Range at Archer Gallery

Opening April 5th at Archer Gallery in Vancouver, Washington. Range is a five person show featuring work by Rob Smith, Harrison Higgs, Devon Order, Thomas Allen and me, Andrew O'Brien. Reception Saturday April 16th, 6-8pm.

Arduino Documentary

Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD from gnd on Vimeo.

Great new documentary on the creation of the Arduino board, an open source microcontroller that has transformed physical computing, art installations and the entire world of interactivity.

Snow Day

Snow Day. Classes resume Wednesday...hopefully.

William Eggleston

William Eggleston was one of the first photographers to have a solo show of color photography at MoMA in 1976 with the exhibition "William Eggleston's Guide". His use of color is considered among the most influential of all working photographers today. Here is a link to his traveling retrospective currently on view at LACMA in Los Angeles. Follow this link to a documentary film on Eggleston directed by Michael Almereyda. It's an interesting look at the photographer at work and in his native Memphis, Tennessee.

Praxis of Flow - Melody Rees & Arthur Azoulai

Praxis of Flow - Final Project from arthur azoulai on Vimeo.

Praxis of Flow - Interior Atmosphere from arthur azoulai on Vimeo.

Final project by UPenn Graduate Architecture students Melody Rees and Arthur Azoulai.

Art Basel Miami 2010

Bored? Wondering what to do with your millions? The online catalog for Art Basel Miami 2010 is now available. Because this is Basel Miami it's an exhaustive/exhausting listing of the world's most connected, well stocked, and sought after galleries.

Mary Ellen Carroll - Performance Architecture

Live video stream of the performance today, 11/11 at 11am CST. View HD stream of the performance at the prototype 180 site.

From the website:

The only metropolitan area in the United States without a formal land use policy/no zoning, the city of Houston selected itself as the site for prototype 180, where there is an implicit freedom associated with Houston's 'free enterprise' development.

prototype 180 is, literally, a ground-shifting exercise, in that it structurally involves the rotation, back to front, of a house and its surrounding land by Cherry House Moving. By rotating the house and land 180 degrees, Mary Ellen Carroll is calling for a total reorientation of thinking, of vantage point, and of how we work and how we live. This process Carroll believes a complete reconsideraton in standard operating procedure must occur to encourage new policies of the urban, cultural, and the social. Post the structural rotation, Carroll will retrofit and rehabilitate the unoccupied structure and it will be reprogrammed architecturally.

people people people people people

This is a detail shot from a massive photography project that artist David O'Brien (my brother) began several months ago. After many photo shoots and unimaginable time spent in front of the computer he's begun to finalize several new pieces. Take a look.

Cornell Computational Synthesis Laboratory

From the website -- At the Cornell Computational Synthesis Lab we explore biologically-inspired computational and physical processes that allow complex high-level systems to arise from low-level building blocks—automatically. We seek new biological concepts for engineering and new engineering insights into biology.

Nervous System

Nervous System is an industrial design studio founded in 2007 by Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg. Using the Cell Cycle application they developed you can create your own product based on generative software that models geometric patterns and biological functions. Plus it's fun! Follow the link and design your own ring/lamp/brooch/bracelet/dinnerware...

New York Art Book Fair

I guess it's good that I'm not in New York this weekend otherwise I'd spend all my money here at the New York Art Book Fair. 100+ exhibitors plus tons of other events/lectures, etc. Sponsored by the artist book store, Printed Matter, also in New York.

Brion Gysin: Dream Machine at the New Museum

“Had a transcendental storm of colour visions today in the bus going to Marseilles. We ran through a long avenue of trees and I closed my eyes against the setting sun. An overwhelming flood of intensely bright colors exploded behind my eyelids: a multidimensional kaleidoscope whirling out through space. I was swept out of time. I was out in a world of infinite number. The vision stopped abruptly as we left the trees. Was that a vision? What happened to me?”

-Extract from the diary of Brion Gysin, December 21, 1958

You can find more of the artists work at briongysin.com. Note - the site is under construction but you can still access some images and a number of articles/essays on the Dream Machine and other works.

Ubu Web

Ubu is the absolute best resource on the web for video and performance art. Through an extensive network of supporters this site has created an exhaustive database of early and hard to find film and video works ranging from the earliest film works of the Lumiere brothers to documentaries and works by contemporary artists such as Matthew Barney, Paul McCarthy and Cory Arcangel. A full list of the film and video works is here.

