Megan and Murray

Sackler and Fogg Art Museums at Harvard University

Leonardo Drew, Number 122, 2007, installation, Fogg

Leonardo Drew, Number 122, 2007, installation detail, Fogg

Louise Lawler, War is Terror, 2001/2003, photograph, Fogg

East Pediment of the Temple of Aphaia (Original), Greek, c 490-475 BC, marble and Warrior's Head (Copy), synthetic marble, Sackler

The art museums at Harvard are better, in my opinion, than Boston's august *Museum of Fine Arts... and a ticket to all three is half the $17 price-tag of the big museum. The last image is from the current show at the Sackler, Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity, on view through January 20, 2008, which is the most comprehensive and educational grouping of painted reproductions of ancient sculpture I've seen.

* I'm holding out hope for the "new" MFA.

Exploring Art in New England

Since moving to Providence in August, we've begun to explore the rich art resources in our new surroundings. In the past two weeks, we've been to MASS MoCA to see the Spencer Finch show, to the ICA for Philip-Lorca diCorcia, to the MIT museum for the whimsical and Tim Hawkinson-esque Sculpture of Arthur Ganson, and to the South End Open Studios and most of the major galleries in Boston.

In the next few posts, we'll begin to unpack some of what we're thinking about the art we've seen.

Natalie Jeremijenko, Tree Logic, 1999 [at MASS MoCA]

Top 20 Highlights of 2006

2006 was a banner year for seeing art. Here are our favorite exhibitions of the year (in chronological order):

1) The year began in Marfa, Texas with our first visit to the Chinati Foundation. We posted about our trip here, here, here, here, and here. Forget the October open house, try Marfa for New Years: it's wonderful.

2) Also in January, we happened upon the installation of Nancy Rubins' newest work at MCASD, Pleasure Point, 2006. We stood on Coast Blvd forever, with the ocean breeze and the palm trees and the California blue sky, watching that huge crane lift the boats into place, where about 5 workers were wiring them together. It's all tension: no bolts, no welding. Just boats and wires and precise geometry. We blogged about it here.

Before we left for our residency in Spain (which accounts for a huge portion of our best art moments), we saw four great shows in LA. Looking over the year and the work we've made, I can trace back to the influence of these four shows.

3) In April, there was Robert Rauschenberg, Combines. So good, what can you even say? All we could say was YES.

Then in May there was the one-two-three punch at the Hammer:

4) the inspirational Société Anonyme: Modernism for America

And at the same time, two project shows at the Hammer that tipped our art practice on its ear, and challenged us to rethink previous assumptions and come up with new solutions for old problems:

5) Jesper Just changed the way we think about video. We wrote about it here.

6) Elliott Hundley changed the way we think about incorporating photos into collage. Our take on that here.

Then we spent the early part of the summer in Barcelona. We saw so much art there we could hardly keep up posting about it all. There was plenty of great stuff that never got a mention because of our limitations, but not because of merit, like the Tàpies Museum, and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. But for us, the best art we saw in Spain boiled down to:

7) Histories Animades at Caixa Forum was hands-down the best animation show we've ever seen. We didn't review it, but our fellow resident, Megan Lynch, did here. Some American museum should get this show to travel to the states.

8) The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is an amazing museum in an old palace on Montjuic. The museum's Renaissance and Gothic collection are mouthwatering, but it was the fresco exhibition that stopped us in our tracks. A postmodern mash-up of ancient frescos resurrected on ultra-contemporary plywood and plaster apses. What really struck us about this show was that most of the frescos were only partially intact, and so the curators floated these wonderful shapes on the white plaster surface. These perimeters inspired us and show up in Bruc Fugue, the work we made during our residency.

9) The Sagrada Familia. It's unbelievably wonderful. Nothing more to say.

10) The Cathedral at Mont Serrat. This was going to be a location for our video shoot, but ended up being logistically impossible, but what an amazing place. A cathedral carved into the mountain, as impractical a place to worship as it is magical.

11) Pauline Fondevila at Galeria Estrany De La Mota. We did a round-up of some of the best work we saw in galleries, and Fondevila's work is the last two images of the post, check it out here.

After we got back to Los Angeles, we only had a handful of weeks before we were scheduled to move to St Louis. We crammed in as much as we could, including a trip Baja, where on the way back to LA we stopped in on the wonderful:

12) Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana

Then my favorite fun show of the summer:

13) the Waist Down exhibition at the Prada store in Beverly Hills. I wrote about it here.

Fall brought us to St Louis, and since we've been here we've seen some great work as well:

14) John Watson and Andrea Green's show at Laumeier Sculpture Park

15) the City Museum

16) the Remote Viewing show at the St Louis Art Museum, which I'd seen the year before at the Whitney

17) Tara Donovan lecturing at the St Louis Art Museum

18) the new Kemper Art Museum at Washington University.

And two of our favorite gallery shows this fall:

19) Bill Smith at White Flag Projects

20) and Georgia Kotretsos at Boots Contemporary Art Space.

Here's to more great shows in 2007 — cheers!

Creative Strategies

My freshman Creative Strategies course built cardboard structures, suspended from a hallway beam that included found machines that created manifestos about the direction each student wanted to go with their art. We had an excellent critique this morning. Here are three solutions:

Maryam Gharabiklou Zareh
A back-lit cardboard house structure contains hanging dolls. One doll is suspended by a kitchen mixer and spins quickly.

Agnieszka Gradzik
A suspended exercise bike is equipped with a fabricated cardboard mirror, soundtrack and custom-welded basket extension, filled with picnic supplies made from cardboard and colored tape.

Dena Bergman
A horse slowly spins while a music box plays in a suspended carousel frame with repeated text: "Now is about everyone else, because later is about me."

Art Exposure Leads to Firing

Michelangelo, David, [source]

Texas art is in the news again, and not in a good way (story here). A Frisco (far northern exurb of Dallas) 5th grade art teacher has been fired, allegedly for exposing a student to a nude sculpture on a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. According to the Frisco Enterprise Star, the teacher had received a "low evaluation rating" at the end of the 2005-6 school year (source), and the firing had to do with her job performance. But even if that's the case, why would the district choose to hit such a radical hot button by firing her over the museum field trip?

The most baffling aspect of all is that the principle will not disclose the piece of art in question, and referred to it only as an "abstract sculpture" (source). So which is it? Nude or abstract? Or is the principle so misinformed about art that she is unable to distinguish between the two?

