Old but still good. From Sharon Arnold via. (Click to enlarge.) Thank you, sane voters, that it didn’t go the other way.
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Wrong is right – the shock of the flaw
That old grade-school test question - Which of these does not belong? - offers a key to the aesthetics of the expressively hot, as opposed to the classically cool. The hint of crazy within the solid citizen, the blood in the water and the worm in the rose (mortal, guilty) move us in a way that visions of perfection rarely do. In honor of the flaw, a small survey of its recent, robust manifestations. Douglas Gordon Three Inches (Black) 1997 (image via) Susan Robb: Three from the last … [Read More...]
Recently in Seattle
If human history were underwater, Alwyn O'Brien's ceramic vessels could serve as the bleached bones of the Ancien Regime, the decorative drained and dead on a dark sea floor. 4 Descending Notes 2010 Manganese Clay and Glaze 9" x 7" x 5 1/2" Hand-rolled coils make her lacy vessels. Born past their prime, they are in their own weird way pristine. Story of Looking, 2010 Porcelain and glaze, Two Pieces 12 1/2" x 14" x 5" Following Thelonious Monk, she knows how to use the wrong … [Read More...]
Picasso’s flesh world
Collectors who hire experts to solve problems that don't exist till help arrives are responsible for the equivalent of bad face lifts on old masters. What the artists intended too frequently recedes under an abrasive cleaning or a deadening layer of varnish. Current practices discourage irreversible interventions. That means John Currin's work is a little safer than artists who preceded him, such as Picasso, although having the money to buy good advice doesn't guarantee it will be heeded. … [Read More...]
Welcome back, David Wojnarowicz
Nice to see David Wojnarowicz (wana-row-vitch) back in the news, making the monkeys dance. It's no surprise that the usual people want to use their deliberate misunderstanding of his work to rally their frightened base. It's also no surprise that the Smithsonian once again proves to be cowardly. Remember its Enola Gay exhibit from 1995? The examination of this country's use of the Atom Bomb started as scholarly and turned into a my-country-right-or-wrong cheering section, after suitable … [Read More...]
Image Transfer – Remix Culture at the Henry
Humans see, humans do: After the first horse drawn on the first cave and the first pot incised with a decorative line, everything became imitation. You don't need a weatherman to know which way that wind blows, or that in the contemporary period, it blows harder. In selecting the 12 artists featured in Image Transfer: Pictures in a Remix Culture, associate Henry curator Sara Krajewski looked for those whose engagements with image recycling make them visual mix masters of note, those who … [Read More...]
Give me a head with hair
Mequitta Ahuja Wriggle, oil on canvas, 41"X26" 2008. Could have been titled, Medusa takes a nap. Geoffrey Chadsey Welterweight, 2002 Watercolor pencil on rag vellum, tape 57" x 24" Another great Chadsey figure with flowing locks. (Not safe for work.) Lauren Grossman Behold 2003 Iron, wool, steel. 13"x21"x12" Rolls on casters. Mequitta Ahuja, again. Flowback, oil on canvas, 68"X51" 2008 … [Read More...]
Coming to the Portland Art Museum – skin pictures
The chief curator at the Portland Art Museum, Bruce Guenther, sports a full back tattoo — thin, Agnes Martinesque lines wrapping him, like heartstrings pulled out. (Update: Faulty memory alert – not Anges Martin-like. See related post for photo.)
It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that his museum is host to a skin show. From the press release:
This summer, the Portland Art Museum will present a unique visitor
experience exploring the art of tattoo and the impact of this artistic
practice in the local community.Beginning today, individuals who
got their tattoos in Portland or people who have a tattoo and currently
reside in the area are invited to share images of their tattoo/s on the museum’s flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/groups/markingportland. The Museum’s curators will review the submitted images and select some to be presented inside the galleries.
It’s getting-to-know-you, Guenther style. Because tattoos are not a regional phenomenon, it’s arbitrary to confine contributions to his city’s limits. The rule means PAM will not be able to exhibit a photo of the ultimate Northwest tattoo. It exists on the flesh of Patrick Attenasio, who is not from Portland. He happened to see Alfredo Arreguin‘s painting, A Hero’s Journey reproduced online and decided to have it inked onto his arm.
In the center is a poem titled Last Fragment by Arreguin’s friend, the late Raymond Carver:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
A Hero’s Journey appeared on the cover of Carver’s final book of poems, A New Path to the Waterfall.
Below are few images from PAM’s tattoo flickr pool I find especially fetching. Those who peruse it will notice a photo of Guenther’s back is not among the entries.
(First says, Live Learn)
Related: In the New York Times – Seafarers’ Memoirs Written on Skin, here.
Messages in windows
Ten tips for artists in a ruinous economy
(All paintings/drawings by Seattle’s Emilia Kallock. Click to enlarge.)
1. Make playing cards for sale at high-end shops.
2. Sew wedding dresses for the wealthy.
3. Paint people’s houses in a flattering light.
4. Consider farming.
5. Become a Skagit Valley river rat.
6. Harness the energy of a cloud.
7. Never underestimate your personal appeal.
8. Invent a machine for turning dry grass into fire.
9. Sleep through it.
10. Try death. It has worked so well for so many.
Jessixa – stop sign
Maps that are the place
(Click to enlarge)
Leo Saul Berk, Hot Spot, 2005, pen/paper, 42 x 92 inches
Ann Chamberlain, Wrist, 1998, pigment print, 20 x 16 inches
Still life with blue bags
Why no women choreographers? They’re not good enough
On her AJ blog Critical Distance, Laura Collins-Hughes confronts the sexism that never says die, here.
Her starting point is an essay by Charlotte Higgins at the Guardian, here. Higgins asked Alstair Spalding, artistic director of London contemporary-dance center Sadler’s Wells, why there were no female choreographers among the “raft of commissions” he’s just announced for the coming season. He responded:
It is something to do with women not being as assertive in that field. It’s not that I don’t want to commission them.
If he only could, he’d be behind women a 1,000 percent. Alas, there’s the regrettable problem of their not being up to scratch, and quality is his watchword, he says, regardless of color, sex, sexual orientation or creed.
Collins-Hughes’ essay is terrific, if theoretical. She doesn’t name any women choreographers she thinks could if given a chance step up at Sadler’s Wells.
Here’s a few, just for starters.
Susan Marshall, BeBe Miller, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker,
Pina Bausch
(at Sadler’s Wells last year), Trisha Brown,
Twyla Tharp, Zoe Scofield and Donna Uchizono.
The Tiny Art Director
Tiny Art Director, so like real art directors as well as the people encountered when making public art. Since his daughter was two (she’s now four), Bill Zeman has made drawings at her request, which she proceeds to critique. Soon to be a major motion picture, or, as the tiny art director herself says, “I want daddy to go away on a trip.” (Via Slog.)
The Brief: A mama snail and a baby snail
The Critique: I’m sorry to say that you’re worser than me. You gotta learn to draw as me. You just don’t draw so well. Why do you think that is? It turns out that I’m the good draw-er. It turns out that you’re the art director.
Artists Note: The critique is on the initial sketch, and compares to hers. She actually likes the painting.
Job Status: Provisionally Approved, pending addition of jumping fish in the lake.
The Brief: A monster (on spec)
The Critique: Too scary! He’s a tomato and he’s yelling right in my ear!
Job Status: Rejected
