Submissions From hyperallergic.com

 "As design and art is shaped and formed from a broader toolkit of technology, the perception of what is handmade is altering. Yet what is still handmade is also a reaction to these new technologies. A pop-up exhibition in Brooklyn is showcasing a broad group of these creators whose work ranges from the sleek verging on the industrial to the more DIY look more readily associated with the handmade." (Allison Meier )

 "In the world of art blogs the economic models are few and most have yet to be proven, but Art F City (AFC) is trying something new through a booth at this year's Nada New York art fair, where the Brooklyn-based site and fellow Nectar Ad network cohort has decided to try their hand at selling art." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Visiting Frieze New York on Randall's Island is like being sucked into a black hole. You get on a ferry (or a bus, or a bike, or a taxi), enter a giant, spacious tent, and then time stops. Or it disappears. Or it slips away. Next thing you know, you stumble out dehydrated and drunk off your speakeasy cocktail (more on that tomorrow) and notice the sun starting to sink in the sky." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 " As interest in China grows, so does interest in its art scene. And while I've met countless artists in the US who have wanted to travel to China, the barriers to access remain high, due to language, culture, and cost." (An Xiao )

 "We may not customarily think of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) - founded in secret in September 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and soon attracting other artists - as an avant-garde, but the label does seem apt. The PRB painters and their affiliated artists were an embattled band of refuseniks, rejecting the standard practices of modern painting, and with it modernity itself, as corrupt and unsustainable." (James Gibbons )

 "I have never met an artist who likes writing artist statements. And I knew I was poking at a wasp's nest when I created a workshop called Learn to Love Your Artist Statement. But I was still caught off guard when a student walked into the room one day last year, arms folded, and said, This better be the best class I've ever taken. Yeah, artists really hate these things." (Robin Grearson)

 "Slime mold has one of the worst public images of any single-celled organism. For one thing, the Physarum polycephalum, as it's scientifically called, has a gross nickname evoking a drippy texture and oozing shape, and its highest-profile appearance could arguably be as inspiration for the roving, destructive The Blob of B-movie fame. But really, the slime mold is a quite intelligent, fascinating being, and even an able collaborator in art." (Allison Meier)

 "The UK has passed a new act that has photographers and other creators worried about maintaining ownership of their images. The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act theoretically aims to make it easier for companies to publish orphan works, which are images and other content whose author or copyright can't be identified. But whereas in the past, orphan works were often out-of-print books and historical unattributed photos, today millions of images are quickly orphaned online, as they move from Instagram to Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr without attribution along the way." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Three months ago I attended a discussion at Hunter College called ...towards meaning in a plural painting world. The panel sought to examine today's multiplicity of painting styles and determine if this is a positive or dilutive development for painting's meaning as a whole. Last Wednesday, the Pratt Institute took on similar subject with a panel titled Painting Matters Now: a Conversation." (Patrick Neal )

 "The Old Becomes The New, at Wilmer Jennings Gallery, tackles a particularly overlooked aspect of Native American artistic development - the fertile exchange that took place between the New York abstract expressionists and Native artists." (Ellen Pearlman )

 " The 37th installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace. Want to take part? Submit your studio - just check out the submission guidelines." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "What's the appeal of an art work on an iDevice? Is it because we are familiar with these by now ubiquitous tools and work created on them give the air of being current? If that's the case, maybe we should change our thinking on the matter." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "It's really interesting to have a museum invite these kinds of installations of contemporary art as direct dialogues with their collections, and it really makes the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature a special place to visit for its eclectic interpretations of human's history of hunting and our relationship to nature." (Allison Meier)

 "Earlier this week, officials with the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the National Archives and Records Administration, gave testimony at the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the impact of federal budget cuts from sequestration. The cuts will force the Smithsonian Institution to not just cancel or put on hold some upcoming exhibitions, but, starting May 1, to temporarily close off galleries throughout the year as well." (Allison Meier )

 "Sometimes the quietest and most unassuming exhibitions turn out to be the most fascinating, if not the strangest." (Thomas Micchelli )

 "There is a growing uproar over the news, first reported in the New York Times yesterday, that the venerable Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be demolishing the 12-year-old former American Folk Art Museum designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to integrate the site into its masterplan." (Hrag Vartanian )

 "Sometimes it's not so much about who did something first, but who did it best. In the technology start-up world, it doesn't matter that dozens of other companies were creating video upload sites before YouTube; YouTube just hit the right combination of community, buzz, and content. Art history is the same. Enduring fame, of the centuries-long variety, doesn't come to the artist who first followed through on an idea, but to the one who did it the most prominently." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Art museums are known to show and uphold some artists whose work continually incites controversy, among them Robert Mapplethorpe and Chris Ofili. But when does art become too controversial for a museum to openly support or display it?" (Kyle Chayka)

