down president Hosni Mubarak and unleashed four years of tumult.

“Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart”

Kevin Atkinson, Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, c.1976, oil on canvas, 5’ 6” x 5’ 6”.

Kevin Atkinson, Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, c.1976, oil on canvas, 5’ 6” x 5’ 6”.

THE NEW CHURCH MUSEUM
102 New Church Street, Tamboerskloof
December 2–April 25

CAPE TOWN

The history of painterly abstraction in South Africa remains atomized and fragmentary in part because of lingering animosities about its bland rehearsal of an imported style and, decisively perhaps, its inability to visualize the struggle against apartheid, which prompted curators and publishers to bypass the abstract in favor of social-realist and agitprop work. This exhibition, rather than recapitulating history, offers a selective survey of this overlooked genre and draws predominantly from the holdings of the New Church Museum. Guest curator Marilyn Martin named this show after a billowing black-and-white composition, Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, ca. 1976 by Kevin Atkinson, a former teacher of Marlene Dumas. It hangs in a room adjacent to the entrance and next to the show’s oldest work, an atypical jumble of black calligraphic marks titled Abstract on White and Blue from 1957 by Walter Battiss.

Martin eschews chronology in favor of juxtaposing works by first- and second-wave abstract painters with recent works by contemporary artists. Sometimes this strategy yields insightful results, as in the pairing of two untitled Ernest Mancoba drawings, dated c. 1970s and 1993 respectively, with a paper sculpture sutured with ribbons and rubber tubes by Nicholas Hlobo titled Andilibali Okwendlovu, 2008. The curatorial conceit is resisted, though, by works such as Dineo Seshee Bopape’s installation Uncontested Metaphor, 2013, an asymmetrical piece of fabric accompanied by a work on paper and a length of rope that is essentially modular in form. Along with Gerda Scheepers’s Medium and Modality Piece [Speak Easy], 2013, a uniformly blue canvas with fabric embellishments featuring rudimentary marks and displayed as a sculpture, these two cryptic and magnetic works are the unexpected highlights, as both artists have produced singular works that refuse company or comparison.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Norton Simon's Nazi-Loot Appeal

Lucas Cranach the Elder's paintings of Adam and Eve at the Norton Simon Museum.Photo: Rachael Moore/Flickr.

Lucas Cranach the Elder's paintings of Adam and Eve at the Norton Simon Museum.
Photo: Rachael Moore/Flickr.

The US Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum in the case of the ownership of Lucas Cranach the Elder's paintings Adam and Eve (both circa 1530). The artworks originally belonged to Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who in 1940 was forced to flee the Netherlands following the Nazi invasion.

The case, which has been in federal court since 2007, was originally dismissed in the museum's favor in 2012. Goudstikker's daughter-in-law, Marei Von Saher, got a second chance last June, when a judge ruled that the pursuit of her claims did not conflict with US federal policy (see Norton Simon's Nazi-Looted Adam and Eve to Head Back to Court).

In response, the Norton Simon appealed in the hopes that a rehearing in the Ninth Circuit by an 11-judge panel would reverse the decision once again (see Norton Simon Museum Asks Court to Reconsider Nazi Loot Claim). The museum believes that Goudstikker's widow, Desi, should have pressed her claim with the government of the Netherlands after World War II.

During the war, Goudstikker was forced to sell the paintings to Nazi leader Hermann Göring. The canvases were later recovered by Allied forces and returned to their countries of origin. Desi did not trust that the government would treat her fairly, and refused to negotiate for the paintings' restitution.

Instead, the works were sold in 1966 to George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, a descendant of their pre-Goudstikker owners, who had lost the paintings during Soviet rule. In 1971, the Norton Simon foundation purchased Adam and Eve for $4 million (adjusted for inflation, they were said to be worth $28.3 million in 2006). The institution now argues that Von Saher had her chance under US policy, and her claim conflicts with the country's right to conduct its foreign affairs.

"Allowing her lawsuit to proceed would encourage the Museum . . . to follow the Washington Principles [which call for restitution]," countered the Ninth circuit in its opinion. "Perhaps most importantly, this litigation may provide Von Saher an opportunity to achieve a just and fair outcome to rectify the consequences of the forced transaction with Göring during the war."

