An inexhaustible well
Rocks, Nosara, Costa Rica, 2011 Arthur Ou Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It’s that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an […]
Anne Truitt, Summer 96
Truitt would later distill these places, events and memories into her work. She believed experiences—particularly difficult or painful ones—were “the ground out of which art grows,†as she said in her oral history interview. “People talk as if art were something that you did with your eyes and your brain, but it’s not. It’s something […]
The Independent
Another great opportunity to see lots of new pieces in one space this weekend. “In its third incarnation, the Independent, perhaps New York’s most exclusive, self-consciously hip contemporary-art fair, continues to disdain that term. Once more, it calls itself a ‘temporary exhibition forum,’ as if it were some kind of seminar. It is, however, more […]
Mary Heilmann talks about “Visions, Waves & Roadsâ€
THE WAVES have always been in my life and work. My father was a bodysurfer and as a kid I would join him on the beach in San Francisco. I have a very early memory of watching him in the huge, crashing, cold surf. Whenever I’m in the Bay Area, I go to the beach and […]
The Armory Show NYC
It’s that time again. Artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world have descended on NYC for the largest contemporary art fair in New York. If you’re in the Big Apple head over to Pier 92 & 94 for The Armory Show starting March 8 or check out the other events happening […]
Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost
The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water. Water is colorless, shallow water […]
Lydia Davis on Joan Mitchell’s Les Bluets
I start with the fact that Les Bluets (The cornflowers) is the painting I think of first when I think of one that has had particular significance in my life. Then I have to figure out why. I am not even certain that Les Bluets was the actual painting I saw. What I did see […]
Valérie Buess
Swiss-born artist, Valérie Buess, gives old books new life by creating these amazing three-dimensional sculptures that look like sea creatures.
Mikael Kennedy
…there was a moment, sometime in 2002 or 2003 when I was sitting by the sea, up on an island off the coast of New Hampshire when I realized I could make my life into anything I wanted, that I could choose my reality. That was when I put myself fully into this, that I […]
Robert Smithson, Mirror and Crushed Shells
On July 9, 1969 Robert Smithson wrote the following letter to Andy Warhol about Mirror and Crushed Shells: Dear Andy, This is to certify that the Mirror with Crushed Shells (Sanibel Island) is an original work of art. It consists of three mirrors which may be restored if broken, and one burlap bag of crushed shells collected by the artist at Sanibel […]
Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
In German, to be blue—blau sein—means to be drunk. Delerium tremens used to be called the “blue devils†(Burns, 1787.) In England “the blue hour†is happy hour at the pub. Joan Mitchell—abstract painter of the first order, American expatriate living on Monet’s property in France, dedicated chromophile and drunk, possessor of a famously nasty tongue, and […]
Skyspace
This is actually my last post on this blog so I’m gonna go out in style with one of my favorite artists, James Turrell. If you still want more awesomeness you can always follow me on twitter @lundhansen.
Anonymous Tantra Painter, Shiva Linga, 2002
I have noticed in the Tantric works how the simplicity of their conventional, geometric forms is complemented by the infinite complexity of their particular execution: water stains, flaws in the handmade paper, fragments of unrelated text combine to make each work not only unique but somehow perfect. These images would clearly not have the same […]
Sunsets by Ann Woo
Minimalistic photographs by the Chinese artist Ann Woo. See more of her work at annwoo.com
Happy Valentine’s Day
In honor of Valentine’s Day, a cool card from Byvik Ink studio in California. Illustrator Cristina Martinez Byvik has created several surf-themed cards for many occasions; they are hand-printed on an 1890’s Chandler & Price platen press.
Michael Krebber, astrorock
It seems Michael Krebber has been on a raw foods diet, or maybe some plan of specific separation, Kosher or macrobiotic-style. Here he took a group of mainly German-made (who knew?) windsurfing boards, and made a group photo, seven boards lined up like brahs. Then he made a poster, folded it up, and hid it […]
Blue Falling
Whenever someone, who isn’t familiar with my work asks me what kind of photos I take, I tell them if you take the everyday things people do in nudism, think of the way models looks in the 1960′s and 1970′s vintage pornography, and mix that with the suspended action of sports photography, then you can […]
Into the rainforest
A little video I did with Erik Gustafsson and Deborah Moss for a Costa Rican rainforest ecolodge called Lapa Rios.
Kay Rosen, Tide
“When it comes to reading my work, throw out all the rules you ever learned: spelling, spacing, capitalization, margins, linear reading, composition…all your old reading habits will be useless.” —Kay Rosen
Bantam Cruiserboards
The first ever skateboards was invented in California by surfers who tried to bring surfing to land. By adding small wheels to a wooden board they sort of simulated the feeling of standing on a surfboard catching a wave, but on land. Globe has now gone back to that time and created a line of […]
Mierle Laderman Ukeles at the 2011 Creative Time Summit
As the artist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Sanitation since 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles orchestrates public projects that raise awareness about urban maintenance systems and the workers who sustain the urban environment.—Creative Time
Flotsam & Jetsam
Pam Longobardi creates art with plastic objects collected on beaches. Her work reveals just how big our oceans’ plastic problem has become.
The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
Listening to this song in the dead of winter comes close to being immersed in surf waters.
Doug Wheeler, SA MI 75 DZ NY 12
Arguably more so than any other Light and Space artist Mr. Wheeler has made the quest to create a sense of absence — to enable people to perceive space and light in ways they normally cannot — a primary obsession. And his explorations of it were deeply influential in the formation of the loose movement […]