 "The Art Newspapers annual museum attendance figures for 2012 were recently released and there were no real surprises, except that the Tate Modern has overtaken the National Gallery in the fourth spot, DC's National Gallery of Art slipped to 8th, and Seoul's National Museum of Korean fell out of the top 10 to 12, while the Vatican Museums (which was not included on the 2011 list) entered the list in the 6th spot." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "One of the ongoing narratives of the art world as of late is the fight over art's presence on the internet - which company will be the first to make systematized online art sales mainstream? The field of contenders, which has ranged from 20×200 to Paddle8, Artspace, Artsy, VIP Art, and even Fab.com, is narrowing." (Kyle Chayka)

 "I hate artist statements. Really, I do. As an artist, they are almost always awkward and painful to write, and as a viewer they are similarly painful and uninformative to read." (Iris Jaffe)

 "On the very first page of the book, Dewey makes it clear that he sees a problem with canonizing art works of any form - of placing them aside as untouchable objects. For him, part of understanding art as an experience is also understanding that it comes from human experience, that it is born of the lives that artists live and the conditions and societies that surround them. " ( Alexis Clements )

 "Pollock and Guston were friends, and they were also rivals. While each admired the other, they were in some way deeply envious and competitive. " (John Yau )

 "So far this year I've been to two different events that highlight different but related approaches to political organizing among artists here in New York. Just to clarify what I mean by organizing - literally bringing individual artists together into a larger community that can advocate for and create political change around some of the more pressing issues facing independent artists in the city (unstable housing, irregular employment, healthcare, etc), issues which many other groups in the city also face." ( Alexis Clements )

 "Let's explore some more prejudiced impressions and stereotypes about artist-run spaces. Unlike galleries with regular funding, these venues do not attract the general public and often offer little in terms of interpretation. Unlike commercial galleries, where solid brands and high prices appear to guarantee the value of collectors' investments, shabbier spaces offer little in the way of validation. They seem to exist for artists to show work to other artists." (Mark Sheerin )

 "There are plenty of ways to think about planning an artistic career. Are you aiming to be the enfant terrible, a young provocateur? Or are you playing the long game, sticking with your work until it gets recognized?" (Kyle Chayka)

 "Wading through the crowded opening of the Independent Art Fair, held in the former Dia:Chelsea building with its ridiculously narrow stairway, I found myself doing more reading than gazing at art." (Emily Colucci)

 "The act of laying bare one's research as it unfolds is increasingly relevant in contemporary culture, but it removes something curators have come to expect from exhibitions: the addictive anxiety and feeling of release surrounding a major reveal. " (Lindsay Howard)

 "Every year, the Armory Show art fair chooses an area of the globe to zoom in on for its Focus section, a curated selection of mostly emerging galleries that often includes some of the fair's chief highlights and surprises. For 2013, the Armory's Focus section takes on its own home base, the United States. " (Kyle Chayka)

 "We are crafting our own cultural legacies, one post at a time. And these legacies are no longer relegated to locations (the coffee shops of Istanbul, the salons of Paris), but rather to online platforms." (Man Bartlett)

 "Though the National Endowment for the Arts seems under constant threat of being gutted, one city initiative is putting arts funding at the forefront of civic responsibility rather than last on the list. In November of last year, Portland, Oregon, passed a new annual income tax of a flat $35 fee that goes directly to supporting local arts organizations." (Kyle Chayka)

 "The notion of any artistic practice being open to automatic expression is arguably a dubious one; just how much control can be relinquished while writing, or drawing, or dripping isn't clear. Nor is it clear that something called the unconscious fills in where craft has presumably fled. " (Albert Mobilio)

 "The real capacity of Kyur8 is to tell stories in that sequential, page-by-page format that we've grown accustomed to ever since the medieval advent of folios. That aesthetically strict, sequential structure has lost out to other, more freely interactive methods online, but perhaps it's making a comeback. Artists, go forth and zine!" (Kyle Chayka)

 "How to find a dealer is another eternal question of being a professional artist. The consensus among the panelists was that it's not about sending out portfolios or CVs but meeting dealers and collectors through other artists. Artists are who find you a dealer, Otero said. It's through trust and relationships." (Kyle Chayka)

 "What's the best way to show artwork - both made for the web and not - online? How do we bring net art into the physical space of a gallery? These are two of the questions that curators, artists, and others in the art world are increasingly confronting and most likely will be for a while. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "Today, in bizarre art news: people are claiming a San Francisco gallery nearly went up in flames after an artwork that was purposefully set on fire burned a little too intensely. The gallery disputes the claim." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Okuizumo, Japan, stands paralyzed by an icon of Western art. A 16-foot-high replica of Michelangelo's triumphant David sculpture was installed in the middle of a public park in the southern Japanese town, but locals think it might be a little bit too public." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Last summer, we reported that ArtsServe Michigan had releases statistics that suggest every $1 invested in the arts in the Great Lakes State yields $51 for the state's economy. If that didn't impress you then perhaps you will be surprised to hear that even during the recent recession the arts has been a growth industry in the state." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Although I'm a die-hard paper book enthusiast (and plan to remain so until the end), I'm really intrigued by the idea of the People's E-Book, particularly because of the opportunity it seems to offer for creating zines and artists' books from net art and other online creations. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "Last week, a library in Manchester announced an incredible find: the institution holds hundreds of engravings by poet and artist William Blake that it didn't know it had." (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "When someone likes your work, make it easy for them to see more of it. There's no excuse not to have your own artist website." (Tim Cynova)

