man & beast

sylvia:

besides cuteness and grossness i think i also have some kind of obsession with the relationship between beast and man. is there even a line? it reminds me of the guy who lived with the kyote and had the felt? if anyone knows the name of the artist i would really appreciate it.

im hitting a few birds with one stone here, so lets get started...

"the world is a dangerous place" 2004
this is the work of kate james and i found this image really powerful. the horse could kill her if he wanted to be spiteful of all of the times people have pulled on his poor mouth. i guess thats the difference between animals and us, they are less spiteful. um, i like the connections this piece makes. she is an australian artist / craftsperson, a graduate of RMIT. probably not pivotal to our knowledge but i just like this image allot. interesting use of media aswell. discovered her in a small section at the back of Artlink vol 25 #1

so, the art scene is totally going off in Lisbon at the moment. Portugal is where its at. had heaps of crazy artwork exhibited in a new gallery which recently opened called "Graca Brandao Gallery".






found this in Contemporary issue 54. Pilar Albarracin did this performance art titled "she-wolf" it has the cuteness of red riding hood and the scary-ness-factor (which is another thing i like) of having a luncheon with a wolf. um. i like it, something about being in a room with an animal which can kill you is a total adrenaline rush. the performance would have been wicked. i like the images because they look so... peaceful? and like chill. i cant explain, bad at all this art interpreting shit, but feel free to help me out g-units. oh yeah its like whos the lunch the wolf or the lady. and like the wolf doesnt even eat her after he sees she is wearing his friend. totally proves my theory that animals arent spiteful.

Danielle and Benjamin's City Intervention Photos

Hey y'all, I just fixed all these photographs from tuesday, and here they are.
-Ben

Debroah Kelly 'Beware of God'

Artlink 2005 Vol.25 No.3
Page 20-21

Alix: In this particular Artlink, Debroah Kelly's work 'Beware of God' is one of the new works being showcased by the magazine. One of her images in the set is also used as the cover image. The cover image ('Beware of God' parody 'Beware of Dog' sign) is entirely different in how it is recepted to the image inside the magazine (Beware of God being projected from the stock buildings). The cover image is satirical and amusing where as the second is intended to instill a little bit of fear in your heart and question just who are you really worshipping. But this does not mean that they don't work well. I'm quite fond of the both of them for both these reasons. They both speak the same message, just using different contexts.

I wasnt able to find these images on the net, but the journal is in the library. I recommend you maybe check it out.

henry talks Julie Mehretu

The article i found was in Parkett No 76 2006,
I really like Julie mehretru work mainly painting she also does installations with her work. There were two articles in a row on julie in this journal and all the article are repeated in german (i think a language i cant understand anyway) but all the pictures are different. So this journal had alot of pics of Julies work all good to look at. I only photocopied the parts of her work i liked nt the whole artcle bit that i copied are in german so ill have to re read the article and update. Lots of abstract shapes so much detail and layering gives energy really cool

Sara Hughes in Artlink

Jess h:I found this piece, The Big Stick Up,2006 in Artlink. Its by Sara Hughes and is basically made up of leftover materials. Usually Hughes work revolves around the idea of childrens obsession with stickers done by using handpainted and commercially coloured vinyl that she then manipulates in many ways to create stickers to stick in the art spaces she exhibits in. This is where the term The Big Stick Up comes from-Hughes descrinbing her own obsession.

In this piece the materials she uses include 9000 small clear plastic containers that have been stained with leftover acrylic paint in different bright colours. These have been stacked to give the impression of mountains, creating a mini landscape. She also used leftover pieces of vinyl to portray a horizontal landcape like effect in the horizon. Personally i think that these pieces in the background look like clouds or something like that in the sky.

I like this piece as a purely formal piece, however Huges intentions was for it to be more socio-political. The piece was intially meant to be formal with the title refering to stickers however while living in the US she became influenced by cowboys in movies and solidiers in the news as she was constantly confronted with them. The idea of The Big Stick Up then began to revolve around this idea and she painted heaps of plastic soldiers in the same paint to comoflages them in the fake mountains. One reason i do like this idea of the soldiers though is because in itially it is seen as childlike and innocent. The toy soldiers work with this idea of childhood. but i think that the large fake mountains with toy soldiers hiding within it create a creepy kind of environment. Artlink vol 26 no3 pg57

About the group project by Lilianna

About the group project by Lilianna

The aim was to get a spontaneous reaction from the public passing by the installation which involved quails from the meat department placed under a tree.

The arrangement suggested that the chicks/baby birds had fallen out from the nest.

The reaction which was observed from the distance, filmed and photographed was a huge success.

In 15min (the time frame was limited as rubbish removal was called twice and they asked us to be quick since we were there without council approval) the response was enormous.

