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 […]
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.
Free play
Derrida: The concept of structure itself — I say in passing — is no longer satisfactory to describe that game. How to define a structure? Structure should be centered. But this center can be either thought, as it was classically, like a creator or being or a fixed and natural place; or also as a […]
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 […]
Here, again
Hyppolite: They [i.e. the natural sciences] are like an image of the problems which we, in turn, put to ourselves. With Einstein, for example, we see the end of a kind of privilege of empiric evidence. And in that connection we see a constant appear, a constant which is a combination of space-time, which does […]
Shattered Debris, Sheer Transformation
Creating domestic environments from found objects, resin, latex, lights, and her unique expressionistic process of shattering and re-forming glass, artist Hu Bing’s site-specific installation ‘Shattered Debris, Sheer Transformation’ is now on display at the Flatiron Prow Art Space on the ground floor of the Flatiron Building.
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 […]
Frank Stella – Black Paintings
Perhaps this is to be expected. Art is not a science; it does not proceed in a neat, linear progression. Artists often circle back, picking up ideas that their predecessors left undeveloped and trying to push them further…The titles tend toward exotic if not downright flashy. ‘Averroes’ and ‘Avicenna’ are named for Arab philosophers (of […]
Frieze Debut in NYC
Frieze New York brings the famed British contemporary art fair to US soil for the first time starting tomorrow. It will take place on Randall’s Island from May 4-7 and will feature approximately 170 international galleries. More details and tickets here.
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 […]
Mark Grotjan—Untitled (Blue Painting Light to Dark VI) 2006
Q: One of the things I heard over and over again in your catalogue Q&A with Gary Garrels was how important being in front of actual art objects is for you, that being in the museum and around art is a real motivator for you. Mark Grotjahn: Yeah. It’s like the difference between seeing people […]
Nikky Finney
It’s National Poetry Month. If you haven’t taken time to read a poem this month, here’s a lovely piece by 2011 National Book Award winner, Nikky Finney, reading a from her book Head Off & Split.
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 […]
Not so the traveler
Angels & Demons, Nosara, Costa Rica, 2011, by Arthur Ou [A]nother important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.—Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
Surfrider Film Contest
How can you capture something as valuable as water in 3 seconds? Surfrider asked their supporters to do just that in super short films. More than 160 people sent in films from all over the planet (France, South Africa, Australia, Romania…). Surfrider edited the three-second clips together and added music by Zee Avi. See the […]
James Welling, Torso 3
So too in Welling’s photogram series Torsos (2005–08) do complexities manifest. He cut screening, of the same type used for windows, to follow bodily contours and placed them on chromogenic paper before exposing them. Folded, curled, and billowing up from the paper ground, the wavy-edged mesh scraps produce lushly variegated passages while also revealing an obdurate materiality […]
West Oz 2012
Summer Solstice from Rick Rifici on Vimeo. For your viewing pleasure from Australia. Pro surfer Taj Burrow makes it look so easy.
Silence
Fish Scales, Nosara, Costa, Rica, 2011, by Arthur Ou There is a way to master silence Control its curves, inhabit its dark corners And listen to the hiss of time outside. — Paul Bowles
“Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series”
What’s striking is the way they record the mysterious and unquenchable activity of an artist at work in his studio. In precisely the years when Diebenkorn was making the Ocean Park paintings, art busted out of what had become an admittedly airless and confining realm. The work from a new era characterized by experimental and […]
Francesca Woodman
Don’t miss the first comprehensive survey of Francesca Woodman’s extraordinary photographs to be seen in the United States. Opening today at the Guggenheim until June 13.
Begin at the horizons
Birds, Nosara, Costa Rica, 2011, by Arthur Ou A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a […]
Pina
Wim Wenders ode to the late German choreographer Pina Bausch deserves all the praise it’s gotten and then some. Enjoy the 3-d experience on the big screen while you still can.