 "Opening up arts journalism to more voices represents a shift form the audience member as viewer to the audience member as part of a dialogue. " (An Xiao)

 "As if we didn't have enough trouble preserving the middle class, the middle of the art market is the latest topic of debate among members of the art world's commercial side. Why is the high end of the art market constantly booming while the lower and middle sectors suffer?" (Kyle Chayka)

 "Money is a huge factor in the art world, but unless you're reading a piece of writing that's explicitly about the market, it tends to go completely unmentioned, sort of like the first rule of Fight Club. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Gallery openings can be intimidating affairs. Smartly dressed artists and art lovers gathered with glasses of wine, discussing art, politics and everything else. All in all, even a friendly crowd can feel tough to break into. " (An Xiao)

 "More than one in five nonprofits (23%) - and 31% of organizations with operating budgets of under $1 million - have no fundraising plan in place. ... In addition, 21% of organizations overall - and 32% of organizations with operating budgets of under $1 million - have no fundraising database." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Maybe the people employed as censors at Facebook should be required to take art history classes. In the meantime, we're all stuck living by Facebook's Community Standards, which read like a hilarious cop-out." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Why is unknown artist such a subliminally pejorative or troublesome category? Is it the predominance of the auto-typed brand name and the search engine algorithm where every moniker competes with a million other monikers for hits?" (Tim Keane)

 "Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old internet pioneer, Reddit co-founder, and activist programmer who tragically committed suicide last week, made an intriguing entry into the art world last year at Rhizome's Seven on Seven conference, which brings creative technologists into collaboration with artists." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Back by popular demand ... the 31st installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "Reference to the past seems increasingly important to those who make physical art objects in our digitized world. " (Howard Hurst)

 "Technology and the internet are helping museums to push more of their offerings into cyberspace. 86% percent of organizations report that they're doing more events online, while 29% say that they're hosting more online-only events, webinars, virtual performances, and online exhibits." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Visit any prolific artist's studio and you'll see the intense need for archiving their work for a future age. This is particularly true, I think, for artists practicing outside the world's major art centers, where extensive media and established institutions help create an informal archive, if simply through press coverage, writings, and photos." (An Xiao)

 "I've been thinking a lot about the idea of open journalism in the arts. It's an important question, especially in light of the increased role of social media, blogging, and a general web presence that artists building a career in the 21st century often must maintain." (An Xiao)

 "Richard Harris's collection is indeed a portrait of the collector, it is also a portrait of something much more universal in its singular focus. Death is something we all have in common, after all." (Stephanie Bailey)

 "Artist Jason Levesque was down in Miami last week, wandering around Scope art fair, when he noticed something: work by an artist named Josafat Miranda that looked exactly like his own. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "Experience is a useful word, because much of the art on this list invited (or compelled) me to engage with it in a more interactive way than basic contemplation. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "So here, in no particular order, are the 12 museum exhibitions that stood out the most: shows that broke new ground, or got everyone talking, or just gave us some really great art. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "What a year. Highs, lows, and bloopers. Here is our take on the art, architecture, and design drama that was." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The Metropolitan show doesn't always do Matisse favors. A strange, harshly colored series of paintings completed in 1920 depicting variously a pile of eels, two rays, or a collection of fish slumped at the bottom of a cliff shows that no matter the artist, there are always stinkers and dead ends that must be pursued in order to move on. " (Kyle Chayka)

 "Historically, we think of Cubism and Kandinsky as the catalysts, but as the show unfolds and we see how swiftly, and wildly, the permutations of abstraction spread across Western culture, we might easily be convinced that abstract art would have happened anyway. " (Thomas Micchelli)

 "We hate to discuss art trends because it makes art sound like fashion, but, alas, they're real and they happen. " (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Just as the backlash against Instagram has been gaining steam (just check #BoycottInstagram), Instagram is finally coming forward to clarify what their new terms of service mean for users." (Hrag Vartanian )

 "With Gallerina on its way and, as Brian Boucher astutely points out at Art in America, Marnie Michaels employed as a gallery assistant on Lena Dunham's Girls, one can only hope that this trope becomes a regular thing that spawns dozens of melodramatic, highly addictive TV shows. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "SEVEN has carved out a flowing, friendly layout of open walls and pocket galleries that have more in common with the Museum of Modern Art's meandering layout than the booth-by-booth construction of the flagship Art Basel Miami Beach." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Today's high-end commercial art world is awash with abstraction of all types or collections of objects that convey their meaning in a manner far away from the representation of the human figure. And when the figure appears, it is often in the form of commentary on a historic ideal." (Hrag Vartanian )