A lot of people took a look at the birds on the ground then automatically looked up. Which was funny since the birds were headless and footless!, people did not register this.

This was the reaction that we were hopping for. The setting itself looked very “romantic” in a way.

P.S, photos to be added soon.

Karma

Jessie: Love Do-Ho Suh's work too. Have you seen this one?

Brad sees a man about a dog

Flicking through Contemporary Visual Art No 72, 2005, I saw a picture of a man pretending to be a dog. The man is Russian artist Oleg Kulik, and the photo was a still from his 1995 video work "Reservoir Dog". The story goes that he set himself up outside Zurich's Kunsthaus (old museum), wearing nothing but a studded collar, then proceeded to bark at people as they walked by. He didn't stop there though. He ended up attacking people, doggy style of course(boom boom), until he had to be forcibly removed by police. Great stuff, not that I'd consider doing it myself unless I suddenly developed an uncontrollable meth habit.

There's a classic shot in the mag of him gnawing away at a helpless old man he's dragged to the ground. I couldn't find it on the net (the one above is from a different work of his) but I managed to find some other work in which he also uses acting like a dog as a means of expressing reservations about the ways in which people treat people, animals, and the lengths to which artists will go to draw attention to themselves amongst other stuff.

In a work called "I bite America and America bites me", he spent two weeks in America. On arriving at JFK airport from Russia, he was placed in a waiting animal transport van, then transported to a gallery and enclosed in a purpose built cell where he acted like a nasty dog for 24 hours a day. After two weeks of this he was loaded into the same van, transported back to the Airport and flew back to Russia. An example of taking an idea to the limit then beyond perhaps? http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/DEITCH/kulik97/kulikinfo.html

...and I just found out that he's also stuck his head in a cows vagina, only to discover that "there is no reality"... What a freak.

A further list of his antics can be found at:

http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/live_culture/kulik.html

jimmy

Do-ho suh, Art Asia Pacific, bound journals 2001, p44-51
This guy is pretty cool. below left and centre are images of 'Floor' an installation 1997-2000. the magnitude factor is pretty amazing all on its own. its immense. id love to walk on it and paps i would slip from humble to almighty gazing down at all the little workers supporting my weight who knows.

below right, 'Public Figures' installation at Korean Pavillion, 49th Venice Biennale, echoes a similar theme of oppression and empathy. It seems very prolaterian and politicle but its also about individuality or 'one' and the mass's or 'many'. Do-ho suh creates his instillations as naratives

as a means for commenting on aspects of the human condition.













'Who am we?'
37000 portraits lifted from his highschool year books. the title says it all. it deals with issues of identity and self. he highlights the urge for 'many' to become 'one' and for 'one' to become 'many'.
below centre and right 'Some One', made out of dog tags again individuals loose their identity in the fuse of the mass's. the dog tags simbolising the death of soldiers come together to form a glorious military garment from the Yi Dynasty, Korea but their identity is lost and therefore their personal sacrifice. those pics are no good but it is an amazing sculpture.



awsome --->

Robin Rhode

Gem:
I found an article about Robin Rhode in issue 74 of contemporary (2005)(pg 86-89). I'd seen some of his stuff before but hadn't known who it was by. He does really awesome stuff, pften displayed as stop frame animations, often done in public places and incorporate street art. He has a really interesting way of making something so obviously fake seem real through the way he interacts with it.


I couldn't find my favourite one on the internet but it's definitely worth checking out (pg 88)Rhode is standing against a white wall holding an umbrella and is painting the rain or whatever it is onto the wall, because of where it ends he seems sheltered from it. It is a perfect example of how he makes obviously artificial things seem real, we can see him painting it but at the same time we belive it. so very very cool.

jimmy

Art Asia Pacific 2004 bound journals, p46-53
Tehching Hsieh, is the most legendary artist in the world. He started a series of real time performances in the 70's which finished late 90's. This is debatable but u will have 2 read all about him to find out why.
these performances spanned a year at a time with 6-12 months or so in between.
<--- this pic is from 'One year performance, september 30, 1978- september 29, 1979' where hespent 1 year jailed in a cell which he constructed in his appartment in new york. He obstained from tv, reading, writing and every hour on the hour he punched in the time card as shown in the pic. below left is a photoe closer towards the end of the year with his hair grown. Below centre is his room, also (not shown) is a small kitchen and toilet. His illeagle immigration to america and susiquent life in new york is important to the work as it deals with law, liberties, borders, imprisonment (symbolic + literal) for a start. the fact that the work is recorded and photographed provides proof to the art world that it is happening and at the same time introduces surveilance and regulation as a concept in the same way that we are monitered in everyday life as 'digits' as he calls us.

below right 'One year Performance, July 4, 1983 - july 4, 1984', he and artist Linda Montano remain tied by a piece of rope and dont touch for 1 year. needs no comment by me.

