I just posted a bunch of new photos over at out Flickr page, and signed up for a Pro account so all of our previous sets are now viewable. If you like looking at pictures, go waste some time over there! Click on the link to your right for Flickr.
A R T F U L W E D N E S D A Y S
I saw two art shows worth mentioning last week, but wasn’t able to post about them due to blogger problems. I’ll write about one now and save the other for next week’s post…
Consider This… at LACMAlab: Invited artists were asked to “imagine a nation” for this yearlong exhibit that continues “the LACMALab mandate to investigate new models for presenting art and engaging audiences through the commission of participatory, ‘age-free’ installations.”
On June 8th Dorit Cypis led a walk through discussion about the exhibit and particularly her work as both an artist and a mediator in conflict resolution. She asked the questions: “How do you close the gap between cultures? How do your open yourself to ‘the other’? How can you help ‘the other’ and not run away afterwards? How can your engage with ‘the other’? Can a Jew enter a fundamentalist Palestinian neighborhood, a white woman enter South Central LA, a black man enter Beverly Hills all without fear?” For her project, Sightlines, she had a forensic scientist in Mexico sculpt the heads of the first female Palestinian suicide bomber and the young Isreali woman who was killed by the bomb from their pictures on the cover of the April 15, 2002, Newsweek.
Other stong pieces in this show include Bruce Yonemoto‘s video “The World Asunder” which pays homage to the scene in Peter Campus’ Three Transitions where he looks at a burning piece of paper with his own image chroma keyed into it. However in Yonemoto’s version, the perfomer’s image soon disolves into images of demonstrators burning draft cards, books and the cross.
Finally in the Project Space, Clayton Campbell presents a series of photos of a young boy in a karate uniform holding up signs with typed text depicting Words My Son Has Learned Since 9-11. Throughout the duration of the exhibit, Campbell conducts workshops where museum goers can have their photo taken with their own sign and added to the collection on the walls.
All and all a thought provoking exhibition. Check it out if you are in LA before the show closes on January 15, 2007.
“there are 1,100 Dunkin’ Donuts within a 50-mile radius of Boston, or one for every 5,600 residents in that region, the company claims.”
And now they want to take over the rest of the US.. lets hope they come to LA first!
Thanks to Nate for the tip!
A R C H I T E C T U R A L t h u r s d a y s (On Friday)
Sorry for the delay this week, had trouble with posting yesterday.
Well, this week the AIA national convention is in town, and for some reason I don’t find that very exciting. I went to a small alumni reception at SCI-Arc last night, where they had some cocktails, and the presentation boards on display from this years AIA LA Design Competition. Some good stuff up there, some not, and alot of the usual suspects. Lots of boards though, and if you are around town, worth taking a peek. But that too is not really interesting I suppose. There are a whole bunch of events happening around town in conjunction with the convention, parties, exhibits, that sort of thing. But, I am not really interested in those either. I know, I’m being kind of a drag here, but I just can’t get all excited about the AIA.
Well, I did find something very exciting out there on the world wide internet this week. Its a tiny tiny house, built as a city retreat for a couple who lives in the country, sort of a reverse get-away-from-it-all type of place. Its called the eXtra eXtra small house, and is designed by Dekleva Gregoric Arhitekti. The exterior shell was set by the codes governing the historical district it is in, and the architects simply crammed a lot of super-nice detailing into the resulting small spaces. Its slick, smooth, and seems put together by some king of detail-obsessed precision team of robots. That, and the welded steel ships stair is lovely, even though going down it must be scary. There is great documentation, lots of photos, and even drawings. But most of the text is Spanish I think. There is a brief english blurb at the end.
So, soak that one up, I doubt that anything quite that good will be found at the convention this week, but if you are going anyway, enjoy the free drinks!
Nam June Paik is considered to be the godfather of Video Art, the first artist to have access to the Sony Portapak. He was a fluxus artist and worked primarily in performance and video. He died this past January and tonight LACMA and LA Film Fourum will be honoring him tonight with a TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE AND ART OF NAM JUNE PAIK – “An evening of remembrances, performances, projected video works, and rarely seen clips.” If you are in LA this is not to be missed.
M U S I C A L t u e s d a y s
Musical Tuesdays with Mister Don!!
Singalongs, motion songs, rhythm instruments, marching and dancing for ages 1 to 10.
Time: 10:30–11:30 a.m.
Cost: $5 for one child, $7 for two, $10 for three
Location: Jammin’ Java, Glyndon Shopping Center, 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna
OK. Just kidding. Yeah, I was supposed to take over MT this week for Tim, and then forgot today was Tuesday because of the long weekend and the fact that I spent yesterday here jumping off a 20 foot cliff into icy water. Not the tall cliff there, the one on the left. I will try the tall one next time perhaps.
