Jeff Koons, MOCA, Connie Butler among winners of new art award
Award season in Hollywood is often mocked by cultural aesthetes as crass and commercial. But purveyors of the fine arts certainly aren't above throwing their own lavish parties to honor themselves. In fact, it's apparently hip now to imitate those vulgar Tinseltown award ceremonies -- but in an ironic way, of course.
Yesterday at New York's Guggenheim Museum, the elite of the museum and gallery worlds gathered for an event titled "The First Annual Art Awards." The ceremony, which was organized by conceptual artist Rob Pruitt, was intended to ape the Hollywood tradition of bestowing glitzy prizes in a celebrity-infested atmosphere. (Julianne Moore and James Franco were on hand to present some of the awards.)
A news release for the event went so far as to spin the evening itself as "a performance-based artwork." Culture Monster doesn't really buy the whole tongue-in-cheek angle. After all, when does a parody cross the line to become the thing itself?
In any case, the ceremony included many high-profile art-world winners. Mary Heilmann and Connie Butler won the artist and curator of the year awards, respectively. (The latter was a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. for many years.)
Jeff Koons won the award for exhibition outside the U.S. for his installation at Versailles. The award for solo museum show went to the Martin Kippenberger retrospective organized by MOCA and New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Other winners included artist Ryan Trecartin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York's Tony Shafrazi Gallery and critic Jerry Saltz.
The award trophy, which was designed by Pruitt, resembled a celebratory bucket of Champagne that also serves as a fully functional lamp, according to the Guggenheim.
-- David Ng
Photo: Julianne Moore and Francisco Costa (of Calvin Klein) at last night's ceremony at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Credit: Jemal Countess / Getty Images
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How appropriate. Fashion sponsoring effete "art". And we wonder why creative art is no more, and shallow fine art rules the day. When you got nothing to say, say it loud, with a high gloss finish, and the souless will at it up.
art collegia delenda est
Posted by: Donald Frazell | October 30, 2009 at 12:48 PM
Tongue in cheek or not, congratulations to Southern California art museums for a near-sweep of Pruitt's and the Guggenheim's First Annual Art Awards in museum categories. Artist of the Year Mary Heilmann was the subject of the Orange County Museum of Art's smashing retrospective. Curator of the Year Connie Butler organized "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution" for the Museum of Contemporary Art. And "Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective," winner for Museum Solo Show of the Year, also had its debut at MOCA.
The one that got away--"The Pictures Generation: 1974-1984" at New York's Metropolitan Museum--won for Museum Group Show of the Year.
Posted by: Christopher Knight | October 30, 2009 at 02:19 PM
Who's the better painter? Degas or De Kooning? I think "the painter of light" Kincade should get the prize.
Posted by: El Guapo de la cuidad de los angeles | October 31, 2009 at 10:38 AM
It's absurd that mainstream media is reporting on "awards" given by one person as a way to hype a museum gala! The stupidity is evident from the bozos they selected.
Posted by: anonyme | November 01, 2009 at 04:13 PM
The Kings and Queens of nothing make a sham fest, shamelessly self-congratulating each other for fooling the world again for a little longer. These people would wear a dead baby around their surgically perfect necks and call it fashion. Oh Honey! Thanks for this coverage, wonderful stimulus for regurgitation. Must watch our waistline.
Posted by: William Wray | November 02, 2009 at 01:47 PM
Degas. Though de Kooning was good.
Posted by: Donald Frazell | November 04, 2009 at 08:04 AM