[via and via]

Dallas and a Tagged Irwin

I was in Dallas over the weekend for a wedding, and while driving through downtown, I noticed that Robert Irwin's Portal Park Piece is completely covered with graffiti tags (wish I'd gotten a better pic — this is enhanced to better see the tag).

While I do have a place in my heart for graffiti walls in public spaces, I don't think highly of vandals marring one of the best public sculpture works in town. City of Dallas, you need to get a preservationist out there ASAP.

In the process of googling the work, I came across this excellent resource for Dallas art lovers: The Dallas Foundation's online Walking Sculpture Tour.

Another Stunning Sports Photo

Chang W. Lee, The New York Times, [source].

Dreaming About Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney, Cremaster 2, 1999 [source]
mockingbird [source]

Last night Matthew Barney was in my dream. I met him at a shipping yard; it was an eerily dark night. He was walking under the yellow cast of a single street light. We hollered out at each other, "hey."

Then he asked me if I'd seen his show. Embarrassed, I said that I had not. We were in Spain, then we moved out of California, and even though I'd been in San Jose for a conference recently, I couldn't make it up to the city...

"I heard it was good though," I said, somewhat sheepishly.

"You should see it," he said, "before it closes." [Sept. 17]

"What's your favorite bird?" he said.

"Sparrow," I said.

"Peacock," he said.

"Penguin," I said.

"Mockingbird!" he shouted, while doing jazz hands.

The Little Girl Giant

This is a stunning video of a performance by the European street theater group Royal de Luxe. Last May, they debuted The Sultan's Elephant, in London in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jules Verne's death. It was the fifth in their series of giant pieces.

Thanks to fellow Can Serrat artist-in-residence Megan Lynch for the link.

More on The Sultan's Elephant on Laughing Squid.

7 Projects Added

I'm pleased to announce many of my older works (projects completed before Megan and I started to officially collaborate) are now available on our portfolio site.

It's wonderful to collaborate with someone you've known for a long time, and tricky to pin down when we exactly started to collaborate. Our formal collaboration was born with 25 People Lifting (2002), however, it was forming as early as Indigo Room (2000, Megan was managing director) and our working language was pretty developed by Inside 23 People (2001).

Portfolio Site Updated

Click here to see our updated portfolio site. It is designed to be easier to use and features our newest project, Sea Shovel, along with videos of many of our other projects.

Everyone's Doing It

Museums do it, and I hear even Boston beans do it: College Art Association 2006 Conference Blog.

[Liberally distorted lyrics courtesy of Cole Porter.]

Los Angeles in Paris

Double Standard, 1962, Dennis Hopper

Los Angeles 1955-1985
March 8 - July 17, 06
Centre Pompidou

"The Centre Pompidou will be hosting a major exhibition on the artistic scene of Los Angeles from 1955 to 1985. There will be approximately 350 works on show by 85 artists.

Los Angeles is the first exhibition on this scale that aims to demonstrate the importance and specific characteristics of an artistic context yet to be discovered. The Los Angeles artistic scene is unique in its multiform nature and in its continuous renewal of aesthetics and artists. Art here is inspired by the complexity of this “ville-monde” or megalopolis in which underground movements mix with popular Californian culture, with its community expression as with the world of its dream machines of Hollywood and Disneyland.

This exhibition retraces the history of the Los Angeles artistic scene through a large selection of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, film and video, from its appearance around the middle of the 50s to the dawn of a new generation of artists in the middle of the 80s."

[via: e-flux]

Nam June Paik, 1932 - Jan. 29, 2006

TV Cello, Nam June Paik, 1971 

Rest in peace, Mr. Paik.

More info here.

Roadtrip Roundup: NorthPark Mall

Barry Flanagan, Large Leaping Hare, 1982

NorthPark is a Dallas institution. As one of the earliest indoor malls in the country, it used to be notable simply for having Lord and Taylor and Neiman Marcus in one convenient location. But the secret to North Park's success is that it's owned by Raymond Nasher, a Texas businessman and art collector, who used NorthPark (and his other businesses as well) as high-end storage facilities for his extensive and highly valued modernist art collection. 

Jonathan Borofsky, Five Hammering Men, 1982

Murray and I grew up with a changing display of Magdalena Abakanowicz, David Smith, Constantin Brancusi, and Jonathan Borofsky on our way to the GAP. We were so used to seeing art in our early, everyday lives that Murray remembers being surprised to see a slide in a freshman art history class of Barry Flanagan's Large Leaping Hare.

That's famous? he remembers thinking, but that's at the mall.

Frank Stella, Washington Island Gadwall (from the Exotic Birds series), 1980-1981

A few years ago, the Nasher Sculpture Center opened, and most of the mall art moved to a lovely museum facility in the downtown arts district. We hadn't been to NorthPark since the move, but while we were in Dallas over the holidays, we stopped by for a little Christmas shopping. We were pleased to find a remnant of the original collection still intact. It's a real thrill to stand next to an Andy Warhol series while crowds throng around you, no guards in site — while most of the other shoppers are thinking more about the price of the Gucci purse across the way than about the value of the artwork they're rushing past.

Roadtrip Roundup 5: Judd

Donald Judd, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982-1986

Easily Judd's best work. Each of the 100 aluminum sculptures are slightly different, underlining Judd's surprising wit. Unlike Flavin (see below), I found myself inspecting and enjoying every single one, my enthusiasm only strengthening. A bonus for fellow sculptors: the docent explained how they are assembled: there are hidden aluminum dowel rods (he even showed me a "less perfect" work with a small crack, just big enough to see them).

Megan and I are fans of Judd's writing--this work is the best example of his ideas that I've seen.

Roadtrip Roundup 3: Flavin

Dan Flavin's untitled (Marfa project), 1996.

It really is as neat as its image. There are two configurations based off the same general layout. Each configuration is housed in its own building. They are each repeated three times, so the installation consumes 6 buildings. I've seen the images but I never realized the real estate impact.

I don't think this works well for the work. As an audience member traveling through, the first building is magical, the second (the second configuration) seals the deal, the third offers a solid academic defense, the fourth seems less inspired, the fifth seems like a waste and the sixth just underlines the fact that this artist had too big of a budget.

Actually, there could have only been five, but does it really matter? Three would have been perfect.

