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July 12th, 2009Uncategorized
The artist going by the name of Above made this stencil in Lisbon. In a gesture the artist himself admits robinwoodesque, Above is selling prints of this picture and will give all the profits to two charities he has previously selected. -
July 11th, 2009Uncategorized
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July 10th, 2009UncategorizedAmerican furniture designer george dubinsky, combines traditional craftsmanship with his own quirky
sense of humour. a recent graduate of the rhode island school of design, dubinsky is currently in
residence at the anderson ranch arts center. during his position at the center dubinsky has been quite
prolific creating a completely new body of works. this includes the crate plus table made from a
small side table and a custom shipping crate perfectly formed to fit the table inside. he also produced
a series of wooden furniture pieces that use elements of plaster casts, recalling broken bones.
http://georgedubinsky.com
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July 9th, 2009Uncategorized
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July 8th, 2009Uncategorized
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July 7th, 2009UncategorizedA pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box.
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July 6th, 2009UncategorizedPublic Movement is an Israeli performance group. The action you see below was made by them in Łódź, Poland.
A short explanation: before WW2, Łódź used to have a very large Jewish minority. The Jews were, among others, the owners of a significant part of the textile industry thriving in the city. Today, there are practically no more Jews there - and no more industry as well (although the industry did go on until the 70's, I believe). It is a poor and degraded city, with a lot of social problems, and where antisemitism is still present (although the vast majority of the inhabitants have never seen a Jew).
It is one of the very few places I know where one can still find antisemitic slogans on the walls.
So here you have it: the Israelis arrive and correct the Star of David. They basically make a grafitti of how it should look like, and put the correct form over the incorrect one.
And a few little ideas:
- The grafitti they choose to work with are not openly antisemitic. They simply replace one of the letters of the name of a soccer club (ŁKS) with a Star of David. So this is a "neutral" correction on a "neutral" sign.
- The ritual. Ah, the ritual. Turns it all into an action of purity. Precious.
- Notice one other, much more hidden, interpretation: the Jews are back in town. They are here, after our land. They put their stamp on the walls. They claim what is theirs (the club, the building). They are tagging their city.
- But one idea I think is crucial, and might be overlooked in all this will to interpret every single aspect of the work. Public Movement seems to be saying "Yes, this is who we are. We see no reason to be ashamed of it. Do you? Are you not embarrassed to have thought this was inappropriate or even silly, in any way?"
This is some brilliant playing with street art, semiotics, identity and politics.
The one question that I find problematic is - yes, this is on the spot. But for whom? Who is the audience? Is it public art, or just private art in public space? Or maybe it is public art, only for the audience that is reading about it now? So where does that leave the people who walk by this daily? Do we expect them to have a surge of initiative and paint over the whole signs? Or are we, deep inside, enjoying the fact that it's still there, everything is just the same, while we, the smart ones, know and watch?
I really do not know. I do not have better solutions. This, of course, is not a solution either - it is highliting the question(s). But what are we to make of this insistent neutrality right in the middle of a political issue? Is it a curse, the curse of constant distance? Or the blessing of a delicately balanced gesture, for once?
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July 5th, 2009Uncategorized
All the pink, frilly and sparkly — from the princess dresses to the four-foot-high pink castle in the playroom — isn’t necessarily what Caroline Morris would choose for her eldest daughter.
She doesn’t want to stop her 6-year-old from being who she is. But as princess fever has reached a new high with this generation of girls, she and other parents are feeling the urge to rein in the would-be reigning ones, just a little.
That’s especially true in tough economic times, when more parents are focusing on messages of frugality and humility that, they say, just don’t fit with the princess mentality that has become a rite of passage for many girls.
Morris knows, of course, that some parents think such worries are ridiculous.
“But what happens when our daughters get to adulthood and they realize that the world isn’t a fairy tale?” asks Morris, who lives in suburban Atlanta and insists she doesn’t mind imaginative play. She just wants her girls to strive for something beyond being “pretty and glamorous.”
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July 4th, 2009Uncategorized
Finally! Bazooka Joe, the bubble-gum comic strip that dates back to the fifties and is arguably the greatest narrative ever told via candy wrapper, is getting the big-screen treatment. Mark Hammer, who got in the studio door with an unproduced spec script called Sonny Takes to Peru, is writing the screenplay. For the occasion, the Hollywood Reporter provides probably their best-ever plot summary: “Joe, who wears an eye patch for reasons never explained, has child-friendly misadventures, sometime joined by a host of friends with the names Pesty, Mort (always with a turtleneck sweater pulled up over his mouth), Toughie, Hungry Herman, love interest Jane and a dog named Walkie Talkie.”
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July 3rd, 2009Uncategorized
The problem with abstraction is that a subjective voyage into the unknown is precisely this: subjective. And, since the exceptional quality of my experience as the creator is something distinct from the experience of the spectator, the abstraction game becomes a hide-and-seek of subjectivities, a challenge which at any moment can be called a bluff, a mere ego trip. Thus, whenever the artist moves into abstraction, whenever we receive less (of the visible image of the visible), we find ourselves in a position of risk - the risk of losing track, of losing sight of anything that rings a bell.
It is a risk we have learned to enjoy. It is a risk justified by the way our historically-bound senses receive the world, and well-defended by an astonishing number of passionate theories.
Still, I look with envy at the art lovers who find abstraction as natural as air.
Most of the time, I find it easier to discover new worlds in a stone than in an abstract sculpture.
Yet there are artists who manage to create paths that lead from the world of re-cognition, of everyday objects and images and tastes, of the mimetic pleasures of re-production, to the very limits of abstract forms.
One such artist is Myra Mimlitsch-Gray.
Take a simple object:
The effect of melting does not seem to challenge the object as such. It asks for fruit as loudly as any classic salver does. Nonetheless, it moves us towards a world where the concrete is, well, not so concrete after all:
Here we have a candelabrum, which is hardly a candelabrum any more. It has melted like a candle, apparently contradicting its main function: to withstand melting. Welcome back to the magnificent world of semiotic undoing, and sensual games with the intellect.
Too entropic for you? Why don't you try something more positive, then? Sugar and cream, anyone?
The sugar bowl is the negative of its own shape, as is the creamer... or is it that none of them actually has the shape? What are they, after all, these shapes that are to be useful, that are to serve, as if their being objects were not good enough? What is left of the representation, of the concrete, once we put it to challenge in its very heart?
Let's move back to the first picture now. The title of the work is Trunk Sections, and it is made in cast iron. A tree made of iron. Or is it a mold of a tree? (What a strange idea: a mold of a tree!) Or just a part of their trunk? And why do they seem so... wooden? What, then is the matter with them? They are like ghosts, representing something we presume might have been here, but made of another stuff, another material, another essence, defying the way we see the objectness of the object.
We can, of course, go back to seeing them as just a few pieces of iron cast and assembled to create an abstract sculpture, like so many others.
The question is: with this delicious introduction, why would we refuse the voyage?
