Unread items (10)

we make money not art

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  Book review: Going Public - Public Architecture, Urbanism and Interventions

  Posted: 26-May-2013, 2:37pm EDT by Regine

  

  Ranging from bold to subtle and from temporary to permanent, the architecture and urban design featured in Going Public offers inspiring and surprising interpretations of our public surroundings and natural landscapes continue

  

  

Remix Theory

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  Copyright Law Chart Worth Looking Over

  Posted: 25-May-2013, 11:56pm EDT by navasse

  

  Graphic by Ben Jackson and Chris Ritter as credited on Buzzfeed

  The chart above was posted on Buzzfeed back in October of 2012. It was linked to an article titled “Why Remix Culture Needs New Copyright Laws.” The article revisits many of the issues that are still prevalent in 2013 in terms of remix. One would expect major changes at this stage of media production, especially with social media, but the chart reminds independent media producers that there is much work that needs to be done.

ionarts

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  John Adams Residency, Day 3

  Posted: 25-May-2013, 6:58pm EDT by Charles T. Downey

  Adams, Son of Chamber Symphony, ICE, J. Adams (2011) [REVIEW] John Adams has not done himself any favors during his residency this week at the Library of Congress. In his programming of the first three concerts, he has put his own music up against the titans of the 20th century: Béla Bartók and Leo? Janá?ek for Road Movies, and last night it was Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg sandwiching
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  In Brief: Rite of What Edition

  Posted: 26-May-2013, 2:59pm EDT by Charles T. Downey

  Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.) Now you know what to do with your day off tomorrow. Philippe Herreweghe conducts four Bach cantatas (BWV 73, 44, 48, and 109) plus the motet Komm, Jesu, komm (Johann

e-flux shows

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  Daniel Gustav Cramer

  Fetched: 26-May-2013, 6:33pm EDT

  This summer La Kunsthalle Mulhouse will host Daniel Gustav Cramer's first solo exhibition in France, Ten Works. The exhibition is part of a series, in which each show is titled by the amount of works exhibited. Between various kinds of artworks, including photographs, texts, book works, paper works and sculptures, almost all on display for the first time, this exhibition transports the spectator into a poetic universe and a space-time, which continually focusses on the nature of memory as a way to question and relate to one's individual place.
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  Joana Vasconcelos

  Fetched: 26-May-2013, 6:33pm EDT

  For Portugal's participation in the 55th International Art Exhibition ? la Biennale di Venezia, the artist Joana Vasconcelos (born in 1971) is presenting Trafaria Praia, a project in which a cacilheiro, or Lisbon ferryboat, is transformed into a floating pavilion and artwork. The Trafaria Praia is moored next to the Giardini's vaporetto stop and sails around the Venice lagoon at regular intervals daily. During the preview and also on June 1, the Trafaria Praia hosts a series of public programs related to Portuguese culture.
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  Openings in Graz, Austria: Summer 2013

  Fetched: 26-May-2013, 6:33pm EDT

  The artistic practice of Doris Piwonka is a prime example of painting that is cognisant of one's own historical conditions, but also of the present-day situation. Moreover, it stands for the pursuit of a discourse on contemporary painting, which is asserted with faith in the renewable, aesthetic, and visual energies inherent to the medium. In Piwonka's first institutional solo exhibition, held at the Künstlerhaus KM? in Graz, an exemplary selection of paintings from several work complexes and creative periods will be on show, extending beyond a purely formal interest in painterly matters.
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  Film as Sculpture, Jef Geys / Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian & ReSiDuE

  Fetched: 26-May-2013, 6:33pm EDT

  While film is typically thought of as being essentially moving and immaterial, an infinitely reproducible collection of fleeting images and flickering light, sculpture, almost by definition, is a solid, obdurate thing, nothing if not the literal attempt to give form to matter. This group show investigates these seemingly opposing mediums and the growing interest among a group of young international artists to think through the specificities of sculpture and film by creating hybrid objects that respond to, inhabit and question both traditions at once.

artblog

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  DVD Review ? Fold Crumple Crush ? The Art of El Anatsui

  Posted: 26-May-2013, 1:19am EDT by dashiell farewell

  “Fold, Crumple, Crush” is a quiet, charming documentary directed by Susan Vogel examining the life and work of Ghanaian-Nigerian artist El Anatsui. The film begins at the 2007 Venice Biennial where Anatsui is overseeing the construction of an exhibit of his work. Vogel then follows Anatsui to his home in Nigeria, gaining insights into the artist and his art from his colleagues at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, his assistants in his workshop, and from the man himself. Over the course of the film, we learn of Anatsui’s evolution as an artist, from paintings, to sculptures made from clay and great blocks and chainsawed wood, to his current medium, crushed bottle caps collected from distillers in Nsukka. We also come to know Anatsui as quietly intense, private, and modest yet exacting individual. Vogel is an unobtrusive presence throughout, interspersing shots of Anatsui’s work with talking-head interview segments.

