Archive for the 'Peru' Category

Miscellany. 02.07.12.

By c-monster on February 7, 2012 in C-Monster, Miscellany, Peru, Photography and Travel. 0 Comments

Banana man, Lima. (Photo by El Celso.)

MUST. READ. A stunning 1988 essay by Joan Didion on our political “process” and its coverage in the media, and how it bears absolutely no resemblance to reality. Though I’m still trying to figure out what the hell “housemaid Spanish” is. (@citizen_kahn.)
Why solar energy is not as green as we might like to believe. A good reason to stop air conditioning shit to death.
“There are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”
Men in trucks: The photography of Alejandro Cartagena.
Jeff Chu on his round-the-world tour of Damien Hirst’s spots, an excellent opportunity to catch up on his reading.
Is the theft of virtual goods considered stealing? It is by the Dutch Supreme Court. (Kyle Chayka.)
The Day in Art Merch: A Sol Lewitt yarmulke. Awesome.
A Christian app for viewing art.
How Facebook and other businesses are using you.
And why the U.S. should consider a digital privacy law à la Europe.
Werner Herzog, on interviewing men on death row. God help me, Herzog could be talking about taking out the trash and I’d tune in.
Vintage Iranian “Barbie” dolls.
No idea what this is about but give me more: A Turkish Star Trek spoof. (@jmcolberg.)
Pac Mondrian.

Tags: bananas, lima, Peru.

Miscellany. 09.19.11.

By c-monster on September 19, 2011 in C-Monster, Graffiti, Miscellany, Peru and Street Art. 1 Comment

Miraflores graffiti, by Ultraclay! (Find more of his stuff here and here.)

Thanks to Salon, Jezebel and Mediaite for picking up/linking to my piece on Jennifer Dalton’s installation at the Winkleman Gallery. Interestingly, as Mediaite points out: Jon Stewart’s lady ratio is even worse thus far in 2011. To make up for the inequity, male members of the program should all be required to get bikini waxes — the full back, crack and sack.
Not as Futuristic as It Looks: Christopher Hawthorne rawks it on this critique of Apple’s proposed new corporate park in Cupertino, which is designed in a not terribly cutting-edge, car-centric suburban style. Brings to mind Lewis Baltz’s photos of Irvine’s office parks from the 1960s and early ‘70s.
How big money financiers run education “reform.” An incredible, tragic read.
Lame: Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland cancels Palestinian children’s art show after being pressured by Jewish and other community groups.
Tumblr to follow: WTF Art History.
Bootleg movie posters from Ghana. (Thank you, Giovanni.)
The mysterious, unresolved etymology of “nerd.”
Things I gotta see at the Smithsonian: A nearly 500-year-old robot from Spain. Whoa.
The nuances of acquiring new media art. Like purchasing any Apple products, you can buy it, but you can never really own it.
Plus: is new media art coming of age?
Stephen Powers love letter to Brooklyn. (The comment about Powers’ choice of font made me snort-laugh.)
Luna Park’s tour of vintage NYC graffiti.
And now, I’ve officially seen everything: Graffiti as corporate bonding tool.
Matthew Barney’s Anus.
And, best of all, fat tabby cats inserted into famous paintings. YES. (Grazie, Fabrizia.)

Tags: clay williams, miraflores.

Photo Diary: Fernando Bryce at Alexander and Bonin in Chelsea.

By c-monster on June 15, 2011 in C-Monster, Drawing, Galleries, Illustration, New York and Peru. 7 Comments

A detail of a New York Times cover reproduced by Fernando Bryce, in his staggeringly detailed World War II-themed show at Alexander and Bonin. (All photos by C-M.)

This is one of those exhibits that made me exclaim “holy shit” the minute I walked in: for his piece El Mundo en Llamas (The World in Flames), Fernando Bryce has lined the walls of Alexander and Bonin’s ample space in Chelsea with faithful ink recreations of World War II-era newspaper front pages from England, France, the U.S., Germany and Peru. (All are depicted above the fold.) Screaming headlines related to war cover the walls, from floor to ceiling — a stirring chronicle of long-ago news reports on battle advances, defeats, carnage and victory. In between, Bryce has incorporated his renderings of era film posters that he culled from the pages of El Comercio, Peru’s leading daily. (Bryce was born in Peru; he produced El Mundo en Llamas in 2010-11.)

The result is a chronicle of the war that is intensely personal, providing the rare opportunity to view this much-studied global conflagration through a uniquely Latin American lens. Not only are there some interesting historical finds, such as an ad for a 1940s Disney film geared at and incorporating South Americans (see below), the film posters featured — for flicks such as La Sombra del Terror (The Shadow of Terror) and Los Crimenes del Doctor Satán (The Crimes of Doctor Satan) — seem to echo, in exaggerated, graphic form, everything happening in the news. In addition, Bryce’s illustrations are exquisite, turning scenes of war into works of ethereal beauty (such as the image of the Australian soldier, above, from the New York Times). Taken together, the exhibit provides a riveting take on the nature of war, news, propaganda and graphic art. Consider it a must-see.

The show is up through Saturday, at Alexander and Bonin.

Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: Fernando Bryce at Alexander and Bonin in Chelsea.’

Tags: alexander and bonin, el mundo en llamas, fernando bryce.

Peruvian Monuments, Redux: The photography of Pablo Hare.

By c-monster on May 27, 2011 in Art for stoners, C-Monster, Peru, Photography and Travel. 3 Comments

I am currently cultivating a healthy obsession with crazy works of public art in Peru. (See my earlier post here.) Which is why I was excited to hear about the work of Peruvian-born photographer Pablo Hare, who has a whole series devoted to some of the most sublime/absurd monuments you have ever laid your eyes on. From top to bottom: a statue of a puma, a tribute to the maca (a type of tuber) in Junín, and a contemporary rendering of the Lord of Sipán, a Moche figure found entombed on the North Coast of Peru (where my family hails from). Hare has captured some absolutely sublime public art ridiculosity. Be sure to click over to view the whole series.

Thanks to Andrés Marroquín Winklemann and Joerg Colberg for the tip.

Tags: monumentos del peru, monuments of peru, pablo hare, Photography.

The banality of public monuments: Miguel Andrade Valdez on Lima.

By c-monster on April 4, 2011 in Armory-palooza, Art for stoners, C-Monster, Peru, Sculpture and Video. Closed

Untitled – Monumento Series, by Miguel Andrade Valdez.

Not wanting to ever be accused of producing timely coverage on this blog, I wanted to take a minute to ruminate on a video by Miguel Andrade Valdez I saw in Galería Revolver‘s booth at the Armory Show last month. It dovetails perfectly with my current Peru obsession, as well as my continuing interest in supremely absurd public works. In fact, recently, I’ve been immersed in photographer Mario Silva’s book Lords, Pyramids and Replicas: Images from the North Coast of Peru, in which he chronicles the influence of pre-Columbian art in contemporary architecture. If you’re into vernacular everything, his book is an absolutely stunning documentation of blended styles and motifs — from Moche forms to graceful Art Deco to that school of design a friend of mine lovingly refers to as “the South American bizarre.” Plus: it contains a two-page spread on bizarre traffic circle sculptures in northern Peru.

Which brings me right back around to the Armory: Andrade Valdez’s video Untitled – Monumento Series is a chaotic, rapid-fire visual compendium of the monuments that occupy Lima’s traffic circles and pedestrian malls. They range from the forgotten to the futurist, the Spanish Mediterranean to the brutal, the Modernist to the I-don’t-know-what. (Check out the weird blue things at about 2:50. They re-emerge later in the video as well.) Interestingly, in looking at all of this, the trapezoid emerges as a very popular shape — perhaps because it’s cheap and easy to construct (and resistant to earthquakes), perhaps because it’s a common motif in pre-Columbian Peruvian architecture. Also popular: brutalism. Of all of the monuments shown, my favorite have to be the bizarre pipe organ thingies, shown in the image above, which appear to be a decorative collaboration between various Soviet bloc architects and the guys in charge of the local water authority.

If you’re into all things design, consider watching Andrade’s video more than once. He has turned up some amazing stuff — a fantastic tribute to all of the things in our landscape we might see but rarely take the time to examine.

Find Miguel Andrade Valdez’s website here. Special thanks to Carlos Díaz at Ojjo for the tip on Mario Silva’s book.

Tags: lords pyramids and replicas, mario silva, miguel andradez valdez, monumentos.

Photo Diary: ¡No Habla Español! at Pandemic — an all around good time.

By c-monster on March 13, 2011 in C-Monster, El Celso, Galleries, New York, Peru, Photo Diary, Prints and Street Art. Closed

Celso’s wall of chicha, with C-Monstruo shout-out.

Internacional Privados: An original chicha poster from northern Peru.

A view of the mini chicha disco. Sensory overload in a mere 16 square feet.

Opening night for Celso’s ¡No Habla Español! at Pandemic was all kinds of fun. Thanks so much to everyone who came out. We danced, we drank, we danced some more — in a teeny weeny discoteca — into the night. The show is up through April 2nd, so you have plenty of time to shake some ass in the mini-disco. Plus, there’s always the closing party (April 2nd at 7pm). See you there!

An addendum: Public Radio International’s show Afropop has an excellent show on the history of cumbias. They have a whole section devoted to Peruvian chicha cumbias, describing their origins and their use of those super duper psychedelic surf guitars. If you want to get a sense of what these Peruvian chicha posters are all about, give this program a listen. Also, here’s a photo essay devoted to Elliot Túpac Urcuhuaranga, of the family behind Publicidad Viusa — makers of chicha posters.

Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: ¡No Habla Español! at Pandemic — an all around good time.’

Tags: afiches chicha, celso, chicha posters, el celso, no habla espanol, pandemic gallery.

This Friday: ¡No Habla Español! at Pandemic in Williamsburg.

By c-monster on March 9, 2011 in Announcements, C-Monster, El Celso, Galleries, New York, Peru and Video. 2 Comments

Celso y C-Monstruo: Amores Perros. A Peruvian chicha poster — imported to Brooklyn. (Photo by C-M.)

