Daniel Bourke

Tom Morton

2011-05-05T12:07:00.003+08:00

[Insert Title Here]
Towards a partial typology of anglophone exhibition titles
The Eponym
In which a solo exhibition takes its name from the exhibiting artist, for example, ‘Warhol’ (Tate Modern, London, 2002). While the eponym appears to have the virtue of honest description, it is charged with all sorts of business about reputation, personality, power and audience recognition – consider the very different resonances of the titles ‘Warhol’, ‘Andy Warhol’ and ‘Andy’, and then consider how few emerging artists choose to name their first solo shows after themselves. An aside: might the selection of an eponymous exhibition title by a living artist signal a presumptuous bid for classic status, or even an attempt to disclose ‘the real me’, along the lines of eponymous album titles such as Fleet Foxes (2008) or Mariah Carey (1990)?

The Eponym Plus
Most solo shows employ a subtitle and, in most cases, they are either quickly forgotten or never register in the first place. We are far more likely to enquire whether a friend has seen the ‘[artist’s name] exhibition at [exhibiting venue]’ than what he or she made of ‘[artist’s name: exhibition subtitle]’. This is not just an accident of conversational English; it is rare to refer to Lolita (1955) as ‘that book by Nabokov’ (unless, of course, quoting ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ by The Police). We might speculate that the weirdly unmemorable nature of solo show subtitles is, in the case of dead artists, mostly to do with fame (the words ‘Marcel Duchamp’ or ‘Louise Bourgeois’ are usually enough to persuade the average punter) and, in the case of living artists, mostly to do with a set of anxieties about language’s tendency to fix or forestall meaning. More than one artist friend of mine has bemoaned the falling out of fashion of the subtitle ‘New Works’.
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AIDS-3D

2011-02-09T23:10:00.003+08:00

A fountain and its natural form, the spring, are symbols of the miraculous life-begetting 'élan vital' that permeates the universe. In fact, life on earth is now thought to have begun in the nutrient-rich plumes of undersea hydrothermal vents, real-life fountains of life. But, when the image of the source is mimicked as Water Feature, a merely decorative, self-contained electric fountain, the maternalistic life-force is perverted into what amounts to abject MILF porn. The Water Feature is so wasteful and self-indulgent that it becomes the straw man in the argument against contemporary art as useless blubber for the tasteless elite. But— can't home and garden decor give back a little bit? Can't we efficiently retrofit some of our 'criminal ornaments' for a fairer future? If there is some leftover space inside their faux-marble fiberglass hollowness, we can definitely squeeze some useful nanotech in there— right? Let's finally answer Joseph Bueys famous challenge, “Kann Plastik die Welt verandern?"—can sculpture change the world? with a resounding “YES!"…as long as that sculpture contains a state-of-the-art-kick-ass-energy-efficient-linux-micro-PC that is totally discovering a cure for cancer.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

A group of spectacular cast-fiberglass fountains stand together on an elevated server-room floor. A Fit PC 2 (the smallest PC currently available, 96% more energy efficient than a standard desktop) is installed in each water feature. Whenever the fountains are plugged in, the Linux PC's will automatically boot up and run World Community Grid software, a distributed computing project which uses a massive network of PC’s around the world to model solutions for various humanitarian problems, such as: “Clean Energy Project”, “Influenza Antiviral Drug Search”, “ Fight Aids@home” and “Nutritious Rice for the World". The delightful splashing of the water and twinkle of the energy-efficient LED’s act as relaxing and meditative status-light for the computers, tirelessly laboring within. Although there is no screen visible in the installation, the computation progress can be remotely monitored through a dedicated website. Throw in a coin, and make a wish….introducing, World Community Grid Water Features by AIDS-3D

AIDS-3D

Matthew Metzger

2011-02-08T13:56:00.002+08:00

Re-Release: Discourse, 2009. Acrylic and oil on panel, 12.5 x 12.375 in.

Edifice, 2008. Oil, graphite, and colored pencil on panel; 30.5 x 22.875 in.

Matthew Metzger

Plan A

2011-02-07T17:30:00.001+08:00

Antfarm

2011-02-02T09:01:00.004+08:00

Richard Jost, Chip Lord and Doug Michels, Ant Farm, East and West Elevations (1971-73) House of the Century (Alvin and Marilyn Lubetkin House), Mo-Jo Lake, Texas. Ink, pencil, and felt-tipped marker on transparentised paper.

Arquitectonica

2011-02-01T23:45:00.011+08:00

Arquitectonica, The Atlantis Condominium, 1980-82. Miami, Florida, USA.

Thanks Andrew

Magali Reus

2011-02-01T00:45:00.001+08:00

Export Forecast Bright, 2008. Fibreglass, polyester resin, beach towels.

In Your Own Time, 2007. Aluminium, beach towels.

Installation view at Goldsmiths College, London, 2007.

Magali Reus

Fantasy Fountains

2011-01-13T22:08:00.005+08:00

A Fantasy Faucet Fountain is a suspended faucet tabletop water fountain. It's possibly the perfect gift for those hard to buy for friends and relatives.

