Christopher Stout

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Art This Week: 'Anti-Nudes' and KKK Cannibalism

(image via Field Projects / Facebook)

Hot Farce
Opening Thursday, November 1 at Field Projects, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through December 15.

Throughout centuries, one thing has remained the same when it comes to art: in some way, nudes will be there. Curator and artist Kristen Racaniello knows this, but seeks to do something a bit different with her group show Hot Farce. The work on view seeks to be the antithesis of the “hetero-sexy nude,” meaning nudes that trouble the binary, nudes that question why you’re looking at them, nudes that may not even qualify as nudes at all. According to the exhibit statement, Hot Farce’s artists “admire figuration and are at the same time deeply suspicious of it,” a feeling in this time of existential dread I can only assume is shared by many. More →

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A Sign of The Times, Russian Prison Tattoos, and More Art Shows

Rirkrit Tiravanija
untitled 2017 (tomorrow is the question, january 21, 2017), 2017
Acrylic and newspaper on linen
89 1/4 x 73 1/4 inches
Courtesy Rirkrit Tiravanija and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/Rome
(c) Rirkrit Tiravanija

The Times
Opening Thursday, June 1 at The Flag Art Foundation. On view through August 11.

Hate it or love it, one newspaper that has rocketed even more to the forefront of the public eye in the past year is the Times. From the president’s dismissal of it as failing to its recent scoop battle with The Washington Post and even today’s announcement that it has eliminated its public editor position in favor of opening more of their articles’ comment sections, there is much to talk about.

This art exhibition goes even further than the paper’s recent goings-on, asking over 80 artists to use current and archival issues of the physical newspaper as a jumping-off point to create works of their own. Some imagine what the headlines would be in 2020, some insert themselves into the news, and others take a second look at press coverage of major historical and sociopolitical events. If the news wasn’t already on your mind constantly, this show could do the trick. More →

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Donald Trump’s Tombstone Is Now Resting in a Bushwick Gallery

(photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)

(photo: Cassidy Dawn Graves)

As we previously told you, artist Brian Andrew Whiteley will be bringing his notorious Donald Trump Tombstone to a formal gallery space tonight, in Bushwick. The solo show, which will display the original tombstone as well as a grave rubbing made in collaboration with “master printer” James Stroud and photographs of the stone’s original installation by Ventiko, is presented by Christopher Stout Gallery.

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Video: Artist’s Naked Squatting Stunt Really Bowled People Over

The panting dog was somewhat unsettling, but the click of a digital camera was just plain upsetting, because both seemed to violate the air of silence and vulnerability as Lisa Levy sat naked on a toilet seat in an ironic homage to Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present. Then again, these weird ways of interacting with the artist were more exciting to watch than people who approached the porcelain throne and looking blankly at Levy for what could easily be dismissed as a glorified staring contest.

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Facebook Censors a Bushwick Gallery Over Artist’s Toilet-Squatting Stunt

(Image courtesy of Lisa Levy / Christopher Stout Gallery)

(Image courtesy of Lisa Levy / Christopher Stout Gallery)

For the second time since his eponymous Bushwick gallery opened, Christopher Stout logged onto Facebook to find that his account had been frozen. The gallerist, whose interest lies in “subversive art,” had posted an image of Lisa Levy, who plans to sit naked on top of a toilet for two straight days in order to call out “the bullshit trendy art dialogue” that she says is plaguing the art world. The image shows the long-haired artist sitting sideways, naked. “You can see her top, but you can’t see her bottom,” Stout said. “It’s just such a crazy, conservative kind of standard.”

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Christopher Stout Gallery Opens With a Show Focused on ‘Queer Hate Crime’

"Shepard" at Christopher Stout Gallery

“Shepard” at Christopher Stout Gallery

Christopher Stout, founder of Bushwick Art Crit Group, has just opened his gallery in the disputed territory of East Williamsburg, the realization of plans we first heard about in early September. I had a chance to check the place out on Friday, and found that Stout is already keeping good on his pledge to show “subversive art.” The centerpiece of the gallery’s inaugural show, Shepard by Phoenix Lindsey-Hall, is a massive, meticulously crafted porcelain replica of the iconic fence Matthew Shepard (the victim of a notorious hate crime) was bound to before he was tortured and left for dead back in 1998. Not easy-to-swallow material, to say the least.

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Founder of Bushwick Art Crit Group to Open Gallery Dedicated to ‘Subversive’ Art


“This gallery is my baby,” explained Christopher Stout, founder of the Bushwick Art Crit Group. This fall, Stout will host his inaugural exhibition as a gallery owner at his new space, the first of several anticipated art institutions inside an East Williamsburg warehouse space. BACG is “a not-for-profit community resource for everybody,” Stout explained. “But it felt like it was increasingly challenging– in a negative way– to make programming that was about everyone.” In order to host exhibitions that relate to specific subjects that Stout is more personally invested in, without having to worry about “alienating everyone else,” he said, “it really needed to be separate and become its own thing.”
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