It is that time of the month again! If you are in New York, please join us tonight as we head to Brooklyn for DUMBO’s First Thursday Gallery Walk and enjoy a festive night filled with art, culture and amazing people.

This month we’ve also teamed up with the amazing meetup ART IS CULTURE (http://www.meetup.com/ART-IS-CULTURE).  Meet us around 6:30pm at the Mighty Tanaka Studio located at 111 Front Street suite 224 and be sure to RSVP through the link.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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• Investigating a world of visual intoxication. (artsnapper.wordpress.com)
• ART: A.I.R. Gallery Celebrates Women in the Visual Arts (taniafuentez.wordpress.com)

Don’t forget, this evening kicks off the summer season of DUMBO’s First Thursday Gallery Walk.  The festivities will include music and entertainment alongside the vibrant galleries that make this night such hit.

Join us for an enjoyable night of art appreciation at some of DUMBO’s best known galleries such as Bose Pacia Gallery, Minus Space, Mighty Tanaka,  Smack Mellon, Generation Gallery and so many more.

The Artsnapper team will be strolling around the event sipping wine, networking and most importantly snapping pictures of art.  We hope to see you there!

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• Thank you to this month’s sponsors (twocoatsofpaint.com)

Self Portrait as an Artist (1888)

In Philadelphia, one of the most widely visited museums to check out visual art is Philadelphia’s very own Museum of Art. The Museum of Art is one of the largest museums in the country and is one of the most beautiful attractions in Philadelphia. From now until May 6^th, the Art Museum will be hosting Van Gogh Up Close, an exhibit that will be presenting work from Van Gogh that he created during the final years of his life; years that can be marked by artistic experimentation that had not previously been apparent in Van Gogh’s work. This artistic experimentation period included playing with the concepts of depth of field and focus. Van Gogh began to focus subjects in his paintings in different locations in order to change the desired message or object of focus he wished to convey to his audience.

This is especially interesting, as Van Gogh was one the first painters to experiment with this concept of depth perception and focus. Van Gogh realized that, by changing the focus of certain objects or subjects in his work, he was able to change the viewer’s perception of the work as a whole. This is great for people like me who don’t know exactly what they “should” be looking for when viewing art by famous artists such as Van Gogh. I feel that the more credible an artist and his work are, the more likely it is that the viewer will feel he should have set expectations of what he “should” be taking away from the work. However, with Van Gogh, his pieces are made to draw the viewer to specific aspects of the piece while also allowing the viewer to perceive this object of focus in relation to the rest of the piece in any way he/she wants to.

Last year, I visited the original Van Gogh museum while I was in Amsterdam and I was pleasantly surprised to witness some of the original, famous Van Gogh pieces that seem to pop up all over popular culture today. Van Gogh is an artist whose work has seemed to stand the test of time; even after hundreds of years, many people still find his work to be beautiful, inspiring, and thought-provoking.

Some famous pieces that are on display at this exhibit include Van Gogh’s famous “Sunflowers” painting and his “Field of Flowers” painting. These works showcase nature in a surreal format and are well-known by many. If you’re interested in pieces that are famous world-wide and that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, then you should definitely check out this exhibit! Philadelphia’s Museum of Art is open seven days a week; times vary from 10:00am-9:00PM, depending on the day of the week. Tickets to this exhibit can be purchased at the museum or online for $20.00-$25.00.

Related articles

• ‘Van Gogh Up Close’ At The Philadelphia Museum Of Art (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
• New analysis finds painting is a Van Gogh (msnbc.msn.com)
• Invisible Evidence Restores a van Gogh Attribution (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)
• New Van Gogh Discovered, and It was There All the Time! (elliottingotham.wordpress.com)

Many of those who know me, know that I am not shy about stating the obvious. For instance: If you invite me to a party and the party is boring, I am not going to lie to you and say “It’s an O.K. party”, which will be the polite thing to say. I am going to speak the truth and say, “this party sucks”. Some people might not view this as prudent, especially my mom, but why beat around the bush?

With that in mind, I would like to share with you my experience last week during my visit to the Whitney Museum.

I was very excited, especially after the Whitney Biennial exhibit was mentioned by Viveros-Faune from the village voice in his predictions article

and decided to invite my fellow Artsnapper team member, Sofia and  my good friend, DJ Alex Edge. I cannot speak for them, but based on our conversation, they didn’t seem overly thrilled with their visit.

I can honestly say I did not enjoy the art aside from Jasper Johns 3 flags and Lee Krasner’s “The Seasons,” both located on the 6^th floor and a window that has the NYC skyline as a backdrop located on the 5^th floor.  The rest of it was a bit too “out there” with too much cultural context, which doesn’t speak or make me feel anything aside from wondering how can this be at a museum. To top it off, as I was exiting the building, visitors were howling like wolves to live music being performed in the lobby. Strange.

