2.20.2009

Bits: 02.20.09


Antidote to the flag lapel pin: Richard Barlow's Save Your Own Soul

• In December, Damien Hirst demanded remuneration -- to the tune of $284 -- from a 16-year-old artist who sold collages that used imagery of his diamond-encrusted skull. Now, as ArtInfo reports, a group of British artists -- Jimmy Cauty, formerly of The KLF; Jamie Reid, who designed the cover for the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen single; and artist Billy Childish -- have produced a series of limited-edition prints mocking Hirst -- with proceeds helping the young artist, "Cartrain," pay off his debt to zillionaire Hirst.

• San Francisco's Asian Art Museum offers a slideshow on the cleaning and conservation of thangkas, devotional paintings and embroideries from Bhutan. Conservator Eddie Jose worked with Buddhist monks, training them how to maintain the delicate textiles back at their monasteries. The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan is on view at The Asian through May 10.

• Administrators at Ottawa's Carleton University have removed from campus a poster promoting "Israeli Apartheid Week" Mar. 1-8. It depicts an Israeli helicopter firing a missile at a Palestinian boy with a teddy bear who stands above the word "Gaza."

Folkstreams.net, an archive of documentary films about folk culture, has an amazing array of films, essays and previews, including Pete Seeger's movie about Ghanaian fisherman songs and films about bluesmen, outsider artists, street games of Los Angeles and hip hop in Clarksdale, Miss., to name a few. Via Flavorpill's Daily Dose.

La Entrada, a project in San Diego that aims "to infuse art into a low income housing project as it is being built." Watch the video.

• Highly recommended: Ray Lee's sound installation Siren, at the Walker tonight and tomorrow. Saw it last night -- it's amazing: haunting, meditative, surprising -- and hope to write something up on it yet. (Two perspectives on Siren here.)

Typographic illusions (or, optical eyesores) via FiddlyIO.

• Flickr thumbnail galleries as art: A gallery of colorul old German currency and every iteration of the Walker Teen Art Council's web page.

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