Hoping to instruct and inform, University of Cincinnati Museum gives prolific forger a show

For literally decades, small museums around the country have been blessed by what they thought were valuable gifts of art, only to discover the works were forged.



Quite a story.

From ABC News

"The Cincinnati exhibit of about 40 works given to 15 museums grew to around 100 when Landis donated 60 pieces he possesses, along with his priest's outfit

The Faux Real show will run through May 20 at the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery. It depicts famous art forgers, details of how Landis made some donations and ways of detecting fakes. Visitors can view some works under ultraviolet light that causes sections to glow if they contain contemporary ingredients.

Art experts say not accepting payment for his forgeries has helped keep Landis from being charged with a crime. Museum officials say forgeries can hurt their reputation and cost time and money researching suspected fraud."

Gallery website with many informative links.

“Faux Real” runs from Sunday, April 1, to Sunday, May 20, in UC’s Dorothy W. & C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery, located in Room 5275 of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. 2624 Clifton Ave., Cincinnati OH 45221. An opening reception is set for 5-7 p.m., Thursday, April 5

New Regional Art Site, Art Hopper seeks writers

This comment was left on my post about Art Hopper by one of the site founders.

Thank your for highlighting the new site. Arthopper launched on January 1, 2012. The similarity to Glasstire is not an accident. I went to graduate school in San Antonio, love Glasstire, and wanted to recreate the experience here.

Any any all suggestions, comments and criticisms are welcome and encouraged. We want the site to work for all and to be a real community asset.

Buffalo is on the list of cities to add but we cannot do it all at once. If you know writers who are interested in submitting content please have them contact me. We are a volunteer effort now but will me moving toward a paid "society of correspondents."

Rick, I enjoy your work in Pittsburgh and hope we are able to collaborate.

John, we would welcome opinion pieces from you as well as important arts issues pieces.

Jimmy Kuehnle
Founder
Arthopper.org

Contact here if interested.

FYI, folks in and around Buffalo, that includes you!

Man may have found valuable Picasso Print in thrift shop near Columbus Ohio

Keep your eyes open out there! The Columbus Dispatch has a great video of a man describing how he found the print and the what made him think it could be worth something.

From The Columbus Dispatch

"Picasso was asked to create the poster for a 1958 Easter exhibit of his ceramic work in Vallauris, in southern France, Florman said. It certainly isn’t among his best-known works, she said, but there are more-obscure pieces.

Officials at the Volunteers of America chain said they never had seen such a rare find in their 10 stores, six of which are in Ohio. Workers sift through donations looking for valuable items that they sell for higher prices, but some items fall through the cracks, spokeswoman Kathryn Lecklider said."

Cash Mob movement taking off in Youngstown, hitting the Touch the Moon Candy Saloon

People all around are catching the Cash Mob trend, linking online and picking a time and place to meet and support a local store or series of stores.

Follow the Youngstown Cash Mob on Facebook

On Twitter @YoungstownCashM

See Defend Youngstown for a good recap of local news and events

Iconic Cindy Sherman photo for sale by Akron Art Museum could bring record price

Many are likely pretty upset that The Akron Art Museum, plans to sell Cindy Sherman's #96 from her 1981 Centerfolds Series at auction. Expectations are that the work could fetch as much as 4 million or more, which would be a record price for any photograph. Remember, most photos are prints there are some other copies, one of which recently sold for almost 4 million.

The intent is to build an endowment to support the purchase of other works.

Akron Art Museum to Sell Iconic Cindy Sherman Print

While, this move makes the museum look more like a stock trader than a museum, I can't blame them for trying to make the most of a prime market moment. That kind of money can go a long way. They will still have one Sherman work.

If you have not been to The Akron Art Museum, you are really missing something. The building is amazing and the collection includes important works by Chuck Close, Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Lynda Benglis, Anthony Caro, Charles Burchfield, Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Marina Abramovic, Viktor Schreckengost, Lari Pittman, Donald Judd, Richard Tuttle and many others. I particularly love their collection of artist's normally known as "outsiders"; Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, William L. Hawkins, Minnie Evans, W. D. "Crazy Mac" McCaffrey etc...

It's just a great place.

