Gran Masters of art 
I came over the excellent blog Grammar.police as I was doing my blog-blog for the Norwegian art critic journal Kunstkritikk.no. It is run by Kriston Capp, who is now writing a blog for Smithsonian American Art Museum named Eye Level.

One of the first entries is about Ben Davies great review about the chess exhibition at the Noguchi Museum.

Since Capp made an extended list and asked readers to extend it, so I would like to add:

- Arnold Schönberg


[ 568 comments ] ( 4731 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 2.9 / 1815 )
chess 
after a hectic weekend the young Norwegian Grand Master Magnus Carlsen (turned 15 a few days ago) beat his opponent, nineteen year old grand master Ivan Cheparinov after a two rapid rounds of chess. This means that Carlsen have reached not only the fourth round in the tournament and then one of the 16 best participating, but that he also have reached the World Chess Federation's top 100 list with his 2016 points.

Carlsen also beat the European Chess Champion Zurab Azmaiparashvili (FIDE rating 2658 makes him nr. 46 in the world before the championship in Russia).

THe most interesting thing is the opening of Ivan Cheparinov in the first game (view the game here or with aplet here )

Cheparinov started with a opening I haven't seen before (not that I have seen that many, but still). He opened with d2-d4 and c2-c4 before going g1-f3, g2-g3 and finally securing his c4 with b3.
This is an interesting variation and it would generate, I guess, stress for your opponent since it is brand new. This means that no one else than Cheparinov would know by hearth which moves would be the best. But still, he made his first wrong move quite early as he protected his c4 with doing Nbd2 and thus letting Carlsens bishop go to b4 (Bb4). Carlsen won this game even though playing black and seeing a new opening. Carlsens teacher, Simen Agdestein, I know as a football player from the early nineties

[ 693 comments ] ( 21313 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1608 )
spector cut + paste magazine 
The Leipzig magazine spectur cut+paste magazine is added to my link list. their first issue came out in 2001 and reached norway with their newspaper-paper, dutch design and fantastic texts. Their second issue came out the summer of 2002, not that great, but a funny interview with Slavoj Zizek.
Their third and last came out, almost two years delayed, last year.
---
The last issue is with artist Tilo Schulz as editor and guest editor schotisch artist Mark Hamilton. The design is very complex and some of the text's is a mixture of creative and critical writing.

It does not look like there will be another spector issue, but the web page with documentation of the project is online. It shows clearly how important design can be for a project.
---
I would like to add the dot-dot-dot magazine to my mag-list too, but their home page is not up and I cannot find it. I still would like to list it as a great magazine that I did read with great interest.

[ 915 comments ] ( 85921 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1860 )
on nothing 
one thing is of course that artforum.com does not have the highest standards when it comes to conflict of interest, another thing as well it is that I find a perverse interest in reading artforum.com's diary (called Scene & Herd) - and third thing is that I do have friends writing for them. A fourth thing is that I do not understand why Brian Sholis has a Blog that he never finds the time to update.

ps. do read April Elizabeth Lamm's post upon going to Norway. This is the third time in a year or so that a columnist at artforum.com goes up north. The two others being Brian Sholis at the opening of Elmgreen & Dragset's show in Bergen this year and Clair Bishop going way up north to my home part of norway. Check out the talkback. Someone did not like the Bishop’s formulations.


[ 835 comments ] ( 3794 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1864 )
about subjectivity and google hitrate 
I guess I am not single-minded. I guess that is good. I guess that is less good for my google hit rate. Not that I care. This site is not meant to become a popular blog, or at least I am doing no effort to make it more attractive or easier to reach. I guess that means it is a non-commercial blog? I am however hoping that those (any) of you that reads it (un/frequently) have a certain interest in it. I am not Tyler Green, I am not a journalist and I am not doing much updating on the arts life in Leipzig -- altough I live here. I should tell more about Leipzig and it's art life. Starting on Wednesday. I promise.

My hit rate at google (is it at all possible to find this blog without knowing the link og going through )vitakuben ? I do not think so. thats good. The idea was to have a space online (means someone could read it) that would force me to write some lines now and then. The blog also fits into the concept of Vitakuben the way it is today: underdeveloped and strange. We have done no projects since the oVERstation project (see http://ah.vitakuben.org -- click on oVERstation), and the only one that is doing something with his pages is Aksel (AH). The others (kjersti Bergesen and Nicolai Høgenhaug) are doing next to nothing online (As it happens, Aksel is the onlyone that do now how to program...)

But back to my writing. I do not write that good, not good at all if you ask me. I think the only reason why I am wanted at all by Norwegian (and some foreign mags) is that I do know a few people and I always hear the news early on (when it comes to Norway that is, when it comes to international new within the art world I am probably one of the first Norwegians to read about it, either by friends and contacts or by reading magazines, newsletters and other related written material ). Blogs, I do read a great deal of blogs. not all of them listed in my blogsroll, by there are a few that I read.

But one thing is to want to do something, another thing is to be able to live from it. I cannot live from writing and I know very few people that is independent and being able to pay their bills from writing. I know they do excist, but the marked is just not large enough. That combined with the fact that magazines
a) want many independent writers and
b) do not want to pay that well -- or cannot pay very much -- makes it difficoult to live from writing about contemporary art in a non journalist fashion.


The last two weeks I have been selling advertisement for the online magazine
kunstkritikk, building up a network within Norway, doing some chance, spam-like mails to more international magazines and institutions landing a deal with a few institution and a few international (as in: not Norwegian). That was fun. Organizing was fun. much more fun than writing.

And I mean, I did apply for a job in northern Norway a wile back. The application deadline in on Monday (second round) and I am expecting to be called up, mailed or something like this asking me to come to a job interview -- again. So you see, I hope to be able to work on vermitlung and developing new concepts rather that writing.
-- or so I hope --

got to go, have to write that piece on that the Norwegian gallery wang will not be closed down, but they will probably step down their engagement considerably.



[ 493 comments ] ( 3646 views )   |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3 / 1757 )

Back Next