YAY!

I ordered lights today! Yay!! I have no money now, but by this time next week I will have studio lights!! Yay yay yay!!

Check it out! Tom Sachs: Cameras at The Aldrich

Tom Sachs: Cameras at The Aldrich, an exhibit focusing on the artist's camera objects. Sachs constructs cultural relics out of disparate materials, merging modern culture with the tools that shaped its history. A quirky reflection on the great Modern icons.

The Tom Sachs exhibit is on view through September 16, 2009.

Art Must-Sees this Summer: William Kentridge, Five Themes

William Kentridge: Five Themes, a traveling exhibition stopping into the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth showcases the artist's work for the past 2+ decades. The show includes multiple small screens of his famous films, with accompanying pieces ranging from drawings and prints, to sculptures and books. It is an art show exploring the essential development and dominant themes of Kentridge’s oeuvre.

Kentridge's work draws on his interest in theater, utilizing its archetypes as a way of presenting the conflicting issues he himself has had as a South African Jewish man who witnessed the realities of the apartheid. His films are pieces that explore the two faces of oppression. Kentridge’s working method, in which he draws in charcoal each image on a single piece of paper, then photographs each image frame by frame, reflects on the issues of oppression and conflict present in all societies. Wherein even though the oppression may be legally absent, the scars of history remain; a metaphor inherently present in his process as each image that is erased to make room for a new image leaves a visual ghost behind. One cannot ignore that as a Jewish man he is also sensitive to his own history of oppression, and the questions that arise from the paradox of economically successful Jews thriving on the oppression of others, as in Apartheid.

I myself am particularly interested in this issue as part of my family is of Lithuanian Jewish decent and retreated to South Africa before the war, when the Russian military did eventually enter their former town, all of the Jews were rounded up and slaughtered. This genocide scenario may be different from the issues in Africa, but it is not so far from the issues of oppression, ownership and prosperity, so prevalent in the mining industry and corporate powers reliant on the natural resources of the African continent. These issues are universal, and simply living in an ‘enlightened’ country such as the United States does not make one any less participatory in ethical dilemmas of conscience. Kentridge’s perspective is one of the complex nature regarding the burden of action and inaction.

The review for this work from the Dallas News by Gaile Robinson was not flattering. Unfortunately, the writer did not have the insight to comprehend the strength of Kentridge’s aesthetic. His view is that the ‘best part of a Kentridge film: [is] watching the artist's hands at work’ a typical suggestion from someone conveniently ignoring the issue. In a city who’s own segregation and conflict of race and economic segregation is very much alive, it was disappointing to see such a perspective with Robinson expressing irritation at the lack of convenience offered, due to the length each film, and the museum bench being ‘uncomfortable.’ Seems somewhat appropriate when the theme is the conflict of ignoring the status quo of oppression, a subject anything but comfortable for the majority of us ‘white folk.’

This travelling exhibition was curated by Mark Rosenthal of the SF MoMA and will be travelling to the MoMA in February 2010, William Kentridge: Five Themes will be on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth until Sept. 27, 2009.

This is the second installment of the five Must-Sees for the Summer 2009, as the season approaches an end.

