Turner Prize short-list

Here's a slideshow of the 2013 Turner Prize shortlist.
Here's an explanation of what the Turner Prize is.
Here's a list of former winners.

(Here's a photo of an orangutan.)

"conservative with a small c"

In a culture soaked in words like "indie," "sell-out," and "meme," it's fascinating and refreshing (at least to me) to see a cross-dressing potter who never went to art school (Grayson Perry is one of Britain's most celebrated and successful artists) defend the Canon and remind us that it takes patience and practice to understand art. On BBC, no less.

Cave Man Art...

...was probably cave woman art. Or cave young boy art. But probably not cave man art.

Thanks to Mattie for sending this story my way. Wish her the best in her art-heavy First Year Seminar.

Computer nerd solves art mystery?

I don't even know how to sum this up, so I'm just going to link to the story and throw out a few keyweords to intrigue you: software engineer, Penn & Teller, movie, Vermeer, Hockney, centuries-old mystery, forgotten technology. Clink on the link, you're dying to.

The student becomes the teacher. Literally.

CVHS graduate and first-year teacher Rachel Vogel writes about taking a few of her students to the Menil. It's a great read, both because it's a great story and because Rachel is a great writer. (She was one of the 11 students in my first-ever Art History class. They really helped shape the class and what it's become. Thanks again, Rachel!)

Banksy follow-up

It seems that the social media are the only places left to see the new Banksy New York pieces, since the first two have already been painted over.

Banksy is in NYC!

(photo)

Banksy is hitting New York this month, and he's embracing "social media." Each piece (it looks like he'll do one a day?) is photographed, put on Twitter, Instagram, and a web site made for the "residency." Each piece also has an accompanying audio tour piece that you can listen to online, or call a 1-800 number to hear. This looks like fun.

How does he keep his anonymity when he announces ahead of time that he's in town? People will surely be scouring the NYC area all night looking for him. Will he employ decoy artists? Walk around in his monkey mask to remain disguised? Or just allow himself and his crew to be photographed while he works, like he did in Israel?

The mimes are asking you to tone it down

In one of those "surely this is an April Fools prank" stories, Paris has a troupe of mimes that wander the nightlife sections of the city and encourage people to be less rowdy. Question of the week: what other behaviors would mimes be good at encouraging?