What We're Reading: 5/18
Big Nick Cave retrospective, a first for the Chicago artist, announced for MCA next year
To be fair to the Chicago art world, Nick Cave has never been the easiest artist to contain within a single show. He’s not quite fashion, or dance, or sculpture. He’s not quite an installation artist, though his work includes all of these mediums and more. His Old Irving Park studio is not really even a studio but a kind of next-generation Warhol-ish Factory. He’s never fit that idea of the artist toiling away inside a warehouse space. In fact, though he’s been a staple of contemporary art collections for decades, his last major solo show in Chicago was about 15 years ago, for the Chicago Cultural Center.
Via Chicago Tribune
Why Limited-Edition Art Merch for Monet and Van Gogh Keeps Selling Out
Worshippers of Vincent Van Gogh can feast their eyes on the painter’s 1889 masterpiece, “The Starry Night,” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but they’ll have no luck trying to nab a hat memorializing the painting in MoMA’s gift shop. For that, they might want to journey some 50-plus blocks south to Tribeca gallery Broadway.
Via the Wall Street Journal
Ceramic Mosaics Mend Cracked Sidewalks, Potholes, and Buildings in Vibrant Interventions by Ememem
Throughout his home city of Lyon, Ememem is known as “the pavement surgeon.” The artist repairs gouged sidewalks and splintered facades with colorful mosaics that he describes as “a poem that everybody can read.” Intricate geometric motifs laid with pristine tiles hug the cracks and create “a memory notebook of the city. It reveals what happened, the life in these public places,” he tells Colossal. “Here cobblestones have been picked up and thrown. There a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt…”
Ememem’s first mosaic dates back 10 years when he found himself in a damaged alley in Lyon. At that time, he already was working in ceramic and translated that practice to revitalizing the outdoor area. Since 2016, he’s been consistently filling potholes and other divots throughout France.
Via Colossal