For those of you who have not visited the I am not deterring you from going, but just giving you a fair warning. The exhibition will be available until May 22nd. For those of you who don’t agree with what I am saying, please do share your thoughts.

Related articles

• Do You Agree That the Whitney Biennial Should Come to an End? (artistmarketingsalon.wordpress.com)
• Photos from the Whitney Biennial (newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com)
• Whitney Biennial 2012 (waamblog.wordpress.com)

It’s not every day that a former pro skater unveils a gallery’s worth of work, let alone a gallery’s worth of work that’s good. Well the day has come and Steve Olson, a bigwig in late 70’s skating, showed off his latest work at the Known Gallery in L.A.entitled Hagin’.

While you might think the title refers to hanging in the air as most pro-skaters tend to do, a lot of the work centers around an archetypal businessman hung by noose amongst onlookers of all walks of life. The blasé attitude of the onlookers creates a surreal sensation that the violence and almost certain death isn’t what’s important. I like this move a lot, understating the subject’s death makes a much stronger impression upon me.

The different audiences Olson places in each print become the focus of the works as their responses towards the deceased make much more of an impact then the dead man himself. From a curious young man, to what looks like an artist fascinated by the subject and ready to snap a picture, each onlooker displays not only different walks of life but also different attitudes towards death or big business (and it’s death).

Olson himself:

“My Art gives contemporary art a juvenile delinquent phase. It’s self-made style icons gleefully trashed conventions of beauty and society while pick pocketing from the coolest underground styles and beliefs of the previous centuries…”

Sakaguchi, along with 199 other artists will take part in London’s Big Egg Hunt which will have the artists decorating massive eggs to be scattered throughout the city. Sakaguchi’s intricate style will be a pleasure to see on such a large and interesting surface; I can’t imagine how long it will take to appreciate every little detail of his work. The event itself will support the “Elephant Family,” an organization dedicated to protecting Asian elephants and “Action for Children” a UK based organization dedicated to helping vulnerable and neglected children.

While I’ve never experienced the whole Easter egg hunt thing, if I were in London I’d make it a goal to catch as many as I could as competitions exist and it’s just a good way to explore a city.

A career retrospective of one of the most important photographers of the last 50 years, Cindy Sherman, opened yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art with 175 images spanning her entire career.

What I like most about Sherman’s body of work is her ability to meld disciplines and recreate herself time and time again. Her rise to fame in the late seventies came by way of her Untitled Film Stills series in which she made photographic portraits of herself in settings and costumes that look as if they were still shots from films made in the 40’s or 50’s.

Often movies are debased as not having as much artistic merit as fine art, through that first  series of hers  I think she easily discounts that notion. Her style continued in that way, with labored sets and heavy use of make-up and costumes to make her portraits look as if someone pressed pause while watching a movie. I love this quality because it feels so surreal, you expect the image to move as if it’s a film, and when it doesn’t it’s a bit unsettling. The unsettling factor has been pushed to an extreme in recent years as she’s glommed on make-up and adored herself to look like various Joan River clones that’ve had botched plastic surgery jobs.

Sherman’s chameleon like effort is also somewhat rare because it’s put her in the spotlight of her own work throughout her career. Her ability to transform from one shoot to another is reminiscent of some bygone era when a sideshow might feature a man who could transform his appearance to almost any way he’d like.

Be sure to check out this expansive gallery if you’re in NYC as it runs til mid June 2012

With the summer Olympics approaching fast, there is much commotion surrounding the tourism that follows such an event; both good and bad. The Art News Paper reports that more than six million visitors are expected to be in London during the summer for the Games and that almost all the art venues within London expect lower than average attendance. Beyond tourism and attendance, much of England’s money that would be normally allocated to the arts will be drastically reduced and pushed towards the Games; grants for the arts are expected to fall by 11%. Kevin Fewster, the National Maritime Museum’s director, hopes that the benefits for the art scene in London will be seen down the road. While artistic institutions might be hampered, I could only hope it might open the door for smaller outfits and individual efforts such as street art and impromptu galleries.

My knowledge of Azerbaijan is probably as limited as the next person; because of this ignorance, one that I’m sure isn’t too irregular throughout the States, Artnet’s highlight on Azerbaijani artists is all the more important and interesting (what little is known about the country itself, probably dwarfs whatever is known about their art).

A show entitled “Fly to Baku: Contemporary Art from Azerbaijan” running until the 29^th of January at Howick Place galleries in London features 21 artists from the Turkic country which shares borders with Iran, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and the Caspian Sea. The exhibition offers a varied image of their culture, one that has been suppressed as Socialist Realism which was the only type of art endorsed by the Soviet Union until the country’s independence in 1991. The dearth of free thought and sharing of ideas throughout the USSR has led to many great responses and developments after the fall of the Wall, and while us in the West might be a bit late in exploring Azerbaijan, thanks to Phillips de Pury & Company we can all say “better late than never.”