Artist Mike Kelley, 1954-2012

More Love Hours: Wages of Sin, 1987

Post-Conceptual artist Mike Kelley died in his Los Angeles home on Wednesday. Kelley was an unorthodox artist who started his career in Detroit with the proto-punk band Destroy All Monsters before moving to LA to study with John Baldessari and Lauri Anderson at Cal Arts. Kelley, who continued to mix media / disciplines throughout his career, was known for his large mixed-media installations. He had solo shows at the Whitney and LACMA and participated in Documenta X in 1997.
For those interested in exploring Kelley’s work, the VRF has a copy of “Day is Done,” Kelley’s video installation at the Gagosian Gallery in 2005.
Obituaries: New York Times, LA Times, ARTINFO, and CalArts. Listen to “Mike Kelley: a Conversation with Art21”

We’re living in the post-modern age, the death of the avant-garde. So all I can really do now is work with this dominant culture and flay it, rip it apart, reconfigure it, expose it.
—Mike Kelley

Christo’s ‘Over the River’ blocked again

Christo’s  project to install 5.9 miles of fabric over 42-miles of the Arkansas River has been dealt another set-back. From the start,“Over the River” has had a number of detractors, most expressing concern over the potential environmental risks posed by the installation. The Colorado Wildlife Commission voted in May against the project. It wasn’t until November that the Bureau of Land Management actually gave “Over the River” permission to move forward.

The latest block comes from University of Denver law students suing on behalf of Rags Over the Arkansas River (ROAR), a group concerned with the environmental dangers that could result from such a large scale project in a sensitive area.  They describe themselves as an organization “dedicated to preserving and protecting the headwaters of the Arkansas River, the Bighorn Sheep Canyon, its inhabitants and the communities that depend upon them. Our founding project has been to formally oppose Christo and Jeanne Claude’s “Over the River” project. This project involves suspending horizontal fabric panels within a 45 mile stretch over the Arkansas River’s Bighorn Sheep Canyon. Hence the name ‘Rags Over the Arkansas River.'”

Christo, who is hoping to complete “Over the River” in August 2014, is required to put several mitigation measures into place for local wildlife including bighorn sheep and birds. (source: “University of Denver Law Students Sue to Block Christ’s ‘Over the River’ Project,” Huffington Post)

Latest additions to ARTstor

Bragg House, Carnegie Survey

In collaboration with the Library of Congress, ARTstor is releasing 6,884 documentary photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston from the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South. With support from the Carnegie Corporation in 1933-1940, Johnston (1864-1952) photographed buildings and gardens in nine Southern states in an attempt to document disappearing antebellum architecture.

Dolores Zorreguieta, Wounds, in Franklin Furnace Collection

ARTstor has also collaborated with Franklin Furnace, an organization founded in 1976 by Martha Wilson to promote ephemeral art forms. ARTstor will add 3,345 images of artists’ books, performance art, site-specific works, and other time-based ephemeral arts. For more information on Franklin Furnace, go here.

The Warburg Institute, founded in 1921 to study the influence of the classical tradition in Western arts, is now sharing 10,000 images of Renaissance and Baroque book illustrations from their rare book collection.
In addition to these available collections, ARTstor has just signed several new collection agreements. Soon to be added:
•Via Lucas will contribute 2,000 images of medieval Christian churches in France and Spain
• The Justin and Barbara Kerr collection will add 500 still and rollout images of Maya Pre-Colombian vases and artifacts