Though the latest ruling is good news for Von Saher, her lawyer, Herrick Feinstein's Lawrence Kaye, warned the Art Newspaper that “not all the museum's technical defenses have been decided." A judge could still decline to hear the case as it was filed after the statute of limitations expired.

In a statement, the Norton Simon insisted it “remains confident that it holds complete and proper title to Adam and Eve, and will continue to pursue . . . all appropriate legal options."

Art Spiegelman Criticizes US Press Over Charlie Hebdo Political Correctness

Pulitzer Prize-winning comic aritst Art Spiegelman. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Pulitzer Prize-winning comic aritst Art Spiegelman. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Pulitzer Prize-winning comic artist Art Spiegelman has recently spoken out against the decision of many US media outlets to not republish the cartoons that were featured in Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical publication that was attacked on January 7 (see 12 Killed at Magazine Previously Attacked for Satirical Cartoons).

"I think it's so hypocritical to drape yourself in freedom of speech and then self-censor yourself to the point where you are not making your readers understand the issues," Spiegelman told the AFP. "That cartoon was not making fun of the prophet, it was excoriating the believers who would kill."

Media outlets such as the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, and NBC News have refused to show images of the cover from the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo. (see "Are Cartoons More Powerful Than Art?") News outlets have resorted to blurring and cropping photographs of the now famous image of Muhammad holding a sign that reads "Je Suis Charlie" to hide potentially offensive material, leading Spiegelman to argue that journalists  are choosing political correctness over freedom of speech.

"We have a standard that is long held and that serves us well: that there is a line between gratuitous insult and satire. Most of these are gratuitous insult," said Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, according to a blog post written by the public editor Margaret Sullivan.

Spiegelman, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus" depicts his Jewish father's experience during the Holocaust, shows frank depictions of Jews as mice in World War II Nazi concentration camps.

He has accused many news outlets as having a "mega-fanatic zeal to be polite" and points out that Charlie Hebdo was not targeting Muslims, as the publication has printed caricatures of orthodox Jews and the Pope as well.

"When religion overlaps with social and political issues, it's necessary to fight back, so Charlie is equally hard on Jews including anti-semitic caricatures and quotes when talking about Israel," he said. "The equal opportunity insult that came with Charlie Hebdo was the reason it's estimable."

Dealer Matt Moravec Will Open Chelsea-Area Gallery

The building that will be home to Off Vendome on West 23rd Street.

The building that will be home to Off Vendome on West 23rd Street.

For the past two years, Matt Moravec, who ran the closely watched West Street Gallery in Manhattan with curator Alex Gartenfeld from 2010 to 2012, has been in Düsseldorf, Germany, studying with the artist Christopher Williams at the city’s Kunstakademie and running a space there called Off Vendome, showing artists like Ian Cheng, Win McCarthy, Margaret Lee, and Emily Sundblad.

Now he is back in New York, and will open a gallery, also called Off Vendome, in February in a two-floor space at 254 West 23rd Street, right above the East of Eighth restaurant and just down the street from the Chelsea Hotel. It’s a solid two avenues away from most Chelsea galleries.

“This area is a sort of no man’s land, which I love, but it’s still walkable from the West Chelsea gallery area,” Moravec said over drinks at the El Quijote, the Spanish restaurant on the ground floor of the Chelsea, earlier this week. His space also happens to be right next to the C/E stop at 23rd Street and 8th Avenue.

Moravec has the top two floors of the building, which dates to the mid-19th century and sports lofty ceilings, a full kitchen, and access to the roof—though the lack of a fence on one side means that it will probably be off limits during opening receptions. When I stopped by it was mid-renovation, with walls to be painted and layout decisions to be made.

He has a little more than a month to get the gallery ready. The first exhibition there will open on February 26, a two-person affair from Lena Henke and Max Brand. (That’s the day after the New Museum’s 2015 Triennial, which includes Henke, opens to the public.) After that will be the solo New York debut of Win McCarthy, who figured winningly in SculptureCenter’s recent show “Puddle, pothole, portal.”