New site. Art Hopper aims to link visual culture across The Great Lakes Region

"ArtHopper provides a forum for arts and visual culture in the greater Lake Erie region including Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit and beyond."

Art Hopper

An amazing idea finally, hopefully takes root with a single site highlighting visual art across a wide area. A few people might think this site reminds them of Glass Tire, which has been doing this in Texas since 2000.

Why, it seems like I was just bashing us for not doing that again-when Glass Tire's southern California site launched. I think I've brought this up for years and was honestly just too discouraged to keep banging the drum.

In this post.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we thought a bit more regionally. What factor do state borders and old money foundations have in creating artificial distortions? Do people who visit or live in one place know much about what's happening so close by?

Looks like this has already been up since the beginning of the Year.

Check out some posts.

Cleveland

Stencils Stuck on a Repeat Mix Tape

Space Elevators, Paper Ships, Bicycle Rhymes & Enamel Landscapes

Brite Winter Festival

Akron

Portraits of Akron

From a Smudge of Paint and a Voice

Cincinnati

Fashion & Fresh Flowers at the Cincinnati Art Museum

Pittsburgh

Center for Post Natural History Grand Opening

Turn Headlights On – Headlights On?

Detroit

Betsy Eby & Bo Bartlett @ David Klein Gallery

Stuck-Up

I am really digging this, particularly the respect for grass roots events; small gallery and art happenings. (Glass Tire always seemed too tilted towards big money galleries or institutions) I also like that regional museums seem to be advertising on the site.

If I have a gripe, I guess it's that Buffalo's exciting grass roots scene is not included but I guess one has to stop somewhere.

Planning for the paranoid: Not the only one connecting Trayvon Martin case to sprawl

Someone else did a much better job making links between design and the Trayvon Martin case. It's hard to tell how much communities of this type are the product of paranoia or the cause of it since it's very much a self reinforcing cycle. The need for freedom from crime is of course, universal but in spite of the sales pitch, the standard gated community offers only the false promise of safety.

I was going to do a much better post about this with screenshots of the area from google maps but--I don't know how to grab images. (In spite of the post title--the development where this happened was far from all white-but it had undergone rapid changes which likely played a big role in what happened.)

Gates, sprawl, and 'walking while black'

Those who don’t drive are likely to be on the economic margins or intrepid teenagers—old enough to be on their own but without wheels—who can hurry across huge crossings and ignore conditions that are miserable for anyone on foot. Walkers in this environment are therefore the recipient of pity or suspicion—in this case, the extreme suspicion that resulted in the death of Martin, who was walking to the 7-11 to get Skittles and iced tea on the evening of February 26.

The development’s gate creates a fortress mentality, with some people viewed as legitimate and others as threatening outsiders or interlopers, notes Laurence Aurbach of Pedshed. The gate is most effective for cars. Pedestrians are able to slip in and out easily through the woody buffer that separates the project from the arterial roads. Pedestrians are most feared by some residents, according to a story in the Palm Beach Post. “It’s a gated community, but you can walk in and steal whatever you want,” said one resident.

This might be one of the best articles with backround on the development where this happened.

Trayvon Martin's killing shatters safety within Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford

I still hope to get back and do a much better post about this and or possibly upgrade this one.

Was walking the suspicious activity in the Trayvon Martin case?

I probably shouldn't throw this theory out there, but one of the first things after hearing about the tragic Trayvon Martin (most likely murder) case was that it happened outside Orlando, Florida--a place notorious for it's lack of basic urbanism.

People have speculated, that Trayvon was considered a suspect, just because he was black or because he was black and wearing a hoodie (it was raining)Few have noted he was also doing something else, that may have seemed unusual; he was walking in a place most people seem to drive everywhere.

I just heard about the greater Orlando area being ranked as the most dangerous major urban area for pedestrians in the entire country.

Dangerous by Design

The new report comes with a listing of the 10 most dangerous urban areas to be on foot (greater Orlando takes the prize as the most hazardous city to walk in) and with an interactive map, showing where fatalities are most likely to occur.