 " NADA art fair has a reputation in Miami: it's thought of by a lot of people as one of the best, most interesting art fairs in town." (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "In our tendency to see museums as holy temples of culture, we often forget that museum acquisitions are, like everything else, a product of human judgment and taste, as well as of current trends, which quickly come and go. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "Treister has created solitary space and time for the viewer to process her emotions and thoughts before returning to the world. It's this expert shifting of sight lines, scale, and mood that make the memorial so evocative." ( Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Jackson Pollock and John Cage are legends in American history. In the centennial year of both artists' births, two exhibitions now on view in New York celebrate their work and underline the fact that even after their deaths, their influence continues to play an important role in how we understand, interpret, and even make art today." (Jason Andrew )

 "Abstraction, the story goes, has forged ahead with the creation of new forms (be it Abstract Expressionism or Minimalism) while Pop was content with reusing old ones." (Thomas Micchelli )

 "If you really want to know all about Andy, all you have to do is look inside of him through the eyes of those who surrounded him. That's exactly the challenge author Catherine Johnson took on in her new book, Thank You, Andy Warhol. " (Alexander Cavaluzzo )

 "MoMA's acquisition seems to answer the question once and for all that video games are indeed art." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Sure, it's great to live in an international artistic center, with the added bonuses of a supportive community, constant change, and a respect for the arts. But it also means there's a lot of noise to be dealt with - life has to be balanced with getting down to the difficult labor of actually making things." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Thankfully, not everyone hooked his or her wagon to Clement Greenberg when he declared that drawing was superfluous to painting and, by implication, an obsolete activity." (John Yau)

 "Howard Pepperell, culled 101 genuine quotations from the pages of contemporary art magazines, reviews, and commentaries." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "Culture, whether that's visual art, fashion, or writing, has always been about digging up the hidden gems and reference points of the past and bringing them to light in a new way. It's always been about proudly adapting your influences." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Though we think of digital creations as somehow non-physical entities, most of these works were made in the pre-cloud era, and stored as extremely physical things vulnerable to physical problems. The digital isn't so digital any more when the metal computer tower files reside in is getting eaten away by chemicals. " (Kyle Chayka)

 "One might say that community spaces get short shrift in the art world. It's not entirely clear why, but most likely it has something to do with their lack of marketability, their focus on engaging people rather than money - and perhaps more specifically, people without much money to spend on art. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Each year, the Armory Show art fair highlights the particular artistic landscape of a region of the world in their Focus section. In 2013, the spotlight will fall on the United States, the Armory's native homeland." (Kyle Chayka)

 "Sara Rahbar's Flag series captures some of the energy I love about America. Her objects mine the many veins of her Iranian American cultural heritage to transform the ultimate American icon into something more personal but comforting." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The French painter's love of raw creativity was of a piece with the social revolutions taking place. His invention of Art Brut was perhaps the rough, raw yin to Pop art's glossy yang." (Mark Sheerin )

 "Rinpa, literally translated as The School of Korin, derives its name from the Kyoto-born artist Ogata Korin (1658-1716). Through inventive use of space and brush techniques, he consolidated a style that embraced bold abstraction of natural forms, vibrant yet refined color schemes, and decorative aplomb. " (Xin Wang )

 "Watching images of Sandy being released brings out so many emotions for me. Reading that people had artworks damaged in the basements and first floors of Manhattan and Brooklyn is heart wrenching." (Muffin Bernstein )

 "As the Eastern Seaboard continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, those impacted by the devastating storm are slowly coming to terms with the shock of losing art, furniture and other possessions, but we want them to know there are a few resources that can possibly help them with their recovery." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "This extra time perched at our windows, watching people brave the winds and water, and listening to the police drive through the streets informing us that we should not be on the streets in Zone A - oops, that's where I live - got us thinking about the history of flood paintings." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The storm has caused extensive tree damage to the Tri-state area but it's worth noting that many art neighborhoods have also been impacted by flooding." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "One of the standouts of the new exhibition Dürer to de Kooning: 100 Master Drawings from Munich at the Morgan Library and Museum - if not the standout - is Michelangelo's St. Peter (after Massaccio) with Arm Studies. (And for an exhibition bristling with stunners by Matthias Grünewald, Andrea Mantegna, and Fra Bartolomeo - not to mention Dürer and de Kooning - that's saying a lot.)" (Thomas Micchelli )

 "The choice of wording on this ballot form is deeply ironic in an election where the arts have played such a minuscule role in the campaign trail, for both sides." ( Philip A Hartigan )

 "It's that time of year again. Art Review just had their fun bringing the art world their directory of the rich and powerful, and now it's our turn to flip the script and point out that not everyone is rich, famous, or powerful in our beloved communi" (Hyperallergic)

 "It's time once again to look at a particular metric of art-world success - Art Reviews Power 100, which gets published annually to tell us just how many people place above us in the supposed pecking order. " (Kyle Chayka)

 "As older fairs grow and new entries join the competition, fairs will have to struggle to retain galleries rather than galleries fighting to join fairs. The galleries that are the art fairs' clients could gain power, a situation that would help all of us, given the ongoing prevalence of a few staid, stultifying fairs with no incentive to innovate." (Kyle Chayka )