That said, the magic of seeing this installation is worth the trouble of getting to Marfa alone [a city in the middle of nowhere, Texas]. This is easily Flavin's best work.

Roadtrip Roundup 1: Prada, Marfa

Just outside Marfa, Texas, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's Prada, Marfa is an installation [created with permission from Prada] surrounded by desert and mountains and nothing else. Inside are Prada shoes and purses; the doors do not open.

The only sign is on the front — the sides are plain — and traffic on the highway travels at 70 mph, so although you can't miss it as an object on the side of the road, it is actually easy to miss as an artwork. I can imagine a bored child looking out the side of her car window and then having a hard time convincing parents that they just passed a Prada store.

A timely commentary on class differences. Most Prada purses cost more than many area residents make in a month.

The work had the same quality of construction you would expect at a mall and this surprised me. I thought that they would take shortcuts and build for the photo. A pleasant surprise: Marfa's newest premiere chain is built to last.

Seeing Serra at the Fort Worth Modern

Richard Serra
Vortex, 2002
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Why It's A Good Idea to Read Art News

So you can find out when somebody else has made a work similar to one you'd been thinking about making yourself, but just hadn't gotten around to yet.

Nic Nicosia, another Dallas native, also regularly drives I-40, and now he's made a 10-hour continuous film about it. More info here.

New Work by Regina Vaterand Regina Célia Pinto

EUA 200 Km / hour: No Road Home
Regina Vater and Regina Célia Pinto, 2005

EUA 200 Km / hour: No Road Home is an artwork comprised of 72 pictures taken by Regina Vater in 1981 during a trip by train from the west coast to the east coast of the United States, and arranged for the web by Regina Célia Pinto in 2005.

EUA 200 Km / hour: No Road Home
Regina Vater and Regina Célia Pinto, 2005

Black Friday

Anthony Goicolea Winsthe BMW Paris Photo Prize

Anthony Goicolea, Ghost Ship, 2005 [source]

Anthony Goicolea was named winner of the 2005 BMW – Paris Photo Prize at a gala awards ceremony on 18th November at Paris Photo, receiving the 12 000 Euro (US$ 15, 000) prize.

The winning work entitled “Ghost Ship” by Anthony Goicolea, promoted by the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia, is part of a recent series called « Sheltered Life ». Digitally enhanced, the image represents a fairytale landscape: a giant tree rises out of a devastated, almost lunar, environment. Captured in its ancient branches is a ship carrying a motley group of nameless refugees, hippies, drop-outs, nomads or pirates embarked on their way to a better world.

Born in 1971 of Cuban origin, Anthony Goicolea is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited in one-man shows recently held at the Melbourne Contemporary Center of Photography in Australia as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Chicago. His work features in the art collections of the University of Georgia Library and Yale University.

More info here.

* * *

We're big fans of Goicolea. Murray has written about his work here.

New Models

These models are on display today at our studio in the Brewery Artwalk today (Sunday, Nov 13, 10am to 5pm).

Art Crime Team Powers: Activate!

NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday reports on the FBI's new Art Crime Team unit. Listen to the segment here.

Wood Models Update

I'm currently working on these for a wood model. The heads are still too big.

Calatrava's Palau de les Arts

Santiago Calatrava's newest building, the Reina Sofía Palau de les Arts in Valencia (Spain).

Thinking about Budapest

[via]

The Business End of Things

You know you're in LA when your CPA/financial planner has an improv troupe.

The Salton Sea

We spent part of last weekend at the Salton Sea, a strange place in the California desert just north of the Mexican border. It's a lake that shouldn't be there, and now that it's there, it's a lake that can't go anywhere but. It was an engineering accident that created this place. In 1904, a dike broke and the Colorado river flooded the 228 feet below sea level plain: no way in and no way out means that the lake just keeps on getting saltier.

I've been wanting to see this place, once the promise of a recreational paradise, now only the deserted remains of 1950s leisure kitsch, since we met the San Diego artist Kim Stringfellow at a dinner party and heard lake's fascinating story. Stringfellow has spent countless hours documenting and researching the history of California's largest lake, and her work on that project is now a book: Greetings From the Salton Sea.

Salvation Mountain is just down the road. Here is a short film of the sea in the morning, the wind speeding fast across the buoyant water.

Tomorrow: Free Museum Day

Art.blogging.la has spread the word that tomorrow, October 1st, twenty-four Los Angeles-area museums are free for the day. Here's the list of the participating museums. No excuses for missing that Basquiat show now.

Changing the History of Art: A Real Allegory

Gustave Courbet, The Painter's Studio; A Real Allegory, 1855

The good news is that many people seem ready to do something about this situation, rather than just get through it. Things are simmering. More and more artists, gallerists, and curators, disturbed by the status quo, are taking matters into their own hands. Much more needs to happen. Artists should curate shows, write about them, and make their own publications. The agenda needs to be set by artists, not the market. Supply-and-demand thinking has to shift to production-and-experience thinking. Small communities or cells of artists, curators, and critics should band together, take positions, make cogent arguments, and put those things out there. If these positions are hostile to one another, fine; art isn't about getting along. Disagreement and criticism are ways of showing art respect.
- Jerry Saltz, excerpted from The Battle for Babylon

Green Star

Download Greenstar4.mov

Rolly-Polly Short Film

[via: Jumpy Screen]

I just stumbled on this short film of a rolly-polly by Nathan Shackelford. Great stuff. But I always thought they were called doodlebugs.

Yellow Box

Download yellowbox.mov

Makiko Miyamoto at Purdue's Ringel Gallery

Opening simultaneously with Mountainside and also open until October 9 at Purdue's Ringel Gallery, Miyamoto's Cocoon is a fiber/video/mechanical installation. Video bounced through a mirror joins engineered machines to create a space that Miyamoto designs to perform "like a body."

Every City Needs One

Smoking art on a building in downtown Boise, Idaho (courtesy of the recently relocated Amanda Hamilton), and smoking art on a building in New York City.

New York Trip: On the Train to Beacon

One of the highlights of my recent trip to New York was our day-trip to Dia:Beacon, about two hours north of Manhattan on the Hudson River. The trip up serves as the perfect context for Dia, which is full of quiet, contemplative minimalist works. It's soothing to be on an air-conditioned train traveling along the breathtaking river, eyes drifting out the window over the land of Thomas Cole, Washington Irving, passing West Point and Bannerman Castle. You step off the train quieted, awed, and ready to encounter work that perfectly complements your mood.