Time Bank

From the website:

Through Time/Bank, we hope to create an immaterial currency and a parallel micro-economy for the cultural community, one that is not geographically bound, and that will create a sense of worth for many of the exchanges that already take place within our field—particularly those that do not produce commodities and often escape the structures that validate only certain forms of exchange as significant or profitable.

Time banking is not barter. Barter economies have been in practice throughout history, but the idea of using time as a unit of exchange only appeared shortly after the Industrial Revolution. The origins of time-based currency can be traced both to the American anarchist Josiah Warren, who ran the Cincinnati Time Store from 1827 until 1830, and to the British industrialist and philanthropist Robert Owen, who founded the utopian "New Harmony" community. While both systems are based on the principles of mutualism and the labor theory of value, Josiah Warren's currency was explicitly pegged to time as a measure of specific goods or labor.

-Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle

Wolfgang Tillmans at the Frieze Art Fair

An excellent podcast by the artist Wolfgang Tillmans from this years Frieze Art Fair in London, which just wrapped up. Another great podcast (with video!) can be found here at the Tate London site. Tillmans is known for his unconventional photographic installations where he insists on maintaining complete control over the placement and selection of works to be displayed. The content of his images varies widely and ranges from night club scenes to classical still life images. Most notable is the fact that Tillmans sees no conflict in displaying highly varied subjects and print sizes next to one another as it conveys his ideas of "the everyday" and his interest in the photographic print as a physical object.

Peter Happel Christian and Dan Gilsdorf

Magnitudes and Increments, opening this week at Archer Gallery in Vancouver, Washington features the work of Peter Happel Christian and Dan Gildsorf.

Paul McCarthy at LM Arts

L & M Arts new gallery in Venice is currently showing a new body of work by sculptor and video artist Paul McCarthy. In his first show in Los Angeles in over a decade McCarthy brings together and reworks several different series including his Hummel works - based on kitsch german figurines, and Pig Mechanical - an exercise in political satire as well as McCarthy's own fascination with animatronic rides such as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean.

Data Visualization

The mid term election is tomorrow and there's plenty of red and blue maps out there to look at. Among the more interesting info-maps is this one available on the New York Times website. It illustrates the twitter feeds of political candidates. Various bubbles shrink and enlarge over time depending on the amount of twitter posts, re-posts, and followers.



Data visualization is a pretty hot field right now, with various artists, designers and programmers finding new ways to illustrate just about anything. Some of the best sites out there include flowing data from Nathan Yau and my favorite, information is beautiful from David McCandless. Check out his TED talk below.



Finally, have a look at MoMA's fantastic show from a few years back, Design and the Elastic Mind.

I Heart Photograph

This photo blog was started a few years back by Laurel Ptak. Her beautifully curated site has landed her other gigs, including curating several gallery shows in New York. Whether you're looking to become known for your sense of style, architecture or photography in Ptak's case, using a blog can be a good way to focus your taste as well as deeper conceptual and artistic interests.

Electroland

Video from an electroland project at the Indianapolis airport. More of their work is right here and here.

But Does it Float

Seemingly endless supply of interesting imagery and artwork butdoesitfloat.com

Pixel Shifting

Work by digital artist Kim Asendorf

Universal Everything and Everyone Forever

Universal Everything,a design collective founded by Matt Pyke, uses designers on 5 continents to create an incredibly diverse body of work. See also Everyone Forever a curated look at art/design projects also on the universaleverything site. Excellent lectures by the founder at Matt Pyke's site.

Generative Programing in Architecture

Kokkugia, an architecture studio founded by Roland Snooks and Rob Stuart-Smith, utilizes generative software modeling to create new forms in architecture.



Also, check out this recently completed competition called Sukkah City. The competition used the idea of the Sukkah - a traditional Jewish structure built during the festival of Sukkot - as a point of conceptual departure. Traditionally the structure is meant to symbolize a modest place of respit and shelter. The competition had entries from U.S. and international architects and architecture students. Finalists were on display in New York's Union Square September 19th through October 2nd.

