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Artopia

John Perreault's art diary

Roomers: Micro-Housing in the Big Apple

February 20, 2013 by John Perreault

  Congruent with the world-wide need for urban housing, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg last year launched an RFP for adAPT NYC. Seems there will be an experimental building in Kips Bay, featuring apartments of 225 to 300 square feet. This is below what the current building code allows. Pre-fab, green, plug-in micro-apartments are now a real possibility. 225 square feet? Bigger than a room at the YMCA, but smaller than an East Village walk-up. The Japanese who made urban history in the … [Read more...]

The House Detective: Very Small Japanese Houses

January 8, 2013 by John Perreault

                            Small is new. And the interest in small houses is global. Small is serious. The causes are economic, ecological, and in some places the need to skirt onerous building codes. Locally, garages turned into studios or storage units and the proliferation of out-buildings can be noted in suburbia and even in the outer boroughs of New York City. It is not that we need less … [Read more...]

An Unkind Cut: Art of Another Kind at the Guggenheim

July 10, 2012 by John Perreault

                              “Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949—1960” (Guggenheim Museum to Sept. 12) consists primarily of artworks collected by the Guggenheim before the 1959 opening of its Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue. This odd and in some ways adventurous exhibition is a trip back in time, a survey of works promoted by … [Read more...]

Chelsea Walk: How to Succeed in Art Criticism Without Really Trying.

May 8, 2012 by John Perreault

                      1. NEVER USE THE FIRST PERSON. In in the late ‘60s, art critic Lawrence Alloway said that, like the poet Apollinaire, I was of the peripatetic school of art criticism. When, in ancient times, I was writing for the Village Voice I walked around looking at art and made it seem part of ordinary life. He did not mean I was Aristotelian, for the same term is used for Aristotle’s … [Read more...]

Clyfford Still: In the Still of the Night

March 28, 2012 by John Perreault

                          Way Out West...  Since I was in the Denver area, I decided I just had to see the Clyfford Still Museum that opened late last year. Mark Van Wagner and I finished the installation of our travelling show, “Drawing from Sand,” in one day flat, so there was some breathing room. I call it “a small show with a global impact.” Van Wagner and I  met through Facebook … [Read more...]

Cindy Sherman: Against Photography

February 28, 2012 by John Perreault

  Since one critic has already deemed Cindy Sherman “the successor to Cézanne, Picasso, Pollock and Warhol,” I feel I am free to delve into other things. The headline to his preview panegyric was The Last Star, so one of these days I will have to write a pithy essay explaining why we don’t need any more stars, thank you; and the last great artist is me. The need for heroes or heroines is perennial, even in something as pure and as uplifting as art. Upon the occasion of the … [Read more...]

Hirst Hits the Spot

January 24, 2012 by John Perreault

                    International art-star Damien Hirst, who in the late-'80s helped incite the Young British Artists fracas, has produced vitrine art (sharks and other taxidermist beasties suspended in formaldehyde), spin paintings, spot paintings, medicine cabinets, butterfly collages, and bad Bacons. Only the latter have been deemed total failures. But stick around. They will be back. In his poly-headed oeuvre … [Read more...]

EDWIN DICKINSON: BACK FROM THE DEAD

December 20, 2011 by John Perreault

  Can artworks survive once they have fallen out of fashion? Or no longer inspire further art? Are off the grid? Are not part of the ongoing dialogue, but come across, if at all, as dead ends? As orphans, bachelors, old maids? Roberto Matta (1911-2002) at Pace to Jan. 28, Diego Rivera (1886-1957) at MoMA to May 14, and Francis Picabia (1897-1953) at Michael Werner to Jan. 14 were each at one point vital to the art life, so probably deserve a new … [Read more...]

ART COPS OCCUPY MOMA!

December 8, 2011 by John Perreault

In the world's first and only art criticism cartoon, John Perreault's art cops instigate, investigate, insinuate, cogitate, agitate. Who provided bail? Who were they working for? Whose side are they on?     To sample John Perreault’s  sand paintings you may preview  online the Kauai Museum catalog for Mark Van Wagner and John Perreault: Drawing from Sand, with a short essay by art critic Peter Frank.  Click  Here.  The exhibition runs from Nov. 12 to Jan. 20 in Lihue, HI. … [Read more...]

Why Artists Fail: Sherrie Levine and Maurizio Cattelan

November 29, 2011 by John Perreault

        Surely we all agree that artists are the center of art, if not the art world. In order to get more artworks out of them, we try to be kind and as far as possible let them call the shots. High hopes are endemic. Nevertheless, sometimes gallerists, curators, and critics are more talented than the artists they serve. When an artist verges on megalomania, failure is likely. Even Picasso listened to gallerists, curators, and critics. Maybe not enough, but … [Read more...]

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John Perreault

I have written about art for a number of years, specializing in first-person art criticism as art critic for the Village Voice, then in the Soho News. I have championed... Read More…

Artopia

ARTOPIA is an art diary featuring my evaluations of the art I see in galleries, museums, public spaces, and sometimes in artists' studios. I specialize in new art or art that needs to be looked at in a fresh way, in terms of contemporary practice. … [Read More...]

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Examples of John Perreault's art and his biography: johnperreault.info John Perreault is on Facebook and Twitter. … [Read More...]

John Perreault interviewed on WPS1

Now available as a podcast. Click here: PODCAST. … [Read More...]

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