Here's a quicktime movie of our train ride.

If You're in Rio, Don't Miss These Lectures

Bill Lundberg, Opening, 1998

Lecture: Regina Vater and Bill Lundberg
August 11, 2005

Lecture: Bill Lundberg
August 12, 2005

State University of Rio De Janeiro
Street San Francisco Xavier, 524 - Maracanã
(of the side of the Stadium of the Maracanã and the Station of the Maracanã subway)

Shopdropping Open Call (11-1-05)

[source]

SHOPDROP: To covertly place merchandise on display in a store. Primarily used in guerrilla ad campaigns, tactical media projects, and art installations. s. reverse shoplift, droplift

Artist Ryan Watkins-Hughes is organizing an open call to create a large collaborative Shopdropping installation. More info here.

Two Things That Don't Have Anything To Do With Art (But Also Have Everything To Do With Art)

Interesting idea where technology is going in the short term (er, let me backup, only 1% of anyone who clicks this link will think this is actually interesting): dorky

The cure for the for the previous link (thanks Matt): less dorky

Post of a Post

A photo of a t-shirt I made with iron-on graphics from this blog.

Robert Wilson at the Seattle Art Museum

[source]

If you happen to be in Seattle tomorrow evening, don't miss the Robert Wilson lecture at the Seattle Art Museum.

1 Have you been here before?; 2 No, this is the first time…; An Evening with Robert Wilson
Jun 30, 2005
6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Plestcheeff Auditorium

In an exceptional and rare performance of more than three hours, internationally acclaimed director and artist Robert Wilson invites us into his astonishing aesthetic universe. Combining hundreds of striking images -- from his earliest experimental works to his monumental stagings from the operatic repertoire and including his conception and installation design for the exhibition Isamu Noguchi -- Sculptural Design -- Wilson provides an intimate self-portrait of his creative process. [more info here]

We are such big Robert Wilson fans that it might be worth a quick trip up the coast. About 5 years ago, Murray and I saw him lecture at the Hogg Auditorium at UT Austin. Wilson walked onto the stage, took the podium, and stood — completely still — for about two minutes before launching into one of the most fascinating lectures I've ever attended. Though visually and technologically rich, it was Wilson's charisma that kept the audience rapt. He taught us how to stand with presence, and I've never forgotten.

Estate Sale - Art Fabrication Business

To LA artists and art fabricators:

By now you may have heard about the passing of fine arts fabricator John Lilly. The fabrication shop's estate sale is this weekend in San Pedro.

Come early for the best buys. No phone calls please.

--------------------------------------

Estate Sale - Art Fabrication Business
Saturday June 25 and Sunday June 26; 8:00 AM - 4:00PM
Small machinery, many tools, office furniture and equipment, some
household items.
Silent auction 10:00 to 2:00 for Clark electric forklift.

791 W. Channel Street
San Pedro, CA 90731

Erasing De Kooning

Robert Rauschenberg
Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953 [source]

Doug MacCash, the art critic for the New Orleans Times-Picayune has written a gonzo article on his "audience" with Robert Rauschenberg. The article culminates in a great story of the genesis of the erased De Kooning drawing.

"That's how DeKooning came into the picture, because he was the best-known American artist, so I got a bottle of Jack Daniel's, took a deep breath and knocked on his door. Almost unfortunately he was home. I was praying he not be there. So (when he answered) I explained to him what my idea was. And told him I needed his help to carry it out." -Robert Rauchenberg, 2005

Read the whole article here. Get a better look at the Erased de Kooning Drawing at SF MOMA.

Interred-media Art

Not buried art, buried art audience. Monochrom is burying people alive for 15 minutes apiece on Tuesday at Machine Project. Info here.

Interesting Art Opportunity

The ART in Embassies Program:

Mission

Established by the United States Department of State in 1964, the ART In Embassies Program is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide. These exhibitions, with art loaned from galleries, museums, individual artists, and corporate and private collections, play an important role in our nation's public diplomacy. They provide international audiences with a sense of the quality, scope, and diversity of American art and culture through the accomplishments of some of our most important citizens, our artists.

Crystal Bridges: The Building

Moshe Safdie's design for
Crystal Bridges: Museum of American Art
[source, via: The Box Tank]

Wal-Mart is Hiring

Crystal Bridges, a newly formed museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas, seeks a talented and seasoned curator to lead the organization’s acquisitions, research, and preservation activities within the context of a major new museum for this region of the United States. The museum is scheduled to open in 2009 with approximately 30,000 sq. ft. of permanent and temporary exhibition space. A collection of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper from the Colonial period through the middle of the twentieth-century forms the nucleus of the permanent collection.

The successful candidate will be a recognized scholar in American art who can collaboratively work with the trustees and staff of the Walton Family Foundation to refine the vision for the permanent collection, establish the scope and breadth of a dynamic temporary exhibitions program, undertake primary research on the collections leading to publication, and work within the Northwest Arkansas communities to inform this process with the needs of this area.
[via: CAA]

Related: The Box Tank, The Box Tank, From the Floor, From the Floor, Modern Kicks, Art for a Change, NEWSgrist, Grammar.police

Slavery in the 21st Century

Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Power Tools [source]

Like most apartment dwellers in the LA area, we have a landlord who pays to have a crew of gardeners come by once a week and keep the lawn, roses, birds of paradise, etc. in good shape. Today, while I was working on a critical theory paper, I overheard two of the gardeners talking outside my window. This quote jumped out at me, and made me think of the gardeners in Wim Wenders's provocative The End of Violence, and the work of Rubén Ortiz-Torres.

"Black, white, there are still a lot of problems. Slavery was over a long time ago, but if you think about it, we're slaves too. I just try not to think about it... man, I just try not to think about it."

On Mars, in 3D

We went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratories Open House (the NASA affiliate that designed and operates the Mars Rovers) with friends D & H this weekend. Megan and I enjoyed the robot and 3D imaging departments, one feature was the ability to have yourself photographed with their 3D camera on Mars.

NASA/JPL is the best contemporary art group.

New Trend: Hamsters

dress by Psycho Girlfriend [source]

Apparently, Dick Blick must have started selling hamsters, and somehow I missed it. Believe it or not, this is the third art piece featuring the little furry rodents that I've heard of in the last month (via abLA).

