Frieze. Jan 09.

"Politics clearly dominated cinema in 2008, and one of the most interesting developments was the emergence of animation as an apt medium to tackle issues such as war and totalitarianism," writes Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy, introducing her list of the best in film for the new issue of frieze. Further down that same page is Die Zeit film critic and editor Katja Nicodemus's overview: "Sitting in the cinema, one sometimes has the wonderful feeling that, even after over 100 years of movie-making history, this art form is still capable of constantly reinventing itself." High up on both lists: Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir.

Alice Twemlow's review of the year in design features a bit of online viewing, a promo for the BBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics, "a beautiful display of animation gymnastics created by musician Damon Albarn and graphic artist Jamie Hewlett, of the virtual band Gorillaz.... Thanks to the gorgeous art direction, great music and a compelling narrative, the animation is wry and wistful rather than goofy."

The year in art: best biennials and survey shows, group shows and solo shows.

"19th-century microscopy, camera-less film and photography, body-mapping (inside and out), Surrealism and Conceptualism make strange bedfellows, conjoined by the subject of close observation in science and art," writes Michelle Cotton. "Close-Up makes rare connections between material, both contemporary and historical, identifying scientific or pseudo-scientific strategies at play in the formulation of imagery by artists in print and on screen."

Christian Jankowski "has, with increasing frequency, smuggled his productions into existing mass-media formats such as television shows and movies," writes Burkhard Meltzer. "When, for example, German filmmaker Lars Kraume asked to use several ideas from Jankowski's work in the film Viktor Vogel: Commercial Man (2001), the artist cleverly bartered 'ideas for camera time,' allowing him to 'borrow' well-known actors from the existing set and ask them for their views on art (Rosa, 2001).... For the new, drily titled work Dienstbesprechung (Briefing, 2008) Jankowski acted as the mediator of his proposal for individual members of the museum staff to swap roles."

Daniel Trilling and Frances Morgan select the best CDs, reissues and such and "the year's most compelling work in the field of extreme music."

Posted by dwhudson at December 23, 2008 3:20 PM