 "In this fascinating series of works, Hungarian new media artist Bence Hajdu has removed the figures from a series of Old Master paintings with such precision that it's almost hard to believe. " (Hrag Vartanian )

 "Chicago artists Kevin Serna, James T. Green, Ethan Aaro Jones, Evan Baden, and Josh Billions explore the impact of instant communication via socially networked spaces on our lives today." ( Alicia Eler )

 "Bibliophiles rejoice! The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published 643 books about art and art history online, including the full contents of 368 out-of-print titles from 1964 to the present. The site, MetPublications, is a quick reference guide of some of the museum's finest publications in their full color glory." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "This is a question that confronts any journalist when covering something that is both criminal and possibly a ploy to attract attention for specific purposes, like art sales. It's a difficult quagmire to navigate." (Hrag Vartanian)

 " it appears that a Rothko painting at the Tate Modern in London has been defaced by a vandal. T" ( Hrag Vartanian )

 "ArtLeaks is trying to bring that same level of whistle-blowing transparency to the art world. They function in a similar way to WikiLeaks, too, asking people to submit (anonymously or not) reports on situations at cultural institutions with accompanying evidence - firsthand reports, email correspondence, official documents, etc." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "The image, which was designed for their upcoming show Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925 (December 23, 2012-April 15, 2013), is an obvious node to Alfred H. Barr Jr.'s important Cubism and Abstract Art chart that accompanied a show of the same name at the MoMA in 1936." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The 26th installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "My overall impression as I did a first walk-through was that the fair seemed well-designed, streamlined, and with a nice balance between established galleries selling old and modern masters and smaller galleries with more experimental work on display. " (Philip A Hartigan )

 "Whether we are seeking information or shopping on eBay it is no secret that we rely more and more on stock images. It is this reality that informs artist Kate Steciw. " ( Howard Hurst )

 " After centuries of harmonious proportioned paintings and the hyper-realism of the 20th century, it's refreshing to see a work that undermines and casts a shadow on its own sense of realism that varies greatly from one work to another." (Daniel Larkin)

 "Dialogues, cliques, or gravity; no matter what term you use, the situation doesn't sound like a recipe for a more holistic, comprehensive, or open dialogue. Maybe that's just the brand-conscious moment we orbit in." (Kyle Chayka )

 "I've long loved so-called outsider art, and I've never had much trouble with the label, but last week it suddenly offended my sensibilities." (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "What do you do when the technology you depend on every day messes up? Instead of getting frustrated or throwing a machine out, Phillip Stearns makes art out of errors. He creates glitch art, a growing genre of artistic practice in which bugs in technology are exploited and exaggerated, resulting in work that's beautiful in its flaws. " (Kyle Chayka)

 "It's a trope that permeates the art world now and again: not simply the use of bodily fluids or other abject materials to shock an audience, but basing an entire work and its merits (or, more aptly, its notoriety) on shock value. " (Alexander Cavaluzzo )

 "The saga of Shepard Fairey vs. the Associated Press finally came to a close today, as the LA-based street artist was sentenced to two years of probation and a $25,000 fine for committing criminal contempt of court. Fairey pled guilty to the charge earlier this year." (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "The 25th installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "The arts in the United States today are almost entirely enmeshed within the nonprofit system - young people come out of college after studying the arts as undergrads and immediately form 501(c)3 organizations, some collectives of artists that formed loosely in the 1970s and 80s have grown into powerful nonprofit institutions, and given the government's near-complete lack of grants to individual artists, in order to get funding for work, artists, almost without exception, have to be at the very least affiliated with a nonprofit entity." (Alexis Clements)

 "Is it really the case that art has been so nonreactive to such a huge change in our world?" (Kyle Chayka)

 "If you are involved in the arts, either as a practitioner or a consumer (or both), you know that there are two competing images of yourself: the vicious backstabber, hungry for success at any cost (see Gallery Girls) and the basically nice person who believes in that old-fashioned idea that art makes you a better person. " (Philip A Hartigan)

 "Not only did the government confiscate Zhao's art, however; it also slapped him with a 300,000 yuan fine (roughly $48,000) for no apparent reason. Sound familiar?" (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Tekindor also studied Google hits as an indicator of artist popularity effect, and she found that a 1% increase in Google hits resulted in a price increase of 38%. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "All of the artists in residence with us at the time were very different. The first night I arrived, I remembered a question Karl Jung asked: If all of life is a dream toward you waking into consciousness - why have you just created the situation you are in with these characters? What do they teach? Why here?" (Sarah Walko)

 "At the heart of all this is to the art world's perpetual identity crisis: Are we an elite? Should we try to reach out more to non-art people? Do you need to know about art to appreciate it? And how can visual art compete for attention and press alongside more immediately entertaining and accessible things like, well, American Idol? Crowd-sourced voting will probably stay with us as long as these questions are still around." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "There are 24 charcoal drawings now on display at the Museum of Modern Art that Willem de Kooning did with his eyes closed." (Thomas Micchelli )

