Archive for the ‘Links of Interest’ Category

Opera vs. Lady Gaga

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I came across two YouTube videos today on Facebook that are entertaining and post-worthy for the following reasons:

1. They are both kind of neato.

2. I think it’s interesting that the Lady Gaga remake has gotten far more views than the La Traviata at Whole Foods clip. Not surprising, but just interesting. What does opera need to do to get more viewers? To oversimplify – opera is just not as cool and accessible as Lady Gaga sung by a cute girl on 4 iPhones – and it never will be. But is that necessarily a criticism?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Breaking Stuff Is Cool

Saturday, March 27th, 2010
Mocad Winter '09 Exhibition
Image by gehad83 via Flickr

If you are interested in taking out any latent aggression you have over the passing of the HRC in an artistic way – or celebrate the home run for your team – you may want to check out MOCAD’s “Smash Art” event on Saturday night.

This wild, Duchamp-ian activity promises to be a rollicking experience for all participants. Artists, collectors and hangers-on are invited to come to MOCAD bearing at least one piece of original art each. Participants will then be encouraged to collectively smash, mutilate and destroy the works that they brought. Everyone will then be encouraged to work together to create a new and different, monumental art piece as a collective with all of the remnants of the smashed works. Art works and the tools to destroy them will not be provided by MOCAD. We request that no glass, dangerous materials or any hazardous products be used.

The event is free to anyone and takes place on March 27th at 6pm.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Economic Evidence of Atlanta’s Hip-Hop Dominance

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

I get very excited when I see things like economic analysis of the hip-hop and rap industry.

From the article, “Urban Economics: Atlanta, the Rap and R&B Capital of the World,”

A preliminary analysis of our 2007 MySpace dataset shows the MSAs whose Hip Hop and Rap bands have captured the most fans on myspace.com. Atlanta’s urban artists and groups have the third-most fans in the country – 6.4 million – behind only Los Angeles and New York. This is roughly 7.5% of the 83.7 million fans of the two MySpace genres, which, incidentally, are the most popular genres on MySpace.

Atlanta is an elite producer of one of America’s most widely consumed cultural products: radio-friendly rap and R&B. Atlanta is indeed a skilled city. But it is doubtful that the proportion of four-year college graduates is much of an indicator of the songwriting, arranging, and performance skills that some of Atlanta’s most successful entrepreneurs practice at world-class levels.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

ArtPrize Opens Again

Friday, March 26th, 2010
ArtPrize logo
Image via Wikipedia

I feel like ArtPrize just finished, and yet, here it is again, the world’s largest art prize – open to anyone anywhere in the world as long as they can match themselves and their art up with a venue in Grand Rapids, MI.

Venue registration runs March 15 to April 15; artist registration runs from April 19 to May 27. With a whopping first prize of $250,000, second place of $150,000, third place of $50,000 and $7,000 for 4th through 10th place – it would be crazy not to try!

ArtPrize is also one of the world’s freest competitions, in that anyone can compete with only a $50 entry fee and anyone can vote for the winner, online or via

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Arts and Econ Links of Interest

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
Graph of CO 2  (green), reconstructed temperat...
Image via Wikipedia
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Arts and Econ Links of Interest

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

To illustrate just how big this unresolved debt threat has become, Lanchester (along with others) estimated that the total cost of the financial system bailout in the United States is bigger, in inflation-adjusted terms, than the combined cost of the Louisiana Purchase (in 1803, by President Thomas Jefferson), the New Deal (the 1930s), the Marshall Plan (1948-52), the Korean War (1950-53), the Vietnam War (1961-75), the savings and loan crisis (the 1980s), the invasion of Iraq (2003) and the entire NASA program, including the moon landings.

In a Nutshell

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Sometimes I just don’t get the time to blog about all the things I would like to. So I’m going to start doing what all the cool kids in the blogosphere do, just post the links and let you guys do the hard work.

…2005 was a peak of its own in the three-year trend coming out of the steep post-internet boom recession of 2002. If the art market can consolidate above the 2005 level at is trough, the hypothesis that the art market has entered a new, global phase that offers much greater expansion in terms of both volume and price has some value.

  • High profile fair use fight over art. Images of the Korean war memorial depicted on a US stamp vs. the actual sculptures of the Korean war memorial.
  • Even higher profile arts smackdown: China out-arts France. What could it be? Could it be…mmmm, Satan? Or just the associated evils of capitalism?
  • And an interesting twist on the price elasticity of demand argument for luxury goods – turns out that art as mere luxury good may not be as accurate as art as alternative investment or store of long-term value.

“While outright global demand was weaker for luxury collectibles and consumables, there has also been a shift in luxury purchasing habits, as many HNWIs looked to secure their wealth in assets with long-term tangible value,” says the report. “This has worked strongly in favour of the art market, with art now recognized as a viable alternative investment asset.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
 
© Powerered by Wordpress | Custom Template Design by NBurman Design