finally got to work on some new things over break

the flight of the dodo

seeing this exhibition at the project gallery in ireland has really helped me think about my own work the show's bio is below.  all the artists exhibited are consciously making work related to connecting the past with our future some take a personal exploration while others look critically at social groups and there effect on the future.  

i really like the whole show, because it's helpful to me.  I've become something of a sinic and like Louise Bourgeoise have come to only like people/things that help me.  "it's a very, very sad thing to say" ::im not sure if that is really true but i've been considering it after reading an interview of hers::

karen yama currently in two different shows.  one called "the cult of personality/portraits and mass culture" (top image) at the galleria erna hecey and the one at the museum of contemporary photography  called work/place.  (bottom one)

i am always drawn to photographs of photography ie:levine as they bring up questions specific to the use of photography in our culture.  These images are examples of methodology for curating and displaying one's own environment (home/work) and the ways in which people display their own snapshots.  Size of images, heirarchy, placement in space (cubicle), portraits of whom, age of portrait; all considerations people make when exhibiting their own photography.  

::no info on object or artist::

An installation at the Bridge gallery in NYC devoted to recycled art repurposed for furniture design. Not currently available, shown in 2006.

I like to be resourceful and try to be accountable for my own waste and appreciate that quite a few artists have taken to using wasted objects as the source materials for artmaking. I also love when those same wasted objects can be re-used as functioning art objects like chairs and light fixtures and while this particular chair may lead to splinter's in the ass it definately brings up questions of consumption and re-invention.

linda abdul
(still from film)
What we saw upon awakening presents a scene of perhaps a dozen young men clad in black pulling on the remains of a bombed-out structure in Kabul, the ruin a legacy of decades of war in the region. Ropes are fastened to the ruin at various points, and the men strain to pull them as if to tear down what remains of the building. The ropes create a complex and resonant image. They literally form a web, with associations of entanglement, and create a similarly biomorphic form like an octopus. Entangled in this web are memories of ruin, collapse, and history.

this image made me think about the construction of new realities. a bombed out ruin is better torn down then seen as document of a century of war. we can choose to forget the past and create a new identity that works for us now, we may not feel connected to values of the past and becomes the responsibility of the new generation to not only strike out what's deemed incongruous but also to establish a reality more suitable for our own ideals. that in that of itself is a notion which pervades in all aspects of personal and societal existence.



Tercerunquinto
Archive for Sale, a Sacrificial Act, 2007
New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA
Image courtesy of the artists.

Vis-á-Vis: Dialogues between Artists and Curators from the Western Hemisphere

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Speakers:

• Fernando Bryce, Artist
• Miriam Basilio, Assistant Professor of Art History, Museum Studies, New York University.

Fernando Bryce’s artworks narrate alternative versions of history throughout a series of drawings that reproduce images, documents, and texts, elaborating new meanings and contexts. Bryce will converse with Basilio addressing issues of authorship, historical legitimacy and the contradictions of modernity as a universal discourse.

This program will be the opening event of PINTA, the Latin American Fair for Modern and Contemporary Art, that comes back to the city this coming fall for second year. PINTA will take place from November 13th to 16th, at the Metropolitan Pavilion and Altman Building, NY.

I liked this image because of it's connection to the artifact finding of anne r hall. these ubiquitous paper boxes are displayed on a table each with their own identities and the title of the work is archive for sale. no description of their contents just the commodification of potential ideas, images, personal histories, and narratives.

soulja boy lyrics

not a current exhibition but a year ago today this was #1 on the billboard top 100.

soulja boy (crank that) : by soulja boy

"Soulja Boy Off In This Hoe
Watch me Crank It
Watch me Roll
Watch me Crank Dat Soulja Boy
Then Super Man Dat Hoe
Now, Watch me You...
(Crank Dat Soulja Boy)
Now, Watch me You...
(Crank Dat Soulja Boy)
Now, Watch me You...
(Crank Dat Soulja Boy)
Now, Watch me You...
(Crank Dat Soulja Boy)"

Andy Williams installation at the ARC

here are some images of artifacts, suggestive artifacts (unreal), and documents of the rememberance of anne r hall. im thinking that these images will function as a pre and post archaeological finding with the video performance acting as the constructive link which connects the images. in the representation of the artifacts read as (passport, dental bill, high school photo) im working to portray an anonymity (not ambiguity thanks kahla) which sets the stage for a construction of her identity, revealing little information regarding her actual presence.

marie-claire update

**marie-claire update**
apparently marie claire is a magazine for women that informs them of fashion and beauty tips i approached the work as if it was the subject's name but now am considering it to be more of a reference to the feminine ideal and our own connection to the way in which we want to be represented.

i decided that i would research images that i felt related considerably to the exploration i've been doing in the resurrection of anne r hall. emily-jane major marie claire r.i.p. (2004-2006)

Aletheia – Positions in Contemporary Photographies is a show currently going on in helsinki which is in finland i learned today. but not only is helsinki in finland but it is hosting a 2009 photography festival but not until 2009 so you'll have to wait til after the ball drops or dick clark dies whichever comes first *no offense to the clark estate*.

this show is focused around the idea of questioning fundamental aspect in the medium of photography like the real and photography's relationship to contemporary culture. i know it sounds very theoretical but its time to start thinking critically so here we go.