The first two hamster works appeared on the same day, unbeknownst to the respective artists, who were shocked that someone else had thought of the same thing, as part of projects to be critiqued in one of Murray's classes.

When Murray was asked to comment on the issue of copying, he stuck to the Rosalind Krauss argument that hamsters are just an art material like any other, and no one's got dibs on commonly used materials. From now on, I guess we can expect lots of inexpensive small live creature based artwork. Where's PETA when you need them?

Rocket Science

Image from Mars Rover Landing; Vija Celmins, Untitled, 1970

When the Mars Rover landed, I was taking post-1945 art history with Libby Lumpkin. Everyone in class had seen the video of the Rover's descent, bouncing and rolling in its comical crash across the Martian surface.

We were talking about post-minimalism, the late sixties, the first moon landing, and Vija Celmins, flipping through slides of her topographical surfaces.

I'd just heard that Laurie Anderson was NASA's first artist in residence, and so I brought it up. "NASA is probably making the best contemporary art in the world right now," Libby said, leaning against the wall and planting her black cowboy boot flat against the desert floor.

* * *

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is having an open house this weekend. Click here for details.

For T.M.

This is part two of an exquisite corpse with T.M.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Photo: Tamara Dean [source]

Australian performance installation artist Stellarc, famed for all manner of bodily manipulation via technology, has a new head.

"The two-metre high, three-dimensional head went on show for the first time in Sydney last night at the Sherman Galleries in Paddington.

It can hold an intelligent discourse on an infinite number of subjects, speaking in perfect sync with appropriate facial expressions.

It can also discuss philosophy, religion, tell (bad) jokes, make up poetry and rap - even give an eight-minute explanation of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

[...]

Like a human, it doesn't always give the same answer to the same question - it constantly reassesses updated information in its database. In other words, it can "rethink". Also like a human, it tries to change the subject if it doesn't know the answer."

Read the whole story here [registration required: meganandmurray and mandm].

[update: a reader pointed to two additional Stellarc links, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Stellarc's website. Thanks, Frollo.]

Nobody Walks in L.A.

Except artist Lisa Salem, who is planning on walking the entire city of Los Angeles starting May 15.

"On Sunday 15th May, at noon, I'm setting out of my house in Echo Park, Los Angeles, and not returning until I've walked the whole of L.A. I'm going to trek the city of Los Angeles like an explorer charting uncharted territory. And I'm going to be stopping people on the streets and inviting them to walk with me too - and videoing what happens when they do from a video camera attached to a baby stroller I'll be pushing around with me. The footage from that, along with photos and writing, will be regularly updated into a video blog while I'm on the road and later compiled into a film of what LA revealed itself to me as when I stepped out of the bubble of my car, my tv and my preconceptions.

Basically, I'm looking for poetry where it's often easiest to miss it."
-Lisa Salem, from an email [via City of Sound]

You can track her journey, or support the cause, on her website: www.walklawithme.com.

Patty Wickman at CSULB

Patty Wickman will be speaking tomorrow at 5pm at the University Theatre on the Cal State Long Beach campus.

Modern Type Irony

Computers create unprecedented typographic flexibility, which removes typographic value. If everybody can do everything, what is value? Contemperary cereal boxes advertise a visually interesting food form, however their type is among the most bovine.

To counter this, some art schools — like Art Center in Pasadena — are not teaching digital type, preferring older analog type setting machines to re-discover type's authenticity.

You'll remember that computer keyboards are modeled after the typewriter: a layout designed to slow users down to prevent letter keys from catching. It should also be noted that digital is named after the digits on your hand, leftover from counting fingers.

Ann Hamilton, Interviewed

Ann Hamilton is one of my favorite artists. Here she is, interviewed for The Oregonian in this article.

"[Q] Do you feel that fine art has become less important today since the distinction between high and low culture has become ever more ambiguous?

[AH] Do you think there was a time when it was more important? I think for a lot of art there's only ever been a very small audience. I've always felt things have a resonance over time. Look at the whole scale of popular culture and media, and there's so much vying for our attention. That's what you're really asking: What is the thing that art provides? That's a big question."

Fun with Snow

Salute to Sadie Benning

Using a Fisher-Price Pixelvision camera (a toy video camera that recored pixelated black and white quarter-size images on audio tapes), Sadie Benning fabricated dense autobiographies — stunning in their simplicity, both in media and delivery — with a simultaneously sincere and sarcastic tone. A Place Called Lovely (1992) is a good place to start. Benning was given the camera as a Christmas present when she was 15, her most famous works were made in the years following (She was 19 when she made A Place Called Lovely). Model story-telling economy.

Three Days of Art in LA

A friend of a friend emailed us the other day, saying she will be in LA for three days at the end of April and would like to have dinner with us. She wanted to know if we had any recommendations for things to do while she's in town. She's a painter, and it's her first time here. Here's my rundown. Feel free to add to it if you have any recommendations yourself.

Tara Donovan

If you see one show this month, consider Donovan's first West Coast retrospective at Ace Gallery in LA. Freshly inspiring. Great for critics and kids alike. Don't think twice about this one, just go.

Art in Texas Gets a British Nod

Nice to see that those Brits appreciate art (and honky tonk) in the Lone Star State: Texas — The State of Art.

The Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex certainly has the museum collections, but it's too bad there isn't more of a gallery scene in either city. This is perhaps due, in part, to the fact that there aren't that many strong MFA programs in the area, particularly in comparison to the number of programs in cities of comparable size (Chicago, for example). Houston and San Antonio (sadly unmentioned in the Guardian article) are where it's at when it comes to vital art-making communities in Texas.

[Via: ArtsJournal].

Sound Art Substantial

Inkblot's The Language Game (2000) — produced by tomlab, Cologne, Germany — continues to be one of my favorite sound albums. Cool, subtle, but not without wit and an actual melody every now and then as it surfaces for air (similar to the Pixies). Immediately enjoyable, like Steve Reich or Eno's legendary Music for Airports.

LACMA Director Resigns

After 10 years, Andrea Rich has resigned from her position as director of LACMA. L.A. Times story here. Tyler Green has commentary here.