Free at the New Museum

New exhibition at the New Museum in New York. The show is partially inspired by the essay Dispersion by Seth Price. Show link here and here's the link for Dispersion

Sundown

Some images and video from our recent group show in Portland. The show was at 18k Gold Tone

Starmaps

A better image of some work I posted a couple months ago.  This triptych was chosen to be in a group show this summer at the NewSpace Center for Photography in Portland, Oregon.  More information on the dates of that show later. Each of these images are 16"x20".

new stuff

Some new work.  These are 24"x31" xerox printouts with the yellow area made using a highlighter pen.  Like some of my previous work I'm interested in using very specific materials in a way that is both reflexive of their traditional use as well as ambiguous/cryptic with regard to the subject matter depicted.  These are very much a work in progress.  

Postscript NY

New York was fantastic, really.  I saw more art than I probably will ever see in an eight day period.  To be honest I don't think I could handle seeing that much art that quickly again, but maybe.  Anyway, its been a while since the trip and I'm still getting things out of it.  It has been a long process of unpacking all of that imagery and it has certainly fueled a lot of my own artwork over the past month.  Seeing so much art and such a variety of it really opened my eyes and helped me locate the type of work that I am currently making and the type of work that I would like to make in the future.  My favorite place has to be Dia:Beacon followed closely by Sculpture Center.  Both of these places show considerable, almost religious respect to the artists that they exhibit.  Dia:Beacon is certainly the zen garden of art museums and the train ride up on a late winter morning is a beautiful experience in itself.  Go there!  Lots of other great experiences including fun times with all the kids from the group and a couple of cool french girls too!  

The Armory Show!

Well the Armory show was a hoot!  Such a concentrated view of the contemporary art market is seldom available and it was amazing to see the art-selling machine all greased up and running at full speed.  Gursky, Koons, Hirst, you name they had it and I have to say I liked that.  After running all over the city looking at art it was nice to see a lot of stuff in one place under one roof.  The whole market frenzy side of things didn't really bother me either to be honest.  The booths were well organized and I was able to get a good look at the stuff I liked - which included a solo booth by Martin Creed that was fantastic, a solo booth of Colby Bird and a solo booth of Hans Schabus.  All three of these guys had great stuff that was really interesting and carefully arranged and displayed.  

WACK! at PS1

WACK! is a survey of landmark 60's and 70's feminist art that was recently on view at MOMA's PS1 in Long Island City.  It was a large show made up of many examples artwork that coincided with what is often termed the "first wave" of feminism. The decision to present this work in a large survey format is interesting and there are a number ways to interpret the significance of this decision in light of the developments in feminism over the last four decades.  Personally I think it's important to recognize and acknowledge how revolutionary much of this art was during its time.  Although much of the work seems overly direct compared to feminist art made today - and I am not sure that there are many artists working today that explicitly call themselves "feminist artists" - it forces one to re-examine the idea of art with truly revolutionary goals.  Where is that type of art today?  Have we completely lost the ability to make overtly political works of art?  Certainly many would say yes, or at least that feminist issues are more difficult to identify and combat these days.  Many artists have abandoned the critical-oppositional stance in favor of one that does not pretend to operate outside the systems of oppression that they critique.  Think of the paintings of Lisa Yuskavage, for instance. In any case, it is refreshing to see such direct work today and it reminds me of the importance in acknowledging the powerful political voice that is available to art at certain times in history.

Landscape Pages

Some new stuff I'm trying out.  An exploration into the connection between xeroxed books and the landscape.  Lines, linear, movement, duration...stuff like that.  Very new, very unresolved.

Nine Hundred Foot Drop, Marked

Here's a new piece that I've recently installed in the Laverne Krauss Gallery at the University of Oregon.  This is an in progress shot but the installation looks more or less the same. The images are each 30"x40" and they are positives of black and white photographic contact prints that have been spray painted with orange marking paint.

