
To commemorate the year that was, we invited artists, designers, and thinkers across disciplines — from conceptual painter Matt Connors and ebook publishers Badlands Unlimited to design firm Experimental Jetset and photographer JoAnn Verburg — to share a list of their most noteworthy ideas, events, and objects of 2013.
Artworld polymath Greg Allen is best known to many of us as the man behind the blog greg.org: the making of, published since 2001. But the Washington-based writer wears many other hats: filmmaker, author (he’s been published in Cabinet, the New York Times and WALKER magazine, for which he profiled Minneapolis-based furniture making, blogging, and landscape design team ROLU), and exhibiting artist (last year he showed at apexarts and 601Artspace). And he’s also found himself serving the role as experimental publisher.
In 2011, after blogging regularly about the Prince v. Cariou copyright infringement case, he realized that Richard Prince’s seven-hour grilling on the stand — under oath — was probably the longest interview the artist’s ever done — and that many people were interested in reading it. He compiled and printed a volume filled with transcripts, affidavits, artwork, and related images, and made it available for sale. It’s since been expanded in a new, 375-page version. Its full title: Canal Zone Richard Prince YES RASTA: Selected Court Documents from Cariou v. Prince et al, including the Videotaped Deposition of Richard Prince, the Affidavit of Richard Prince, Competing Memoranda of Law in Support of Summary Judgment, Exhibits Pertaining to Paintings and Collages of Richard Prince and the Use of Reproductions of Patrick Cariou’s YES RASTA Photographs Therein, and the Summary Ass-Whooping Prince Received at the Hand of The Hon. Judge Deborah A. Batts, as compiled and revised by Greg Allen for greg.org: the making of in April 2011. In 2013, he published a book of documents related to the case’s appeal, as well as the Standard Operating Procedure, which includes the force-feeding protocols used by military doctors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Here’s the ideas, moments, and events that most stood out for him in 2013.
The Embroidery Trouble Shooting Guide

At the Sewing & Embroidery Warehouse, an error in the web page’s HTML code, invisible to Microsoft users, causes the text to grow so big the letters become illegible abstractions.
America Over There
Even without getting on its gender rollercoaster, US military contractors in Afghanistan making a shot-for-shot remake of the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders’ cover version of Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me, Maybe” reminds me those forward operating bases are America, too.
Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market eBay Shop
I have no idea if including an autographed photo [“Perfect for framing.”] of each item transforms the junk Rob Pruitt’s selling into art. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the panda tchotchkes — which look most like his trademark paintings — consistently go for ten times more than anything else.
The stuff Jayson Musson sold online
Musson’s stuff, meanwhile, wasn’t even his. He threw himself on the capitalist mercies of his social media followers last spring by creating found-object sculptures on the streets of New York City, photographing them, and putting them up for sale on Instagram. Then he was stuck waiting until someone showed up to close the deal. [DISCLOSURE: I bought the first one after six hours, for $20.]
Picasso, Baby
When it was unfolding in real time on Twitter as a piece of durational performance art, Jay Z’s “Picasso, Baby” gallery stunt sounded like the shallowest, most obvious celebrity-worshipping trap imaginable. It turned out to be a music video, and a depressing percentage of the New York art world walked right into it.
Forged Masterworks

From the documents produced in the growing flurry of lawsuits from disgruntled buyers, it appears that the last decade of its 165-year existence, the primary source of profits for New York’s Knoedler Gallery was derived from the sale of forged Abstract Expressionist masterpieces. As prosecutors unwind the case, I now find myself looking at every Pollock, Kline, and Motherwell with a bit of suspicion.
Salvaging Costa Concordia

On September 16, Titan Salvage uprighted the scuttled cruise ship Costa Concordia in the largest parbuckling effort in history. Reuters livestreamed the entire 19+ hour process, and it was incredible. GiglioNews, a local Italian media outlet, has preserved the feed in four-hour chunks on YouTube.
Double Disaster

I get chills every single time I hear former Sotheby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer’s 24-second rumination on Andy Warhol’s Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), which he would soon sell for $105 million.
Turnkey Tyranny

Trevor Paglen has an uncanny ability to understand and present the invisible. Which is why his essay on the NSA and “Turnkey Tyranny” felt so urgent and outraging.
Courtroom Sketches

Cameras and other recording devices were banned from the military courtroom for PFC Bradley/Chelsea Manning’s trial, which makes Molly Crabapple’s eyewitness sketch reportage for The Paris Review all the more important. She also drew her report on the inmate hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay.
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