 "I adore Instagram, and while I'm still pondering how the Facebook acquisition will impact this jewel of a smartphone photo-sharing service, here are some art-related people, institutions and accounts you should follow to inject some arty content into the palm of your hand." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Moroni's figures seem to exist in the same world that we do, rather than in an idealized one. He eschews flattery in favor of hard, unsentimental looking. " (John Yau )

 "Tate has teamed up with Channel 4 to create the Gallery of Lost Art, a website devoted to works of art that are no longer with us." (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "ArtsServe Michigan published the above infographic on Facebook and it shows why arts funding works. Every dollar invested into the state's arts economy yields an incredible return." (Hrag Vartanian )

 "Hughes reached the apex of his critical influence in the 1980s and by the 2000s he was becoming known as a curmudgeonly critic who increasingly disparaged much of the contemporary art being produced and celebrated in art fairs and on the international circuit." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The twenty-first installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace. " (Philip A Hartigan )

 "Since his passing in 1669, Rembrandt has had a vibrant second life selling cigars and teeth whitening kits. His artsploitation - like that of monk turned liqueur Fra Angelico - offers a cautionary tale in a world searching for untapped and undefended brand equity. Social media reveals the odd cultural conflations of artists as products and brands." (Zachary McCune )

 "Buskirk, an art historian and critic who teaches at Monserrat College of Art, recently published a new book titled Creative Enterprise: Contemporary Art between Museum and Marketplace, which presents a dynamic and dryly skeptical account of the nuanced and complex relationships between artists, museums and the marketplace." (Alexis Clements)

 "Proving that art does still have the power to be controversial, and that the New York Police Department pretty much does whatever it wants, the NYPD dispatched two officers on Tuesday to paint over a mural that it didn't like. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Art was the fourth most popular category of project (3,985) and only behind publishing, music and film & video," (Hrag Vartanian)

 "I meet a lot of artists these days who have big goals. Some of the most successful ones even write them out, with specific numbers like a solo show and such-and-such gallery within three years" (An Xiao)

 "The work of Social Practice is on the rise, but compared to the traditional art world news of auction prices and gallery openings, it doesn't seem to be receiving as much online attention." (Ben Valentine)

 "I love the internet. It's jumbled and weird and mind-numbingly vast. It's also the source of my employment. (Thanks, internet!) But I'm also worried about the internet - specifically the internet and art." (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "The twentieth installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace. " (Philip A Hartigan)

 "When stumped, I suggest you say that the artist has created a very interesting visual lexicon. Nearly anything qualifies for that phrase; because, if it is repeated often enough - throughout a canvas, a show, a period or a career - it can be described as the artist's visual language, his lexicon." (Cat Weaver)

 "Social media is, in many ways, the mouthpiece for a new me generation. For years I've worked within this context, trying to find ways to poke at that conception - to subvert and manipulate it. But despite the common refrain that there are evils in all social media services, last week I found myself in a position where my principles overtook my apathy." (Man Bartlett)

 "What can contemporary abstract painting tell us about the medium today, and why does it continue to stir the soul? " (Brendan S. Carroll )

 "When one of the world's richest living artists orders you to stop making art, you do it. Or do you? That is what Chuck Close has done to me. In response, I have developed a 100-year plan that will allow my digital art to outlive any threats of legal action." (Scott Blake)

 "Gio Black Peter pulls off some brilliant effects with markers. His current body of work at the Munch Gallery, juxtaposed against drawings by other artists in a summer group show, gets a ton of mileage out of hurling a jolt of neon at the viewer. It is a chance to re-think where marker ink and bursts of fluorescence can take us in a picture." (Daniel Larkin)

 "Much has been said and speculated about the US arts building boom of the late 1990s/early 2000s, with expansions, renovations and new starchitect-designed buildings rampant among arts institutions. " (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Can performance art ever be bought? In other words, is it possible for a piece to be owned by anyone other than the artist once the performance is over?" (Jen Ortiz )

 "It's hard to say if the art-fairification of the art world is a good thing or not - I'd say it's both good and bad. Most sales have moved from the galleries to the art fairs, and there's no doubt that the effect of this has been a much larger volume of sales. But the cost to the soul of what art dealing is and should be are troubling." (Meredith Rosenberg )

 "The Clarion Hotel Stockholm has started a program that lets artists - or anyone who claims to make art, really - stay at the hotel in exchange for an artwork. " (Jillian Steinhauer)

 "Last night was #ArtsTech: Digital Conservation and Archiving, not the most exciting #ArtsTech Meetup I have attended, but a necessary one to consider as more and more art migrates onto the digital sphere. " (Ben Valentine )

 "Jan Muller's heart gave out when he was 36. The brevity of his life is mentioned in just about everything written about him, but his tragedy is unlike those of other, more famous artists who died too young - whether it's Masaccio (1401-28), Egon Schiele (1890-1918), Amedio Modigliani (1884-1920) or Vincent van Gogh (1853-90)." (Thomas Micchelli)

