New work by Ane Graff

 Your Groundwater. Ane Graff

Opening Saturday February 2 at 14.00 p.m.
The exhibition will be opened by Karin Hindsbo, dir. Sørlandets Kunstmuseum,
and will be on display until April 28th 2013. A new essay by Norwegian writer Johanne Nordby Wernø on Ane Graff's art will be published especially for this exhibition.

You can view more of her work on my blog here - including a short interview she did with me way back in 2008.

Katie Paterson, As the World Turns

Katie Paterson, As the World Turns

A turntable that rotates in time with the earth, one revolution every 24 hours, playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. If performed from beginning to end, the record would play for four years. The movement is so slow it isn't visible to the naked eye, yet the player is turning, imperceptibly.

Photos by Astrid Kruse Jensen

Astrid Kruse Jensen

Trevor Paglen

One of my favorite works of the trip - Trevor Paglen: KEYHOLE IMPROVED CRYSTAL from Glacier Point (Optical Reconnaissance Satellite; USA 186), 2008 -depicting the path of classified American satellites over Glacier Point. His work is really fascinating.

There has to be something mysterious.

Still from My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done - an upcoming film by Herzog and David Lynch (source).

There's a interview with filmmaker Werner Herzog on Slate today (thanks for the tip C-Monster). One particularly interesting part of the interview reads,

Jacob Weisberg: I've seen you quoted as saying that you'd rather die than see an analyst. Can you elaborate?

Werner Herzog.: I think it's a mistake of the 20^th century. You could not live in a house that was illuminated to every last single corner. And human beings become uninhabitable when they are scrutinized and illuminated into their last little dark abysses. Just leave people as they are and don't touch it. I think psychoanalysis is one of the great mistakes of the 20^th century. It's one of the reasons why I would dismiss the 20^th century as a mistake. I think the 20^th century in its entirety was a mistake. Psychoanalysis is just a small brick in my argument, that I could build up.

J.W.: Filmmaking developed in the 20^th century.

W.H.: Yes, yes, some good sides as well. No doubt.

J.W.: But I'm interested in what you say about psychoanalysis. Is the concern that self-understanding would make one less of an artist, or make people less interesting in general?

W.H.: I think people become uninhabitable, as I say, and less interesting. There has to be something mysterious. Just think about being with a woman who had not, no mystery left at all. If everything was explained about a woman, it wouldn't fascinate me anymore. If I could be explained like an encyclopedia, it would be awful.

(my emphasis added)

Rachel Hawthorn

photographs © 2009 Rachel Hawthorn

Our Art Appreciation guest artist this week was my friend Rachel Hawthorn who gave us a lot of interesting background and insight into her work in regard to the nature of memory and the conceptual framework that informs her multi-disciplinary art. I recommend taking some time to look through her website and explore her quiet photographs as well as web-based content and video.

Art and Meaninglessness

Medardo Rosso - image source.

The Guardian's Johnathan Jones wrote an article today called "Why the Best Art is Meaningless." In it he elaborates on his belief that once the concept or meaning of a work of art is made clear then, "what is left to say?" To Jones, "beauty is better than a big idea," going on to say, "Real art doesn't have a message, doesn't necessarily say anything."

It is interesting to read the comments on this post as well - poster BestoftheBest writes, "it's possibly the abstraction of a meaning or intention and the involvement this beckons, rather than the bleeding obvious, that nourishes. The veneer of meaningless is a bluff. But if there's nothing there, it evaporates pretty quickly." Another comment by shakinwilly reads, "Not meaningless but ambiguity is a characteristic of great art."

In undergrad I was frequently asked what are my "concepts" and even in grad school it was a very concept-driven program - I'm not saying these are bad things but the freedom of making art that doesn't have to push an idea is very appealing to me as an artist.

I have been having this constant quarrel in my mind about my next show - whether I should have a more defined concept or not. The statement I wrote for the upcoming issue of New American Paintings reads, "These images are a response to natural processes and the noticeably unnatural human habitat. They depict the effects of construction and destruction – each image functioning as a visual pause; a contrast in this persistent turbulence." I stress the visual image in this statement - perhaps more than a clear concept.

I personally agree with the sentiments of Jones and as it stands right now, my next show will be "about" ambiguity - with what Jones calls, "real art's difficulties."

A post at Learning to Stay blog called, "Why We Need Art" goes on to stress more than our desire for mystery but our need;

• "We now know enough to know that we will never know everything. This is why we need art: it teaches us to live with mystery. Only the artist can explore the ineffable without offering us an answer, for sometimes there is no answer. John Keats called this romantic impulse 'negative capability.' He said that certain poets, like Shakespeare, had 'the ability to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.' Keats realized that just because something can't be solved, or reduced into the laws of physics, doesn't mean it isn't real. When we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art."

~ Jonah Lehrer, from Proust Was a Neuroscientist

Laura Braciale

Laura Braciale, Crux, 2009

Bevel (side view), 2009, Acrylic on panel with plastic folder holder, 48"h x 60"w

Wheatfield

Agnes Denes, Wheatfield—A Confrontation, Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan, 1982

Wheatfield—A Confrontation (The Harvest), 2 acres of wheat planted and harvested by the artist on a landfill in Manhattan's financial district, summer 1982.

photos from the Chelsea Art Museum.