An installation view of “Ian Cheng: ENTROPY WRANGLER” at Off Vendome in Düsseldorf in 2013.

An installation view of “Ian Cheng: ENTROPY WRANGLER” at Off Vendome in Düsseldorf in 2013.

“I love Dusseldorf—the school is amazing, the town is great and I have a really good friend group there, but I knew I’d have to return to New York in some capacity at some point,” Moravec said. Nevertheless, he’s keeping the Off Vendome space in Düsseldorf. A show by the New York artist Sam Anderson is currently on view there, and on February 6 he will open a show by another New Yorker, Kyle Thurman. The next day, Moravec said, “Ian Cheng, who was my first show in Düsseldorf, will be part of the next show at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, which is super exciting.” (That show is rounded out by Wu Tsang and Jordan Wolfson.)

For now, he’s holding off on announcing artists that he plans to represent in New York. “That will happen slowly, as I build my program,” he said.

Tax Court Ruling Is Seen as a Victory for Artists

Susan Crile, a painter and printmaker who teaches at Hunter College, was accused by the I.R.S. of underpaying her taxes. Constance Kheel

Susan Crile, a painter and printmaker who teaches at Hunter College, was accused by the I.R.S. of underpaying her taxes. Constance Kheel

If you say you are an artist, but you make little money from selling your art, can your work be considered a profession in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service?

In a ruling handed down late last week by the United States Tax Court and seen by many as an important victory for artists, the answer is yes. The case involved the New York painter and printmaker Susan Crile, whose politically charged work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and several other major institutions. In 2010, the I.R.S. accused Ms. Crile of underpaying her taxes, basing the case on the contention that her work as an artist over several decades was, for tax-deduction purposes, not a profession but something she did as part of her job as a professor of studio art at Hunter College.

The heart of the case touches on a situation familiar to many thousands of artists — from visual artists to musicians and actors — who earn a living as teachers or studio assistants or stagehands while pursuing creative careers that they hope will flourish and someday be able to pay the bills.

During a trial before the tax court last year, Ms. Crile, whose work has focused on subjects like the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, described a dogged career of more than 40 years that has been more successful critically than financially. From 1971 through 2013, court papers said, she earned $667,902 from the sale of 356 works of art — or an average income of a little less than $16,000 per year — and, like many artists, she wrote off expenses from her work, like supplies, travel and meals, on her taxes. Only three years of her art career have been profitable, court records showed, and her reliable income came from teaching at Hunter, where she began part time in 1983 and became a tenured professor in 1994.

The I.R.S., which accused Ms. Crile of underpaying her taxes by more than $81,000 from 2004 to 2009, argued that based on several factors, such as her lack of a written business plan, her work as an artist was “an activity not engaged in for profit” and that she could not claim tax deductions in excess of the income she made from her art. Further, in a claim that alarmed many in the art world, the I.R.S. contended that Ms. Crile’s legal position that she was both an artist and a teacher was “artificial” and that she made art primarily to keep her job as a teacher. (Hunter College requires its studio-art teachers to exhibit their work but does not require them to sell.) The agency argued that for tax purposes, Ms. Crile’s profession should be that of a teacher, and that her art-related expenses should have been filed not as business expenses but as unreimbursed employee expenses.

But Judge Albert G. Lauber of the tax court ruled Thursday that Ms. Crile had “met her burden of proving that in carrying on her activity as an artist, she had an actual and honest objective of making a profit” and therefore under tax law should be considered a professional artist.

Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, who testified on Ms. Crile’s behalf, said Monday that the ability to deduct art-related expenses — in art careers that might generate little money — was “one of the last remaining areas where the federal government cuts artists any slack to allow them to do what they do,” and that its protection was crucial.

Micaela McMurrough, a lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore who represented Ms. Crile, said one of the key points argued in the case was that “art is not a business like other businesses.” “And I think that’s what this decision reflects, to a large extent,” she said.

Michael J. De Matos, a lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service, referred questions about the decision to the agency’s press office, which did not immediately return calls for comment.

