Merce Cunningham, Beach Birds For Camera
Beach Birds For Camera, 1992 (a 35mm film directed by Elliot Caplan) First Performed: New York, New York; Dec 1991 Music: John Cage Design: Marsha Skinner Dancers: Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Tacita Dean, The Green Ray
TD: In America they call it the green flash. When the sun sets, in a very clear horizon, with no land mass for many hundreds of miles, and no moisture or atmospheric pressure, you have a good chance of seeing it. The slowest ray is the blue ray, which comes across as green when the […]
Charles and Ray Eames in India
A photograph of the living room of the Eames house in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles has proven rather puzzling to historians of design. It depicts the famous Case Study House as full of exotic collectibles. Hopi kachina dolls, seashells, craft objects, silk textiles from Nepal and Thailand, and elaborately patterned rugs from […]
Yayoi Kusama, The Atlantic Ocean
MIDORI: Do you dream these landscapes? YAYOI:Â I always see these landscapes in my dreams, and feel happy. I desperately try to transform these dreams into artwork, so that even while napping, I construct and reconstruct various images. —Yayoi Kusama in Index, 1998.
Dan Torop, Ocean
Ocean overview (brief) from Dan Torop on Vimeo. I’ve worked on the digital Ocean since 2000. It is a real-time, physics based, interactive manifestation of the ocean. I was spending a lot of time out at the ocean, photographing the waves. It was sublime. But, apparently, also determined by the laws of physics? So I researched a […]
Hannah Whitaker, Dome
Consisting of 42 acres, Bear Island is part of a small archipelago in East Penobscot Bay, about 11 miles east of Camden. Along with forests and fields, the island has a dock and several traditional New England wood frame buildings. Though Buckminister Fuller once built a 21-foot tensegrity dome that was recently reconstructed, none of […]
Roni Horn, no title
Some Thames is literally the idea of a finite thing having an infinite range of appearance or expression because of its inseparable relation to other things, which is what water is — its relation to other things. When I look at water I’m entering into an event of relation. Rather than an object, water becomes […]
Lee Lozano, Wave Series
“Now I realize that the wave series must be kept private, within the studio, to be available only to those people I like enough to invite over, or those who have the chutzpah to come uninvited. Make another kind of art for the outside world.†––Lee Lozano on her “Wave” Series, April 3, 1969.
Catherine Opie, Untitled #10 (Surfers)
“I’m a multidimensional person—I don’t have a singular identity. I’m not just Cathy Opie the leather-dyke artist. I’m Cathy Opie the person who’s interested in cities, architecture, landscape, my family. People say, ‘Your work is so diverse,’ but it’s actually not that diverse when you take a broad look or when you walk through this […]
Paul Thek, Untitled Seascape
Also, if in LA then there’s still time to see the best show of the year (so far)—Paul Thek’s retrospective. It’s on view at the Hammer Museum until August 28.
Lesley Vance, Untitled
If in LA, don’t miss Lesley Vance’s solo show at David Kordansky Gallery. Closes August 13. Review here!
Lawrence Weiner, Rocks Upon the Beach Sand Upon the Rocks
“Weiner’s medium is language. As a Conceptual artist his constructions of words and phrases seek to affect our perception of the spaces they are presented in. In appearance the language used by the artist is plain and neutral. In effect, however, this particular piece is quite evocative—the artist invites us to imagine ourselves surrounded by […]
Agnes Martin, Falling Blue
“When people go to the ocean, they like to see it all day. . . . There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall. It’s a simple experience, you become lighter and lighter in weight, and you wouldn’t want anything else. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a […]
Mark Wyse, Surfers
“Sentimental†is a word I don’t feel comfortable acknowledging. I prefer “naïve,†“absorbed,†“impressionistic,†anything except “sentimental.†I tend to defend against it by intellectualizing my desires. When making a mix-tape for someone you don’t have to deal with your conscience beating down on you. What better gift is there than what two lovers might […]
Mary Heilmann, Surfing on Acid
“I came to New York expecting to align myself with the sculptors, like Smithson. . . . I thought I would be part of that gang. Of course, that doesn’t happen so easily. I wasn’t invited into the Smithson/Serra gang. So I switched my practice rather vocally to painting, because they all hated painting.†—Mary […]
Raymond Pettibon, No Title (Some things…)
“I don’t think I’ve ever done an image that was meant to be reoccurring in the beginning. What happens is that after drawing one you can’t leave them. They have more to say to you. In a way it can take on a life of its own. I guess people probably think that these are […]
A Short Review of Jeff Divine’s New Book
A short review of Jeff Divine’s Surfing Photographs from the Eighties Taken by Jeff Devine in the summer issue of Bookforum.
Trisha Donnelly, Untitled
A black-and-white photo affixed directly to the wall. A white border frames the image of a rock jutting out of water. Waves eddying around its base suggest it is an ocean rock. The rock rises from the left, descends, rises even higher to a peak, descends deeply, then rises and plateaus creating a slightly rounded […]
Vija Celmins, Untitled (Big Sea #1)
“It is about the huge, lonely patience that is fundamental to art that is not based upon the parading of self. Miss Celmins does not wish to present herself as  ‘amusing’ or ‘brilliant’ or ‘inventive.’ ” She can do all those things, and she did them to great effect when she first came to notice […]
