THE PIT

Diddy in the hood?

Well, there's a line down West 25th street that wraps all the way around the block onto West 26th street, and there's an obvious police presence around West Chelsea. An audition? Yep. Not just any audition. Diddy's auditioning people for his band. Check out his info-video here.

Friday is Fun Day!

Great reading & fun for a friday:

Have you experienced the "Munch Effect"?

"Being Cindy Sherman's Boyfriend"

This blog gets super, um, excited by Lee Stoetzel's art.

Today finally feels like spring. This should get you in the mood to dance about it. oh, and maybe put on your soccer gear!??

Enjoy. **I'll be reporting tomorrow on my visit to the LES. Stay tuned.

SHOUT OUT: to Monsieur Mulroney for being such a great fan.

Art/Work: last night's "Top Ten Things" Workshop

SHOUT OUT to Jonathan & Heather for their great workshop last night!

The "Top Ten Things Every Artist Should Know" workshop at McNally Jackson bookstore last night was PACKED. 

You weren't able to attend? You're wondering what you missed? You'd really like to know the TOP TEN THINGS EVERY ARTIST SHOULD KNOW?? Well, you can buy Art/Work here and read all about it.

too cool for school

I just received an invite to preview the White Columns Benefit Auction and found myself giggling a bit at the long list of "friends" who would be in attendance...it was a long list of the various contemporary art membership groups (Junior Associates, Whitney Contemporaries, Young Collectors Council...just to name a few). Words like 'contemporary', 'associates', 'young' and 'friends' were all used more than once...but I was most struck by "The Contemporaries". No affiliation given. No museum or non-profit in the title to explain who they are supporters of. Simply THE Contemporaries. Which, upon some googling, I discovered is "by invitation only". It's like the NEXT Art Fair of art societies.

invitational. interesting.

oh did I mention we'll be at NEXT? see you in Chicago May 1-4, 2009.

SHOUT OUT

We are huge fans of The Art Law Blog over here at The Pit. But today that blog deserves a massive SHOUT OUT for it's support of Heather & Jonathan's Art/Work book. And of course, a big SHOUT OUT to Art/Work as well.

I'm also giving the book a Rob Carter Award for design (awarded to designer Michael Greenblatt)--it's efficient, it's bright,...it's a nice package.

Friday is Fun Day!

Here are some great photobooth goodies from Leah Tinari's exhibition (which ended last Saturday)...but I'm going to continue to share some of the real winning photos over the next few fridays. enjoy.

And in other Friday Fun News:

1. Simon Evans Island Time exhibition at James Cohan Gallery has been extended. You MUST check it out.

2. SHOUT OUT to VMan Magazine Blog for loving Dirk Westphal.

3. Barry Hoggard tweeted (is that the correct terminology?) during last night's Town Hall Meeting at X-Initiative. I was logged into X-Initiative's "live feed" on Twitter, but nothing was ever updated. I guess Lindsay was way too busy moderating...But I had help from Heather who text messaged me minute-by-minute. I laughed out loud when I read, "Rose guy says he takes ambien to cope." Seems Barry noted the same thing. And it was amazing to hear that "Guild&G never had debt + closed when they stopped being able to pay their artists"--truly awesome efforts on their part.  UPDATE: read the excellent ArtCat Zine account of the panel here.

4. Stay Tuned: next week, I take on ArtCat's "PICKS" on the Lower East Side. And this time around I'm older & wiser with regards to how things work in that end of town.

not so subtle

above: screenshot of artinfo.com's front page of their "art news" section today. Which highlights a review of John Miller's show...at Patrick Painter (note his huge banner ad above)

I think it's common knowledge among galleries that advertising with an art-publication ups your chances of getting a review in their magazine...but I still found the front-page obviousness of this one a little shocking.

dirk westphal: tomorrow night!

Obviously Dirk's fish don't have black bars over their eyes...just a bit of blog humor. But if you want to check out Super Uber in all his glory, check out Dirk's exhibition (also titled Super Uber), tomorrow night:

@ Mixed Greens, 6-8pm

And you can always check out Dirk Westphal's newest works here.

last chance!

It's the last day of Leah's show, so if you haven't seen it you've got 30 more minutes to rush over to the gallery. Otherwise, you can continue to see Leah's newest paintings on our website here. (above: she was a good sport and tried on this red hat for us)

Stay tuned: opening next Thursday at Mixed Greens--Dirk Westphal's Super Uber.

Friday is Fun Day

here's some interesting Friday reading for any art-market-geeks out there. I just came across this bit of art news on Artinfo.com.

Read the article first, and then join me in wondering out loud:
1) Discounted from $50,000 to $32,000?? wowsers.
2)"Compensate the gallery for the $30,000 it already paid Cotton" --whoa-WHOA. So...the artist must have a higher split than 50/50 with the gallery AND doesn't share discounts??
3) Boone only seeks to walk away with $2,000 from this deal (that's, of course, before legal costs)???
4) Am I misreading this????
5) Does this article seem to be giving away an awful lot of information?????