Musings: Paper Castle

Had to post this as I am obsessed with paper craft and interested in its current re-emergence into art culture. Found this image of a castle by a young art student in Tokyo by the name of Wataru Itou, on the Makezine website, while browsing the internet for craft photographs.
I have begun noticing a resurgence of craft not only in visual art culture, but in many aspects of consumer culture as well. Etsy.com for example is an online space developed expressly for handmade objects. Kirsten Hassenfeld is another artist that comes to mind when considering this re-emergence, Hassenfeld does not deny her satisfaction in romanticizing the ephemeral, and for that matter, many of the installation artists at Rice Art Gallery seem to use consumer grade materials to reflect on the sublime nature of a well-constructed space. In photography, it is the current popularity of formalist photography, now a days when a photographer claims they only use 4x5 sheet film, one immediately must take them seriously, because that isn't easy in this digital age.
And that's just it, I think there are two fold reasons for this new trend, one is the reaction to Post-modernism in which the ideals of craft were called into question. Craft was seen as problematic, it enforced a concept of perfection and assumption that there was a 'right' way of representing something. The second is this digital age in which photographs are everywhere, each and every online profile has an image associated with it, the image has become meaningless, and that's just the beginning. Everything is suppose to take place faster in this digital revolution, and for the most part, it is. So, artists and craft people alike are slowing down, revisiting their roots, questioning what handmade vs. digital means. I don't think there's an answer yet, but there is something about an object that is inherently more valuable than a digital file. My graphic designer told me to leave a handwritten note in every leave-behind because people are less likely to throw it away knowing that you spent time on it. Digital media is abstract, it exists in code, on screens, it disappears. Considering the work of DaVinci, the Romans, the images of Holocaust victims, perhaps our visual culture has not quite denied the belief that it is still the meaningful object that has the potential to live 'forever'.

Art Must-Sees this Summer: Maya Lin's "Wavefield"

Storm King Art Center has added a new Maya Lin sculpture “Wavefield” to its collection. If you are not familiar with Maya Lin, her artistic career took off when, in 1982 as a young architectural student at Yale, her model of a wall embedded into the landscape was chosen for the design of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Wall. Her work is consistently concerned with structural reflections on the environment and “Wavefield” is no different; a waveform sculpture built from top soil, gravel, and low-impact grasses covers what was once a gravel pit on the Storm King campus. Maya Lin’s sculpture suggests the landscape as waves changing and forming over time, the piece forces a contemplation on our own ability to ‘move mountains’ for better or for worse. Her approach bridges a concern with sculptural installation and an environmental awareness, Maya carefully considers her carbon footprint and is in the process of planting trees on the periphery of "Wavefield" to counter the energy used during the process of producing the sculpture. Like such Earthworks artists as Andy Goldsworthy (whose work is also on view), Lin's obvious passion for natural forms has made her a staple in the international art scene and her work, considered both installation and land art, is in my opinion a contemporary mode on the sublime.

Storm King sits on 500 acres of manicured land and has developed a permanent collection of outdoor sculptures that are dependent on the changing landscape. In conjunction with the unveiling of Lin’s “Wavefield”, Storm King Art Center is exhibiting Maya Lin: Bodies of Water, on display are sketches, models and smaller sculptures by the artist in its museum building.

Maya Lin: Bodies of Water is on view until November 15, 2009

Storm King Art Center is located in the Hudson River Valley, one hour north of New York City.

This is the first installment of what I hope to be a 5 piece seasonal posting of Art Must-Sees across the US.

Just an Update

Working on new images right now, not resolved yet, but I foresee success. Still exploring the way nature is constructed and referenced through different media, but mostly through paper. This often ends up looking like fantasy landscapes and such, mostly because of the abstraction and lack of visual depth. More images coming soon...

For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture by Allan Salkin at NYT

Click Here for the Full NYT Article
Say it ain't so! Annie Leibovitz is in dire straits over a loan gone bad with Art Capital Group, having allegedly offered her Greenwich Village townhomes and negatives as collateral!
Some advice for all creative professionals out there, don't ever offer your life's work as collateral, and NEVER your negatives and rights to your own images. Offer something that you can live without. Negatives are a photographer's bread and butter; many successful artists could take a tip from Damien Hirst who is known for carefully manipulating the art market to his advantage through strict control of his own work. He won't even allow a dealer to sell his work. Rumors claim that in this way Hirst has amassed a fortune close to a billion dollars from his artwork. Hopefully Ms. Leibovitz will pull out of this somewhat unscathed, perhaps there will be companies that see this as an opportunity to contract Ms. Leibovitz for more elaborate work, as the article mentions this is what Getty Images jumped on the bandwagon to do. I am looking forward to seeing how this issue pans out for her come the Sept. 8 deadline.

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