I have long admired the art of Wayne White, whose art I first saw on the cover of Lambchop’s Nixon LP, but I had no idea until today that he did the voice of Mr. Kite and Randy on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, or that he directed the video for Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” (which holds up really well after 20-plus years).
(In case you’re wondering, he buys the paintings at thrift stores, then adds the text.) There’s no one good website for his work, so let Google be your friend.
The phrase “vintage ceramics blog” might not sound like the sexiest string of words ever uttered, but Bloesem, a blog written by a Dutch woman living in Kuala Lumpur, is a gorgeously curated and highly informative site about exactly that.
Students were given a stock IKEA Akurum wall cabinet, with which we were asked to create an interactive experience to “interact” with one or more of the jurors. We were given a week to conceive of, design and produce the piece.
I built a diorama of three apartments Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”. The audience member picked-up a video camera and peered into the rooms, doing so, triggered audio clips from the film’s samples of Jimmy Stewart’s character’s dialouge on the view into courtyard from his rear window. Output from the camera was displayed on a projection behind the cabinet…
Danny Lyon, an incredible photographer who has made unforgettable images of, among other things: biker gangs, Texas penitentiaries, the Civil Rights movement, and demolition in Lower Manhattan in the ’60s, recently came up with 10 suggestions for New York City.
#10: Tax incentives and cash rewards up to $10,000 for each person brought over from the Other Side. Any citizen who befriends a criminal, prostitute, or drug addict and/or pusher, and through that friendship, example, employment, or encouragement, makes that person into a useful and nonpredatory citizen, shall receive that amount. There is no limit on the number of people you can bring from the Other Side, nor the amount you can earn in this socially beneficial program. Good luck.
“Noguchi designed this playground for a portion of the United Nations complex on the East River in New York. The project was to be privately funded and located on property given a special international diplomatic designation. Nevertheless, Robert Moses (the authoritarian director of public works for the City of New York) was able to get the project canceled. Moses was Noguchi’s arch-nemisis in NYC having ridiculed his design for Play Mountain back in 1933. He continued to thwart any public park of Noguchi’s design from ever being constructed in New York. I believe Moses criticized this design as ‘dangerous’ and little more than a ‘rabbit warren’.”
British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster make sculptures that are unremarkable in and of themselves, but which cast amazing realistic shadows onto gallery walls. This first piece is “Dirty White Trash (With Gulls)”, composed from the artist’s rubbish from the six months it took to create piece (plus a pair of dead seagulls, for good measure).
“Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height of its summit above sea level. In May 2005, artist Xu Zhen led an ascent on Everest, and succeeded in removing the summit of the mountain, reducing its height by 186cm, Xu Zhen’s own height. The summit of the Mount Everest has been touring art exhibits throughout the world ever since.”
“Seripop are 2 people who make prints , record covers , books and , illustrations and other things in Montreal Canada.” They have a ton of great stuff on their website, including fine art prints (super cheap, incidentally), but I really like their posters for rock shows best. The integrating and coding of useful information into the brain-melting design work cracks me up and fascinates me.
“Mouna Andraos was showing her Power Cart in the streets of Williamsburg [over the weekend], offering alternative power to passersby in need of charging their mobile phone. The mobile unit is inspired by street vendors, knife sharpeners from India, refills of gas in Africa, fake Gucci bags in Paris and chair massages in New York, the Power Cart looks and feels like another service for the city of today. Where ever you might be in the world, hail the Power Car for a quick fix. The Power Car owner will turn the crank for you and get the electricity you need, one minute of cranking at a time. With a little help from the solar panel.”
This week I had the great pleasure of seeing New York-via-Seattle artist Reggie Watts perform here in Portland. (I liked his show so much that I scrapped my plans for the following night and caught him twice.) A classically trained musician, a brilliant improv artist, a stand-up comedian (of sorts), and an astounding beatboxer and vocalist, Watts defies any easy categorization, and was truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. This clip of a fairly recent performance from Seattle hardly scratches the surface of his bizarre, hilarious beauty, but it gives a bit of an idea of his range. (Be sure to stick with the video at least until the 2:00 mark.)
British artist Dash MacDonald recently performed “In Your Hands, ” in which audeince members control a pair of roller skates strapped to the artist’s feet. The piece is inspired by the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments (which have been coming up an awful lot lately), which were designed to see how abusive people would be to one another when given the authority to do so. (The answer—even more than you’d guess.) But just how cruel can you be to a hapless guy on a pair of roller skates? (Probably even more than you’d guess.)
“In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the cover of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and other surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each page while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose a book’s hidden, fragmented memory. The completed pieces expose new relationships of a book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.”
My ceramic landscapes create new endings for the cartoon drama of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. In the cartoon, the coyote’s rudimentary traps backfire. His efforts to catch the bird are always for naught. In my “Death Scenes”, the traps succeed forcing the drama to end with the total destruction of the roadrunner.
“Death Scene: The Roadrunner is Struck Down by a Fifth of Bumble Bees”
“Death Scene: the Roadrunner, Trapped in a Camouflaged Pot Hole, is Eaten”
“Death Scene: While Enjoying a Cliff-top View, the Roadrunner’s Throat is Chewed Through”
