• Chicago: Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Opens today.
• Houston: Source Material: Works by Brian Dupont and Chris Rusak, at Skydive. Opens on Thursday at 7pm.
• San Francisco: [Invisible] Relic, at Park Life Gallery. Through June 10, in Laurel Heights.
• L.A.: Lawrence Weiner, Around & Around High & Low, at Regen Projects.
• L.A.: Aaron Young, No Fucking Way, at the Company. Through June 23, in Chinatown.
• Santa Fe: Seeing Red, at the David Richard Gallery. Opens Friday.
• Plus, get all my latest New York picks over at Gallerina…

Sculpture by 3D! NYC. (Via Make.)

The New Aesthetic 101
There’s been a lot of chatter on the internetz about the New Aesthetic, a cultural theory that posits that man is starting to see and interpret the world in machine-like ways — specifically, computer-ish ways. (Think: pixel-y sculpture, like the one at right.) All of this was stirred up by writer/design James Bridle and released into the media wilds at a panel at SXSW. (Sort of covered in this rambling essay by Bruce Sterling in Wired.) But, for my money, if you’re really trying to get at what the new lingo purports to describe, see Joanne McNeil’s notes — in which she succinctly examines (with images) how technology has affected the way we see and, as a result, produce culture.

Random Linkage

• Who needs words when you have GIFs? I’ve decided that the world doesn’t need me writing reams of blather about art. It needs me vandalizing art on Blingee instead.
• Speaking of GIFs, I like Badlands publishing’s new GIF ‘Wall’ on its website, which greets visitors to the site with GIF works by a rotating selection of artists.
• Greg.org explores that bizarre-sublime intersection of the Google Art Project and copyright.
• And Paddy Johnson gets ranty (rightly so) on dude-centric ‘net art shows.
• On sweeping all that inequity and union-busting under the rug: Paddy, again, has a must-read on the state of art industry denial about inequity.
• Sort of related: What Jerry Saltz says he’d do with $200 million: “I’d buy a nuclear submarine and hang it on my wall.”
• Peter Schjeldahl pens an essay on the Art Fair Industrial Complex. And follows up with a blog post about how irritating art fairs are. Maybe if we as journalists stopped going to/covering them (even if it is to bellyache) they might assume a slightly less important role.
• Plus: ‘Cuz Schjeldhal’s been rather frisky of late, his review of the Met’s new audio tour.
• KCET unveils a new culture website, Artbound — which has a very nice video profile of the Date Farmers and a nice bit on Peruvian art beer Cerveza Tupac.
• Podcast: Tyler Green interviews Cory Arcangel about art historical and other influences in his work and photographer Zoe Strauss about what it was like to hold office hours at the Philadelphia Museum. (Hint: Dude talkin’ ‘bout his girlfriend’s periods. LOL.)
• Kind of amazing to learn that Duane Hanson’s Janitor at the Milwaukee Museum of Art has been pickpocketed. (Modern Art Notes.)
• The Day in Art Merch: A Jeff Koons bunny jacket…for only $2500.
• Architect Liz Diller explains the Hirshhorn Museum’s bubble. I have to confess: seeing some of the schematics make me think less ‘bulbous membrane’ and more ‘gigantic turquoise poo.’ (@kristoncapps.)
• Yevgeniy Fiks is looking for proposals for a monument to Cold War victory. And his judging panel is nothing to sneeze at.
• On WFMU: Josh Kun talks about the burst of hyperviolent narcocorridos, with plenty of music in between. Though I want to spank DJ Rupture for talking at the precise moment that Camelia La Tejana gets dumped in Contrabando y Traición. So wrong.
• An interesting episode of On the Media examines all kinds of issues related to book publishing, including business models and copyright.
• “The Pernicious Myth That Slideshows Drive ‘Traffic.’” Love the graphic.
• On Tina Fey’s “Thatcherite morality.” I love me some Tina, but this is interesting food for thought.
• “I’m Sick of Pretending: I Don’t ‘Get’ Art.” Me, too.

• Lima: Milagro de la Torre, Indicios, at the Museo de Arte de Lima. Through July 1.
• Oakland: Jennie Ottinger, What To Do With Your Orphan: A Manual, at Johansson Projects. Opens Thursday; artist reception on Saturday at 5pm.
• L.A.: Shoots and Ladders: New Paintings by Simon McWilliams, at Skotia Gallery. Opens Saturday, in Culver City.
• L.A.: French Invasion!, French graffiti artists, at Fabien Castanier Gallery. Opens Saturday at 7pm, in Studio City.
• Chicago: First Fifty, at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Opens Saturday.
• NYC: Mark Dion, Phantoms of the Clark Expedition, at the Explorers Club. Opens today.
• NYC: Animated Spirits, Shields of New Guinea, at Cavin Morris. Opens Thursday, in Chelsea.
• NYC: Brent Green, To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given, at Andrew Edlin Gallery. Through June 23, in Chelsea.
• Plus: Get all my NYC picks over at Gallerina…

The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. A travelogue covering the author’s adventures through Europe and the Holy Land.

Page 137 (from the unabridged edition published by Dover in 2003):

We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no silk purchases in view, and looked at its miles of paintings by the old masters. Some of them were beautiful, but at the same time they carried such evidences about them of the cringing spirit of those great men that we found small pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons was more prominent to me and chained my attention more surely than the charms of color and expression which are claimed to be in the pictures. Gratitude for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some of those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude and become worship. If there is a plausible excuse for the worship of men, then by all means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren.

Am late on sooooo many things right now — this is one of them. I managed to catch the exhibit of Rammellzee’s so-called ‘Letter Racers’ at Suzanne Geiss before it closed late last month. And all I gotta say is: daaaaaaaaang. The man knew his way around his materials. Those high-tech looking toys you see flying in formation are actually beautifully assembled bits of junk: umbrella handles, cheap plastic watch bands, broken milk crates, Bic pens and bottle caps. (And lots of dust.)

For a good backgrounder on where these pieces emerged from, check out this NYT piece. And if you get a chance to see his work in person (no matter how small the show), do not miss it.