Blog
Catherine Opie, Untitled #10 (Surfers), 2003, Chromogenic print, 50 x 40".
“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 installation at the Guggenheim. There’s a strong aesthetic identity and concern with formalism that travels through the different bodies of work. I’m working with diverging layers of what it means to be human in these different contexts.”
––Catherine Opie’s 500 Words for artforum.com.
Aug 08, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, Surfing | Comments Off on Catherine Opie, Untitled #10 (Surfers)
David Joseph for The New York Times
Ultra (Urban Long Term Research Area) scientists have found an interesting use for vacant urban lots—they study “bird and insect populations, watershed systems, soil nematodes and urban farming” in these abandoned areas. According to the Times, “Ultra-Ex advances a forward-looking mission: to document the ecological benefits that vacant lots might provide and to redefine the land, from neighborhood blight to community asset.” Pretty interesting idea.
Aug 05, 2011 | Categories: Nature, Random, Sustainability | Comments Off on Ultra-Ex
Don’t miss this moving documentary about a passionate group of citizens who are trying to stop Big Coal corporations in Appalachia. Still showing at theaters throughout the U.S. and available for purchase on DVD.
“The central front in the battle for America’s energy future, with enormous consequences for the health and economic prospects of every citizen, is the fight for Appalachian coal. In valleys and on mountaintops throughout the heart of the eastern seaboard, the coal industry detonates the explosive power of a Hiroshima bomb each and every week, shredding timeless landscape to bring coal wealth to a few, and leaving devastated communities and poisoned water to many. With politicians siding with their corporate donors, it falls to a rag tag army of local activists to stand alone for the welfare of their families, their heritage and for a principled and sound energy future. Our film is their film – the uplifting story of the power of ordinary citizens to remake the future when they have the determination and courage to do so.”– director Bill Haney
Aug 04, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, Sustainability | Comments Off on The Last Mountain
Paul Thek, Untitled Seascape 1970
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.
Aug 03, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, Random | Comments Off on Paul Thek, Untitled Seascape
There are only a handful of non-fiction surf books that I’m excited about and Surf Survival, the Surfer’s Health Handbook by Andrew Nathanson, Clayton Everline and Mark Renneker is one of them. The canon of essential surf books has long been missing a comprehensive resource to cover the myriad of potential threats surfers deal with on a daily basis. Surf Survival covers everything from the basics of how waves work to techniques to avoid injury in a tube riding wipe out. The writers are all MD’s and lifelong surfers (one is a big wave rider), so they are comfortable digging into discussions of rotator cuff injury, sun/skin issues and improvised backboards and collars to transport a surfer with a neck injury. My particular favorites were wound closure (including using dental floss for scalp wounds) and dealing with dislocations. They also pepper the book with gnarly real life stories illustrating their points. Last winter I was with a friend dealing with a super painful dislocated shoulder. We were miles and miles from any medical facility and facing a long ride on a bumpy dirt road in a car with no shocks that would have had him passing out from pain. Luckily another friend of mine with experience putting shoulders back in was there to help, but I couldn’t help thinking about what would have happened if it had just been me. Reading through Surf Survival I feel better prepared for that and a whole lot more.
Aug 02, 2011 | Categories: Costa Rica, Surfing, Travel | Comments Off on Surf Book Review
If in LA, don’t miss Lesley Vance’s solo show at David Kordansky Gallery. Closes August 13. Review here!
Lesley Vance, untitled, 2011, oil on linen, 14 x 12 inches
Aug 02, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, Random | Comments Off on Lesley Vance, Untitled
Artist Jason deCaires Taylor is a former scuba instructor who’s found a novel way to reduce tourists’ footprints on Caribbean coral reefs: create a new reef. Using marine-grade cement designed to foster coral growth, deCaires Taylor sculpted more than 400 life-size human figures and submerged them 30 feet underwater. The sculpture installation—strategically located near the popular resort city of Cancún, Mexico—has already been colonized by corals and more than 1000 different types of fish plus lobsters and other creatures. As an added benefit, tourists who opt to go see deCaire Taylor’s growing reef take some of the ecological burden off of the older, more delicate reefs nearby.
(more…)
Aug 01, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, Nature, Sustainability, Travel | Comments Off on Underwater Art Installation
Lawrence Weiner, Rocks Upon the Beach Sand Upon the Rocks , 1988, mixed media, dimensions variable
“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 sand and rocks as we enter a space inhabited by art.”
—MoMA
Jul 29, 2011 | Categories: Creative Culture, New York City, Random | Comments Off on Lawrence Weiner, Rocks Upon the Beach Sand Upon the Rocks