One of my ongoing fascinations with Lima (which I’ve touched on in the past) is the soup of fog that covers the city about six months out of the year. It’s a phenomenon that seems to soak up all brightness and makes the desert ecosystem (already harsh) look even more apocalyptically inhospitable. It’s alluded to in countless works of Peruvian fiction (from novels by Mario Vargas Llosa to Daniel Alarcón), and is even discussed in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick — in the chapter on whiteness. (It is “the strangest, saddest city, thou cans’t see,” he wrote. “For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe.”)

Which brings to me to my ongoing interest in Peruvian chicha posters — the cheaply-printed band posters produced in an array of neon-colored inks. As Celso pointed out to me during our last trip around Peru, it’s almost as if they produce their own light. Perhaps a requirement in a place where sharp edges are often dulled by the perpetual mist.

This Friday, Celso is going to be showing a collection of these — along with collages and a mini chicha/cumbia disco installation that accommodates two people for dancing (I helped with the soundtrack!!) — at Pandemic Gallery in Williamsburg. But we wanted folks to see what the posters look like installed around the foggy Peruvian capital, so we made a short video about it (see below). It includes a bit of footage from our trip to meet Fortunato Urcuhuaranga at Publicidad Viusa, the family-run studio that originated this look in the ’80s. (It is now widely copied all over the country.) And features some spectacular audio of me mumbling. If you want to learn more, Creative Review also has a great video on these wonderful folks.

Anyhow, please come to the opening this Friday to check out the show! It should be a ton of fun.

El Celso
¡No Habla Español!
Pandemic Gallery
37 Broadway (btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Friday, March 11, 2011
7-11pm

For more info, click here.

Tags: afiches chicha, amores perros, c-monstruo, celso, el celso, no habla espanol, pandemic gallery, publicidad viusa.

Photo Diary: Andean mummies and Peruvian prisons.

By c-monster on January 5, 2011 in C-Monster, Peru, Photo Diary and Sculpture. 1 Comment

Sculpture of an Andean mummy — a work of prisoner art. (Photos by C-M.)

While running around the northern highland city of Chachapoyas, we picked up a small sculpture of a skeleton posed as pre-Columbian mummy. (Many Andean cultures placed the dead in a fetal position prior to burial.) Along with numerous other crafts, the local souvenir stands feature boundless numbers of these mummy carvings in an array of sizes. Many of them are quite crude, but in a small shop near the market, we found one that was quite beautifully done, with a fine attention to detail and proportion. It’s every last vertebrae had been skillfully rendered and there was something poignant about its expression.

I asked the lady who managed the souvenir shop if she knew the name of the artisan who crafted it. She did not. These sculptures, it turns out, are crafted at a nearby maximum security prison, otherwise known as El Penal de Huancas. Apparently, the place is loaded with all manner of unsavory murders, rapists and narcos. A couple of days after we bought the piece, we happened to pay a visit to Huancas and went to see the prison. (From the exterior, since it wasn’t a visitation day.) And I tried to imagine the hands from which my little sculpture emerged.

Pix of the prison after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: Andean mummies and Peruvian prisons.’

Tags: andean mummies, el penal de huancas.

The Digest. 11.08.10.

By c-monster on November 8, 2010 in C-Monster, Peru, Photography and The Digest. Closed

Rain Delay, by Celso. Shot in Cajamarca, Peru. (Image courtesy of El Celso.)

Comparative nipple anatomy. (Get the full post here.)
An ode to donuts.
“Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefitted. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.” Bill Moyers, killin’ it. Long but worth it. (joshsternberg.)
Ai Weiwei placed under house arrest in Beijing for staging a party to mark the destruction of his studio by authorities. Despite his arrest, the party went on without him. Update: Ai has been released.
A state of the arts in Syria.
From the Department of Is It Done Yet?: Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia causing consternation on the eve of the Pope’s arrival.
The rock walls of an Italian church have been found to contain the skull of a dinosaur.
Conceptualist Hans-Peter Feldman takes home Hugo Boss Prize.
An extraordinary piece on Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth is available for your listening pleasure at Studio 360.
Photographing the narcowars in Juarez.
Annie Liebovitz: Popular with magazine editors. With collectors, not so much. (It Really Makes You Think.)
Ansel Adams’ 1940s pix of L.A.
The Jeffrey Deitch home tour. I don’t know about Jesus over the bed.
Have really been enjoying El Saltzino’s “Ask an Art Critic” feature. But as Tyler Green points out: Cremaster IV? 75 times? For serious? That’s like Star Wars level fantacism. If he did see it, it took up 59 hours of his life.
Art that makes you go, Duuuuude: Federic Diaz’s Geometric Death Frequency at MASS MoCA. Sorta related: A non-billboard on the U.S.-Canada border by Seattle’s Lead Pencil Studio.
French street artist JR takes the 2011 TED prize.
Today’s Graff: With a whole lotta love, from Sencer in Mexico.
An Os Gemeos poster, for one cent. (World’s Best Ever.)
NASA has close-up images of the comet fly-by. (Cool Green Morning.)
Fiorruci Made Me Hardcore. Awesome. (16 Miles.)