 "With a Mark Rothko painting selling for nearly $87 million at Sotheby's in addition to record prices for artists from Edvard Munch to Roy Lichtenstein, it seems pretty strange to see a variety of art and business writers, predicting the end of the art market boom." (Emily Colucci )

 "I had never heard of Bogat before the current exhibition, nor seen her art, as I suspect many people haven't. Who knows how many under-recognized women artists have been lost to the male-centric narrative of art history?" (Jillian Steinhauer )

 "Art & Fear is the result of a collaboration between friends and fellow artists David Bayles and Ted Orland. The book, which reflects on the nature of the art-making process, came out of a series of conversations the two had while working as teachers, writers and photographers. " (Patrick Neal)

 "Whether one regards the artwork as good, bad or ugly, and whether one appreciates its satire or not, political pressure to censor freedom of speech is a no-no no matter which way you look at it. " (Claire Breukel )

 "Almost everyone I know in the art world is owed something or has been swindled out of something, and they've either gotten wiser, more bitter or left the game entirely." (An Xiao)

 "How can maximize our time as creatives, especially if our time for creative production is limited?" (An Xiao )

 "The old old old Copyright law with its old old old values is a machine that needs to be replaced. Originality is not only hard to evaluate, it's over-rated and quaint. " (Cat Weaver)

 "Andrew Shea's blistering new documentary, Portrait of Wally, untangles the complicated historical, legal and moral threads surrounding Egon Schiele's painting Portrait of Wally (1912), which pitted the art world against heirs of the painting's pre-World War II owners and the US government." (Marisa Carroll )

 "Artists in the digital age and presenting art online, as well as exhibiting online art in offline spaces, were the focus of a couple of panels at Internet Week" (Allison Meier)

 "For more than half a century - at least since Hans Namuth's photographs and film of Jackson Pollock painting - the art world has equated subversion with theatricality, which increasingly plays into mainstream society's desire for spectacle and distraction. (No wonder there are reasonably intelligent people who think Jeff Koons is radical and even avant-garde.)" (John Yau)

 "It turned out the camera just couldn't produce good photos, but that's when Miller had an idea to work with that. Before long I was participating in its process, collaborating with it, he says." (An Xiao)

 "Though he started Art Thoughtz on a whim and with nothing more than a webcam, Musson is now more than just a dude on YouTube; he is a prominent voice of the art world on the internet, an embodiment of the changing parameters for success." (Robert Cicetti)

 "Painter, author and critic Mira Schor's current show at Marvelli Gallery delves into the world of language. " (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Dirt is getting its moment in the sun. A cluster of recent shows in Chelsea and downtown make the most of soil, making it a good time to think about earth art again." (Daniel Larkin )

 "The National Governors Association has just issued a report titled New Engines for Growth: Five Roles for Arts, Culture and Design. I decided to read the whole thing, a task that I approached with some dread, given the prospect of wading through 45 pages of corporate art-speak." (Philip A Hartigan )

 "Relocating its New York edition from Armory Week to join Frieze Weekend, the 2012 Pulse Art Fair offered itself as an accessible companion to the bigger fair action on Randall's Island, both in terms of location and the art presented." (Allison Meier )

 "Not every curator can trust every artist to deliver the way Jackson's did. But they did, and the art season's that much richer because he decided to take that shot." (Thomas Micchelli )

 "Gone are the days of fussy ideologies separating representational painting and abstraction. In past decades, of course, a divide was deep and intense, yet a handful of artists and critics, especially those interested in landscape painting, saw a productive union or practical non-differentiation in methods. " (Rob Colvin)

 "From the metropolis to Anytown, USA, an arts weekend is seen as an opportunity not just to have fun and enjoy the arts, but somehow to boast a little about your town's profile" (Philip A Hartigan )

 "If artists have been regarded as otherworldly - monks on the low end and gods on the high end - for the past several centuries, these activists have decided that it's time to get over it." (Thomas Micchelli )

 "The possibility that one could be independent; that one doesn't have to belong to any stylistic tendency or group; and that one need not ally oneself with any of the currently fashionable discourses, is both liberating and daunting, but why it should it be any other way? " (John Yau )

 "Procrastiworking is a great idea, both for full-time artists trying to make those procrastinating moments productive and for budding artists still trying to find their creative path in life. " (An Xiao)

 "The way art touches us remains a mystery, but some studies are pointing to what might be going on underneath our noggins." (An Xiao)

 "Everybody keeps shifting the responsibility of sustaining artists (the real lifeblood of the arts) to some other group; meanwhile, the money keeps finding its way into the coffers of the few who hold the most power and the purse strings." (Alexis Clements )

 "Both what she does and doesn't do become the hallmarks of her greatness." (John Yau)

 "This is one of the great things about social media: Artists and people who love art have an uncomplicated entry point to introduce themselves to and keep up to date about artists and writers that they admire." (Colin Darke)