Set it up when you have outside BBQ’S or in your kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom.

...

We always enjoy watching the look on people's faces when they first see the fountain running. Young and old, girls and boys, they all stop a moment, and most will stick their finger in the running water just to see… if maybe...just possibly...its magic.

VIA Fantasy Fountains, Las Vegas NV

Jennifer Dalton

2011-01-13T21:24:00.000+08:00

The Appraisal, 1999

The Reappraisal (Installation View), 2009. 546 archival photo prints, acrylic frames, 6 metal shelving with plywood shelves; total dimensions variable (each photo 7” x 5”; each shelving unit 72” x 48” x 12”).

The Reappraisal (Individual Photographs), 2009. Archival photo print, 7” x 5”. Edition of 6, plus 1 AP.

Jennifer Dalton

Haim Steinbach

2010-11-10T18:24:00.001+08:00

A Defining Moment 1, 2008. Plastic laminated wood shelf, 2 resin cast “Degas” sculptures, 2 rubber dog chews, polystone rhinoceros; 28 x 63 x 13 in. (71.4 x 160 x 33 cm).

It Is III-1, 2008. Plastic laminated wood shelf, “Frosted Flakes” cereal box, 3 rubber dog chews; 31-3/4 x 51 x 16 in. (80.6 x 129.5 x 40.6 cm).

Mandarin Red, 2008. Plastic laminated wood shelf, 5 rubber dog chews, metal and wood cart core, plastic cauldron; 46-1/4 x 86-1/2 x 17 in. (117.5 x 219.7 x 43.2 cm).

Points:

1. An object is defined by its relationship to another object(s). Meaning is generated through the play of objects; in how they are placed, acting on one another. The viewer is engaged to complete the story, to solve the riddle.

2. Objects function in our lives as forms of communication. An object is a story in itself and at the same time it is a vessel ready to receive any projection brought upon it by the subject/viewer.

3. Objects are employed as figures of speech. For example, the “Kong” rubber dog chew may be read as a marker of time, like a point at the end of a sentence, a comma, a semicolon, or an exclamation mark.

4. The choice of objects and their grouping reflects their typological affinities and metonymic relationships.

5. Some approaches of choice in the selection and arrangement of objects are:

(a)The object(s) that have been in the possession of the artist for some time may be put together with a newly found or bought object. With experience, personal, historical, social, intellectual etc. a connection may be made with an object already internalized and a newly arrived object at a moment of recognition. (For instance "Mr. Peanut")

(b) An object or objects in the possession of another individual are put into a new play by the artist.

(c) A complete arrangement in the possession of an individual is lifted in its original order and re-framed in another format of presentation.

6. Found statements have already been objectified in the formation of their content, typeset and the spacing between letters, words and sentences. In this respect they too are objects and are taken as such.

VIA Overduin and Kite

Haim Steinbach

Alterazioni Video

2010-11-09T21:11:00.000+08:00

Untitled, 2008. Concrete with opuntia.

Alterazioni Video

Kenneth Anger

2010-10-19T19:43:00.000+08:00

Eric Doeringer

2010-09-26T10:45:00.001+08:00

Free Books, 2008. Mixed media, dimensions variable.

Free Books is an installation created for Art in Odd Places' 2008 exhibition Pedestrian. Each weekend during the exhibition I left a box marked "Free Books" somewhere on 14th Street in Manhattan. However, before placing the books on the street I removed the last few pages from each novel, destroying the books' functionality but transforming them into works of art (I also wrote my name in the front of each book, as a type of signature). Visitors to the exhibition might recognize the books as art, but the casual passer-by would only discover the alteration if he or she read one of the books to the end (and would probably be frustrated by my intervention, rather than appreciating the artistic value).

Eric Doeringer

Cory Arcangel

2010-09-17T07:28:00.004+08:00

Live links pages from the Internet.

Search History:
Cory Arcangel on Internet Links Pages
IN A RECENT SPEECH titled “Remarks on Internet Freedom,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the Internet was now an integral part of US foreign policy. “Some countries,” Clinton said, making a thinly veiled reference to China, “have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks,” while the US stands for “a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.” Although the technology of networked computers has its origins in military research, all this cold war–style rhetoric over Internet access would have come as a big surprise to anyone using the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. That Internet was very different: a place for meek computer science professors, adventurous home coders, and moms and pops who just wanted to say “Welcome to My Homepage.” It was not a place in which two superpowers did battle. What to make of this transformation?
In 1995, artist Alexei Shulgin created Bla-Bla Sites. The work consists of a simple HTML page full of hyperlinked URLs, each leading to a page somewhere else on the Web that was composed primarily of the text BLA BLA BLA BLA, or BLAH BLAH BLAH, repeated in various lengths and configurations. These pages were not affiliated with the artist but instead were fished from the vast ocean of the Web at that time, in 1995. I say “at that time” because although the page is still online, the pages it linked to have largely disappeared. So it might be helpful to think of this work as a performance, or as an action with a past, present, and future: “1995– .”
[ More... ]

Cory Arcangel's Internet Portfolio Website and Portal

Richard Prince

2010-09-14T22:58:00.004+08:00

The Moon, 2007. Inkjet and acrylic on canvas, 81 1/2 x 100 in (207 x 254 cm).