Greenmuseum.org writes, "In 1982, she carried out what has become one of the best-known environmental art projects when she planted a two-acre field of wheat in a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan. Titled, Wheatfield -- A Confrontation, the artwork yielded 1,000 lbs. of wheat in the middle of New York City to comment on "human values and misplaced priorities". The harvested grain then traveled to 28 cities worldwide in "The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger" and was symbolically planted around the globe. "

Aren't these photos great? I remember learning about this work some time ago, but running into it again at Mount Olympus renewed my excitement about the work and the idea. As it gets more and more expensive to ship food across huge distances (what James Howard Kunstler likes to call the "3,000 mile salad"), it will be more important to grow food nearer to where it is consumed - so I think this work in particular will have increasing relevance over time. There's recently been a boom in urban farming. In fact, Denver's Westword ran a feature on the movement in May called "The Urbavore's Dilemma: Getting down and dirty with Denver's backyard farmers".

See also; this post at Coolhunting about landscape ecologist Eric W. Sanderson's decade-long Mannahatta Project, an exhaustive study and recreation of the Manhattan ecosystem circa 1609 (the year of Henry Hudson's arrival in Mannahatta).

Extended Party Line

Mauricio Guillen

Extended Party Line, Chapman house London, 2006
Intervention on the façade of the Chapman's house

Jenny Holzer on Twitter

This is kind of old news, but we were talking about her in class today so I thought I'd share. Twitter is the perfect extension of her work.

Tuesday's statement was, "DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF"

And if you're wondering - no, I don't twitter.

Untitled

a postcard made by my good friend and fellow artist Ryan Helsel in one of our first years of undergrad together.

Even You Leave

John Cage sheet music by flickr user hellebelle

”When you start working, everybody is in your studio - the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas - all are there. But as you continue, they start leaving one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you’re lucky, even you leave.”

Musician John Cage talking to painter Philip Guston, quoted in his daughter Musa Meyer’s book Night Studio

found first at As Yet; still Untitled.

Bosse Sudenburg

I found this image of Bosse Sudenburg's work at ArtFagCity and I find them fascinating. Here's a couple more photos from Galerie Metro.

Bosse Sudenburg | IF THEN | 2009 | Lightbox | 167×120x15 cm

Bosse Sudenburg | No 2nd Thoughts / East Coast West Coast | 2009 | Installation | 250×250x100 cm

Three new works by Ryan Helsel

My good friend and conceptual artist extraordinaire Ryan Helsel recently posted these text-based works that I was happy to be able to share here.

Jason Lazarus

The work by Jason Lazarus is some of the most affecting photography I've found of late. He has several series that can be viewed here -I think I might have looked at every image on his site. I've posted a few selections from different series including, "Living with a Portrait" (the first two images here), "Wright Commission" (the Reinhardt painting), and the last image here is from "Self Portrait as an Artist" series. At risk of sounding sentimental, I think these image have a poetic elegance to them without coming off as pretentious. They seem very human. They present feelings of reflection, loss, and well-placed humor. Some of the series seem very personal and intentional, and some seem very momentary/fleeting. Give his site a look.

Jacob's portrait of Kafka in bedroom (painted by an ex-lover)

Greg's Geronimo portrait for the road

The back of an Ad Reinhardt

"Untitled" 36x26" archival inkjet 2008

Matt Siber

Matt Siber: Untitled Project

Untitled #36, 2006
Untitled #35, 2006
Untitled #33, 2006

Siber's Statement about the project,

"The Untitled Project is rooted in an underlying interest in the nature of power. With the removal of all traces of text from the photographs, the project explores the manifestation of power between large groups of people in the form of public and semi-public language. The absence of the printed word not only draws attention to the role text plays in the modern landscape but also simultaneously emphasizes alternative forms of communication such as symbols, colors, architecture and corporate branding. In doing this, it serves to point out the growing number of ways in which public voices communicate without using traditional forms of written language.

The reintroduction of the text takes written language out of the context of its intended viewing environment. The composition of the layouts remain true to the composition of their corresponding photographs in order to draw attention to relative size, location and orientation. The isolation of the text from its original graphic design and accompanying logos, photographs and icons helps to further explore the nature of communication in the urban landscape as a combination of visual and literal signifiers."

High-Security River Vally/Canyon

If all is going well at this point, I should be in the Grand Canyon. Michael Schall put up some new drawings - all of which are absolutely amazing, but this one more closely relates to my Canyon adventures...

Michael Schall, "High Security River Valley", graphite on paper, 38" x 50", 2008.(detail view)

Check out his portfolio...spectacular work.

A picture of New Jersey...

I heart Photograph blog has just released their exhibition catalog for "Is it possible to make a photograph of new jersey regardless of where you are in the world?" available for download here. The page with artists names beginning with "R" (pictured below) features the work of my good friend Ryan Helsel. Congrats Ryan.

Ryan Helsel, "Untitled 10"

page from "Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless of where you are in the world?" exhibition catalog

Sze Tsung Leong

Svínahraun, Iceland, 2007

Canale della Giudecca I, Venezia, 2007

Dubai I, 2007

Excerpts from the "Horizons" series by Sze Tsung Leong. His statement on the series reads, "Horizons is an ongoing series of photographs, begun in 2001, that depict expansive views of a broad spectrum of environments throughout the world. The locations of the images may be distant in geography and diverse in subject matter, yet the photographs are linked by a horizon which continues in the same position from image to image. When placed side by side, the images form an extended landscape composed of an accumulation of varied continents, cities, terrains, situations, textures, and colors." In a recent New York Times interview, Leong said that "In terms of looking, the horizon is the farthest we can see", but it also represents "the limit of experience". Leong elaborated by saying that "The horizon is such a basic way of comprehending the space around us, comprehending our basic relationship to the globe."

This series closely resembles the ongoing series of "Seascapes" by one of my favorite artists, Hiroshi Sugimoto. Sugimoto also frames the horizon line in the same orientation (half sky, half water) in every photo of his series- also creating a continuous horizon line when installed in a gallery or museum setting, as seen in this photo by 阿港伯