The architectural car crash that is LAS VEGAS’ new CITY CENTER complex, a staggeringly huge 16,797,000 square feet complex on 76 acres on the Las Vegas Strip is literally the largest privately funded construction project in the history of the United States. The site was formerly occupied by the Boardwalk Hotel and Casino, the Bellagio employee parking lot, and several standalone commercial structures and is bordered by the Monte Carlo Resort, the Bellagio, and The Cosmopolitan Towers. It cost more than $11 billion to construct and of that princely sum, a mere $40 million was set aside to commission new public art. Luckily, the crew that received a paycheck on that commission included such artists as Claes Oldenburg, Frank Stella, Maya Lin, Henry Moore, and Jenny Holzer, to name a few. Notable among those “few,” was Supertouch buddy DOZE GREEN whose appropriately titled “Soddom & Gomorrah” mural greets visitors arriving at the Monte Carlo and Bellagio people mover stations.

SODDOM:

GOMORRAH:

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A TOUCH OF FAME WORKS ITS MAGIC IN MARKET

By Souren Melikian | NY TIMES
Published: February 6, 2010

LONDON — The art market is once again shooting up like a rocket. Sotheby’s auction, conducted on Wednesday evening by Henry Wyndham, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and auctioneer extraordinaire, will be remembered as a major turning point in art market history.

Wednesday was the magic day when the life-size bronze cast of “L’homme qui marche I” (The Striding Man I) by Alberto Giacometti sold for £65 million, or about $102 million, to one of those mystery telephone bidders that now dominate the auction scene.

The triumphant score consecrates the power of myth. Without the weight of cultural history attached to it, Giacometti’s bronze figure could not have soared so high.

For one thing, the cast is far from unique. It is number two in an edition of six cast in 1961, to which four “artist’s proofs” must be added. Then there is the closely related series called “L’homme qui marche II.” Giacometti once said that he had made more than 40 versions of the striding man. All but two were destroyed, which still leaves a number of closely resembling figures, making the price even more astounding.

True, most are out of the market. Casts of “L’homme qui marche I” are prominently displayed in major American and European museums.

The pride taken in them by famous institutions serves as a reminder of the artistic effervescence that surrounded the conception and elaboration of the “Striding Man.” It came about as part of a project commissioned to Giacometti for the Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York. The project was to consist of an array of large standing figures but was never implemented. Of the various bronzes which had been cast by 1960, including two variants of the “Striding Man,” none ever reached its intended destination. Realizing the time that completing such a vast program would take, Giacometti simply gave up. However, the Paris school sculptor was pleased enough with the individual figures to dispatch one cast of “L’homme qui marche I” to the 1962 Venice Biennale. Click HERE to continue reading…

NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!…

McGinness sheds his mop in the name of art and relocates his downtown studio to Madrid…

NYC-based artist RYAN McGINNESS is currently on an extended residency at Madrid’s esteemed LA CASA ENCENDIDA cultural institution (January 24–March 7), where a large show of his graphic paintings is on exhibit in the space’s cavernous main hall. His entire downtown studio has been replicated as an art project titled, “Studio Franchise Exhibition,” and 40 art assistants have been recruited by the artist and La Casa to assist in his usual prodigious output throughout his stay. Upon arrival, the artist promptly shaved his head, using the hair to create a “wig sculpture” which guests can view on display in his studio.

MUSEUM SPEAK:
“The Studio Franchise exhibition created by Ryan McGinness for La Casa Encendida will be open to the public beginning February 5. Ryan’s studio which can be found in Espacio C, will not be an exact recreation of the artist’s studio but a new one created and inspired by certain guidelines of his original studio in New York. It will be in full operation during opening hours of the center and will be honored by the presence of the artist. A casting call was conducted in order find and hire Ryan McGinness clones or duplicates to serve as assistants in the studio for the duration of the exhibition.

As the primary drive of Ryan’s art practice concerns itself with the creation of and (re)production of original symbols, this new Madrid studio and the assistants will serve as symbols of the artist’s New York studio and as symbols of the artist himself. Furthermore, the studio and the assistants are not reproductions of the original, rather, they are productions based on the original. This is the essence of the franchise concept—not the deployment of reproductions or duplicates, but the production of originals created within a set of acceptable pre-determined guidelines—symbols with no referent, but that exist in their own right.

Espacio B will have paintings and sculptures in the making, empty frames, extensive sketches for compositions and paintings on the walls, boxes, plans for the exhibit taped on the wall, stairs, setting-up materials and tools, etc. During the course of the exhibit, the finished works created in the studio will be moved to Espacio B for viewing. McGinness will count on the help of participants in creating these works in the studio.”

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GOOGLE’s big foray into social networking hit the interweb today with the rollout of BUZZ, a hybrid social service integrating YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter functionality to Gmail accounts in an effort to streamline Google users’ interaction with all platforms simultaneously. Sound like a mouthful? It is. Luckily, our friends at TECH CRUNCH have broken it down for the rest of us:

“Imagine taking elements of Twitter, Yammer, Foursquare, Yelp, and other social services, and shoving them together into one package. Now imagine covering that package in a layer that looks a lot like FriendFeed. Now imagine shoving that package inside of Gmail. That’s Buzz.” —TechCrunch

Of course, much of the hype generated by today’s announcement stems from Google’s carefully cultivated Apple-like stranglehold on the media, as both Microsoft and Yahoo have rolled out vaguely similar products in recent times to little or no public fanfare whatsoever. It was a fact not overlooked by the gloomy rivals who issued the following bitter rebuttals:

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.” – Microsoft statement on Google Buzz

“It’s been almost a year and a half since we first launched Yahoo! Updates – a social feature that lets people share their status, content and online activities and stay connected to what their friends and family are doing on Yahoo! and across the Web” —Yahoo statement on Google Buzz

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti’s capital Monday may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, the doctors said.

“He was emaciated. He hadn’t had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet,” said Dr. Mike Connelly, of the university’s Project Medishare. The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said. Click HERE to continue reading…