The Fountainhead, 2010. Inkjet and acrylic on canvas, 86 x 92 1/2 in (218.4 x 235 cm).

Begun in 2004 at the juncture of the Nurse and De Kooning paintings and evolving through the Canal Zone and After Dark series, the Tiffany paintings reflect Prince's continuing attentiveness to the recurring patterns and suggestive potential of advertising, honed by years of perusing newspapers and magazines. These almost abstract, monochrome paintings treat the plain yet distinctive ads that New York's most famous jewelry brand has run daily for many years in the upper right hand corner of the same page of The New York Times, while echoing associations with another classic, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, whose object of desire Holly Golightly lures admirers only to elude them later.
Capote considered his Tiffany to be the strategic marker of the second phase of his career, in which he refined his prose into a clearer and more subdued form before moving on to his crowning achievement, the visceral non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. Prince's Tiffany paintings are terse, tenuous combines of material reference and literary allusion comprising, in addition to the aforementioned Tiffany ads, scanned news events, obituaries, and the occasional autobiographical note. This field of reference is then painted over in a manner evocative of post-war Abstract Expressionism, from its sedimentary layers and floating blocks of color to the swipes and splatters of its more animated moments. In some cases, words and phrases snatched from the ad copy – "will be girls," "undecided, and "Picasso"-- are echoed suggestively in the titles of paintings; in others, such as Poetry, headlines charged with dread and import loom through obfuscating veils of paint.

Richard Prince @ Gagosian Gallery

William Wegman

2010-09-04T16:02:00.001+08:00

Three Speeds, Three Temperatures, 1970. Gelatin silver print, 7 3/4 x 9 5/8 in (19.7 x 24.4 cm).

William Wegman performed Three Speeds, Three Temperatures [...] this May in the faculty men's room at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he taught last year. [Rumbles. 1970. Avalanche (Fall): 8.]

Stephen Shore

2010-08-31T23:23:00.001+08:00

U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973

Stephen Shore @ 303 Gallery

Stanley Mazor

2010-08-13T00:15:00.002+08:00

Design an Expandable House:
For Present Needs and Future Dreams
By Stanley Mazor

"A man's home is his castle." But what if he wants a castle for a home?

Many people strive to create enduring artistic works. To me, a beautiful building is such a work. I've been overwhelmed by the splendor of classic European buildings that have survived for centuries. With that inspiration, and taking advantage of modern-day improvements in methods and materials, I embarked on my own project: using Styrofoam® building blocks and a modular construction approach to build my own chateau. Today my needs are few, and the structure is small, but I dream of having a "grand villa" someday (and perhaps converting it into an inn or B&B). In the process of "growing a chateau," I hope to create an aesthetically pleasing building that serves as an inspiration to others.

[ More... ]

Graduate in Residence

2010-08-09T23:26:00.007+08:00

In weeks of better time management, I've been doing volunteer technician work in the printmaking department at university in exchange for using the facilities and being able to borrow from the university library. So far, I've done one screen-print, and borrowed a number of books (which I have yet to read) and DVDs.

In honoring said volunteer work, I recently helped clean out the printmaking store room and was able to salvage some record storage boxes (the wood-grain variety), a number of wooden frames (most missing glass and backings), some orange-coloured folders (once containing photographic filters), and two lengths of thick dowel painted in a flesh colour (wow).

e-flux PAWNSHOP

2010-07-25T09:57:00.003+08:00

Beginning in October, our storefront on Ludlow Street will temporarily become a pawnshop dedicated to the pawning of artworks. PAWNSHOP will open at noon on Monday, October 1st and will have regular business hours of Tuesday through Saturday, 12-6 pm. It will remain in operation through early 2008.

Structurally, a pawnshop is a short-term loan business, which retains a collateral object in exchange for cash -- a small fraction of the object's value that must be repaid with interest for the item is to be re-claimed by its original owner. If, after 30 days, the item has not been claimed, the pawnbroker earns the right to sell it, and the pawned object remains on display until it is picked up or purchased by someone else.

PAWNSHOP's initial inventory is comprised of over 60 pawned works from a group of artists invited to participate in the project. After PAWNSHOP opens for business on October 1st, artists may walk in with a work they want to pawn -- we will happily look at all submissions and, if we find any of interest, we may add them to our inventory. After the initial 30 days, on November 1st, the artworks that have not been retrieved by their original owners may become available for sale.