The Business End of Things

Grantwriting and proposal season is in full swing, and we've got lots of new projects in the hopper. Here's a quick teaser from a recently submitted exhibition proposal:

"Citizens of the 21st century have the capacity to rapidly cover huge distances. What would have been unthinkable in previous generations — living many miles from your workplace — is commonplace and of seemingly little consequence. More often than not, our commutes are simply an inconvenience and a drain on our time. But what if we re-envisioned the morning commute as a sacred pilgrimage, a repeat journey that by its very familiarity allows the mind to disconnect from the mundane and traffic in the ephemeral? "

CNN Picks Up the Banksy Story

The Banksy story has been covered extensively by the art blogs, but CNN just got wind of it.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that."

A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" went one step further, by smuggling in his own picture of a soup can and hanging it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed.

The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day.

Read the rest of the story here.

Read the real scoop here and here on the Wooster Collective's website.

In Praise of Houston

The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, Renzo Piano, architect

I was reminded how much I love Houston while we were marveling over the Renzo Piano exhibit at LAMCA in West Hollywood last weekend. Houston is very much like Los Angeles — both are highway towns with abundant traffic and smog, and relative proximity to the ocean. Both cities are swamped with the excesses of plenty and of poverty. Where LA has its celebrity royals, Houston has the sultans of oil. Both cities also have first-rate culture that can take visitors by surprise. While few people come to Los Angeles just to visit MOCA (despite its desperate wish that they would), even fewer people travel to the so-called Third Coast just to see art. But they should.

Piano vs Conversations

Renzo Piano

A show worth seeing in LA and one worth skipping: Renzo Piano at LACMA and Conversations at the Natural History Museum. Piano's high-craft wood architecture models are so generous I got a headache.

On the other hand, I was less than thrilled with Conversations, a brilliant curatorial idea lost in the execution. Six artists toured the museum's catacombs and designed work that incorporated the found treasures.

Megan and I were looking forward to it — a dangerous position. We didn't feel it was worth the price of parking ($6) and museum entrance ($9 a person) — although the shell collection upstairs made up for it. Paul McCarthy's model ship photos and sculptures clearly drove the show. The other projects work in conversation much better than in reality: the problem is the potential.

Where Do You Get Your Art News?

GoogleNews just released a new feature, customized news, which allows you to set up categories of news that particularly interest you, based on search words. I have set up my GoogleNews to always show me news articles that include the words "art museum," "art gallery," "university art," "performance installation art," "moca," "lacma," and "moma."

Funny how this method of searching for news shows you things you might otherwise miss. For example, have you heard about the missing Goya etchings? Heard the life story of "the only billionaire whose fortune derives predominately from art"? Have you seen pictures of Roanoke's new art museum, designed by Randall Stout? And did you know that there was a 70% increase in enrollment of art majors at Campbell University because they finally hired a full-time graphic design professor?

Airplane, M

Saltz and then Saltz Some More

To all you who missed the Hammer lecture last night: Jerry Saltz will be speaking at 5pm today at the University Theater Center (UTC-108) at Cal State Long Beach. Directions here.

Shore and Fisher, Angstrom, and the Armory Show

Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher

We're the kind of people who travel to see art, and who see art wherever we travel. As a result, we've had the good fortune to chance upon good artists that we otherwise might not have known about. Over the holidays, we were in Dallas and stopped in on Angstrom Gallery, whose name I'd seen around in the various art rags. I was expecting the gallery to be fairly good, but what took me by surprise was that we walked into Angstrom Horseplay Glow Rug, a show that easily rivaled anything up in LA at the time.

Burn Drop Silent Color

I was giving a tool demo last week and burned my hand, the prize of stubbornness. Damn if I was going to let that stuck [hindsight: broken], metal chuck of that corded drill win with the whole class watching.

The worst was when I broke my ankle during a lecture. I remember animatedly making a point and then instantaneously dropping. My freshman class looking over me in that perfect silence that only an extreme juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy can create, like those noise-canceling headphones which negate sound by forming inverted sound, or like crafting white light by adding all the colors.

Plug for GalleryDriver

If you read art blogs, GalleryDriver has an excellent art blog aggregator that you might be interested in checking out.

Tom Wolfe Spells it Out

"None of the Abstract Expressionist paintings that remain from the palmy days of 1946 to 1960 — precious few are still hanging except in museums and the guest bedrooms of Long Island beachhouses, back there with the iron bedstead whose joints don't gee, the Russel Wright water pitcher left over from the set of dishes the newlyweds bought for their first apartment after the war, and an Emerson radio with tubes and a shortwave band... none of the paintings, as I say, not even Jackson Pollock's and Willem de Kooning's, makes quite as perfect a memorial to that brave and confident little epoch as the Theories. As for the paintings — de gustibus non disputandum est. But the theories, I insist, were beautiful.

Theories? They were more than theories, they were mental constructs. No, more than that even... veritable edifices behind the eyeballs they were... castles in the cortex... mezuzahs on the pyramids of Betz... crystalline... comparable in their bizarre refinements to medieval Scholasticism.

We can understand the spellbinding effect these theories had, however, only by keeping in mind what we have noted so far: (1) the art world is a small town; (2) part of the small town, le monde, always looks to the other, bohemia, for the new wave and is primed to believe in it; (3) bohemia is made up of cenacles, schools, coteries, circles, cliques. Consequently, should one cenacle come to dominate bohemia, its views might very well dominate the entire small town (a.k.a. "the art world"), all the way from the Chambers Street station to Eighty-ninth and Fifth." - Tom Wolfe, "The Painted Word", 1975

Two Flys, K

R Gun Plane

Rumors Confirmed

First ArtForum and now the L.A. Times report on the Burden/Rubins resignations from the UCLA Art Department.

Too Good

From the Floor has breaking "news" about everybody's favorite Painter of Light: The Thomas Kinkade Company Acquires Maurizio Cattelan.

Read up on Cattelan here.

Why Not?

Submissions:

All submissions to be considered for exhibition in the Biennial should include the artist's biography or resume, a brief description of the proposed work, and between six and eight images. Recommended formats for images include slides, computer printouts, digital images on a CD_ROM, audio CDs, or VHS videotapes. We do not accept original artworks in the submission package.

Submissions may be sent to:

Biennial Coordinator
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

via: anaba

Interesting Art-World Gossip

Via art.blogging.la: it seems that artists Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins (his wife) have resigned from UCLA in protest because a student in Burden's New Genre class fired a gun during an in-class performance, and apparently, the school chose not to reprimand the student. The irony, of course, is that Burden is best known for his own 1971 performance, Shoot, when he had a friend shoot him in the arm in a gallery.