From walkscore.com

....................Walk Score........population

Sanford, Florida .... 36 ........... 52,273

Orlando, Florida .... 47 ........... 237,105

Could an place that makes basic daily human interaction so difficult have helped create paranoid fears? Anyway, if you know this area well and have thoughts, please share them.

Anybody from Pittsburgh who attended SXSW wanna share thoughts? Could Pittsburgh ever create or host an event like this?

From my twitter feed it looked like a pretty large number of Pittsburgh folks went down to Austin for South by Southwest.

From The Pittsburgh Business Times

The biggest take away from the trip, Russo said, is that “Pittsburgh cannot remain a fly over zone.”

I guess I'm wondering what people thought about it? Guessing which event might blow up to this kind of international scale is like playing the lottery. It does help however if you at least attempt to play the game. Much smaller and less known cities like Grand Rapids have created nationally known events.

The Wikipedia says SXSW founders originally thought the event would just be of regional interest. However, they made no effort to exclude participants based on geography.

Pittsburgh's GA/GI Festival is a showcase of local creativity.

Plans for a Pittsburgh Maker Faire turned into the "mini Maker Faire", showcasing all local projects.

Pyrotopia, originally planned to be the biggest fire Festival in the East, suddenly decided, it might be best to just involve--only locals.

Handmade Arcade, which although it moved to the convention center seems to be involving fewer non local crafters.

One could go-on and on listing all the mini, local or hyper, hyper local events. The plus side, is often a lower level of competition and lots of chances to support and showcase local talent. The flip side is the almost complete lack of chances to interact, meet or collaborate with people from outside the city, without leaving the city. Almost every significant Pittsburgh event for emerging talent excludes non local participation from the start.

Often, many of the better known and connected local folks decide that participating in these events just isn't worth the effort.

In depth rundown of upcoming GA/GI Festival on Penn Ave

Occasional poster, Susan Constanse takes a look at this year's GA/GI festival.

No surprise--most likely because of the limitations set by funders, it's all about the local and the hyper local. Don't get me wrong, local can be great, it's just that most events here end up retreading very familiar ground, offering out of town visitors little reason to pay attention and local creatives little opportunity to develop wider networks. (Great that this year a big slice of the Pittsburgh innovation crowd booked flights to attend the SXSW festival)

Even so, one sees a lot of stuff from interactive kids projects, to technology demonstrations, animation, street performances and craft.

GA/GI Festival: From Dirt To Digital

Ass backwards state cuts transit funds while giving 4.5 million for East Liberty parking garage

As someone coming from somewhere else, one thing I can't get past is the city's deeply damaged self confidence.

Poor little Pittsburgh left with nothing after the mills closed --and now--great, we got a Target and a Home Depot.

Coming from that damaged perspective, the bar is set at a level where almost all development looks good.

from Pop City

After 25 years of vacancy, the Historic Highland and Wallace buildings in East Liberty are under renovation and will once again offer housing and retail opportunities to the community. Construction began Monday on the 103-year-old complex, which is being converted to 129 apartments, 5,000 sq. ft. of retail space, and will include a 180-car parking garage

After 25 years! In East Liberty, where the black people used to live and everybody knows you shouldn't go! At least Pop City didn't try to call it "Eastside". Ooooh, thank you for the retail and housing opportunities!

It's safe now and look we got parking! In fact, we spent 4.5 million in state tax dollars to put in 180 units of parking. Never mind that East Liberty is a transit hub served by many bus lines or that surrounding areas are walkable. The bus service is for poor people. We got parking!

The development hinged on two key funding components: a $4.5 million grant from the state for construction of a parking garage, and federal financing from HUD, both of which the project received.

LOL "It's 100 percent historic renovation" says the developer. A good part of one of the buildings was torn down to make way for the parking, which hardly fits with historic preservation.

Whatever. The bar is obviously set very, very low. Driving and masses of parking spaces are built into the pie and basically forced down our throats at gunpoint. Anyway, this is the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that helps make the urban tax base and transit system such a black hole.

Pretty good radio show on Pittsburgh's Transit Mess

The following opinion is my own and may not be shared by other contributors to this blog.

Part one of a surprisingly good two part broadcast about the current state of public transit in Pittsburgh. Of course, it's far from perfect-this should be a ten part series at least. Sadly, any story that goes beyond telling some sob stories and asking for more money passes as good journalism.