Although these days pawnshops are often found in distressed urban neighborhoods, or near gambling sites where fast cash comes at a premium, this was not the case historically. From early Chinese society to the Medici era in Europe, pawnshops served as primary lenders to their communities and provided financial bases for some of the more important historical events of their times, including the discovery of the Americas; Columbus' voyage was funded by Queen Isabella of Spain pawning her jewels. We are very curious what discoveries our pawnshop will bring about...

...

PAWNSHOP is a project by Julieta Aranda, Liz Linden and Anton Vidokle.

[ More ... ]

Pleasure Island

2010-07-18T11:53:00.005+08:00

Modern Living: Waterbeds: A Rising Tide
TIME Magazine (Monday, Feb. 08, 1971)

To lure the wealthier buyers, Innerspace offers the $2,800 "Pleasure Island." an 8-ft.-square waterbed surrounded by contour pillows, color television, an elaborate stereo set, a bar and directional lighting.

...

But accidents will happen. The new waterbed lore includes the story of a West Coast couple whose mattress sprang a leak. With help from neighbors, they wrestled it out of their apartment onto a balcony, which promptly collapsed under the unaccustomed weight. Another householder, filling his waterbed on the lawn to test it, stood amazed when it began rolling downhill, amoeba-like, oozing over hedges and crushing gardens before squooshing to a halt. Mr. and Mrs. James Klopp, of Mountain View, Calif., fell asleep on their new waterbed while it was filling, and awakened to find their bedroom awash.

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Charlie Sofo

2010-07-18T11:22:00.003+08:00

Bookmarks, 2009. Bookmarks collected from library books, Perspex and camping table.

Dog Ears, 2007. Book, 25 x 32 cm.

Library Hairs, 2008. Hairs collected from library books, PVA and cardboard; 67 x 66 cm.

Charlie Sofo (Progressive Method)
Charlie Sofo (The Hell That Is Happening)

Curriculum Vitae c.1994

2010-07-18T00:24:00.007+08:00

Daniel's Work Samples, 1994. Paper, cardboard, glue and texta; 220 x 307 mm.

Rediscovery of work samples, 2009.

Vijay Celmins

2010-07-06T06:41:00.000+08:00

To Fix the Image in Memory, 1977-82. Stones and painted bronze, eleven pairs, dimensions variable.

For this work, Celmins made bronze casts of eleven rocks and then painted the casts to resemble the original stones as closely as possible. In an interview, she recalled, "I got the idea for this piece while walking in northern New Mexico picking up rocks, as people do. I'd bring them home and I kept the good ones. I noticed that I kept a lot that had galaxies on them. I carried them around in the trunk of my car. I put them on window sills. I lined them up. And, finally, they formed a set, a kind of constellation. I developed this desire to try and put them into an art context. Sort of mocking art in a way, but also to affirm the act of making: the act of looking and making as a primal act of art." By having each original rock installed with its duplicate, Celmins invites the viewer to examine them closely: "Part of the experience of exhibiting them together with the real stones," she has said, "was to create a challenge for your eyes. I wanted your eyes to open wider."

Vijay Celmins @ MoMA

Cory Arcangel

2010-06-16T23:36:00.003+08:00

Sorry I Haven't Posted

A new reblog I started which re-posts posts of people apologizing for not posting. Tag line: "Inspiring Apologies From Today's World Wide Web". Sounds kinda dumb, but I sift through about 50 of these posts a day, ... there are some really touching ones out there. Enjoy!

But seriously, sorry I haven't been posting regularly/ at all.

http://www.mocanomi.org/, 2010. Modified Museum Website.

For my show The Sharper Image at The Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, I changed the font of their website to Comic Sans for the duration of the exhibition. Maybe my best 'artwork' ever?!?!?!?

Sans Comic, 2008. Whitney 2008 Biennial Press Release re-typeset in Comic Sans using XeLaTex. Released via email to Whitney Press list, 11 March 2008.

Whitney Biennal press release in comic sans,...done as part of Dexter Sinister's "True Mirror" Whitney Biennial series.

Art Review (Free PDF Magazine)

2010-06-08T15:32:00.002+08:00

Download @ Art Review: Digital

Sawhorses Etcetera

2010-06-07T00:41:00.007+08:00

Celebrity Saw Horses
Wackiest Sawhorse
Best Sawhorse Idea I Couldn’t Find Plans For
Sometimes You Need a Mobile Carpenter Bench, Not a Sawhorse
Your Basic and Free Sawhorse Plans
Space Saving Sawhorses
Sawhorses for Sheet Goods
Sawhorses Etcetera

VIA 39 Free Sawhorse Plans in the Hunt for the Ultimate Sawhorse @ ToolCrib

Jean-Luc Godard's Intertitles

2010-05-19T17:28:00.001+08:00

VIA Andrea Hyde @ Walker Art Center Design Blog

Anthony Huberman

2010-02-05T21:03:00.002+08:00

Naïve Set Theory
By Anthony Huberman

See Figure 1 (p. 52) [Below]. To Summarise:

1. A total absence of information about a given subject usually solicits no curiosity: without an awareness of its existence, we can’t possibly care about it.

