Emily Mae Smith, The Studio (Science Fiction) (2015), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

An eccentric addition to this summer’s calendar of group shows is I Dropped the Lemon Tart, on view at Lower East Side gallery Lisa Cooley. As its title implies, the exhibition articulates human failure as an aggravating force for pushing and breaking barriers.  The title, having both literal and metaphorical connotations, refers to an actual case, in which a sous-chef at a famed restaurant drops one of the last two lemon tarts en route to customers’ table.  Instead of admitting defeat, the chef decides to serve the damaged tart under a fresh name and new arrangement. The show finds its inspiration in this incident, setting an example for the inevitability of human error, while embracing the subsequent stages of coping and acceptance of error as crucially generative. (more…)

Move over vaporetti — there’s a new barge in town. Slated to gracing the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice over the past five days was a project by The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, entitled “Commercial Break.” The exhibition is organized by Neville Wakefield, a contemporary art writer prolific curator globally. Powered by POST Magazine, “Commercial Break” considers itself to be a provocative architectural intervention in a city where no advertising is traditionally displayed. Unfortunately, as Artinfo reported, the city pulled permits a few days before and the videos were instead screened at the project’s Bauer Hotel party. The woman behind the “GCCC” is Dasha Zukhova, girlfriend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich; it is the institution’s second project in Venice.  All videos are now viewable on the exhibition’s website.

Among videos featured is one by  Richard Phillips, starring Lindsey Lohan.

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