Tom Burr at Sculpture Center

Along with Dia: Beacon I would have to say that Sculpture Center in Queens was one of the most interesting places to look at art.  Like Dia: Beacon, Sculpture center is committed to giving their artists great freedom in designing and installing their exhibitions which results in what I would call more complete statements.  If a gallery show is a sentence Sculpture Center is a paragraph.  Certainly this is the case with the Tom Burr show currently on view.  Burr's work is informed by a number of influences including literature, fashion, and the history of sculpture.  The central area of the show is devoted to three important figures in modernist art and culture: Chick Austin, Frank O'Hara, and Kurt Weill.  I was impressed by the way Burr is able to use such delicate arrangements and gestures to suggest meaning and history.  Particularly in the use of draped cloth, Burr is able to reference both fashion, theater and the history of drapery in sculpted form.  While his work is highly conceptual and requires a fair amount of unpacking, the elegance of the forms created with materials ranging from a straight jacket, a modernist chaise lounge and magazine clippings, create instant visual interest that allow me to consider the works more closely.  

Whitney Biennial

The biennial is a lot to wrap your head around and it goes without saying that there's going to be some work you hate and some work you really like.  If it seems like a random assortment of art styles, strategies and media then that simply reflects the reality of artistic production in America today.  Therefore, we are left with a show that is distinctive yet disparate.  I found it a bit exhausting but that may have been due to the fact that I had already been to MoMA earlier in the day.  When in New York never try to go to the Whitney and the MoMA in the same day, its murder.  But we were on a tight schedule and we had to do it.  So I came away from the biennial mostly liking work that I expected to like - Walead Beshty, James Welling, Mungo Thomson, Carol Bove.  There was a considerable amount of installation work - one of my favorites was an installation created by Phoebe Washburn that consisted of an assortment of fish aquariums outfitted with various hoses and pumps that moved Gatorade between the tanks in order to feed and grow flowers.    Mungo Thomson's Coat Check Chimes was wonderful in the way that it "bracketed" my experience of the show - greeting me on entering the museum and as I picked up my coat to leave.  The piece is made up of custom tuned hangers that are placed above the regular coat check conveyor.  As the conveyor is moved to find your coat it causes the hangers above to rattle and clang together like wind chimes.  Like much of Thomson's other work it can be read in part as a statement on emptiness and duration.  Everything that you view in the show between dropping off your coat and picking it up functions as part of the piece.  Your experience of it - how long it takes before you hear it again - is based on how long you decide to spend in the museum looking at the show. 

Color Char at MoMA

The show Color Chart currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibits an array of works that reveal a change that occurred sometime in the early to mid twentieth century during which artists began to look at color differently.  The spiritual and emotional significance was left in favor of its new industrial production and wide availability.  Artists began to deal with color in new more conceptual ways that widened our understanding of the significance of color in art and life in general.  When someone mentions color to me I often think of colors that I see in mass produced products or on T.V. or the Internet.  Many of the colors I see and use on a daily basis are completely artificial and few if any of them could be found in nature.  It seems clear to me then that we have come a long way in our understanding of color.  Just as our lives involve direct experience of nature less and less so to have our understandings of color come to change.  The colors of nature seem bland and boring when you compare them to the intense hues of a Pantone swatch book.  That being said I don't think I would prefer that everything be neon electric color.  Rather, its interesting to see how everyday color in nature looks in comparison to the new colors created for the screen or industrially produced products.  

Marc Swanson at Bellwether

Probably the first thing that one notices on viewing Marc Swanson's new show at Bellwether Gallery in Chelsea is the overwhelming variety of materials in use. From glitter, to t-shirts, to deer antlers and rhinestones, Swanson has a way of combining seemingly disparate elements into into forms that are seductive and metaphorical. The natural and the man-made rub up against one another and at times trade places. This is the case in a number of his pieces where t-shirts and underwear are treated and displayed such that they appear much closer to animal hides than underwear made in a factory. Swanson's use of glimmering rhinestones and glitter alongside unfinished wood and deer antlers again shows one how his formal talents have allowed him to bring together these different materials in a productive way. There is also a sense of some sort of ritualistic quality in the arrangement and composition of some of the pieces. The way that antlers are stacked or the pentagram forms that are repeated seem to hint at Pagan rituals and nature worship while his use of shiny man-made materials in these very pieces simultaneously pulls the viewer away from those Pagan references. I find these various sorts of dichotomies or elements of tension to be the most interesting and productive aspects of Swanson's work. While at first view one may be tempted to write off his work due to what seems like a fashionable attraction to luxurious materials, there is a lot to be gained from a closer inspection of his use of these sensitive and loaded materials.