Hyperallergic

[Hyperallergic]

CHICAGO — Three major exhibitions devoted to Pop art opened in 2015: The World Goes Pop at Tate Modern in London; International Pop at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (opening soon at the Philadelphia Museum of Art); and Pop Art Design, still on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago. Each broadened the purview of this art movement as a primarily Western (American) phenomenon by unearthing lesser-known artists to provide a global view of art in the 1960s and ‘70s. But, at the same time that these exhibitions effectively changed our notion of Pop art, they also lost something in translation. Each of the shows, heavily padded with work that proved a point, made us wonder what, exactly, the point was. By cracking open the geographic reach of Pop art, the exhibitions became amorphous, losing sight of what lay at the core of this art movement.

Reckoning with Pop Art’s Irrepressible Popularity

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Art is often an act of venturing into the unknown, of starting something without knowing the outcome. Maybe that’s why so many artists have undertaken expeditions, whether setting out to ride the abandoned railroads of Mexico in a custom-built spaceship, teaching a flock of geese to fly to the moon, or patiently navigating the path of the sun across the Mojave Desert.

Tracking Artists’ Expeditions, from Glacier Surveys to a Search for Nixon’s Missing Moon Rocks

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CHICAGO — The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, which opened in 2009, has reinstated its contemporary collection after giving over most of the space in 2015 to a much-lauded retrospective of the American sculptor Charles Ray. Rather than just reinstalling everything that was there before, the contemporary galleries are now centered around 44 works donated to the museum by Chicago collectors Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, touted by the museum as “the largest gift in the Art Institute’s 136-year history.” The new collection was curated by James Rondeau, today appointed as the director of the museum.

Pop Irony’s Enduring Influence in the Art Institute of Chicago’s New Contemporary Collection

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SAN FRANCISCO — In an exhibition on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, nine Bay Area artists play with robotics, sculpture, lights, sound, video, and digital technologies to alternately engage, critique, and embrace our present-day entanglement with the digital world. Curated by Renny Pritikin with consultation from artist Paolo Salvagione, NEAT: New Experiments in Art And Technology reimagines E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), a collaboration launched in 1967 between artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman and scientists and engineers from Bell Laboratories.

In San Francisco, Closing the Gap Between Art and Tech

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Since John Adams first took up residence there in 1800, the White House has been adorned with a relatively safe, traditional collection of art: pastoral landscapes by the likes of Frederick Childe Hassam, history paintings, and, of course, plenty of portraits of dead white men. But the Obamas have shaken it up, adding abstract and modern art to the mix, as the New York Times reports. Now, the White House art collection includes pieces by Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Edward Hopper, Josef Albers, and Alma Thomas.

The Obamas Give the White House a Modern Art Makeover

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LOS ANGELES — From the Archives: Art and Technology at LACMA, 1967–1971 is a look back at a pioneering program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which matched leading artists with aerospace and technology companies in the hopes of producing cutting-edge artworks. In a report issued following the completion of the program, LACMA curator Maurice Tuchman described the aim of the A & T initiative: “We wanted viable, productive connections to come about, but it was important to us that these reciprocal endeavors be challenging and rewarding to both the artist and the scientist or engineer, by provoking them to reach beyond habituated patterns.” The program occupies an important place in LACMA’s history, and in 2013, the museum launched Art + Technology Lab, an initiative inspired by the goals and spirit of Tuchman’s earlier enterprise.

The Pioneering 1960s Program that Paired Big-Name Artists with Tech Firms

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On July 20, 1969, the world watched, and was transfixed, as American astronaut Neil Armstrong — rendered on television as a ghostly black-and-white figure — descended from the Lunar Module onto the surface of the moon. These images, including LIFE magazine’s photos of the lunar terrain taken by Armstrong, were rapidly disseminated through various media and consumer channels, trumpeting the feat as a scientific and technological triumph. Apollo 11’s success captured the nation’s collective imagination and influenced a generation of science fiction fantasies and mod, futuristic fashion trends.

The 1969 Lunar Landing: One Giant Leap for Art

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Gagosian has done it again: produced another museum-quality show, this one devoted to images of artists’ studios, as recorded in photographs (on view at its uptown gallery) and in paintings (installed at West 21st Street). The downtown half of In the Studio, curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), has all the virtues and a few of the faults of some recent museum blockbusters. Paced by some stunning paintings, the handsome installation is a visual marvel, but also something of a thematic mélange.

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World’s Largest Space for Contemporary Glass Art Lets in the Light

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(via An Illustrated Guide to Artist Resale Royalties (aka ‘Droit de Suite’))

Droit de suite is the notion that artists, their heirs, and estates, should receive an Artist Resale Royalty every time one of their works is subsequently resold. American artists and legislators have been actively battling to introduce a national ARR for almost half a century. Here is our illustrated introduction.

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