cranky is more than a mood — its an attitude
I’m deep into the research about Fringe Festival productions. The most interesting thing i see on the schedule is a performance that happens entirely in the dark. I am curious enough about this to go see it… There seem to be a lot of works by and about “young men.” There’s a lot of Vaudevillian [...]
This is the card that participants can offer to strangers to explain their behavior and invite them to join the performance. Very happy to say that 3Monkeys Small Business Printing is donating their services to produce 5,000 cards!
Went to print with the post cards for Texts From the Fringe.
Oh my.
I haven’t posted in months. This tends to happen when I start a blog and I know why. I begin when its difficult to write the dissertation, then I feel guilty about spending all that time on writing that’s not on topic…once a catholic always a catholic – isnt that what they say? THEN [...]
One more reason to finish the dissertation:
Tenure-Track Position in Performance Studies
The Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies (HArCS) in the New College at Arizona State University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Performance Studies to begin in August 2010. HArCS is interdisciplinary and committed to a critical examination [...]
I just can’t stop thinking about this recent (2007) video of Miss Vaginal Davis.
From Frieze Magazine: “Vaginal Davis is the key proponent of the disruptive performance aesthetic known as terrorist drag. Disrupting the cultural assimilation of gay-oriented and corporate-friendly drag, she positions herself at an uncomfortable tangent to the conservative politics of gay culture, mining [...]
I have no idea where I found this little gem… but I sure do love this project. It makes me want to contribute drawings of myself. Its really interesting to see how some people exclude their bodies from the drawings, others include emotional states as attire, and the names folk give to their accessories.
I really do just love Carrie Marill’s work. She makes these astoundingly beautiful, precious gauche paintings. The other day she gave a short talk at the ASU Art Museum about her participation in the show that’s currently in the main gallery.
I wasn’t so sure about her most recent paintings, frankly. They seemed too bucolic. I [...]
Mel recently asked if I had any good readings on death… what a question. Yes, i have too many good readings on death too count – but from what angle. We explored the usual suspects – Goulish’s 39 Microlectures which brought us to Kathy Acker, Peggy Phelan’s tribute to the dying student which begged me [...]
I just read in Artforum that an estimated 2,000 works by the inestimable Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica (1937-80) went up in flames. This is really so sad… Oiticica was primarily preoccupied with color who’s work as a Brazilian Modernism often articulated a provocative response to formalism. His commentary on universal form was shaped through 3-dimensional [...]
One of the big projects I’ve recently become involved with is X-square, an initiative of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. The program has a Facebook Presence and this is the official blurb for the program:
X-square is an annual project commission for student teams to conceptualize, design and build a structure that activates [...]
I went to see Jillian McDonald talk about her work today at lunch time. She’s the current artist in residence at the ASU Art Museum as part of their Social Studies series of exhibitions.
I was so happy that she showed a little video of her earlier work – its the most interesting to me. She [...]
I wrote an earlier post about Nick Cave’s soundsuits and my burning desire to see them… last weekend I made a trip to SMoCA and was astounded by them.
Amazing.
Larger than life-sized and presented on a low platform, the suits towered over me. My nephew was a little taken aback (he’s 3 years old) but once [...]
I’ll be writing about this piece for my paper at CAA in February. This is the first time I’ve seen the video of the fox Alys tracked through the National Portrait Gallery. AWESOME.
Helga Steppan has an interesting recent project… “See Through All My Things.” The Swedish artist chromatically organized her belongings then photographed them. The large (30×36) C-prints invite me to think of the orders I aspire to hold in my life, the colors that predominate in my belongings and the moods inspired by the palette of ownership. [...]
thanks to alex villar for posting this great video to fb. he’s always giving me great leads for reading, watching, thinking. i like to listen to these vids while doing housework.
A student recently asked me when was the last time I saw a piece of art that made me swoon… I couldn’t remember, really. It isn’t the object, the painting, the sculpture, or the installation of work that floats my boat; its the conversation the work inspires, the memories it compels and the performances it [...]
Allan Kaprow (center, with beard) and participants in his “Yard” (1967), at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York.
This month and next, two of my favorite artists (both featured in the dissertation) will be re-inventing Allan Kaprow’s Yard in NYC: William PopeL and Sharon Hayes. The NYT says a bit about their efforts.