There are however glaring omissions and misrepresentations. The PG transportation writer says "Transit agencies in every city require government subsidies". Not exactly true. Outside, the US, several transit companies, like Hong Kong's MTR run systems with no direct government subsidies. MTR breaks even at the fare box and makes money developing real estate around it's stations, generating huge profits. (You can buy the stock)

Of course, the fact that transit once did make money-or come close to making money is proven by the historic origins of Pittsburgh's own system in private streetcar lines.

Kudos for at least mentioning that benefit costs from the retired workforce are now almost equal to those working, a situation rarely duplicated by any other transit agency.

Then the PG writer makes the claim that "only two things can be done about this"--Increase funding or cut service. Sorry, but any bankrupt company can tell you that the third thing that could be done is to look into cutting the pensions, increasing the retirement age or making other changes in benefit levels. (Don't get me wrong-this is an ugly situation and some of the people behind these false promises should likely be in jail)

Are we really saying we are willing to eliminate almost all service, just so we can pay pensions? This is pretty much what is happening, although few will say it plainly.

They also fail to make connections between transit and land use. Transit will only pay off and be vital if we adopt land use to transit. They don't go into all the ways we subsidise cars like all the URA parking garages.

They also make no effort to look at the route structure. MTR's system makes money because that is what it was designed to do from the start. Nobody there builds a line to serve a football stadium that sits empty most of the time.

Pittsburgh only cab service offically anounced

In an earlier post, I told you about Pittsburgh Transportation Group's plans to assign a small number of cars to work only in the core city.

From The Tribune Review

The Pittsburgh Transportation Group and city officials will announce a new taxi cab service Tuesday for Downtown, the North Shore, South Side and Oakland.

Jerry Campolongo, director of Yellow Cab Co., a Pittsburgh Transportation Group subsidiary, said the company will start with six new black-and-white cabs and expand to as many as 20 as demand warrants. He said the service is geared toward people living Downtown and visitors to entertainment venues and restaurants.

The significant growth in residents in core areas like Downtown and the Strip, is running straight into a declining and perhaps hopelessly dysfunctional transit system. Cabs alone are not the answer, but they could be part of it.

The original plan was to start with 15 cars to serve The South Side, North Shore and Downtown. Instead the service will cover a wider area including Oakland with only 6 cars to start.

Details: The Newglotch Comes From Morgantics

The Newglotch

New sounds for GA/GI 3!

Shaker Heights looking to create more walkable and urbanist business districts

Shaker Heights, just east of Cleveland is a pretty legendary and wealthy old streetcar suburb. It was high on my places to see list and we saw lots of wonderful houses and hints of urbanism.

However, when compared to a streetcar suburb like Forest Hills in NY or Pittsburgh's Mount Lebanon, the business district was dull and car oriented. (Honestly, this was a quick dive through and we should have spent more time exploring)

From Green City Blue Lake

Sometime around 1950, Shaker turned its back on the street where the Blue Line ends, and grew enamored of the post-war suburban shopping center. Dirty dumpsters and blank walls of the back of shops faced Warrensville Road, which was widened, big parking lots appeared in front of the one-story shopping center, and the rise of the car almost made a monstrous six-way intersection seem like a good idea.

Pittsburgh's Urban Design Associates is getting public input on making changes and is getting a lot of support for making denser, more connected and walkable business districts.

Please comment if you know more about this.

Toonseum, Kelly-Strayhorn and Union Project Ignite GA/GI Fest 2012, Pittsburgh, PA

This year, GA/GI  Festival weekend (say GAH-gee) gets super-sized by Toonseum, Kelly-Strayhorn and Union Project from Thursday, April 5 through Saturday, April 7.

