Dennis Oppenheim and the material power of art
I chair the Panel on Outdoor Art at Stanford – we acquire pieces for the sculpture collection and consider offers of donation. Stanford’s collection is one of the best on the west coast. Like Colin Renfrew [Link] I think there is a strong convergence of interest in materialities and time that brings together contemporary art [...]
Patrick Roddie at Burning Man 2004 – corporealities categorized
Photographer Patrick Roddie has just posted his images of Burning Man 2004 – [Link]. The categories of this epic exploration of corporeality: blue – chests – children – couples – dust & dance – etc – feet – hands – hips – masks – me – men – meta – music – night – paint [...]
Bamiyan Buddhas in context
- iconoclasm and closed minds A thoughtful piece in the New York Times today by Roberta Smith Critic’s Notebook: Why Attack Art? Its Role Is to Be Helpful (Thanks to Tom Seligman for the link) In 2001 an international outcry met the Taliban’s destruction of two colossal Buddhas at Bamian in Afghanistan. The Buddhas were [...]
collecting culture and the new art museum
Saturday – a fine afternoon at the Cantor Arts Center, celebrating 50 years of membership (currently at 3500). [Link] A tent on the lawn by the Rodins and the Oldenberg pink thing (which I far prefer to the Rodins – never mind the lovely chilled sherry and Sam Smith’s in the “Cool Cafe”). It is [...]
responsive media – improvisation, neosemy, and synaesthesia
Sha Xin Wei visited our New Media group (Mellon funding) yesterday – Wednesday. He is an old friend of many of the group – did his PhD at Stanford. Is now a part of the Topological Media Lab at Georgia Tech. He was talking about his work on “responsive media”. Particularly with the performance group [...]
archaeology and photography – splinters in the eye
Last Thursday I was commenting on digital manipulation [Link] This got me thinking again about two recent collections of David Carson’s photography – The Book of Probes and Trek. Superficially there is a lot of play in these on focus and resolution – abstraction in a dissolved image, recognition that there may be something in [...]
telemediated mythology
Dial M For Manchester – community art project – (area) code – a project in material monumentality and the (archaeological) layering of social time and memory tied to new media technologies … (area) code is a community-centered project created by British artist Jen Southern and mobile communications innovators centrifugalforces. Signs placed online and throughout the [...]
recycled body parts
An art student has sparked outrage with a show of puppets made with dentures and glass eyes from dead people. Karah Benford, 20, is exhibiting the dolls, entitled Death Threads, at The Ultraviolet Contemporary Art Gallery in Southsea, Portsmouth. A vicar at Portsmouth Cathedral has branded the show “gratuitous”, while a local councillor called it [...]
media archaeology – Stockstock Film Festival
Wired News: Festival Takes Stock of Old Films A group of amateur filmmakers in Seattle has put together a festival that doesn’t require any filming, sets or actors. Instead, the Stockstock Film Festival showcases films made from stock footage – those old educational films, forgotten commercials and other random movies freely available in the public [...]
quotidian flux
Scanning the excellent detritus.net – dedicated to pratctices of recycling culture – I came across Mark Napier’s work. Barbie dolls (have a look!), found imagery in New York, and “negative space – an attempt to scan my entire appartment”. OK – it doesn’t get very far and is a little too whimsical for me, but [...]
craft is cool … and archaeological
Guardian UK – Observer article on craft as art Grayson Perry – A Tradition of Bitterness, 2002 “What folk culture goes on in these Barratt homes: deceit, divorce and suicide in Merrie England …” These days craft is cool. After all it was a potter, Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in December. It [...]
Colin Renfrew and archaeological art
In the wake of Colin Renfrew’s visit to Stanford last month I picked up his book Figuring it Out: The Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists. I only glanced at it when it came out last year. I really like it. There is a wonderful range of questioning and reference. His topic is the human [...]
Media aura
Bill Viola – The Passions – an Exhibition on at the National Gallery London. Lots of high definition videos of people’s faces in slow motion, displaying emotion, disposition, reaction. The technology and medium makes us look differently at the everyday. That was about it though. I couldn’t bring myself to stand in front of a [...]
situationist manifesto
Just managed to get a look at a video Abram found – Call it sleep. A siutationist manifesto/documentary. Excellent. Here it is.
Manchester UK – Archaeology and performance
Visiting Nick Kaye in the drama department to talk about his superb book on site specific art (and which features a piece by Cliff McLucas on Brith Gof’s work Tri Bywyd). Tri Bywyd – scenographic design by Cliff McLucas It again confirms, for me, that the contemporary fine arts are where the most interesting intellectual [...]
Located Bodies
Antony Gormley at the Baltic Arts Center Wonderful stuff. Anthropometrics, collaborative work, community based, questioning representational forms. Allotment. Residents of Malmo measured and concrete boxes made to fit them in. All arranged in the gallery in social groups, and as a kind of miniature city scape. Domain Field. Whole body casts made of some 250 [...]
Esgair Fraith, Wales
“Tri Bywyd” (Three Lives) – a work of theatre/archaeology by Brith Gof Eddie Ladd as Sarah Jacob – read more