it still exists
Interesting article from NYT on racial bias in hiring NYC waiters…
According to the test results:
- Nonwhite job applicants were 54.5 percent as likely as white applicants to get a job offer, and were less likely than white testers to receive a job interview in the first place.
- The work experience of white job applicants was less likely to be subject to scrutiny.
- Accents made a difference — with white candidates. White applicants with slight European accents were 23.1 percent more likely to be hired than white testers with no accent. However, accents in nonwhite applicants made no difference.
Almost Over
It’s always fun being surprised by an artwork, and I totally enjoyed watching these Second Life performance from Eva and Franco Mattes, first one is the Gilbert and George Singing Sculpture re-enactment while the second is a re-enactment of Abromavic and Ulay’s Imponderabilia.
Berlin 2000
Bjorn Dahlem, Club Schrodingers Katze, 2000/2009, wood, fluorescents, cat tree, cat litter, book, and lamp
This show was great, if only for this piece. As I walked past it I immediately thought what a bunch of crap…as I kept looking it’s genius slowly crept on me and I truly appreciated the interaction of materials. Then I saw the book, a copy of Freud’s “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious” and fell in love with the playful nature of the piece. Knowing the title of this piece adds another element to the materials and concept behind it. This evidence of humour in art making can be seen throughout the exhibit. (more…)
Helen Levitt
This has always been one of my favorite photographs from Helen Levitt…when I first began taking photographs she was one of my top inspirations. According to Walker Evans, the only photographers who mattered were himself, Levitt, and Cartier-Bresson. She passed away this weekend at 95, leaving us with a large collection of New York City images, as they will never exist again. This bit from the Times article exemplifies this fact:
Changes in neighborhood life also affected her work. “I go where there’s a lot of activity,” she said. “Children used to be outside. Now the streets are empty. People are indoors looking at television or something.”
Into the Sunset
Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West just opened at MoMA this weekend and really surpassed any expectations I might have had for the exhibit. Over 120 photographs including even daguerreotypes and tin types are present in this examination of how the idea of the American West is explored by photographers from 1850 through the present. Admirable and notable photographs from some of my favorite photographers are included: Alvin Coburn, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Dorothea Lange, Ed Ruscha, Garry Winogrand,Stephen Shore, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Philip Lorca Di Corcia and the list goes on. The show was excellently curated and organized by Eva Respini. From the list of names above, it is evident that the exhibit thoroughly explored not only different facets of the west, but different ways of creating photographs themselves from the conceptual to the process. Of all the great photographs, I was most excited to finally see this in person:
There is no just no way to really appreciate this photo collage by David Hockney without seeing the different layers come together in your presence, made my day! 
Gmail…Undo
I was kinda trying to figure out if it was April Fool’s Day again…but I guess it’s not.
Sometimes I regret sending a message the morning after. Other times I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake. I forget to attach a file or email the birthday girl that I can’t make her surprise party. I can rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet — but Gmail almost always wins that race.
An email to the wrong Larry pushed me over the edge. I could undo just about any other action in Gmail — why couldn’t I undo send? Many people agreed, including Yuzo Fujishima, an engineer in the Tokyo office. My theory (which others shared) was that even just five seconds would be enough time to catch most of those regrettable emails.
And now you can do just that. Turn on Undo Send in Gmail Labs under Settings, and you’ll see a new “Undo” link on every sent mail confirmation. Click “Undo,” and we’ll grab the message before it’s sent and take you right back to compose.
-http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-in-labs-undo-send.html
The Sound of Silence
Wow, this installation from Alfredo Jaar @ Galerie Lelong was truly an experience I will always remember. Earlier in the day I had seen Jonathan Torgovnik’s photographs of Rwandan women who bore children after being raped by militia men during the 1994 genocide at the Aperture Foundation, so the idea of human suffering and the people who capture it in the perfect photograph was fresh in my mind. Wallking towards Jaar’s “Sound of Silence” you are immediately blinded by the fluorescent light bulbs. (more…)
Ryan Trecartin
It’s a really really bad idea to watch his videos at 3 am …I hope I don’t get nightmares.
