…has to be the La Brea Tar Pits. (Click on the image to supersize.)
In unrelated news: I was on Studio 360 talking about graffiti in downtown L.A. related to MoCA’s Art in the Streets. Please please please tune in!
Archive for the 'Photo Diary' Category
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Nefarious bacon thingies are occupying somebody’s psyche. And they’re now on view at Winkleman’s Curatorial Research lab in Chelsea. (Photos of photos by C-M.)
There’s a get-inside-the-mind-of-the-artist show going on at the Winkleman Gallery that is worth spending some quality time with. Signs on the Road is a found-object show about found objects: The organizers (a group known as Workroom G) got 150 artists to submit images of things that they are currently fixating on. And it’s a wonderfully random array of things, from photos of gnarly bacon appetizers to scans of marked-up books to a vintage prom advert that is all kinds of sky blue.
Over the course of the exhibit, the photographs will be arranged and rearranged by various collectives. The version I saw, on March 31, was damn intriguing, with oodles of twisted-crazy stuff to look at. It was like the best part of surfing the web, but without that feeling of being totally cracked out. If you go, be sure to take your time. You’ll miss lots of ridiculosity if you try to rush through.
Signs on the Road is up at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea through April 30.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: Stuff artists are looking at.’
Because we don’t have cable television, Celso and I often spend our evenings flipping through the variety shows, telenovelas and dubbed-over ’80s action films on one of the four Spanish-language channels our digital converter allows us access to. Needless to say, it’s a phantasmagoria of bright colors and histrionics (not to mention, dubbed-over Rob Van Dam movies). And, it probably goes without saying that the roles women are cast in are total crap. But galling sexism aside, the visuals are always worthwhile, if not bordering on surreal. Herewith, a record of some of the finer moments of our last few months of TV viewing. Buen provecho.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: Spanish-language TV as visual poetry.’
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.’
From Jon Rafman’s series The 9 Eyes of Google Street View, Berwick Rd. Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, which was on view as part of the exhibit Free, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, until late this last January.
Last month, I launched a semi-regular series devoted to the way the human figure is depicted in contemporary art. This month, I continue it by looking at a number of works I’ve seen recently in museums, galleries and even on the street.
I want to begin this particular round-up with a look at Jon Rafman’s work, which is pictured above, and explores, among other things, the nature of travel. Rafman has ‘traveled’ the world through Google Street View and brought back the screen shots to prove it. This series along with the rest of the show, raised a lot of questions about the future of our online lives: Namely, will we eventually experience art, travel, and relationships exclusively online? How will the virtual experience differ from real-life? How is our view of other people colored by the internet? Certainly, we’re still figuring out the answers to some of those questions. But Rafman’s found imagery speaks to the abilities as well as the limitations of the web.
Find other images after the jump. All photos by me unless otherwise noted.
Continue reading ‘The Figure in Contemporary Art: Miscellaneous Round-Up.’
A piece of Gordon Matta-Clark’s graffiti truck, from 1973. Matta-Clark was inspired by graffiti in the early ’70s — before it had caught on with the mainstream art world. (Photo by C-M.)
The 1970s were not kind to New York. There was a middle class exodus to the suburbs. The Son of Sam was terrorizing the town. The city was bankrupt. Which, in a way, made the place an ideal spot for artists — who could take over empty SoHo warehouses for dance performances and attack derelict buildings in the Bronx with chainsaws, all without anybody batting an eyelash. The current David Zwirner exhibit 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970-74) examines this history — specifically, the story behind the alternative arts spot that gave rise to a number of figures, among them sculptor and conceptualist Gordon Matta-Clark. (Most interestingly, he was able to make a real live cherry tree grow in 112′s by-all-accounts-nasty basement.)
For those who relish examining a period when the city was entirely bereft of velvet ropes and gaggles of Sex and the City wannabes, this is definitely the show for you. It is heavy on Matta-Clark, containing evidence of some of his early building slicing experiments, but also has some compelling sculptures by Richard Nonas and Alan Senet. In addition, to anyone interested in the history of graffiti, the show is an absolute must-see. Matta-Clark had a heavy duty interest in the art form — letting Bronx teens tag up his van and documenting early tags on the subways in pieces he called Graffiti Photoglyphs. (See the photos below.)
You’ve got until the end of the week to catch the show. 112 Greene Street runs through this Saturday, Feb. 12.
Continue reading ‘Photo Diary: ’112 Greene Street’ at David Zwirner Gallery, in NYC.’
Fred Wilson, Grey Area (Brown Version), 1993. (Photographs taken by Ben Valentine at the Brooklyn Museum last December.)
Recently, while browsing an art history book, I began thinking about how much the portrayal of the human figure has evolved since the Paleolithic era (think Venus of Willendorf), through the Renaissance (Michelangelo’s David), to today — when contemporary artists seem to portray humans conceptually and aesthetically in radically different manners. This has inspired me to begin collecting contemporary representations of the human form. I thought I’d begin the series at the Brooklyn Museum, which features a wide range of artists and aesthetics (all walking distance from my apartment). Hopefully this photo series will begin to give us an idea of the many facets of identity today. It could help us see how far we have come, or simply show how psychotic we all happen to be…
Continue reading ‘The Figure in Contemporary Art: Brooklyn Museum.’