• For his Tumblr blog 3rd of May, which pairs a news headline with a work of art, Modern Art Notes‘ Tyler Green asked what work from the Walker collection would best respond to today’s New York Times story about the spike in bullying and suicides among gay and lesbian students in Minnesota’s largest school district — and the fight by some district parents to make sure LGBT issues aren’t discussed in district classrooms. Here’s what I came up with.
• Rest in Peace: Richard Hamilton. The famed British artist passed away this week at the age of 89 after a brief illness. Hamilton is perhaps best known for his early collage send-ups of consumerist and political culture, like his 1956 work, Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?, and his 2007 rendering of Tony Blair, Shock and Awe, which featured the then-Prime Minister in a cowboy shirt with holstered pistols. Hamilton has been dubbed the “father of Pop Art,” but quoted by the BBC, he eschewed the term: “While I was interested in the pop phenomenon, I never associated myself with the term, which I used to describe Elvis Presley and rather vulgar American imagery of ice cream cones or hamburgers.”
• As we at the Walker put the finishing touches on a website redesign over our own, New York gallerist/blogger Edward Winkleman looks at recent redesigns at Artnet.com, ArtNews.com and ArtInfo.com.
• In her Design Observer essay, “Thinking in Tumblr,” Alexandra Lange ponders whether she should’ve done her architectural dissertation on the popular, highly visual blogging platform.
• Thinking about the Victoria and Albert Museum’s upcoming exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990, The Guardian‘s Jonathan Jones ponders a question: “Is Close Encounters of the Third Kind the first and greatest work of postmodern art?”
• In a video promoting the Pacific Standard Time festival, a multi-venue celebration of “the birth of the L.A. art scene,” artist Ed Ruscha takes a drive with Anthony Kiedis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ frontman and a Ruscha fan. While the conversation-while-driving theme fits Ruscha’s work and the Los Angeles locale, Hyperallergic is unimpressed: “Will this work? Who knows. It is entertaining? Meh. Our ideas to improve this thing? How about hiring a video artist to do something cool?”
• “Shoefiti” — one name for shoes spotted hanging on powerlines — has apparently sparked an artistic movement: Guerrilla Innovation writes about sound artist Reinhard Gupfinger’s “soundfiti” project Sound Tossing, a DIY project that involves wired speakers tossed over electrical lines. The project’s Urban Cricket is a solar-powered audio device that amplifies cricket sounds.
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