2. When we come to realise the existence of something we never knew was there before, our curiosity is sparked: What is it? How does it work? What should we call it? Why is it there? But we remain in the early stages of our ability to recognise and read it.

3. We attempt to accumulate information and, while additional research provides many answers, it also reveals additional questions, fuelling more curiosity still.

4. At a certain point— at the top of the bell curve—we come to a place where effective discussion and debate is possible, but much still remains speculation. It is a moment of intense scrutiny and educated hypothesising when questions, answers, contradictions, controversy, desire, violence, disappointment and determination make up a complex system.

5. Little by little, though, speculation gives way to consensus. The power structures that make up the socio-political fabric begin enforcing their choices. The many questions gather around common answers, and information becomes more and more organised, making the transition into the understood.

6. Sinking into the understood, our given subject provokes less and less curiosity.

7. Eventually, we have a dictionary definition.

This progression is also a loop: thanks to scientific, artistic or intellectual pioneers —from Copernicus to Duchamp—common assumptions about the world are secondguessed, challenged, and the understood once again becomes no longer understood, prompting the cycle to begin anew.

I presume few would argue that the experience of art thrives at the top of the bell curve in a place of speculation (and not consensus), hypotheses (and not conclusions) and belief (and not knowledge). To stay at the top of the bell curve corresponds to a state of sustained curiosity that provokes us to change something about ourselves in an effort to understand. To stay at the top of the bell curve, as our diagram clearly shows us, requires stopping information.

[ More... ]

VIA Dot Dot Dot Fifteen

Jonathan Lethem

2010-02-05T20:03:00.000+08:00

The ecstasy of influence:
A plagiarism
By Jonathan Lethem
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. . . .
—John Donne
LOVE AND THEFT
Consider this tale: a cultivated man of middle age looks back on the story of an amour fou, one beginning when, traveling abroad, he takes a room as a lodger. The moment he sees the daughter of the house, he is lost. She is a preteen, whose charms instantly enslave him. Heedless of her age, he becomes intimate with her. In the end she dies, and the narrator—marked by her forever—remains alone. The name of the girl supplies the title of the story: Lolita.
The author of the story I've described, Heinz von Lichberg, published his tale of Lolita in 1916, forty years before Vladimir Nabokov's novel. Lichberg later became a prominent journalist in the Nazi era, and his youthful works faded from view. Did Nabokov, who remained in Berlin until 1937, adopt Lichberg's tale consciously? Or did the earlier tale exist for Nabokov as a hidden, unacknowledged memory? The history of literature is not without examples of this phenomenon, called cryptomnesia. Another hypothesis is that Nabokov, knowing Lichberg's tale perfectly well, had set himself to that art of quotation that Thomas Mann, himself a master of it, called “higher cribbing.” Literature has always been a crucible in which familiar themes are continually recast. Little of what we admire in Nabokov's Lolita is to be found in its predecessor; the former is in no way deducible from the latter. Still: did Nabokov consciously borrow and quote?
“When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty.” The line comes from Don Siegel's 1958 film noir, The Lineup, written by Stirling Silliphant. The film still haunts revival houses, likely thanks to Eli Wallach's blazing portrayal of a sociopathic hit man and to Siegel's long, sturdy auteurist career. Yet what were those words worth—to Siegel, or Silliphant, or their audience—in 1958? And again: what was the line worth when Bob Dylan heard it (presumably in some Greenwich Village repertory cinema), cleaned it up a little, and inserted it into “Absolutely Sweet Marie”? What are they worth now, to the culture at large?
[ More... ]

Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem @ Harper's Magazine
VIA Dot Dot Dot Fifteen

Caleb Larsen

2010-01-31T23:53:00.000+08:00

A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, 2008. Perpetual online auction, internet connection, custom programming and hardware, acrylic cube; 8 x 8 x 8 in.

Combining Robert Morris' Box With the Sound of Its Own Making with Baudrillard's writing on the art auction this sculpture exists in eternal transactional flux. It is a physical sculpture that is perptually attempting to auction itself on eBay.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.
Follow the current auction here: http://atooltodeceiveandslaughter.com/

$10,000 Sculpture (In Progress), 2009. Dollar bill acceptor, collected money; dimensions variable.

The $10,000 Sculpture (in progress) visually consists of a standard dollar bill acceptor found in soda and candy vending machines. This device has become a symbol of self-serve retail transactions. In this instance, it is installed seamlessly into a plain white wall with no clues to inform the viewer as to the nature of the piece. Nor does it suggest what might happen if they were to insert a dollar bill. The title is the only thing that provides any insight into conceptual workings.
The functional core of this work is that it is forever ‘in progress.’ The work exists primarily at the moment of contribution by the viewer. It is a continual charity, or more cynically, a form of panhandling. It asks for money, and offers nothing (by way of direct response) in return. The money that it accepts goes into a fund with a goal of $10,000.
This piece is accompanied by a contract which outlines the rules regarding the handling of the money it collects and the continued relationship between the artist and collector. The contract stipulates that the money collected by the piece does is not to affect the market value of the work. Meaning, the money is to be considered a material of the piece, not capital. Also, since the work is meant to always be “in progress” once the work has collected the total $10,000 the amount is to be split 50/50 between the artist and collector. Like the avaricious Sisyphus, the work is reaching towards a goal, only to be returned its starting point upon reaching the goal.