SO. For some reason, all this hiking around in the California woods (we were up around 4000-5000 feet in elevation, near Lake Arrowhead) got me to thinking about Appalachian music. Which I can hardly spell, let along describe. Read this here text for a brief history.
Then head over to this page of Old-Time Music Links and check out some of those destinations. I just put on WDVX out of Knoxville, which is currently playing some Banjo accompanied, shape-singer-sounding tracks. The nasally, compressed vocals seem just about right for a lazy tuesdsay morning. This station plays a mix of contemporary bands going old-timey type of music and older recordings from Appalachia.
You can find recordings on the Smithsonian Folkways site here. And here too. Hunt around in there for mp3 tracks too. I didn’t find any yet, but I have to get back to work now.
Enjoy!
A R C H I T E C T U R A L t h u r s d a y s
As part of our new series of mostly daily informative news items, today I bring you some interesting bits of architecural history. For some reason when thinking about what to post to inaugurate architectural thursday, I kept returning to some photos I took last year at Fort Revere in Hull, MA.
Fort Revere, set into the side of Telegraph Hill in Hull, overlooks Boston Harbor and served to protect the city as both a Civil War and WWI era fortification. While I cannot find much direct information on this particular Fort, it was a part of the defensive system of Harbor-view gun emplacements found all around Boston Harbor.
The mounts for 12″ Disappearing guns are still evident at the site. These large breech-loading rifles were installed as part of the 1885 Endicott upgrade to national defenses. They hid behind the concrete embankment, disguised as a hill when viewed from the sea, and would pop up to fire, then sink back down to reload.
The series of concrete platforms, walls with stairs cut into them, tunnels from one gun location to another, and dark interconnecting rooms that make up this fort are fascinating and even beautiful. I especially like the concrete retained grassy areas surrounding each gun mount – as if some modernist landscaper was on the design staff way back then. The sheer bulk of the concrete, brutality of the site’s function and scarred remains serves to hint at the true purpose of this place – to fire huge holes into oncoming enemy ships. But now, as a ruin and a landscape, it has real beauty that comes from its somewhat mysterious layout and the precisions of its forms.
Some more information I found:
Welcome to the first installment of Artful Wednesdays. (as coined by Jeremy.)
Yes I realize on the west coast it is not quite Wednesday yet (47 more minutes), but I couldn’t wait…
Tonight I enjoyed a lecture at UCLA’s Hammer Museum by Alfredo Jaar. Originally from Chile, he lives and works in NY but produces projects all over the world. Most notable is the Rwanda Project, a series of 20 projects in response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the western world’s racist choice to ignore it. The talk was part of an ongoing symposium at UCLA On the Subject of Violence, and Jaar commented that he realized in preparing for this talk that most of his work is about violence, while also recognizing several art historical references in his work. His website has a very nice intro worth watching – an homage to Yves Klein’s Leap Into the Void.
Jaar began as an architect, then switched to filmmaking because architecture depended too much on capital. Then after hearing several filmmakers’ answers to what profession they would have if they were not filmmakers, and 9 out of 10 of them said “architecture” he decided to go back and finish his degree. Eventually he was told that he was an installation artist because he was trying to combine film and architecture.
Like an architect, he approaches every project with a “program” part of which is to create a “powerful balance between information and spectacle.” When asked if he saw a kinship between the failure of both art and journalism to make change he responded that perhaps he was a “frustrated journalist.” Ultimately, he sees himself as both an activist and an artist and said that while growing up in Chile during dictatorship there was no difference between the two practices. “We have no choice but to try and change things.”
Perhaps art reaches too small an audience to truly change things, however Alfredo Jaar’s work is quite extraordinary in its ability to both inform and at least move viewers towards compassion, if not action.
Over at Coudal Partners this week and last week, they have a fantastic little game called Booking Bands. Essentially, you mash-up the title of a book with the name of a band, and email it to them so they can post it to their site. For example:
The Things They Might Be Giants Carried
or
Charlie Daniels and the Chocolate Factory
Unfortunately, they didn’t post any of mine, so I am just going to post ’em here and pat myself on the back for being so witty. But go take a look at Coudal’s page. The list is getting long, and you can help add to it.
The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Diaries
Soon to be a major music video motion picture..
The King Crimson’s Stilts
Dr. Seuss of course. That book is great, I need to get my self a copy. I
remember it being in my doctor’s office waiting room when I was a kid.
Pop Will Eat Shoots and Leaves
Put the comma wherever you like
No Use for The Name of the Rose
The Grateful Dead Sea Scrolls
One Fish, Two Fish, Simply Red Fish, Blue Fish
I’ve been more than a little slow on the postings these days, mostly due to a huge deadline at work that is finally past. With that over, I hope to dedicate some of my new free time to an overhaul of the Rise website. I am not sure I will actually follow through with it, but I think its about time for a redesign. There, now that I have posted today, I can go back to playing Shadow of the Colossus on PS2.
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