Ming Wong at Singapore Art Museum

Ming Wong is a Singapore-born artist who received a Special Jury Mention at last year’s Venice Biennale. He works out of Singapore and Berlin, and his entire acclaimed exhibition, Life of Imitation, is now on view at the Singapore Art Museum through August 22nd. His work confronts issues of identity in contemporary Singapore and highlights […]

Mona Lisa Frown

 
While not contemporary, the story about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa is a fascinating episode of greed, conspiracy, secrets, lies, and more lies. An excerpt from the upcoming book, The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler appears in the May issue of Vanity […]

The murky future of LA MOCA

Thanks to Edward Wyatt’s astute reporting at the NYTimes stretching back at least a year, I’ve been able to follow the unfolding saga of the Los Angeles museum world, which will undoubtedly result in a marked change to the cultural landscape there. The culmination of the year’s events came with an institution on the brink […]

the LouvreFRITOS Opening, Tomorrow Friday, Oct. 3

In a bout of self-promotion (which I hope to keep to a minimum), I wanted to inform our readers that the show that Alex and I curated and have been working on for so long is finally open.  The reception for the LouvreFRITOS will take place tomorrow, Friday, October 3rd at Cuchifritos gallery/project space from […]

Thomas Campbell ascends to Met Director

Following last week’s news regarding several New York art institutions and their personnel shakeups, the NYTimes reports, both factually and critically, that “Thomas P. Campbell, 46-year-old English-born tapestries curator, [is] to succeed Philippe de Montebello as director and chief executive”of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
No one should be stunned or surprised that the Met’s selection […]

New Directors for everybody!

The NYTimes reports that The Museum of Modern Art has finally found a successor to John Elderfield, chief curator of sculpture and painting:
[Ann] Temkin assumes the curatorial post, considered the most prestigious in the field of Modern art, as MoMA gears up for its second growth spurt in less than a decade[…]
In addition to the […]

William Steig Retrospective Closes March 16

The New York Times clued me in to an exhibit at the Jewish Museum that sounds fantastic. As someone who enjoyed a lot of William Steig’s artwork and somewhat macabre storytelling as a kid, I was intrigued to learn that he began his very successful career as a children’s author at the age of 60. […]

MoCCA Gets a Mini Makeover

 
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art will be closed from February 1-March 5 while they reconfigure the gallery space. This little institution resides in a huge, anonymous building at Houston and Broadway and is approaching its 7-year anniversary. With a new chairman of the board, Ellen S. Abramowitz, and ambitious plans for 2008, I […]

Kara Walker at the Whitney

Kara Walker’s traveling retrospective is on view at the Whitney through February 3, 2008.
Titled “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppresor, My Love,” this comprehensive show should interest those with a passing interest in her work as well as longtime followers of her bracing, unapologetic silhouettes that tackle race and America’s history head-on.
Not yet 40 years […]

kaikai&k i k i: Takashi Murakami’s feature-length animation

The © MURAKAMI retrospective at the Los Angeles MOCA, while spanning a massive 35,000 sq. ft. and nearly fifteen years of Takashi Murakami’s work, it’s the inclusion of his newest and most unique works that matter in this instance:
Of particular importance, is the debut of Oval Buddha, an enormous self-portrait sculpture in the guise of […]