i couldn't find any information regarding the artist responsible for this image, but i love it/them. im a sucker for the diptych as you may well know and i appreciate the representation that any truth can be told in a photograph whether real or unreal. a portrait is taken in a graphic button down blouse with the artist (i'm assuming) wearing what appears to be a wig. In the second portrait she looks all strung out with a swollen eye, maybe she isn't strung out but she looks all kinds of shitty. and then the title of the piece is marie-claire rip 2004-2006, which seems to refernce that some fundamental change occurred between the taking of the two images yet is not illustrated. i like how the work functions in the way that it can be approached with a multitude of different reads and they all simultaneously affect/enhance the work. the viewer gets out of the images what they draw from in order to connect the dots.




i spent almost all afternoon looking at the work of the wonderful space 1026 artists and have decided to include not one but two in this week's contribution. both molly mcintyre and william paul buzzell are holding it down for the 215 and or/ the 610.
molly mcintyre we can do whatever we want

i love the line work of the image deducing these 3 seperate activities to their bare essentials. watching television, yawning, playing with the cat are all "spinster" stereotypes which i used to inform the construction of anne r hall and here they are pulled together in one image and it took me 12 images and a song and video and dance okay no dance. this work seems to reassure me on my own artistic intent and it's super beautiful too.



william paul buzzell self portrait as a townie

another 1026'er whose decided to paint the visual evidence of his connection to a location. driver's license, diploma, donor card are these pieces of visual evidence that typify the way we want to categorize someone, when placed juxtaposition to one another they seem to communicate how our identities can become linked to location. we are not just a blood donor but a rhode island blood donor which is where we went to highschool and where we learned to drive. the images are also set against a brick wall signifying its ingrained quality to the specific place. i've started to assemble my collection of typified ubiquitous artifacts that connect anne r hall to the type of person she is constructed to become.

sarah hates when i put the beanie on her maggie cilia doll.  so i took the opportunity this sunday to murder out her cabbage patch kid.  these images are super ridiculous in content but i like them, i tried to mimic a graffiti cross processed aesthetic with the images to reinforce her relationship to the street.  

our intentions are honorable

space 1026 gallery in center city philadelphia is hosting a text-based sculptural show of artists trevor reese and signnh. in the statement regarding the work it's said that the sculptures relate to ideas of issue resolution big or small. the voice that comes through as the artists own is one of reaffirmation or total positivity. i like the work because it makes me feel good. the work informs me that everything will be alright which i think is an important counter-point to the state of mass-media or political campaigning that everything will be okay. Sighn (possibly misspelled) also is showing work of crossed out "things that he wishes he could say". i haven't seen the show so i'm not sure how it all works together but it sounds great. and im happy that philadelphia is showing important work.

jean luc-mylayne

jean luc-mylayne is having an exhibition at the gladstone gallery in newyork. i couldn't find much info regarding the show but found this image and was really drawn to it. the work is printed huge and spaced far apart enough to act as its own environment. the tonality and quality of the printed image is so luscious and vibrant and beautiful. i selected this image because i've always been drawn to thickets both in my own exploration as well as photographing them. i've never quite understood my fascination but the layers and depths of green have always made me curious about what lies beyond the thickets. this functions in that similar way with little light breaking through besides the sky inviting the viewer to examine the contents of the woods.

susan meiselas at icp

susan meiselas currently has work up at the international center for photography. her work has been documentary in nature for the past few decades covering social upheaval in central america. her most notable work was photographing the violence in nicaragua in the early eighties which was later turned into a photo book. the title of this show is "in history" and is an overview of meiselas's career in documentary photography.

i chose this image because it appears as this moment on the verge of exploding both literally and metaphorically. he reminds me of che guevera and that with the molotov cocktail seem to reinforce this notion of revolution. a woman is crying behind a small pile of sandbags is a desolate landscape. it's interesting to see work that is so infused with passion and emotion of all varieties .

these are images i took of a model landscape i built. the goal was to build an entire house with landscape after seeing jasper de beijers exhibit at the mca denver. i only got to building a small lawn and gave up. this is a visual document of that failure. but when focused in upon the images are actually kind of interesting they look like a field made of brocolli. i think initially my intention was to create a new reality through this false one but unexpectedly in its unfinished form these images bring up questions of scale, geographic location, vastness of nature, relavance to the real which are all unanticipated visual reads of the work. In an effort to create building blocks for a story, the work creates disturbing questions regarding the nature of the real.

this image is of a maurizzo cattelan sculpture at the new museum in nyc. the exhibition is called after nature and exhibits artists who examine archaic traditions and whom have an interest in using art as a tool for mythmaking.

i selected the image because i've always thought the practice of taxidermy was strange and an amputated head always makes me think of what happens to the body when they do that. i also like the element of this huge horse being suspended above people creating an illusion of something that wouldnt possibly exist in nature.

This is a Sheila Pree Bright image from her series Suburbia where she examines mainstream media's attention to upper middle class african american in the suburbs. Work is on display at the Cleveland MOCA.

I like the image because of the use of focus on the odwalla bottle and flowers and the intentional blur regarding the black female in the background. This is the only image they have of the work on the cleveland moca site but it works well in terms of summarizing the exhibit bio.

since we last spoke about monuments is a show going on in the netherlands. the work of the show seems to be about debating what is thought of as historical. this image is called "'Image of Absalon to Be Projected Until it Vanishes'', i think i like the notion that history and heroes are only important for as long as we remember them. people can do remarkable things but if nobody wants to talk about them or remember then that inevitably all those great and wonderful things and awful things will just become facts for assembling a history of anything. he was red or blue or good or bad and the details all stop mattering because when people die its easier not to debate but rather to finally get the chance to type cast or categorize them.