Archives for July 2009

Some light bulbs flicker before they go out, and some just go out.

It’s Jasper Johns time in Seattle, with a sweet little show focused on Johns’ myriad-minded explorations of the (don’t) let-there-be-light theme at the Henry, here, and Johns’ essential contributions to Target Practice: Painting Under Attack, 1949-78, at the Seattle Art Museum, here.(Review here.)

Watch it big on YouTube.

While contemporary art’s most famous skull is encrusted in diamonds, skulls continue to be a potent symbol of the masses made by the masses for Day of the Dead, the ceremony that invites the demised back to earth to party in the graveyard.

Between the rarefied and the populous exist Marcus Martenson’s. They tap into a deep thread of darkness, a dread that any moment, your time on earth could be up. (Via Garde Rail)

Marstenson’s paintings evoke W. Somerset Maugham’s version of a folk tale that serves as epigraph for John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra, his first novel, published in 1934:

 A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Shortly, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death, and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant’s horse, he flees at top speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles (125 km), where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death, and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, “That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

From the White House in 1961, via, her own pen and ink. More on the link.

CORRECTION: Comment below was anonymous. I misunderstood it to be from the TM Sisters, as their name was right beside the signature, CriticofCritics, and I reversed them. While it may be them writing in, they are entitled to the anonymous signature they (or somebody else really peeved) provided.

It is sad that Regina is an amateur at her craft. I can understand
trashing one artist but trashing all the artists? She’s a bore and does
not understand what’s happening in the art world today. Contemporary
art has been stuck for some time and the incoming paradigm change of
cross-pollinating game technology, the Hi-Tech, Human Interactive Media
with art is a breath of fresh air. Regina, you need to change your
profession. You want to be vogue and cool but you only show your
ignorance of what is happening in the big art centers of the world.
Hang it up!

If you’re drunk at a dinner party and desperately pretending to be only mildly inebriated, you might be talking about Dostoevsky but you’re thinking about the door. What are the chances when you’re ready to leave, you will be able to walk through it?

Brad Biancardi, Entry Way Exit Way, ink on gesso
,18 x 8 inches, at Grey Gallery.

I love the pink lips and the baby blue suit. Marcus Mårtenson’s
48 Hours via Garde Rail.

Murphy partied all the time (Via Tahirih Brown)

Make that some of the time. The person who partied all the time was John Cage (Via Jim VanKirk)

I’m keeping both. If Cage’s version were the only music, the disco ball wouldn’t have been invented. Even those who are blind to Murphy’s brilliance will have to admit he makes a hell of a parade float. (Via)

When Dale Chihuly went to Venice in 1996, he called the project Chihuly Over Venice.

Nine years earlier, Jon Kessler took a subtler approach. Below, Kessler’s Under Venice (Aluminum, Plexiglass, photomural, Murano vases, gears, chain, lights and motors).

In the 1980s, Kessler and Christopher Wilmarth staked out what became a road-not-taken in glass. Kessler’s commitment to the medium proved fickle. Wilmarth died in 1987 in his mid-40s.

Kessler: (City, 1989)

Wilmarth, who more or less owns that smoked glass and dusty metal (images via artnet):

Via

On Leary near 11th from My Ballard, one of Seattle’s proliferating neighborhood blogs, via Eyeteeth.
Alternative to billboards: Matthew Betcher‘s   via Eco Art Blog. With ads gone and the space awash in light, they’re electronic stars that fell to earth and refuse to flame out.