A lovely story about Herb and Dorothy Vogel, How a Working-Class Couple Amassed a Priceless Art Collection:
At the time, Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism were in vogue and too expensive for the Vogels. Minimal and conceptual art, on the other hand, had yet to be embraced by the art world establishment. The Vogels made a pact: Her salary would go toward living expenses, his toward art. Under these new terms, they visited the SoHo studio of an obscure artist named Sol LeWitt and walked out with the first piece LeWitt ever sold: an untitled, golden, T-shaped structure. “He had more than average potential, and I felt it,” Herb said. LeWitt would later become a titan of contemporary American art.
It wasn’t just the masterpieces that were crammed into the space; the Vogels shared their storehouse with 20 turtles, eight cats and an aquarium filled with exotic fish. To protect the artwork from kitten claws and rogue turtles, the couple boxed and wrapped the pieces not hung on the walls, further diminishing the available living space. “Art is Herby’s only interest, except for animals,” Dorothy once said. (Fittingly, they named their cats after artists, like Matisse, Renoir, and Manet.) When National Gallery curator Jack Cowart first saw their apartment, he was stunned. “It upset all of my alarm systems as a curator,” he said. “I began to think: What if there’s a fire? What if one of the mega-gallon fish tanks that Herb keeps his fish in springs a leak?”
They were equally passionate about unknown talents, often helping them to develop. David Reed, now a famous conceptual artist, said the couple encouraged him to make more drawings, which later became a central part of his practice. “The Vogels made you aware of what you were doing as an artist,” he said. “They had artist sensibilities.” When they spotted something beyond their means, they’d find a way to make the purchase: They’d buy on credit; they’d forgo a vacation; they’d even throw in cat-sitting to sweeten a deal. And the artists loved them for it.
Pozzi offered an alternate explanation. “To ask them to sell a piece of their collection would be like asking me to cut off a square yard of one of my paintings,” he said. “They were artists, and the collection was their work of art.”
Thought: can an effort at online curation ever reach the same level of humanity that the Vogel’s achieved?
“They say hypocrisy is the respect vice pays to virtue. Well, kitsch is the tribute vulgarity pays to beauty, which is why bowlderizations, popularized settings of great music, sentimental visions of sublime scenery, are so touching: They show that we all long for the same archetypes.”
Taken from forthcoming album ‘Muchacho’
This is like that scene from Crocodile Dundee where he’s going across the Australian Dessert looking for Sue. Plus a pretty great Johnny Cash reference.
Playing with my brother and goats in Vermont. photo: cwinner
“One of the firmest conclusions of academic research into the behavior of Congress is that what motivates members first and foremost is winning elections. If individual members of Congress have little chance of losing their seats if they fail to compromise, there should be little reason to expect them to do so. Republican leaders like House Speaker John A. Boehner may conclude that there are risks to their party if they fail to reach a compromise, as during the current fiscal negotiations. But as David Frum points out, the individual members of his caucus may bear few of those costs directly.”
New York Times: At Kitchensurfing, Booking a Chef and a Story
Been a little quiet on the new project—there’s been a lot to figure out (which has been tremendous fun). But now we’re opening up a bit more:
“This spontaneous cultural and culinary encounter was brought about by Kitchensurfing, a start-up business trying to make it as easy to find a private chef online as it is to book a room or order a book. The dinner’s host arranged the meal by browsing Kitchensurfing’s database of profiled chefs, who range from slick, credentialed professionals with years of restaurant experience to self-taught cooks like Ms. Phlong.
“We used Treehouse as a private group communication tool. Instead of taking photos to maintain memories, we used them for instantaneous communication. And the resolution of information in a photo, it turns out, is huge when compared to text or even to voice. A photo can tell you where someone is, what time it is, who they are with, and much more. When you focus heavily on artistry, which Instagram does, it becomes much harder to take photos that truly represent the moment you’re sharing.
Because Treehouse didn’t have comments or liking, if you wanted to respond to someone, you had to respond with a photo. After a few days, someone figured out that he could write a comment on a piece of paper, take a photo of it, and share it with the group. Suddenly, all of the necessary pieces for a successful social app were there: the communication system and the feedback mechanism. It was an awesome experience, and I loved the app.
That is, until liking, comments, and titles were added. Everyone wanted and begged for those features, of course, but adding them had an unforeseeable negative side effect: they removed the expectation that photos should be used for communication, and instead gave the impression that communication should happen around the photos. The centuries-old expectation that photos should be artistic crept in, and the fun photo chats we had suddenly stopped.”
Dustin Curtis, Photos for Communication
And again: “Until Snapchat, which has captured the essence of using photos as communication. Because it is completely ephemeral – and because the photos are deleted after 1-10 seconds – it’s impossible to use the photos for anything but communication. It’s an amazing app, and its popularity is just a hint of how I think we’ll use photos in the future.”
Most of my favorite moments with good company involve sharing a meal in a home. Going out is for strangers.
The secret to “going viral?” Help people validate their impressions of themselves. - Jesse Farmer
Remains of the day.
“A funny thing has happened since the social network debuted in 2004 [Facebook]—our friends stopped being themselves. “I don’t know about you but my friends are really weird,” says Spiegel. Yet all of their quirks have been lost in the rarefied air of social media, replaced by self-conscious, superhuman wits who trade in “envy me” scenes—sunsets and vacations, impossibly fun parties and gourmet dinners.
Spontaneity, now punishable by career ruin, has been abandoned. Instead, everyone is busy curating a perfected online image. “People are living with this massive burden of managing a digital version of themselves,” Spiegel laments. ”It’s taken all of the fun out of communicating.”