Ender's Game

Studying for Finals

While I'm busy finishing up my last paper and studying for finals, check out one of my favorite photographers, Andreas Gursky.

Well, Yes, Of Course... But What An Intro!

We all know that the reemergence of representation as the newest-latest-most-trangressive-new-thing has been in the works for a while. But what doozy of an intro to an article about the phenomenen...

"I’ve come out!” exclaims Stephanie Pryor, 33, referring to her recent about-face—from making buoyant abstractions with colorful shapes to painting small acrylic ink works featuring wild animals, opera singers, and ballet dancers. “It’s like having a heterosexual relationship if you’re gay,” the Los Angeles–based painter says of the earlier pictures, which were shown at galleries in California, New York, and Milan. “And if it doesn’t feel right, why keep doing it?”

Interesting comparison, although I wonder what Pollock would have had to say about that statement. Probably wouldn't have liked it too much, would be my guess. Read the rest here [thanks to Arts and Letters Daily for the reference].

Bosch is the Bomb

The Garden of Earthly Delights, [center panel of triptych] Hieronymus Bosch, 1500

The Garden of Earthly Delights detail

Art doesn't get much cooler than this. I mean, Bosch made this 504 years ago. Look at those buildings; is that the future, or what?

[apologies for the wonky color in the reproductions — Bosch is a great colorist]

Joy in the Process

Henri Matisse. Dance (first version). 1909

I used to be a cellist and a serious one, at least, serious enough to briefly consider a career in music and to have discussed the possibility of application to New York music conservatory with a representative of said conservatory. I didn't end up applying, electing instead to study journalism, and then English and creative writing. It's hard to pursue more than one course of study when you're a musician; there are too many practice hours in the day to be gadflying about in other disciplines.

The Cult of Art Genius

2 Blowhards is one of the better academic blogs in the blogosphere. Confusingly, it has more than 2 authors, but all of them are certainly blowhards — in a good way. Friedrich von Blowhard, one of the more gleefully braggadocious authors, wrote a fascinating post last week on Renaissance and Religion, where he began by questioning "why art history generally tends to be such bad history." It was the comments that followed that really got me thinking.

The Elephant and the Woman

A trick to making art:

Think about the art you wish someone else would make and make it yourself.

Kierkegaard Expanded as an Eskimo

Not Just a Good Story: Kierkegaard Expanded

Homer, 700 BCE

The other day, I began to write about what I called Kierkegaard's version of authenticity (you can read the original quote I reference in the post here), and I attempted to set the ground for building a case for Murray's entreaty for authenticity using K's definition of a classic work.

Correctly Placing the Plant

The main difference between a landscape architect and someone who doesn't think of themselves as a landscape architect is that the L.A. has the courage to tell other people where to put the plants. A choreographer is someone who has the chutzpah to tell dancers where to put their bodies.

No permission is needed.

Kierkegaard's Version of Authenticity

I really shouldn't be blogging; I'm behind on my reading for my history of museums class, and I'm sitting in the library with my laptop open instead of my textbook. Ah, the library, where the click-click of computer keys is like a bubbling brook, and the occasional dee-dee-do-do-dee of a cell phone bursts forth like a rare jungle bird. Back when I was an undergrad in the early 90s, it used to be deadly quiet in university libraries... in fact, it was the place you'd head to take a 50 minute nap in the stacks between classes.

But I've been wanting wanting to write about Kierkegaard and "Either/Or" and how it relates to Murray's previous post about Authenticity. It was like a light going off in my head when I read "on the classic work" — listen to this!

Being Wrong

I'm comfortable with ambiguity because a good question is more powerful than a good answer. Mystery drives curiosity as certainly as speed threatens sensitivity.

There are times when an answer is necessary. However, I'm much more interested in the complexity and poetry of life, and I'm naturally drawn more to the questions.

When Megan and I design artwork, sometimes we think we know the answers to the questions our art asks, sometimes we don't. Either way we design the art to ask the hard questions because that's what good art does...and well, sometimes we're wrong.

More Wisdom from Gautier

"What a foolish thing is this suppositious perfectibility of the species with which they are forever dinning our ears! They talk as if man were a machine admitting of improvement, and that a better adjusted cog or better placed counterweight might make him function more easily and conveniently. When science has contrived to offer man a double stomach, so that he can ruminate like a cow; eyes on the far side of his head so that, like Janus, he can see people sticking their tongue out behind his back, and contemplate his indignity in a less embarrassing position than that of the callipygous Venus in Athens; wings implanted in his shoulders so that he need no longer pay six sous to ride in the omnibus; when it has created a new organ; then, then indeed, the word perfectibility will mean something. Has anything been done since all this perfecting started, that was not done as well, or better, before the Flood?" — Théophile Gautier, from the preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin

Maybe He Was ADHD?

Leonardo da Vinci

"Leonardo was bewilderingly versatile. So much so that it is hard to say exactly what he did for a living. He was of course, an artist. But he completed remarkably few paintings and even fewer sculptures. Like Marcel Duchamp in the 20th century, he was highly influential, but abnormally unproductive. Those pictures he did more or less finish - the Mona Lisa, for example - he tended to keep rather than deliver to the clients who had originally commissioned them. Yet he was paid for doing something - the question is what.

Part of the answer is that he was, as the art historian Martin Kemp puts it, using a rather nebulous contemporary term, "a consultant". As a "master of water" Leonardo proffered expert opinions on such questions as the canalisation of rivers, and the use of pumps. In another practical capacity, he was a roving military adviser for Cesare Borgia - the aggressive Renaissance warlord who was the model for Machiavelli's Prince. Additionally, Leonardo was adept at designing costumes and sets for theatrical spectacles - masterpieces of Renaissance performance art just as worth looking at, for their lucky audiences, as any altarpiece or portrait. In modern terms he combined the functions of David Hockney, a staff officer in the Royal Engineers, an official of the local water company - plus a touch of Professor Stephen Hawking." from "The Supreme Visualiser: Martin Gayford reviews Leonardo by Martin Kemp and Leonardo da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind by Charles Nicholl."

Read the whole thing here.

Definitively

In case you've ever wondered what, exactly, is contemporary art? And what's the difference between contemporary and modern art? Generally, it's a loose date: modern is roughly 1900-1970, contemporary is 1970 to now.

