This coming Halloween weekend a modern retelling of Dante’s Divine Comedy will be performed at Gutenberg College in Eugene. It is a site specific performance, done as a walking tour through three levels of a house, each one representing Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The play was written and directed by friend of BTAF Tim Macintosh. Contact the Gutenberg office for tickets. Read some press coverage here and here.

News coverage of contemporary art is never very good. I’ve yet to hear a journalist actually speak about Damien Hirst’s work in any real detail. The most they can bother to do is talk about how controversial he is and his shark in the tank piece. I suppose the themes Hirst deals with don’t really make a good news story, and criticism is not really their job. The irony is the news media covers death and the fragility of human life all the time (“if it bleeds it leads”), but only from an objective distance. They don’t need to get philosophical about life and death, but do they have to make us cringe with their feigned seriousness?

Hirst is polarizing. The common result in an quick twitter search resulted in snarky comments along the lines of “Oh look, Damien Hirst didn’t know he knew how to paint.” (Typically he has had a staff of assistants see his projects through to the end) But the fact that this is somehow seen as antithetical to art merely points to the fact that people know very little about the history of art in general. Artists have always had studio assistants. Besides, we live in the post art-as-idea age anyway. Painting has little to do with making art when your perception of it is largely conceptual. For Hirst, this is certainly the case.

FYI, for all you twitter users out there, you can follow Hirst at @hirstdamien. Yesterday (Oct. 13th, 2009) he claimed in  a twitter post to have “kidnapped” Paris Hilton for ransom by downloading her image and burning to a disk. Perhaps this sounds silly, but what else is she but an image. He has claimed to kidnap someone that everyone has equal access to. So is it the claim that is silly or our perception of Paris Hilton’s existence? Or is it that Ms. Hilton’s perception of herself is the problem?
You can vote on whether or not you like his art at his blog.
Also read testimonials about him at his website. Here is a sample:

“Love the art and your concept. Can’t wait to get mine. I’ve been toying with the idea of being able to sell art on ITunes for .99 a pop. I think it is the future.”

Jeff, USA

Below is the second of a five part interview with Hirst. In it he talks about his relationship with British painter Francis Bacon.

The Gagosian has recent work by Takashi Murakami entitled “Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles In the Darkness of His Mind”. Go to their site to see a video highlighting details of the painting.

The first clip is a montage of close-ups of Perjovschi’s installation drawings for his 2007 Exhibition at MOMA. I don’t know anything about the song except that it features Bono (U2) and Billy Joe (Green Day). The second clip is the first of a two part interview with the artist released by MOMA. See more of the artists’ work at his website.

via Wes

I wish I had taken this picture. I’m sure there is a wormhole forming in the space-time contiuum on the other side of Andy’s head. The problem with the internet is that in all the reposting of images, the credits get lost. I have know idea who took this. Anyone?

via kateopolis

UPDATE: Photo credit just in from the ever-vigilant Pilgrim Akimbo,

1965, Manhattan, New York, New York, USA — Andy Warhol looking at Campbell’s soup cans in Gristede’s supermarket near his 47th street studio called The Factory in New York. — Image by © Bob Adelman/Corbis

Poet Tobin Johnston has moved his blog a couple of times as of late- his most recent titled A Grotesque Mercy. He’s also started putting his poetry to video as seen above. Check out his site. His words are great. For hist past work look at The Brutalist. For a look at his photography documenting graffitti writer The Whistle Blower, check out These 20 Fictions. Last year Tobin collaborated with fellow BTAF friend and composer Mckenzie Stubbert and did a spoken word project entitled The Brutalist with music by McKenzie. Listen to that here.

Some crazy-good paintings on Paul Wacker’s site. Check it out.

via BOOOOM!

photo by c-monster.net

photo by c-monster.net

C-Monster has some great pics of the current MOMA exhibition of Song Dong’s current installation titled “Waste Not”. A very powerful collection of the contents of the artist’s mother’s house. Check out the rest of the images here. The show is up through September 7th.

via CM

Composer Nico Muhly and singer Teitur began a project last year of composing music to YouTube clips people had sent in to their project website. The only rule for submission was that it had to be of a personal or confessional nature. You can subscribe to their releases as they come available on their YouTube Channel. You can also read a recent article from NME on Teitur and some of the project.

via Olafur Arnalds