More Art News

By Charles Kessler

 

GIFs

There’s been a lot of discussion about GIFs (an image with a few details animated) in the art blogs, mainly in response to a post by Tom Moody. Now, via The Browser, I learned of a Washington Post article about a collaboration between photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg that produced much more sophisticated GIFs (which they call “cinemagraphs”). Here is their site; it has many more of their cinemagraphs. And here’s a good tutorial on how to create cinemagraphs.

GIFs UPDATE:
Anil Dash has a excellent article with many good links, as does Paddy Johnson. Four good sites to see what artists are doing with the GIF format are:
http://dump.fm/
http://computersclub.org/
http://www.tommoody.us/
and especially http://rhizome.org/ which is probably the most extensive site devoted to digital art.

Finally, there's 3Frames, a pretty good free iPhone app that makes it easy to make animated GIFs with your iPhone.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s Muse

Unknown photographer, Jane Avril at the Moulin Rouge, c.1892. Musée Montmartre, Paris

A Courtauld Gallery exhibition (until 18 September 2011) chronicles the relationship of the aristocratic artist Toulouse-Lautrec and the cancan-dancing daughter of a prostitute, Jane Avril. More about the exhibition can be found here, here and here.

Summer Art Event

Culturefix, a bar, gallery and event space on the Lower East Side (9 Clinton Street,  just below Houston), has undertaken an ambitious project called Telephone: a Game of Multi- Disciplinary Communication.

From their press release: culturefix chef and owner Ari Stern will create a dish based off of the wikipedia entry about the game telephone. From this dish, composer Michael Vincent Waller will write a piece of music which will be performed for 16 artists who in turn will create pieces of art to be displayed during the length of the exhibition. Based off of the 16 visual works of art, playwrights from the Overturn Theatre Ensemble will have one week to write plays that will then be directed and performed by professional actors under professional direction.

I have no idea how good this is, but it seems worth checking out. There will be play readings every night through July 24, from 6:30 -8pm. For more information and to buy tickets for the play readings, go to: http://culturefixny.com/events/telephone-exhibition/