Chris Johanson, Encinitas Realization
This is my first movie. It’s a self-help film about individuality and what individuals pick and choose from society and culture to make our uniqueness. Although there is some tongue in cheek humor energy in the film, it is none the less about issues that I think are very serious and more than humorous. —Chris […]
5 Beekman Street
A peek inside the famed 5 Beekman Street building, the “Grey Gardens of downtown NYC.” According to Curbed.com, it sold for $64 million in April.
Tacita Dean, Fatigues
Currently on view at Documenta 13 (image via Contemporary Art Daily). Ex-Finance Building, Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany. June 6 – August 16, 2012 Tacita Dean has brought the mountains of Afghanistan to Kassel, filling a former banking hall with enormous, beautiful blackboard drawings. Some are near-empty, just turbid blackness; others are filled with moiling rapids and […]
Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings
One of the foremost artists of our day, Ellsworth Kelly (American, b. 1923) may be best known for his rigorous abstract painting, but he has made figurative drawings throughout his career, creating an extraordinary body of work that now spans six decades. There has never been a major museum exhibition dedicated exclusively to the plant […]
Constantin Brancusi, The Golden Bird
In other images Brancusi underscores his attachment to his works as almost living spirits, multiplying and animating their forms with shadows or double exposures, or arranging them in suggestive tableaus. In an especially tender image his sculpture “Little French Girl†seems to sidle up to a cuplike sculpture resting on an “Endless Column†fragment as […]
Tim Jackson: “Let’s Be Less Productive”
An interesting article in the NYT recently argues that we’re “hooked on growth.” An excerpt: At first, this may sound crazy; we’ve become so conditioned by the language of efficiency. But there are sectors of the economy where chasing productivity growth doesn’t make sense at all. Certain kinds of tasks rely inherently on the allocation […]
“Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974”
Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974Â is the first large-scale, historical-thematic exhibition to deal broadly with Land art, capturing the simultaneous impulse emergent in the 1960s to use the earth as an artistic medium and to locate works in remote sites far from familiar art contexts. Organized by MOCA Senior Curator Philipp Kaiser and […]
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Excellent Trailer for The Master
The Master is an upcoming drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. It was given the green-light in May 2011, and began filming in June. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Laura Dern. The plot involves a religion called “The Cause” which has been compared to Scientology. The Master is scheduled for release on October 12, 2012.[4] Read […]
Vera Lutter, Chephren and Cheops Pyramids, Giza: April 12, 2010
It is fascinating to me that these enormous buildings have been left alone and are in a natural state of deterioration within the magical landscape of the desert. —Vera Lutter
John Jeremiah Sullivan: “Always wanted to write about surfing”
From KQED: You’ve written about everything from Michael Jackson to Hurricane Katrina to touring with Guns ‘n’ Roses to an 18th-century German who worked to unite Native Americans against colonialism. Is there a subject you’ve always wanted to write about, but haven’t had the chance? John Jeremiah Sullivan: Always wanted to write about surfing. —Sullivan’s Pulphead was […]
Thad Ziolkowski: “April Is the Gnarliest Month”
From a very nice piece from the New York Times by Thad Ziolkowski: When I began surfing in New York in the mid 1990s, it was a seasonal sport, something done from late May until around Thanksgiving. Bowing to the cold each fall was hard, especially since the waves are often best at that time of […]
Land.
A short and compelling video about the pre-production of the feature film Land. here! “Taha sets out on an epic 600 km journey along the Moroccan Atlantic coast to Europe—on a windsurfboard. More about the film.
On Kawara, Pure Consciousness
In Pure Consciousness, a traveling exhibition initiated in 1998, Kawara lent seven Date paintings (January 1 to January 7, 1997) to kindergartens and schools in Madagascar, Australia, Bhutan, Ivory Coast, Columbia, Turkey, Japan, Finland, Iceland, Israel, and the United States. At all schools they hang in classrooms, bearing dates that fall within the lifespans of the children.[15] Kawara does […]
Fred Sandback, Conceptual Constructions
A highlight from this weekend’s Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island, from David Zwirner‘s booth: Thanks to Katie Holten for the image.
Brice Marden, Joined
Reflecting the light and landscape of Greece, these paintings feature vibrant colors and geometric compositions, which subtly incorporate each piece of marble’s natural variations. Marden’s earlier series of paintings on marble, completed over a six-year period between 1981 and 1987, played a principal role in the transition from his early monochromatic paintings to the later […]
Polly Apfelbaum, Flatterland Funkytown
I’m either trying to get to abstraction or beginning with it. There has always been a tension between those elements in my work. In the past few years, I have changed the way I work in my studio. I spend more time thinking about how to make the work and how to play with elements […]
Sheila Hicks, Demenageur
MS. LÉVI-STRAUSS: You do a lot with your hands. MS. HICKS: I’m working every day. Even if I don’t feel like working, I know that some people are coming to work today. I’ll go into the studio – I used to live right in the studio and just do whatever comes to mind. Just begin […]
We Are All Radioactive
We Are All Radioactive, a documentary series, tells the story of one seaside community’s efforts to rebuild in the wake of the 2011 disaster. Motoyoshi, a small town and surf spot about 100 miles from Fukushima, was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami, and now it’s unclear how damaging the effects of the Fukushima meltdown could be. We Are […]
THE END IS THERE
The short film THE END IS THERE began as a personal return on investment analysis of weekend summer surf in Montauk. Shot entirely on an iPhone, the footage catalogs the weekend waves at Ditch Plains Beach from Memorial Day to Labor Day, 2010. Within the course of the summer the project evolved into a video […]
Stacked
A short documentary on the 2011 Quiksilver Pro New York and local surf star, Balaram Stack. Coming soon! Interview with the filmmakers here.
A Sontag Sampler
From the New York Times: Art Is Boring Schopenhauer ranks boredom with “pain†as one of the twin evils of life. (Pain for have-nots, boredom for haves — it’s a question of affluence.) People say “it’s boring†— as if that were a final standard of appeal, and no work of art had the right […]
Tantra Song by Franck Andre Jamme
From a recent interview with Franck Andre Jamme for the Paris Review‘s blog: It could be a cult classic: the debut edition of Siglio Press’s Tantra Song one of the only books to survey the elusive tradition of abstract Tantric painting from Rajasthan, India sold out in a swift six weeks. Rendered by hand on found pieces […]
David Thorne & elysian
I recently interviewed artist and cook David Thorne about an event space and occasional restaurant he’s running in Los Angeles: elysian. His background includes farming in Vermont and working with the famed Bread and Puppet Theater, as well as participating in the Whitney Independent Study program and producing very interesting work with his wife Julia Meltzer (among […]
