As iphone fever overwhelms the electronic toy collectors, we all need to get serious about a future without privacy or distance in the classic sense. We remain tethered to everyone: lovers, friends, strangers and computer generated messages. What excuse do we have to cut ourselves off and take a break? I am sure that many, many artists have been making works for cell phones for a while, but this … [Read more...]

As the super-connected and hyper-knowledged human planet moves forward in the last phase of geographic diversity, the analysis of any high culture specialty like visual art appears as useful as a pair of chopsticks. Most of the cultural activity generating and consuming the visual stuff just slides out of its grasp back into the bowl. Public Art exists in a unique position outside the criticism … [Read more...]

Sorry for my delay in blogging. Completing a large project or returning from an engrossing adventure always leads to a temporary depression. Suddenly everything is so calm without the adrenalin. The spirit drags and the imagination dissolves. This happens at least a twice a year for decades and I still respond the same. I learn nothing. The trip to Turkey will be very influential to my … [Read more...]

At this moment, my wife and I are attempting to guess that if the Turkish military invades northern Iraq, then will our long planned and long desired trip to Istanbul be ruined. Today the Turkish prime minister signaled that he would support an attack against the Kurdish rebels after the suicide bomb in central Ankara. Our plane leaves in 36 hours. In any case, Turkey, Germany or Florida, I am … [Read more...]

The cows, the horses, the flamingos, the gators, the swans and now - the Globes - well Cool Globes. ( Great marketing pun. ) Home of the first American fiberglass on parade, Chicago puts the first "content" on the fun vaudeville displays. Called Vaudeville since the works are full of mild humor, bad puns, mediocre get-ups, gaudy colors, shiny things and a lot of noise. The events are the only … [Read more...]

Buckingham Guard and Gormley Casting (Photo by Edz, Flickr) In London, Antony Gormley spreads cast-iron multiples of his own nude body across the skyline near the Hayward Gallery. (At Art Basel Miami last December, I noticed that all the naked people in the artworks were male.) The sculpture is a factual, asexual self-representation without any spirit or energy. It just is. He uses a pose that … [Read more...]

For many years, I have believed that painters make better architects than sculptors. Painters and architects share a love for the contradiction of the illusion of space and the reality of the object. They succeed with the visual beauty of shaped stuff in a contained volume and with the felt relationships trapped in the volume. Sculptors like the stuff too much. The architecture of the sculptors … [Read more...]

So we live in time of virtual motion. After many years of special effects in action adventures shot after Star Wars, we have "direct" experience with fast, twisting motion through space. Billions of humans know things about motion that have never been experienced. Any water cooler conversation can discuss the feeling of a high-speed chase on the ground or through the air. Video by Rhett … [Read more...]

Semaphore, Board Game & Symbol San Jose, Melbourne, Indianapolis Adobe, Digital Harbour, International Airport LED, Laser Cut, Stone Rubin and Innocent Below continues the comparison on three works installed between August 2006 and September 2007. Today I leave the comparisons stark as I don't know yet, what to make of the simultaneous birthing of the works. I started with the online-inperson … [Read more...]

The flu kicked the shit out of me this week. So some foggy thinking about Indianapolis. This week, Indy announced that Donald Lipski would develop the 50th Anniversary Legacy Public Art Project. I would say that Lipski is now the most popular public artist in the USA, replacing James Carpenter from a few years back. I liked the old Horse on the Red Chair, but the current crop of repeating … [Read more...]

The image trap in public art is the administrator's, the curator's or the committee's dilemma, not the artists. (Of course, many artists do play.) The trap drops when a particular work is required to be a significant symbol for a place, a time or a people. So many writers have analyzed the invention of symbols. I don't have the background to comment on simulacre or metaphor. Sincerity or … [Read more...]

If I recall correctly, the Seattle artist Jim Pridgeon had a concept to create a drawing in sky by unrolling a ___ mile long reflective mylar sheet in the lowest level of orbiting satellites around the earth. Depending on the time of day, the drawing would be more or less visible. Most visible at sunset. At a global scale, Pridgeon's sculpture would capture and redirect (reflect) the light of … [Read more...]