MOMA, the premier modern art museum in the U.S., which reopens in midtown Manhattan after a long stay in Queens, generally specializes in pre-1970 artwork, although they do collect contemporary work as well. MOCA, the top contemporary museum, certainly has its Rauschenbergs, but primarily it's the place to go to see Rodney Graham and Sam Durant, et al.

What Kind of Art Are You For?

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
Photo by Lothar Wolleh (1930-79)

"I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.

I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for the art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper."

-Claus Oldenburg, b.1929, from Documents from The Store

Read the whole thing here.

What kind of art are YOU for?

And Not Be Thwarted By Its Stubbornness

Hegel's Holiday, René Magritte, 1957

What Hegel has to say about skill and its relationship to natural talent in the artist:

"We need only to lay down as essential the view that, though the artist's talent and genius contains a natural element, yet it is essentially in need of cultivation by though, and of reflection on the mode in which it produces, as well as of practice and skill in producing. A main feature of such production is unquestionably external workmanship, inasmuch as the work of art has a purely technical side, which extends into the region of handicraft; most especially in architecture and sculpture, less so in painting and music, least of all in poetry. Skill in this comes not by inspiration, but solely by reflection, industry, and practice; and such skill is indispensable to the artist, in order that he may master his external material, and not be thwarted by its stubbornness." - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Why Following the Rules is Overrated

Murray has been blogging about originality in art, and I've found myself, as is often the case with married couples, and even more so with married couples who are also artistic collaborators, sometimes disagreeing with some of his smaller points, and alternating wishing we were of exactly the same mind, and ending up being very glad that we're not.

I do agree that originality is overrated in art. I also think that originality is overrated in general, it being the current fad to be as different from the next person as possible. See Virginia Postrel's excellent book, "The Substance of Style" for a more thorough exploration of that idea. I am torn, myself, on this issue, being drawn to the Eastern philosophy of seeking commonality, or wa, with one's community, and the very Western, and very American, ideal of the individual as an island.

But back to the point at hand: whether originality is detrimental to art.

Lyle Lovett

Along with friends D, H, D, S, A & J we went to see Lyle Lovett last night at the Hollywood Bowl. He is so professional, so relaxed.

You can tell a lot about a musician by how they start up. H was discussing this. Do they talk to us, asking us how we're doing and if we're really excited and if we think that's excited enough?

Mr Lovett lets the music brew for a couple of minutes, casually walks across the large stage in the dark, carefully connects the guitar strap over his shoulder in a respectful speed--both to the guitar and to its strap--turns around, and precisely catches the song, the spotlight warming along with the applause of the audience.

Good Art

filmmaker Wim Wenders

A note to anyone who would like to be an artist:
The only qualifier for being an artist is wanting to be an artist. You are an artist.

How to be a good artist

1) Make work you enjoy making
2) Make work others enjoy seeing
3) Make work every day
4) Remain humble, it's the only way to get better

The future of art will have more to do with generously connecting allegories that pursue what it means to be alive, and have less emphasis on artists.

Originality is overrated.

Best Definition of Postmodernism

Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1948

Annie Sprinkle said that "postmodernism means never having to say you're sorry" (I thought about linking to her official website, but, it's Annie Sprinkle, the performance artist/porn star/sex guru, so I thought better, and linked to an Amazon.com book instead, just so you know before you click on the link).

But today in 20th century Art History from 1945, we were talking about why the postmodernists hate Jackson Pollock (isn't that wild?). They hate him because he believed in the Jungian idea of the universal unconscious, and based on that, he thought that when all people from all cultures across time everywhere looked at his paintings, they would tap into that unconscious and be transported to a higher plane.

The postmodernists decided Pollock was evil because of his presupposition of universalism. Pollock thought that everyone, no matter whether they are a Martian or a farmer in Tennessee, would be affected by his work in the exact same way, and that is his big sin in the eyes of the postmodernists.

So the best definition of postmodernism that I've ever heard? In the postmodern world, all forms are historically and culturally specific. That means that a postmodernist would think that a Martian might just look at Pollock's Number 1 and scratch his bulbous green head in confusion. And that's an okay response to have.

Art in Theory 1900-2000

I'm sitting on the couch listening to Megan read critical theory out loud. This is the only way. There is something about really dense material that makes you sleepy. This is easily alleviated by reading out loud--stronger still if someone is in the room listening. That's my job right now. This is one of two tricks that are essential for consuming high caliber writing.

Before telling the second trick, I've got to admit that I get a kick out of picking up her most impressive book, a big fat white one with minimal cover titled Art in Theory 1900-2000 in a simple red rectangle, and at random reading a sentence from it.

Géricault Rails Against the Modern MFA

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of Medusa, 1819

Good ol' Géricault — I have always liked this guy; I mean, The Raft of Medusa? Genius! The composition, the colors, the human emotion spilling out on those dark waters. The creepy cannibalistic narrative. The corpses! It's got all the grotesque thrill of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, but the painting depicts an actual horrific event that Géricault crafted into an astute critique of the elite class. Its controversial subject matter served to fan the flames of pre-revolutionary France.

Turns out the work itself was not Géricault's only method of fanning flames. I was interested in picking up his essay, published post-humorously in 1842, "On Genius and Academics," which condemns the method in which art was taught during his lifetime: primarily, through a vast network of government-funded Academies run by the leading French painters of the day, namely, David. Substitute "MFA Program" for Academy (not such a big stretch), and you've got quite the anti-MFA treatise.

Art, Museums, and their Value

Fascinating discussion over at Leonard Bast: Operators are Standing By, part II. Be sure to read Part I of the conversation first.

Art-Inspired Road Trips

So maybe you've heard about Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, the grand swirling earthwork that juts into Utah's Great Salt Lake. Maybe you've also heard that Smithson died in 1973, at the age of 35, and that he has never had a major retrospective. Until next week, that is, when the Robert Smithson retrospective opens at MOCA.

Of course we'll go see the show, and in fact, I have to write a moderately long analysis of the exhibition's effectiveness. But I want to see the real deal too. The thing about the Jetty is that almost immediately after it was installed, the water level at the Great Salt Lake rose and covered it over. This year, the water went back down and out the Jetty came, covered with delicate salt crystals that sparkle white in the sun. Undoubtedly, the water will rise again, and Smithson's earthwork will go back into hibernation. The time to see it is now.