In the framework of Resonance, an exhibition of the Goethe-Institut New York curated by Rivet and work by Agency, Faivovich & Goldberg and weareQQ, Diedrich Diederichsen was invited to deliver a talk that would tackle some issues of object-oriented thinking within the arts, as well as considering the potential for resonance among entities relevant to contemporary practice (human, non-human, animate or inanimate). Because of Hurricane Sandy, Diederichsen’s talk had to be cancelled, but this change of plans led to a conversation between Diederichsen and the curators, Rivet (Sarah Demeuse and Manuela Moscoso), about the topics he had planned to bring forward. ...

On February 13, an anonymous petition called for the reinstatement of Beatrix Ruf as director of the Stedelijk Museum. The petition comes at a time when further investigations into the affair have not yet yielded any results that could shed some light on the current level of autonomy of public institutions in general—an issue that, in fact, begs debate.

The Art world is not a success. It is not progressive, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous, it is not unbiased – and it frequently misses opportunities to perform better. The art world is a world we dislike, and, in the long term, despise. A machine of accelerated aesthetics, burnouts, precarious living, 24/7 availability and galvanised gossip that is motivated by survival, rather than a common good. I am partial to the thought that the art world has succumbed to something not entirely human, some- thing which in some circles is referred to as Capitalism. ...

For his notebook, Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas has compiled excerpts and notations from his personal sketchbook, as well as associative photographs. Cruzvillegas playfully picks up notions of sense, sensibility, reason, and fantasy—the four basic terms of the “human mind and soul” on which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe built his chromatic circle of 1809—and combines them with handwritten thoughts about the structural and creative aspects of artistic production. This notebook is a colorful collage of ideas opposing the appropriation of art by capitalism, against which Cruzvillegas reacts with collective, living, and “definitely unfinished” social sculptures—involving people, animals, and things—that come to ...

For The Download’s first free and open project, Deanna Havas offers a solution to earn back your membership donation once required to access The Download. By participating in Havas’s Affiliate Program (2013) the user can set up their own affiliate website to generate traffic to its host site, deannahavas.com. As an affiliate publisher, you will be reimbursed relative to how much traffic you drive to the site, which is calculated via metrics like pay per click and cost per impression. The package includes a small website, banner ads, and media ready to use for your microsite as well as step by step ...

Cultural savants Shumon Basar (The Extreme Self & The Age of Earthquakes) and Dean Kissick (NY editor of Spike Art Magazine) join the show during Berlin Art Week for a sprawling, late-night convo on communication and creative production in year 2022. Along the way, we note the accelerating pace of decades, revisit Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 mass-media glow-up, log a veritable dictionary of neologisms, consider whether the art market as we know is a historically bound concept, and ask if we’ve possibly reached the end of clear-cut, market-ready “generations.” Also: mid-ification, zentrism, eNFT portals, and adult drainers.

After the Great Refusal offers a Western Marxist reading of contemporary art focusing on the continued presence (or absence) of the avant-garde’s transgressive impulse. Taking art’s ability to contribute to a potential radical social transformation as its point of departure, Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen analyses the relationship between the current neoliberal hegemony and contemporary art, including relational aesthetics and interventionist art, new institutionalism and post-modern architecture.

Hosts Paddy Johnson and William Powhida talk to art advisor Kenny Schacter about the art market at the upper levels and the art market in the middle and emerging tiers. Our central question: How Trumpian is the Art World. We learn about that, plus Schacter’s great love for art and dealers. A word of warning though: some of Schacter’s conclusions for struggling artists are bleak at best.

“If you haven’t already done so, walk away from the desk where you picked up this guide and out into the great, high space of the atrium. Isn’t this a wonderful place? It’s uplifting. It’s like a Gothic cathedral. You can feel your soul rise up with the building around you.” These are the first words of the official audio guide at the Guggenheim Bilbao as heard on Andrea Fraser’s video Little Frank and His Carp (2001). Shot with hidden cameras, Fraser’s seven-minute video piece documents an unauthorized intervention into the museum designed by the architect Frank Gehry, the “Little ...

In the first episode of Momus’s new “Criticism in Conversation” podcast series, an art critic and an art journalist parse the differing responsibilities and approaches of their craft. Catherine G. Wagley (a Momus contributing editor, and a critic for ARTNews and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others) and Julia Halperin (Executive Editor of artnet News, and former Museums Editor for The Art Newspaper) compare notes and find common ground as they consider, in particular, the example of a potent piece of journalism published by Halperin concerning the influence of five commercial galleries on worldwide institutional programming. Wagley wonders if ...

The ​art world​, as it is known today, can be understood as an enormous ecosystem. Or, more accurately, as a series of ecosystems, incorporating artists, cultural institutions, funders, collectors and many others. This publication series is intended for those with an interest in the development of future art ecosystems. Each issue will provide strategic analysis and recommendations in areas where new actors and processes are emerging. This inaugural issue of FAE focuses on practices that artists are developing in their work with advanced technologies and the new infrastructure being built around these practices. The view presented here is based on the ...

“Web3” is now part of our collective imaginaries, even if the specifics of what the buzzword entails remain murky and inaccessible to many. Originally coined in 2014 by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, to describe “a decentralised internet ecosystem based on blockchain,” the term took off after the NFT boom of 2021, catalysed by the embrace of the crypto ecosystem by the likes of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Like other social technologies, the swirl of narrative, attention and capital around web3 are as much part of its utility as the tools themselves. Mainstream discourses around “the web3 ...