Social media sites like Instagram are changing the way art is made and consumed as the art world appears to be shrinking, Penn Station’s arches immortalized in mosaic and more. This is your go-to round-up of newsy shards and happenings from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics––this is NewsFile.
34th Street Penn Station Stop Mosaics Recall the Past
As New York prepares to demolish the current Penn Station, artist Diana Al-Hadid strives to remind passengers of “a bygone America that once engineered its infrastructure for ease, aesthetics, and scale” in her painterly mural and permanent installation The Arches of Old Penn Station at at the 34th Street Penn Station Subway stop, Hyperallergic writes.
But this work is not a painting at all, but rather a remarkable mosaic featuring long, thin “strokes” in a ghostly white and turquoise palette.
“The Arches of Old Penn Station” is an impressionist work of fluid line and turquoise tiling that recalls the latter-day bravura of the 1910 building, which was designed by the architecture firm McKim, Mead, and White.
Hyperallergic
Another corridor-length mosaic by the artist The Arc of Gradiva is based on the literary work of the German author Wilhelm Jensen. The works were commissioned by the MTA Arts+ Design.
Reviewed as a diptych, each mural clarifies the other’s intention. The arches of old Penn Station reference our will to recreate history; by contrast, Gradiva is an expression of our collective longing for the past, which remains as elusive and ill-defined as ever. What shape will the new Penn Station take when it comes, if it comes? And will we love it as much as the old station, which the majority of us have never personally experienced? The results are unclear, but Al-Hadid’s new mosaics keep the dream alive.
Hyperallergic
Learn more about Al-Hadid’s mosaics.
Technology Transforming Art Market
As NPR’s Sam Sander’s discusses with Morning Edition host David Greene, “the social media platform really seems to have changed how museums and guests are interacting and how they’re sharing art with the world.”
Take a listen:
For a transcript of this report, visit NPR.org.
Missing Audiences: Our Required Reading
The number of Americans who visited art museums dropped from 40.8-percent to 32.5-percent over a two-decade span from 1993 – 2012, according to a 2015 report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Along with the rise of social media exposure, that’s pushing museums to rotate their exhibitions more often, brick and mortar galleries to shut their doors, while others try to execute more collaborative––and old-school––efforts like gallery walks, fairs and studio tours. Meanwhile, others are working to save the art world by subverting it.
- ArtNet––”The End of Exhibitions? As Attendance Plummets, New York Dealers Are Scrambling to Secure the Future of the Art Gallery”
- The Pasadena Star News––”Pasadena Museum of California Art board votes to close down”
- Freight + Volume––’The Decline and Fall of the Art World”
- The New York Times––”A New Art Season, a New Test of Survival”
- ArtNews––”Report: Art Museums See Marked Drop in Fund-Raising Return on Investment”
- Intelligence Squared U.S.––”The Art Market is Less Ethical than the Stock Market”
- Cfile.Daily––”Talking Points | Brick-and-Mortar Art Galleries are Closing, Why + What’s Next?”
Stay tuned as we continue to update our NewsFile featuring news and happenings from the world of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics?
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