I’ve made a few handmade books before, none of this complexity, but I appreciate the artistry that goes into making a book by hand, and this video shows you the long laborious, detail oriented, and complex process. But when you’re finally done you really feel an amazing sense of accomplishment. The end result always instills a sense of awe, every detail is there and each and everyone was done by hand.
(via notcot)
Cameron Booth, inspired by Harry Beck’s famous London underground map, created this interpretation of the US Interstate system.
As a design exercise and visually I think it looks fantastic. It also shows off beautifully the basic lines of the highway system design, for example the way interstate 80 cuts straight across the country from coast to coast.
I’m not sure how usable it is as an actual map though, I had a hard time finding Los Angeles, even though it is the second largest city in the US.
(via coudal)
When I saw this at the MCA chicago this past weekend I was not aware that it is a re-enactment, re-creation, “re-activation” of a piece that was originally performed in 1965. I wish I could have seen the original, in it’s original time more than 40 years ago, as such I am grateful I was able to at least see a re-activated version. That would explain why it felt not entirely current, I felt like there was an element missing, but now I understand that feeling to simply be the result of watching a re-doing, instead of the original doing.
Even so, I thought they did a remarkable job of altering the space with their actions, movement and props. The stage was continually evolving and morphing, we were part of their collective reshaping/constructing, and each scene created a full powerful landscape complete with new inhabitants embodied by the dancers.
I think a classically trained ballet dancer would have a hard time seeing any dance at all, but it was perfect for me, despite the fact that it felt a little like an extended exercise. I think any re-enactment will always feel like that, but I will gladly take that in exchange for a chance to see something resurrected from the past I would otherwise not get to see.
NOTE: you can catch it in new york city, it will be at DTW next week, part of the performa 09 biennial.
november 5 – 8
museum of contemporary art
Chicago, IL
coming up
november 18 – 21
Dance Theater Workshop
New York, NY
This is the kind of augmented reality I like! Not that virtual stuff. I also love the fact that it’s New York. In my mind it’s also a performance. I guess technically this is photography, but I can’t help but view a lot of art in terms of it’s performative aspects. Either way I find the end result visually interesting and thought provoking.
Continue reading Fred Lebain
I am not a black artist, I am an artist.
— Jean Michel Basquiat
Heaven is visually quite stunning. If performance simply existed for the sole purpose to be photographed, or if this happened to be a site-specific installation with a live performance component, where the audience was free to come and go and experience it on their own terms, this might have been perfect.
I was very excited to see the ps122 space transformed into something so white, yet plush, a matressy, doily, embroidred, bandaged, quilted space. From the pillars to the audience seating to the onstage sound equipment everything was transformed to fit into this new environment. As the audience was filling-in, the dancers were already in movement, setting the mood, with their slow deliberate and trance like circling of the space. This movement tableaux was quite arresting with the performers moving in and out of your consciousness.
Morgan Thorson’s pursuit of a “a real-time performance ritual” that moves from the “religious to the theatre world” is commendable. However, I’m not sure it worked. I was intrigued visually, I admired the lighting (and the haze machine) while listening to the sublime trance inducing slowcore of LOW (Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker), but overall the performance was a little too stuck on ritual and I wasn’t able to get much more out of it.
In general I think re-enactments, and experiments in liveness are great, but for many of them, when they start to go into religious, or even simply, spiritual territory, as this show does with a few overtones, as long as they are in a theater, along with us (an audience), all of their attempts at authenticity only serve to highlight the artifice of what they are doing.
I’m guessing the point of this quiz is to make fun of contemporary art. That’s fine, because in many ways if you make a quiz like this then you’re missing the point entirely. Not to mention the fact that a lot of contemporary art is precisely about figuring out this kind of distinction (think Andy Warchol readymades).
In any case, whew, I’m glad I don’t have to eat my words. I was able to get 100% on this. In my mind, this proves that maybe to the untrained eye Donald Judd and cheap furniture are indistinguishable, but in reality they are worlds apart! The whole reason I love Donald Judd is his perfect minimalism, and that is very hard to imitate.
Try to make the distinction yourself here.
I wanted to get to non-art, non-connotative, non-anthropomorphic, non-geometric, non, nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort, from a total other reference point.
— Eva Hesse
(via Leah Wechsler on FB)
I first saw some of his work at an exhibit of contemporary Chinese art, about a month ago, at one my favorite places to see contemporary art in Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center. (It may not seem like it but they usually have some pretty amazing art there and it’s all free!)
I’ve said it before, but I love to have something performative in all my art no matter what the form. I find these photographs fascinating. Especially the ones where there is interaction with others and I love the foreground/background interaction that relationship creates.
I enjoy these purely from a formal perspective but his intent is quite a bit deeper. Read his statement and check out more images here: Galeries Bertin-Toublanc.
(I recently saw a post about him on the donut project, so also via them)