Hsieh carried out a number of these 1 year performances until he abruptly stopped in 1999. "committing profesional suicide" as the art market demands new comodity renewal as does any economic infrastructure. He said he will "go into life" andhasnt produced any new art since 2000...............

I JUST BOOKED TO ITALY.......

Josie:: Hey everyone! hope ur all as wicked as i am this week, its a happy week, i have good vibes....although i hava headache and my head is actual throbbing, im goin to italy, so atm- nothin else matters!!

so i found another absoluelty crazy cool artist this week,....JAMES LEE BYARS......the exhibition THE REST IS SILENCE. check it out. its pretty damn cool if u like the sorta trippy geometric sorta art that i get. I came across it in Art in America May 06 no.5 journal, in the high demand section if u get lost in the library like meee.this one is easy to find for those who r easily lost and confused by stupid things...like me. hes a wicked artist and has done some really cool stuff in the past. "The Angel"- 1989- is a piece of his that is pretty rad and is the pic. that i have included here. i really like it, uses repetition of the same/simliar objects to create his installation- here it is glass. It is also in a plain room, nothing else there. I quite like the colour of the walls, it somehow seems to contrast the glass.

Its really something that i think is cool, seems pretty basic and somewhat plain, but that is what makes it so beautiful and delicate. Its in New York also, which is just cool - need i say anything else...but how could it not be wicked to exhibit your work in N. Y. ay? Definately look into him if this sort of art is you thing, even if its not- broaden those horizons of yours!!

Take care- enjoy the 40.C day coming up...(so 3 people told me it wood b tody)...and keep up the wicked art, hold in there til uni is finished guys- not long now til "spring break"!! haha
love jos

Alan Rath in Sculpture

www.alanrath.org/DVSculptures/WhenIsNow.html

Jessie: Alan Rath is an American artist who creates robotic and digital video sculptures. Although he holds a degree in electrical engineering he is pretty much self taught when it comes to art. His work caught my eye in the September issue of Sculpture magazine, and I found in the article that followed that Rath has some interesting views on technology. His work often mimics human behaviour, whether it be staring off into space or moving to a beat of our own (as mp3 users tend to do), and he finds that people are often intimidated and confused by the works. He says "Some people are clearly mystified as to why I would go to all that trouble to create something so useless. They want to know, 'But what does it do?'. The fact that it is active rather than passively sitting there might make you feel that it should be doing something useful - actively choosing to do nothing does create anxiety for some people."
A lot of his works feature small LCD screens showing human eyes looking back at you and winking. Some have been programmed to respond to viewers as they approach, so as well as you looking at the art, the art can look back at you. They eyes give the objects personality, and we instantly identify with them because they are human, but I find the work quite creepy to look at. The work also references the modern museum environment (modern life in general?) where we are constantly being watched and all our moves are tightly controlled.

webs.wichita.edu/.../show/?NID=5154&AID=10031

Out of time but checkout www.alanrath.org, for more including some videos of pieces in action.

America Starts Here......... rays revised entry for this week

all pics from tang.skidmore.edu thanks.

Hi peoples.
okay well heres the revised correct info packed entry........
seeing as I am no longer stuck near Port Lincoln with none of my info and a crap pay as you go internet machine in a caravan park.i had found an article in the Sculpture journal 25.5 june 2006 page. 42-43 to be exact about the artists and book i found while researching the group public sculpure which filled me with delight as its an excellent book with great,great work by two artists colaborating together.And it was very familiar to me,something i knew in a journal which can be rare.
anyway the book is "America starts Here" and the artists are Kate Ericson and Mel Zeigler.Who started working together in 1978. The books in the library and its really worth a look.Lots of work to do with public places,nature,environment,and community through great ideas and concepts like one called "half free,half slave" where they got the homeowner whose garden they used to not mow half his lawn for two months and this one above with all the doors from inside someones house taken off and all staked together.They did a lot of works negotiating with homeowners and the public to take part in or lend their houses and gardens to the art.The type of art they were doing has been named Relational Aesthetics and Zeigler and Ericson seem to be at the origin of this aesthetic. The name of the book is also the name of an exhibition of their work.Check out the book its a really nice big,crisp,colourful book with lots to look at and lots of interesting public sculpture ideas.And it also shows when collaboration works,which we all may be a little weary of.
Unfortunatly Ericson died in 1995 of cancer but Zeigler is still alive and teaching and the book is there for all to view.......

lol. last entry on wyn evans was polly's btw :)