Recently in web gems Category

Sharkforum contributor Norbert Marszalek and frequent Sharkforum commenter William Dolan have delightfully announced the launch of a new blog e-zine about art: www.neotericart.com. Titled "Neoteric Art," the two painters say it has been created to encourage open dialogue between painters concerning work, issues and the art world.

Neoteric is a pleasing adjective meaning "modern; new; recent." It would be a wonderful term to replace the currently overused "contemporary" and the now-historically placed "modern," as well as to get around the politically loaded "postmodern." Sharkforum wishes them well, and wishes Bill in his Artists' Project booth good luck too. Visit the site here.

One of my neighbours, H. R. Fricker, is a exceptional artist, originally known for his Fluxus, Mail Art work, but he has done a variety of artwork in his career. Fricker has pushed an approach influenced by early Conceptual Art into a personal and poetic "Contextual Art" far more intriguing than most Neo-Conceptual Art. Matthias Kuhn, himself a remarkable artist and curator-cum-art-project-organizer (as I find him to be, even if he was rather faint-hearted and worried about his “connections“ in the face of my newspaper article on local curatorial malpractice), has written a post about Fricker’s newest internet-based project. I translated it and am presenting here.

The internationally renowned Swiss artists H.R. Fricker has launched a new undertaking in his website “placeofplaces.com,” ...

Click here for a fascinating collection of Vincent Van Gogh's Letters. There are some interesting nuggets in here, including this one on hullucinations:

... Again - speaking of my condition - I am so grateful for yet another thing. I've noticed that others, too, hear sounds and strange voices during their attacks, as I did, and that things seemed to change before their very...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, 22 May 1889

I stumbled across this gem at the ever-so-indespensible Museum of Online Museums.

231 box only for JAWS. from the movie. "Super Scenes" series. 1975. This is the one with the giant shark attacking Frogman inside his shark cage. This is the BOX only - no kit. great for display. mint. 25.00

Find It Here

The comments by Bill Dolan, Newbie and others on The Shark's previous post may have swerved away from his point, but they raised an intriguing issue — the pressure on artists caused by simply having to make a living. This discussion reminded me of a fascinating blogsite, and a post on it. The site is called "The Intrepid Art Collector." It is by Lisa Hunter. Her mission is to create, encourage and assist new collectors. A worthy cause and she does it with panache on her enjoyable and readable site.

Hey, we're not always on the attack here. There are things we Sharks appreciate. I intend to intermittently present booster-like praise for deserving people, places and actions. Here's one.

Now you can participate in the (re)writing of history. Chicago Living Arts has created Chicago Wiki Arts: A Collaborative Site for Writing on Chicago Culture.

Not even a month old, and we're getting some more push:

flavorpill

The Chicago Reader (Adobe PDF file)

My friend Paul Belker is a nut seriously obsessive collector. His thriftstore art collection is really something. In addition to being featured in print and broadcast media the collection has travelled to museums as well.

Mr Wong's website has come to be known as a one stop pixel superstore.