Ms. Crile said she was relieved by the decision, for herself but also for many other creative professionals it might affect. “I think this was an attempt to get rid of a whole category of people from being able to take tax deductions,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of political work that is not so easy, and it’s not easy to show or to sell. But I’m an artist. And if I’m not considered one, then I don’t know who could be.”

Kehinde Wiley to Receive the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts

Kehinde Wiley. KWAKU ALSTON/COURTESY ROBERTS & TILTON

Kehinde Wiley. KWAKU ALSTON/COURTESY ROBERTS & TILTON

New York-based portraitist Kehinde Wiley will be awarded the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts. Known for his flashy paintings that depict black men and women in the style of Old Master portraiture, Wiley is being honored for using his art to promote cultural diplomacy. He will receive his medal from Secretary of State John Kerry on January 21. Past medal honorees include Cai Guo-Qiang, Jeff Koons, Shahzia Sikander, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems. First awarded in 2012, the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts is given to artists for their commitment to Art in Embassies, a diplomatic program that encourages U.S. artists to go abroad and work with other artists. For AIE’s latest project, set to happen in 2017, Jenny Holzer will make a collaborative sculpture at the U.S. Embassy in London. The announcement precedes another landmark in the artist’s career—”Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” the painter’s first museum survey, which will open at the Brooklyn Museum in February. Roberts & Tilton, one of the galleries that represents Wiley, confirmed the news.

New Artist: Gaylon Dingler & Leah Fitts

Davis & Co.

Davis & Co Fine Art Gallery would like to issue a warm welcome to two of our new Artist's Gaylon Dingler & Leah Fitts. You can now view their work on our website. Welcome to the gallery!

DandCgallery.com

 

Meet Your Latest Art Auction Start-Up: FAB

Goodman. COURTESY LINKEDIN

Goodman. COURTESY LINKEDIN

In the Financial Times today, Georgina Adam reports that there’s a new “game-changer in the field of auctioneering” headed our way.

Fine Art Bourse, or FAB, is an online auction house founded by Australian Tim Goodman, formerly a major player in the Australian auction business, and has raised $2 million for the venture. It launches next month.

From the FT:

His company is based in “humble” (his words) premises in London’s Finsbury Park, and similarly low-cost offices will be opened in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing over the next 18 months. Consultant specialists around the world — there are already 21, a number Goodman says will grow to 60 by this summer — will source, value and catalogue the works, with just a small team of executives running the company. And there will be no weighty catalogues thudding on to doormats: “It is ridiculous, they cost a fortune and are terrible for the environment.”

These economies will enable FAB to offer pared-down fees of just 5 per cent to buyers and sellers, plus 1 per cent for insurance and a flat charge of $330 for photography, cataloguing and so on ($1,000 for items worth more than $100,000). The auctions will be run out of Hong Kong (“No sales tax, no resale royalty, no copyright fees”); buyers can browse offerings online and then have a 30-second window to bid. The firm offers a five-year money-back guarantee in case of problems.

Sounds feasible, but then what doesn’t these days? Goodman joins Paddle 8, Artnet, Auctionata, eBay, and Sotheby’s in trying to reinvent the online auction game (and I think I’m probably forgetting a few).

The Met May Do a Jean Pigozzi Collection Show at the Breuer Building

EZRA STOLLER/ESTO/WIKIMEDIA

EZRA STOLLER/ESTO/WIKIMEDIA

In this month’s Vanity Fair, Bob Colacello tackles the competition for influence between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and there’s a lot of fun gossip there (like the idea that Glenn Lowry is among the candidates to run Sotheby’s)!

One of the more interesting ones from the section that discusses the Met’s plans for the Breuer building, which was vacated by the Whitney Museum last year and will begin hosting Met programming in March of 2016:

“One possible future show at the Breuer: Jean Pigozzi’s Contemporary African Art Collection juxtaposed with the Met’s extensive historical African holdings.”

This information seems to come from Pigozzi himself, the wealthy investor and art patron, but that doesn’t mean it’s untrue! The article says he’s close with Sheena Wagstaff, the Met’s chairman of the department of modern and contemporary art, whom he knows from the Tate Modern, where she was formerly chief curator.

There’s only a summary of the story online at the moment, but the issue seems to be out so snag a copy if you want to read more.