Balls, Brutes, and Thrashers

NEW YORK—After three weeks of successful themes—a fall exhibition preview, five furious feuds, and a fashion runway art-world style—the ARTINFO Top 5 has become what we always assumed it would be: a random assortment of odds and ends with nothing in common other than that they all caught our eye. So here you go, in no particular order.

Best Artist You Wouldn’t Want to Meet in a Dark Alley: You might like Eva Birath’s art, you might not. But you definitely do not want to tell Eva Birath, profiled last week in the New York Times, that you don’t like her art. Trust us. 

Ballsiest Exhibition Premise: Nicolas Guagnini’s “77 Testicular Imprints,” at New York’s Andrew Roth gallery, through December 12. True to its name, everything here is remarkably upfront and straightforward, though we are confused about the numerology. From the press release: “77 Testicular Imprints is the most recent in a series of projects in which Guagnini presents a multiple of the number 7 as the fundamental element used in combination with an intervention in publications and other ephemeral printed matter.” And we thought the crucial number here was 2.

Best Art for Thrashers: Albert Oehlen transitions from “bad painter” to bad painter with his limited-edition skateboard produced by Mekanisms. Each deck has a stenciled skull and a hand-painted pig snout—this is fine street art, oil on board on wheels. The price to ollie with an Oehlen? €4,900.  

Best Outsider Inspiration: KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting’s New Wave (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang). A far cry from your granny’s lovingly knitted scarves and booties, the projects in this zine-based book straddle craft and fine art. Some stretch scale, like the 20-by-35-foot American flag “knitted” with 25-foot poles maneuvered with John Deere excavators, or the intricately patterned mittens no bigger than a fingerprint. Some test new materials—like fiberglass, Kevlar, lead, and cut license plates—and some repurpose knitted materials in unusual ways—like the knitted “graffiti” adorning Houston or the full-scale room complete with ceiling-high tree (you have to see it to believe it). Conceptually challenging and comes with whacked-out DIY projects.

Best Rush-Hour Art: New York City taxi drivers might have put up a fuss about being required to install credit card readers and GPS machines in their cabs, but it appears that convincing them to add another accessory—a plethora of painted flowers—to their hoods, trunks, and roofs was a bit easier. Those brightly colored decals you’ve seen zooming around the city are part of the nonprofit Portraits of Hope’s landmark five-month public art project that involved thousands of kids of all ages painting the decals as part of educational workshops, with drivers participating on a volunteer-basis. Now, if we could just convince them to take us to Brooklyn…