A R T F U L wednesdays
Yesterday, Michiko sent me an anouncement about her cover art for a new book published by Cloverfield Press. Looking at what other books they have published I came across Miranda July‘s work. I then spent hours wandering through her web project Learning To Love You More, which is basically a database of written and visual “reports” uploaded from all over the world in response to “assignments” such as “14. Write your life story in less than a day.” or “34. Make a protest sign and protest.” or “50. Take a flash photo under your bed.” It held my attention for so long perhaps for the same vouyeristic reasons people read personal blogs, however it was more engaging because of the variety of people responding to each assignment. While looking for that site today, in order to write about it, I came across another web project by July that is more affecting: How Will I Know Her is a collection of photographs of teenage girls holding photographs of someone they miss and haven’t seen in a long time due to circumstances beyond their control with text written by the girls about the person in the photo they are holding. My description may make it sound sentimental, but I think there is something more to it than that. It is about sharing experiences and giving others a venue to publicly say “I miss you.” even if the person they miss can’t hear them.
responding to Musical Tuesdays…
I found Os Mutantes. Nice! You should also check another group on Luaka Bop – Zap Mama. I heard them when I was in college from my cousin’s huge music collection and have been hooked ever since.
If you haven’t been checking our Calendar of upcoming Rise events, here is a head’s up about my opening tonight: Sweater is a collaborative installation with me, Arthur Pembleton, Sharon Kagan, Meeson Pae Yang, Neil Fenn and Sophia Allison under the guidance of Tim Hawkinson. It will be up until July 21 at Gallery 825 in LA – don’t miss it!
People, people, people… my buddy Aaron is looking to win a comic contest. Can you help? I really want to see him win, at least win this current Round Three so he can get his #0 issue published. That would be a milestone for him and his main goal with this contest. He’s just under the cut-off line for achieving this, voting ends this Sunday, June 25th, and the other contestants are showing more online-clout/ readers than actual quality of comic-work. But everyone in the contest has recognized that Aaron’s is one of the best (just read the comments he’s received in the forum). BUT…he just needs more people to vote “Yes” for him by Sunday, June 25th. So click here, get reading, and vote!
A R T F U L wednesdays
I have always loved the work of Hirokazu Fukawa, ever since I was introduced to it when he was my sculpture professor at Hartford Art School. His installations combine an autobiographical motivation (a Japanese man born after WWII, a father of two Autistic children,) intellectual research and skilled craftsmanship that are not only beautiful to look at but also engaging visual poetry that you think about long after you have left the gallery. Recently Hiro sent me a link to his new website. You can view documentation of his installations through the gallery link. Or you can play around with sort of creepy flash animations of skeletons and skulls that take you through a various games, quotes and images about the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during WWII. Every once in a while you have a choice of three identical skulls to click on. It is almost frustrating when you forget which one you have already been to, but quite rewarding when you find something new.
Oh yeah…and the second show I mentioned last week…at the California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside: Supervision includes work by Nicoline van Harskamp & Jill Magid. What stood out the most for me was van Harskamp’s three channel video installation “To live outside the law you must be honest” combining interviews with 30 residents of Freetown Christiania just outside of Copenhagen. According to the museum’s wall text, it was originally a social experiment set up by the Danish government in 1971 on a former military base to see if people could survive in a self governing society and it is still functioning. Very fascinating.
First of all, these are the funnies jokes in the world. They ought to be, the author was only four years old so had not learned to suck yet.
But then, I was looking around in that website more, and found the “Steve, Dont Eat It!” series of posts. Now I am crying (the silent, giggling, laughing type, not the sad type though). Here is a small sample for you:
“In closing, the only silver lining to this dark dark cloud is I have figured out why so many dogs lick their own assholes. They are trying to kill the taste of Beggin’ Strips. (By the way, it doesn’t work.)”
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.