NEWSgrist - where spin is art First Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles illustration brings $71,700 at Heritage Auctions DALLAS, TX.- The first-ever full artwork of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird – the illustration that launched one of the most successful character franchises in history – sold for $71,700 on Friday, May 11, at Heritage Auctions in Dallas as part of a Vintage Comics & Comic Art Auction. It sold to an anonymous buyer. The drawing was consigned by Turtles Co-Creator Kevin Eastman, who drew it with Laird one night in late November, 1983. Eastman has designated an undisclosed percentage of profits from the auction proceeds to benefit The Hero Initiative, a non-profit he is active with that provides a financial safety net for comic artists and writers. “What an incredibly exciting week this has been! “There was widespread international interest from collectors and fans of the Turtles alike,” Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations for the Comics Department at Heritage, “and the impressive price realized for this artwork is tribute to that.
Bad at Sports Happy Birthday Keith Haring! (PHOTOS) Today is the birthday of Pop-street art darling Keith Haring. The artist, who mastered the rare combination of super happy and super cool, would turn 54 if he were still with us today. Haring, who was born to a cartoonist father in Pennsylvania, grew up inspired by the smile-inducing imagery of Walt Disney and Dr. Although he was condemned by some critics for being too accessible, Haring's generous images for everyone were both easy to see and easy to appreciate. With connections including Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna, Haring quickly embodied the energy of urban 1980's New York. One of his emblematic images is the "radiant baby," a soft, bright crawling form from which light bursts forth in every direction. Check out this slideshow of Haring's exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Loading Slideshow Correction: A previous issue of this article stated Haring would turn 58 today.
Contemporary Artist | Time is Art Mars-1 at work on Afterthought Artist Mario Martinez, who also goes by Mars-1, was born in Boulder, Colorado and grew up in Fresno, California where he was inspired by graffiti art, comics, and science fiction. Through his visual art, murals and sculptures he creates worlds of material and etheric atmosphere in complex acrylic paintings swirling with colorful geometric forms and strangely familiar organic shapes. His paintings depict visions of transcendent and universal subjects like worm holes, nuclear physics and celestial phantoms. Martinez often collaborates with other artists such as Alex Grey, Brendan Monroe and Doze. Check out Mars-1′s website to see more of his work: AfterthoughtAcrylic on linen84 x 108 inches Strange Cargo, 2008 Mario Martinez (Mars-1) x Brendan MonroeAcrylic on paper, 2012. Bicycle DayCollaboration with Alex GreySan FranciscoApril 20, 2012 Mario MartinezPhoto byMairead O’Connor This'll look nice when it's framed. Powerwashing the Cave Painting
Dorothea Tanning | Home Contemporary Art Daily Review: Kevin Appel's 'Paintings' pack punch at Susanne Vielmetter Kevin Appel’s new paintings are at war with themselves. While that may be hell for the artist, it’s great for viewers: We get to watch as the talented painter goes back and forth between building taut compositions and blotting them out, leaving some shards scattered randomly and burying others under impenetrable layers of icy white paint. It’s a give-and-take drama whose quiet fury is fueled by a kind of decisiveness that brooks little compromise and takes no prisoners. At Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, each of Appel’s 11 new paintings begins as a pristine, porcelain-coated canvas onto which enlarged photographs get mechanically printed in ultraviolet inks. In one sense, the ragged textures, fractured forms and splintered shapes of these contemporary ruins function like old-fashioned underpaintings, giving Appel the opportunity to paint subsequent layers whose nuance and richness build on what lies beneath them. Each of Appel’s paintings stands free of its neighbors.
fARTiculate | daily dose of ART + RESEARCH The Public: an inevitable end for the misguided arts centre | Art and design It was billed as a “box of delights”, a cathedral-sized cabinet of curiosities to bring art to the people of West Bromwich “in surprising and beneficial ways”. They got the surprising bit right: just five years after opening, The Public arts centre in the West Midlands now faces closure, having been slammed by the government as “a gross waste of public money”. But perhaps the biggest surprise is that the flawed project lasted this long. Marooned on the edge of New Street, like a great tanker cast adrift, the building has been a catalogue of catastrophes since it was conceived in the 1990s as an experimental home for interactive digital art. While the big black box now stands as a monument to an ill-conceived vision – the Black Country's great black elephant – the £72m complex was doomed before it even opened. All the while, the Arts Council had pumped in £31m, as well as committed to £600,000 a year to fund the artistic programme of a building whose purpose remained utterly opaque.
Pulse New York 2013 In the lead-up to NYCxDesign, this weekend marks the opening of Frieze, NADA and Pulse art fairs in New York City. For art world regulars, it's one of the few chances to see thousands of examples of contemporary art in a single go. For others, it can be pretty overwhelming. With Frieze's takeover of Randall's Island and NADA holding court at Basketball City at Pier 36, Pulse on 18th street remains one of the few convenient venues to get to—it also happens to be one of the most well-curated. If you're in the city and looking for a place to kick off your tour, we recommend dipping your feet at Pulse, where you can take in these highlights we spotted around this year's NYC fair and more. Rune Guneriussen Photographer Rune Guneriussen explores the intersection of interior and exterior spaces, decorating natural landscapes with domestic items and traditional lighting. Alicia Cross Sohei Nishino