Was reading this month’s Frieze. An article about the current state of theory in the arts offers comments from various professors of art, art history and criticism from around the world. Following are a few thoughtful claims from the article that struck a chord with me.
George Baker (UCLA, Art History) describes a recent “undeniable anti-theoretical [...]
Saw a review in the NYT about the new film We Live In Public. I remember meeting Josh when Martha Wilson of the Franklin Furnance brought him to a party I was hosting. He was carrying around a stinky, un-but-previously-lit cigar and wearing a felt hat. I remember him being sort of noise, in a [...]
A few days ago, I asked
Who is the 1970’s artist who posed for several self-portraits with small gum vulvae affixed to her body?
And, I’m sure you all knew the answer was Hannah Wilke. In her 1974 SOS: Starification Object Series she issued a critique of the sexualized female artist as seen by the male dominated [...]
I just came across this great article by Time Etchells on Tehching Hsieh.
And the toast Etchells made at the launch of Out Of Now:
To time
To time past
To the clock
To the watched clock
To the minute hand, hour hand
To the second hand
Against the clock
Against the punch clock
To the heartbeat
To ducking out of time
To running out of time
To [...]
I absolutely must see Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth at SMOCA (up until November 29, 2009). Don’t miss the interesting videos on the SMOCA site. In one of the clips he asks: “What makes people be light within a moment?” Lovely. I am particularly enamored of the second video (embedded [...]
About six months ago, Beth Kracklauer interviewed me about my Home is Where the Gob Is project. Her write up finally made it into Saveur Magazine and she (accurately quoted me)! I only wish they would have put a link to my website in the article.
Most of the coal mines have closed around Johns-town, [...]
Knitta is a pretty funny group of knitters who take stitching to the streets. They consider their work a form of graffitti and call their installations “tags.” I love how the van becomes a sort of clown car with (mostly) white girls spilling out to accomplish the absurd.
James Griffoen’s images of feral houses made it to Boing Boing a few weeks back. Pretty interesting stuff. But I’m more intrigued by his polaroids of feral dogs since I live in a neighborhood that has a few. They tend to travel in packs, yet James Griffoen’s dogs are mostly singular in the frame. Interesting.
My [...]
Found this site on Boing Boing… and just added it to my blog roll. Some great images here, including one of a camel stuffed into a suitcase. I’m particularly fond of the non-art taxidermy, meaning stuffies intended for display domestically, not in a gallery. Reminds me of a ring necked phesant that my grandpap had [...]
Just read a thoughtful article in this month’s ART PAPERS about a piece by Iris Häussler at Art Gallery of Ontario at The Grange called “He Named Her Amber.” Essentially, Häussler constructed a story and embedded the fiction into the institution then recovered it in an archeological dig and invited the public to see the [...]
This is a cartoon by Suzanne van Rossenberg, a dutch artist living in Leiden. She takes the name Patricia Cornflake for these small drawings. Her larger body of work is a series of paintings that trade on queer identities and the power of storytelling. I consider Suzanne a friend, although we’ve never shaken hands. We [...]
Ladybird beetle near Three Mile Island, USA
Dent and a black growth on wings.
Watercolor, New Cumberland 1991
Cornelia Hesse-Honegger’s work is simply amazing. The Swiss scientific illustrator collects, studies and paints [...]
This looks very interesting! I could do something about William PopeL’s installation in Santa Monica!!!
‘Sculpture and Performance’
Henry Moore Institute and Tate Liverpool
Thursday 25 and Friday 26 March 2010
This two-day conference will explore the complex relationship between sculpture and performance over the last century and into the present. Much research [...]
Oh my. Wicked was as bad as I thought it would be. Truly. I never really expect to be entertained or pleased by what I see in big productions like this one. Instead, I come away feeling assaulted by the visuals, pummeled by the sound, pinched by the too small seats. I can only blame [...]
I’m going to see Wicked tonight with my mother, she loves musical theater. Every touring Broadway production that I’ve seen in the past five years is due to my daughterly dedication. While I don’t really regret any of the productions, I’ve yet to see one that I would choose to see again or would have [...]