 "Anyone who's changed outfits multiple times the morning before an important interview or presentation knows that clothing affects how feel about ourselves and how others see us. But can clothes also affect how we think?" (An Xiao )

 "The art world is plagued by these unpaid positions that allow individuals from wealthier backgrounds to benefit from getting their foot in the door, while individuals who can't afford the privilege of working for free - and it is a privilege - aren't given the opportunity." (Hrag Vartanian )

 "As an artist, I understand that we all experience creative ruts." (An Xiao)

 "Almost everyone I spoke with - and by almost everyone, I mean everyone - agrees that arts residencies are a great leap forward for one's art career." (An Xiao )

 "Indeed, the costs of securing a residency can be quite steep. Some programs ask the artist to pay for everything but the rent." (An Xiao)

 "As a creative person, I've been looking forward to taking some time to read Jonah Lehrer's new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. " (An Xiao)

 "Are we surprised that a commercial gallery is trying to make the most profit it possibly can? Not really. Is it icky? Yes, in so many ways. Did the collector get a deal? Probably. Am I hoping this court case draws out as long as possible so that more details emerge? Yes." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "QR codes are on the rise. I've spotted them everywhere, from subway ads (yes, we have subway ads in Los Angeles) to billboards to movie posters to business cards. And so they've inevitably cropped up in art." (An Xiao)

 "Corinna Belz's new documentary, Gerhard Richter Painting (playing at Manhattan's Film Forum from now until March 27), offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of the celebrated and self-proclaimed secretive German artist." (Marisa Carroll)

 "So many brilliant artists with great creative work, and yet so many of them tell me that they don't have the first idea on how to start promoting their work and making sales." (An Xiao)

 "Minimalism, as streamlined and simple as it is, is hard work. How do you boil down the essence of your subject matter and capture that for your audience?" (An Xiao)

 "What are the rules of creativity? How can we unlock it? This is a question nagging all artists, because we all know the experience of sitting in our studios, staring at a blank canvas or a piece of paper or what-have-you, and not quite knowing what to do." (An Xiao)

 "Last weekend during the New York art fairs, the OWS-affiliated Occupy Museums group reminded attendees of the 2012 Armory Show that having a big bank account wasn't the only way to enjoy or obtain the artwork of others." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The Armory this year delivers on all fronts: it's predictable in the ways it always is and it's surprising when you don't expect it be. " (Alissa Guzman)

 "What can we glean from art that is near impossible to understand without knowledge of the artist?" (Emily Colucci)

 "I've noticed a few people credit Reaganomics - or the growing wealth gap - with the art world boom." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "I'm used to hearing this question in college seminars and rant sessions after opening parties. Artist Sheryl Oring tried a different tack." (An Xiao)

 "Have you ever stood in front of a painting and just wished you could reach out and touch it?" (An Xiao )

 "Could an art project raise $1 million?" (An Xiao)

 "This is going to be the first in a long line of WTF stories that we're going to be hearing from the Facebook IPO." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "Art can add context, question norms, retell stories and speak out against political injustice - but change the world?" (Michelle Vaughan)

 "Copyright owners HATE it when you take on their advertising for them: that would be proof of market confusion." (Cat Weaver)

 "It's refreshing to see that alternatives to the traditional system are becoming more and more viable." (An Xiao )

 "Sangram Majumdar is one of the few artists of his generation to recognize that consistency (or branding) is the easy way out." (John Yau )

 "As the power of the online world and social media increases, there are more and more attempts at curbing its ability to move freely across borders." (Hrag Vartanian)

 "The dueling Cariou v Prince briefs have added new certainty to my theory that transformative use is a singularly unhelpful notion." (Cat Weaver)

 "In an interview with the The Sunday Times this week, Hockney's former art professor from Bradford College of Art, Derek Stafford, gave the artist's newly opened exhibition at the Royal Academy very low marks." (Hrag Vartanian)

 " The Rembrandt in America show at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is the largest Rembrandt show ever staged in America, containing 47 works. It's organized into eight or nine mini-shows in a gallery space that's laid out in an elongated U shape. " (Mead McLean)

 "The Creative Process, an infographic by Viruscomix floating around infographic social network visual.ly, shows the twists and turns of the creative process in a labyrinthine landscape not unlike a twisted version of the Game of Life boardgame" (An Xiao )

 "Estimates of Richard Prince's and Gagosian Galleries potential losses are huge. In their appeal, Gagosian claims that they have invested $434,730.47 in marketing the works." (Cat Weaver)

 "At base the issue is this: Richard Prince's team must prove that district court judge Deborah A. Batts ruled in error when she decided against Prince's fair use claim. Patrick Cariou's lawyer, Dan Brooks, must argue that the ruling did, in fact, use the correct legal standard." (Cat Weaver)

 "So far, the debate about artistic copyright has been safely in the realm of design and photography - with certain exceptions, of course - but how will that conversation change when anything can be easily reproduced and presented without proof of origin or even the original artist's touch?" (Hrag Vartanian )