Caleb Larsen
VIA Today and Tomorrow

Richard Woods

2009-12-21T09:20:00.000+08:00

Super Tudor (Working Drawings), 2003.

Super Tudor (Before), 2003. Collection Adam Lindemann, Woodstock, New York.

Super Tudor (After), 2003. Collection Adam Lindemann, Woodstock, New York.

Richard Woods
Richard Woods @ Perry Rubenstein Gallery

Rashid Johnson

2009-12-20T17:19:00.000+08:00

The Pharaoh’s Garden, 2009. Plants, glass, shea butter, record player, wicker chair, space rocks, brass, vinyl; dimension variable.

Pyramid, 2009. Black soap, wax, vinyl, CB radio, brass, books, glass, spray paint, plants, wood, shea butter, space rocks, 133 x 194 x 10 in (337.8 x 492.8 x 25.4 cm).

While Johnson's gravitation toward some materials (shea butter, record covers, incense) seems to suggest specific signifiers or pop cultural references, he treats these merely as starting points, seeking to discover larger, even universal, themes that might be latent in their DNA. As a result, the selection of materials becomes the foundation of a personal cosmology that bears traces of its source materials while simultaneously transcending them.
This process is well illustrated by the sculptures, both wall-based and freestanding, that Johnson has equipped with working CB (community band) radios and/or steel and brass antenna-like constructions. Part reliquary, part painting, part assemblage, and part pirate radio station, and indebted to cultural figures as diverse as Carl Andre, Joseph Cornell, Eldridge Cleaver, and Eric Dolphy (the exhibition's title is drawn from Dolphy's 1960 album of the same name), these sculptures are representative of attempts to reach out into the unknown, to acknowledge the confines imposed by received notions of identity and thereby escape them.
[ More... ]

Rashid Johnson @ David Kordansky Gallery
Rashid Johnson @ Monique Meloche Gallery
Rashid Johnson @ Rental Gallery

Pedro Cabrita Reis

2009-12-14T19:10:00.000+08:00

Desenho, 2003. Steel and aluminum structures, wood frames, fluorescent light, and electrical cable; 197 x 257 x 168 cm.

Do you still love me? #2, 2004. Aluminium, glass, and fluorescent lamp; 90 x 163 x 66 cm.

Favorite Places #6, 2004. Aluminium, MDF, glass, wood, fluorescent lamps, and hardware; 250 x 121 x 130 cm.

Pedro Cabrita Reis

Roger Hiorns

2009-12-14T11:02:00.000+08:00

Copper Sulphate Chartres & Copper Sulphate Notre-Dame, 1996. Card constructions with copper sulphate chemical growth; mounted on glass and wood trestle table with Perspex cover underlit by two strip lights; 137 x 125 x 65 cm.

Vauxhall, 2003. Stainless steel, thistles, copper sulphate, rubber, velcro, silicone; 89.5 x 25.5 x 24.75 in.

Untitled, 2005. Glass, thistles, salt; 31 x 117 x 28 in.

Seizure, 2008.

British artist Roger Hiorns uses unusual materials to effect surprising transformations on found objects and urban situations. Fire emerges from storm drains, perfume permeates metal surfaces, and copper sulphate crystals colonise industrial objects.
SEIZURE was Hiorns’ most ambitious work to date and his first major sculptural project within an urban site, and it marked a radical shift in scale and context in his work. The artist encouraged the growth of an unexpected crystal form within a low-rise late-modernist development near the Elephant & Castle in south London.
75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution were pumped into the council flat to create a strangely beautiful and somewhat menacing crystalline growth on the walls, floor, ceiling and bath of this abandoned dwelling.
After the project opened, 151 - 189 Harper Rd became a site of pilgrimage. Every day hundreds of people made their way across the capital to this anonymous council flat near the Elephant & Castle.

Roger Hiorns/ SEIZURE @ Artangel
Roger Hiorns @ Turner Prize 2009
Roger Hiorns @ Corvi Mora
Roger Hiorns @ Marc Foxx
Roger Hiorns @ Saatchi Gallery

Marc Quinn

2009-11-28T17:21:00.000+08:00

Mountain (armchair) and Lake (table), 2008. Pure white marble from Carrara, 68 x 56 x 60 cm. Edition of 20.

Marc Quinn @ Carpenters Workshop Gallery
Marc Quinn @ White Cube

Matthew Brannon

2009-11-24T19:57:00.000+08:00

HYENA, 2006. Phonograph record & letterpress sleeve, 31.4 x 31.4 cm.

