Lets Play The Quiet Game - Stillspotting NYC

New York City—a place of peace and tranquility. If you raised an eyebrow at that opinion, you are not alone. New York is typically known for its fast pace, and the stresses that come with attempting to be “ahead of the game” in a crowd that is already there. Hordes of people shuffle in and out of therapy appointments as a way to find some relief in the chaos of the Big Apple.

In reaction to this seemingly overstimulated lifestyle, the Guggenheim Museum has instituted a two-year program called “stillspotting nyc.” Under the leadership of Pedro Reyes, the museum temporarily transforms unused spaces and turns them into “Sanatoriums.” These oases guide visitors through specialized relaxation games and team-building exercises. Individual sessions are also offered and include exercises to help you calm down and regain a sense of peace. Some of the activities are a little bizarre, like GooDoo, in which the participants channel their negative energy into dolls, but the feedback from visitors is overwhelmingly positive.

To schedule your own visit to the Sanatorium, take a look [here]

Guggenheim Museum's YouTube Contest

Guggenheim

The Guggenheim Museum announced “YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video” in June. This video contest “aims to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video.” “YouTube Play” was developed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation along with YouTube and HP.

Out of 23,000 submissions from 91 countries, the Guggenheim’s curatorial team selected 125 videos for the shortlist. These videos will be reviewed by the “YouTube Play” jury, and the final jury selection (up to 20 videos) will be shown at the Guggenheim on October 21. Among the 125 is a submission by Josh Bienko, whose appearance in the 2008 MFA show at GMOA, especially his Christian Louboutin heels painted on the distinctive red soles (below) with work by Jeff Koons, was quite a hit.

Nancy Spector, the deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim foundation, comments on the shortlist:

The shortlist presents a rich sampling of the best creative video found on YouTube and is representative of the various stylistic and conceptual genres specific to this broad, ever-expanding platform. The selection is diverse in technique, subject matter, geography, and professional status, which reflects the increasing accessibility of new media technologies around the world. We believe the shortlist reveals the abundance of creative energy this project evoked.

Click here to go to the “YouTube Play” site.

Contemplating the Void

Taylor Green has been musing on the Guggenheim's exhibition "Contemplating the Void," in which the curators asked 200 contemporary artists to propose something to go in that big space in the middle of the museum. First he focused on environmentally themed responses, then on responses that had to do with torture, and there's more yet to come this week. The exhibition has its own Web site, too, so you can poke through interpretations of the space on your own, although they're a bit scattered. Make sure you have some time, in other words, and aren't easily frustrated by the weird, Flash-based navigation system or by artists' tendency to believe their work already clearly explained by a quick drawing. We find ourselves drawn to the more colorful options, like Ball Nogues Studio's proposal that appears to have something to do with a giant candy-making machine (above) or Fritz Haeg's idea to paint the ramps as a rainbow, but Green's analysis has been bringing out some interesting themes.