Toonseum is hosting the first in its series of
mini conventions in Garfield to kick off the annual Geek Arts/Green Innovation Festival for 2012. It all starts Thursday, April 5, at the BGC Community center, 113 N. Pacific at 6 pm. Come meet the many emerging cartoonists and animation vendors, who will be featured. The Toonseum Mini Con continues the next evening during GA/GI Fest @ Unblurred on Friday, April 6. This nationally acclaimed art crawl will showcase dozens of eye-popping art exhibits at Penn Avenue galleries and businesses all evening. Festival-goers will enjoy eco/tech displays, pumped up fashion, spoken word, food and fun for all ages!  GA/GI starts 6 pm.at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, 5472 Penn, where you can get all the festival details happening throughout the arts district. One more example:Kelly Strayhorn's Bap Boom Tourism, 8 pm. Or.. You catch this unique performance by Makoto Hirano on Saturday evening, April 7. But you'll still have plenty of time to stop in at a Saturday celebration hosted by Union Project. It's UP's Monster Open House! Child and family-friendly events all day long on April 7, starting 9:30 am.at 801 North Negley Ave.

Said GA/GI Festival Director, Christine Bethea "We never want GA/GI Festival to seem stuck or stodgy. That's why we love collaborating with great partners like Toonseum, Kelly-Strayhorn and the Union Project. They really help us mix things up. And  this year, we think people will love how we've revamped our Friday night fashion segment, making it a 'plein air' extravaganza. We've coordinating a mass designer trunk show where their models can strut through art spaces and restaurants. Kristin Barker, our GA/GI Stylist calls it Fashionation: March of the Fashionistas."

GA/GI Festival is a Paspports Art Diversity Project in partnership with Bloomfield Garfield Corporation, Friendship Development, the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, Google and other fine sponsors.

For details on these events visit www.gagifest12.blogspot.com 
or contact Christine Bethea @ 412-596-6521

Warhol Museum appoints new curator of contemporary art.

From the Post Gazette

"Nicholas Chambers, an art historian and curator, is the new Milton Fine Curator of Art at The Andy Warhol Museum and will assume his duties in late April.

Mr. Chambers was curator of contemporary international art at the Queensland Art Gallery, a major museum with holdings ranging from the 1800s to contemporary works in Brisbane, Australia.

In 2007, Mr. Chambers was a lead curator on a large survey exhibition of Andy Warhol's work that was staged by the Queensland Art Gallery in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum."

Sounds good. So far, I have no reason to doubt Warhol director, Eric Shiner's dedication or judgement.

Under the radar revival of Cleveland's downtown and near West Side neighborhoods

The macro population drop in Cleveland has been so bad, most people don't notice the significant growth in the downtown population to almost 10,000 residents. also underplayed are areas like Ohio City and Tremont which are actually attracting people in the 25-34 age group.

Two good posts on Rust Wire

Signs of Resurgence in Central/Near West Cleveland: A Demographic Analysis

A Nascent Brain Gain in Cleveland’s Urban Core

I left some comments on both posts.

Warhol Museum will open temporary space in Chelsea during May's Frieze Art Fair

This is totally awesome and amazing!

Face it--the Warhol is a national institution and collection that sort of fell in Pittsburgh's lap after no NY institution stepped up to help make it happen.

As a nationally known brand and collection, the intent was always to build international support from funders outside the city. One way to do that is to create an outpost in NYC-at least for a few months.

From Gallerist NY

“Why not do a satellite in New York, similar to the Guggenheim?” Mr. Kost asked, referring to the Guggenheim’s international museum network. “It will be great for New York, and hopefully what we can do is create a semi-institutional feel in this satellite.” While there is no fixed schedule for the satellite’s show, it is definitively being conceived as a temporary project, set to run from May 4 for at least four weeks."

I love this move to keep the museum more relevant and connected to the wider art world.

Keith Haring Foundation starts Tumblr of His Notebooks covering Pittsburgh and early NY years

The Brooklyn Museum is hosting a major show covering Keith Haring's early development.

Keith Haring: 1978–1982

Keith Haring: 1978–1982 is the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of one of the best-known American artists of the twentieth century. Tracing the development of Haring’s extraordinary visual vocabulary, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.

The Keith Haring Foundation will be uploading a scan from Haring's early notebooks each day for the length of the show.

http://keithharing.tumblr.com/

Already several of the images are of pages done in or around Pittsburgh. Honestly, I find it amazing and disturbing that Pittsburgh has never hosted a major show of his work.

My previous post about a show of his early sketchbooks.