Matthew Brannon’s HYENA is presented as a vinyl LP atop a plinth. Illustrating the effectiveness of packaging over content, the object exudes a precious quality as product and collectable. The recording itself, however is much more sinister. Featuring a caged hyena at a Berlin zoo, the soundtrack captures a disturbing symphony of clattering metal, audience rumblings, and breaking bones, beneath an aria of the animal’s frantic bark-laughter. In this discrepancy between outward appearance and contained turmoil, Brannon creates a haunting analogy for tenuity of human experience.

Try and be Grateful, Installation at The Art Gallery of York University, 2007.

Stage [We’re writing a play. It starts with an orgy. With animals tearing each others guts out. With sound. Of breaking glass. Then it’s tedious, without direction. More boring than uncomfortable. For like another hour. There’s no satisfaction. No closure. No reward. You can leave after fifteen minutes. It’s called HYENA.], 2007. Wood, metal, leather, screenprint on canvas, screenprint on paper; 488 x 244 x 122 cm.

Matthew Brannon @ The Approach
Matthew Brannon @ The Saatchi Gallery
Matthew Brannon interviews Liam Gillick @ Interview

Becky Beasley

2009-11-22T09:11:00.000+08:00

Green Ream (G.C.L.A.), 2007. 500 sheets green US Letter paper, black American walnut veneer on paper, glue, cardboard; 29 x 23 x 7 cm. Unique (in a series of variations).

Sleep, Night (I), 2007. Black American Walnut, black glass, glue; 28 x 22 x 7.7 cm. Edition of 2+AP. Fabricated by Mixed Media, Berlin.

Sleep, Night (II), 2007. Black American Walnut, black glass, glue; 28 x 22 x 7.7 cm. Edition of 2+AP. Fabricated by Mixed Media, Berlin.

As I Lay Dying Darkly, 2006. B/W matt gelatin silver print, 58 x 69 cm. Edition of 3.

Becky Beasley
Becky Beasley @ Laura Bartlett Gallery
Becky Beasley @ Office Baroque

Oscar Tuazon

2009-09-15T11:03:00.000+08:00

I'd Rather Be Gone, 2007. Installation view: "Shooting Range" / "Wreck" / "Meeting Circle" / "Water Wall".

Water Wall, 2007. Concrete, newspaper, steel mesh, pvc pipes, water, wooden pallets, boards and beams, 8 x 24 x 26 cm. Edition of 1.

I'd Rather Be Gone, 2007. Installation view: "Shooting Range" / "Wreck" / "Meeting Circle".

1:1, 2007. Found melanin boards, duct tape, metal brackets and screws; 78 x 320 x 200 cm.

I'd Rather Be Gone, 2007. Installation view: "1765" / "Circa 1750" / "1758" / "1:1".

Oscar Tuazon @ Standard Gallery
Oscar Tuazon @ Castillo/Corrales Galerie
Oscar Tuazon @ Crisp
Oscar Tuazon @ Galerie Balice Hertling

Ben Schumacher

2009-08-10T11:18:00.000+08:00

0%, 2009. Tinsel, inflatable object, marble, hair, fluorescent lights, ball, water, image of a cat; dimensions unknown.

The question "What are the best objects to make a contemporary assemblage sculpture with?" was asked on Yahoo answers. Several answers were given and voted on.

username: ARGOBALLER, 2007-2009, 2009. Wood, neon, marble veneer; dimensions unknown.

Password (firesam) bought by the University of Dalhousie hockey team to brazzers.com porn site. The password circulated the school and eventually made it to Ontario before the account was shut down.

Ben Schumacher (Blogspot)

Chris Burden

2009-07-21T12:32:00.000+08:00

Samson, 1985. Turnstile, winch, worm gear, leather strap, jack, timbers, steel, steel plates; dimensions variable.

A museum installation consisting of a 100-ton jack connected to a gear box and a turnstile. The 100-ton jack pushes two large timbers against the bearing walls of the museum. Each visitor to the museum must pass through the turnstile in order to see the exhibition. Each input on the turnstile ever so slightly expands the jack, and ultimately if enough people visit the exhibition, SAMSON could theoretically destroy the building. Like a glacier, its powerful movement is imperceptible to the naked eye. This sculptural installation subverts the notion of the sanctity of the Museum (the shed that houses the art).

Chris Burden @ Zwirner & Wirth

Adam McEwen

2009-07-17T21:25:00.000+08:00

Untitled (Friedrich), 2007. Graphite, 19 x 26 x 2.5 in/ 48.3 x 66 x 6.4 cm. Edition of 3 + 2AP.

Installation View (L-R): One Concept (Body), One Concept (Wallet), One Concept (Metal), One Concept (Leather), One Concept (Embossed); 2007. C-prints, each work (framed): 32.75 x 6.25 x 1.5 in, 83.2 x 15.9 x 3.8 cm. Edition of 3 + 2AP.

Adam McEwen @ Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery
Adam McEwen @ Artware Editions
Adam McEwen @ Interview Magazine

Richard Roth

2009-07-16T22:03:00.000+08:00

Plywood Violin, 2008. Flashe on Birch plywood, 11 3/8 x 8 x 4 in.

Fire Chief, 1988. Acrylic on wood, fire extinguisher, 61.5 x 69.5 in.

Untitled, 1989. Paint on wall, painted steel, telephone, fire alarm, 36 x 30 in.

Richard Roth
Richard Roth @ Artware Editions

Petra Cortright

2009-07-13T13:55:00.000+08:00

Cold Landscape.

Landscape 5-15-05, 2005.

Gold Drip, 2009. Please click on image to see in its entirety.

New Media Artist Born 1986 Santa Barbara, California. Lives between California, Mexico, Tokyo, Berlin. Petra Cortright has studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She was a member of the Nasty Nets Internet Surfing Club and is currently a member of the Lodshadka Internet Surfing Club. She has exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum and the New Museum.

Petra Cortright
VIA VVORK

Steve Carr

2009-07-13T13:41:00.000+08:00

Oil Painting, 2006 - . Used pizza box, framed, 320 x 320 mm. Unlimited edition.

Oil Painting, 2006 - . Used pizza box, framed, 320 x 320 mm. Unlimited edition.

Oil Painting, 2006 - . Used pizza box, framed, 320 x 320 mm. Unlimited edition.

Oil Painting, 2006 - . Used pizza box, framed, 320 x 320 mm. Unlimited edition.

Steve Carr

Avant-Garde All the Time

2009-07-03T10:04:00.000+08:00

Poet Kenneth Goldsmith presents selections from UbuWeb, the learned and varietous online repository concerning concrete & sound poetry, experimental film, outsider art and all things avant-garde.

Giorno Poetry Systems (What did Patti Smith, Frank O'Hara, and Meredith Monk Have in Common?)
The World of Outsiders
The Sound of Aspen Magazine (The First "Three-dimensional" Magazine?)
The Tellus cassettes (Best Decade Ever?)
An UbuWeb Grab Bag (Schwitters Happens)
Politics As Unusal (Protest Poetry With a Beat)
Punk Versions of Monkey Chants and Other Ethnopoetic Marvels
The Sounds of Los Angeles in the 1970s and Beyond (Resident Voices)
...

UbuWeb
Poetry Foundation

Francis Cape

2009-06-29T17:32:00.000+08:00

Home Front (Installation view, Murray Guy), 2009.

Sideboard, Model 1c, Liberty, NY, 2009 from Home Front, 2009. Poplar, plywood, giclee print; sideboard: 33 x 48 x 18 in., photograph: 9 x 18 in.

I had always wanted to make the connection between what we so painfully saw of our society after Katrina, and my own community where I see the same poverty and social injustice just 2 hours from Wall Street. This work links examples of Utility Furniture, half built or half decayed, with photographs from my community - photographs that could be mistaken as being from New Orleans. The Utility Furniture Scheme, which ran in Britain from 1942 to 1951, was the last example of the link between furniture design and social idealism; a history that started with William Morris in Britain, continued with Bauhaus, then De Stijl, and was taken up in Scandinavia, before returning to Britain.
Design is no longer seen as part of a larger scheme for social improvement; the material itself is the end.

Two Pilasters and a Seat, 2004. Wood, paint; part one: 101 x 64 x 14 in., part two: 101 x 14 x 6 in., framed photographs: 13 x 10 in. ea.

Built for solo exhibition at Murray Guy, New York. The pilasters face each other across the room, seemingly supporting the beam above. The photographs are of a snow field taken from opposite sides.

Francis Cape
Francis Cape @ Murray Guy

Lisa Tan

2009-06-27T11:56:00.002+08:00

Moving A Mountain, 2008. Installation view: north wall.

Moving A Mountain, 2008. Installation view: south wall.

Moving A Mountain, 2008. Detail of painting from Mexico City.

Moving A Mountain, 2008. Detail of c-print of painting now in Mexico City.

It was the Day of the Dead, and the city was decorated with orange clusters of candles and marigolds. I took a walk down the Alameda to the Zocalo, and tried to find a restaurant my guidebook described as “inexplicably” decorated with pictures of mountains. I imagined an arrangement of several yellowing framed photographs, but when I found the address, it was closed.
It was after midnight, and I decided to return to my hotel, a modest colonial-style accommodation on Avenida Bol'var. When I closed the door behind me, I heard two lovers in the room above. One was sighing gracefully in a distinct rhythm. I took down my ponytail, began to undress, and then looked at a painting hung between the beds. I marveled at the sounds as I stared at the painting, a snow-capped mountain with a lake and a field of pink flowers. I mused at how the mountain exists with beautiful indifference. The residue of the evening mingled with the lovers above me, and I moved closer to the painting, closer to its peak.
Several months later, I decided to go back to Mexico City to take the painting, and replace it with another mountain—the one that I grew up with.

Lisa Tan
Lisa Tan @ Andreas Grimm Gallery
Lisa Tan @ This Long Century