  

  A portrait of El Anatsui inspecting his work

  Anatsui’s art is monumental and unique

  Anatsui’s pieces are monumental, multi-hued, dynamic tapestries. Early scenes at in Venice show the artist overseeing the installation of his work with rigorous exactitude, only grudgingly approving the many folds and contours the work takes on as it is manipulated by a crew of workers. If the footage here is any indication, however, the final result is well worth the effort.

  Anatsui’s pieces, when displayed, are simultaneously architectural in their contours and precision, sculptural in their texture and multidimensionality, painterly in their use of color and light, and reminiscent of traditional North African textile work. The pieces also have an incredible tactile quality; throughout the film we hear tens of thousands of caps clacking, crinkling, and jangling together as they are constructed, folded, and unfurled.

  The fact that the film does a terrific job of capturing these many elements is perhaps its most successful attribute.

  

  One of Anatsui’s completed pieces

  Anatsui hopes to engage with history with his art

  At first glance, Anatsui’s vibrant tapestries crafted from re-purposed cultural detritus might seem like Pop Art, but the pieces do not possess the garish kitsch and unsubtle irony one might expect from that genre. Similarly, although one might be tempted to look at Anatsui’s medium and find in his art an implicit commentary on capitalism or consumerism, or even a pro-environmentalist agenda, in the artist’s mind his work is not engaged with the political in that way. Instead, Anatsui seems most interested in something subtler and, arguably, more profound: the idea that his current medium contains history within it.

  In Anatsui’s own words, he prefers “working with things that have been used before. Things which link people together. When you touch something you leave a charge and anybody else touching it connects with you in a way.” Anatsui seems is interested in the medium itself perhaps as much as the resulting piece of art.

  Oil paints and hunks of clay are not embedded in history in the way that objects that were experienced and engaged with by others are. These lived objects have a quality to them that materials made for art itself necessarily lack, and thus are inherently fascinating and uniquely powerful.

  

  At the Venice Biennial

  Anatsui’s art is rigorously and meticulously crafted

  Following Venice, Vogel travels with Anatsui to Nigeria, where the artist lives and constructs his art. We first see him visiting local distillers and markets to collect thousands of used caps, and then follow him to his workshop. These latter scenes are the most engaging in the film. We see the artist’s dozens of young assistants, all local men, processing the caps with one of several methods developed by Anatsui, including the three which give this film its title – folding, crumpling, and crushing – before they are woven by hand into 10×25 panels. The work is laborious and repetitive, completed with simple hand-tools, and takes countless hours. Anatsui proves himself to be a demanding, exacting boss. He inspects each panel of caps by hand and, according to one of his assistants, pays his workers according to the quality of their work. If a piece isn’t correctly formed, or isn’t flexible enough, Anatsui refuses to use it. The artist then begins the painstaking process of laying out hundreds of these panels, gradually turning them into his monumental tapestries.

  Anatsui spends two to three months testing various configurations of panels, his workers hauling pieces from one spot to another while Anatsui, pacing and scrutinizing the results from every angle, methodically issues orders. Anatsui does not sketch or plan his works beforehand, instead reconfiguring the vibrant panels on the floor of his workshop endlessly until he is completely satisfied with the result. This allows the pieces to develop more organically and let the artist remain continually engaged with the materials during construction. In Anatsui’s words, ?drawings make you a slave [to your preconceived plans].”

  

  In Anatsui’s Studio

  Anatsui is stoic, even mysterious. His colleagues and workers know little about him and only rarely see him display emotion. Speaking to Vogel, Anatsui is more open than he is those he works with, filling in details on his upbringing and personal life. These moments are most informative when Anatsui explains that, because he does not have children of his own, he often thinks of his artwork fulfilling that role in his life. This, perhaps, explains his perfectionism and exactitude. For Anatsui, his art is his life.

  

  Anatsui inspects a piece hung in his workshop

  Susan Vogel’s film may not be the most engrossing or educational documentary, but it is largely successful at offering insight into this uniquely talented artist’s process. “Fold, Crumple, Crush” is brief yet engaging, and well worth watching for fans of Anatsui, or those interested in discovering a new, unqiue artistic voice from a part of the world all too often neglected by the Western art establishment.

  “Fold, Crumple Crush – The Art of El Anatusi” is available for purchase from Icarus Films and Amazon.com

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  The 8th annual Trenton Avenue Arts Festival and the Kensington kinetic sculpture derby ? An essay in photos

  Posted: 26-May-2013, 1:24am EDT by roman blazic

  The Trenton Avenue Arts Festival and Kinetic Sculpture Derby is one of Kensington?s prime cultural events. On May 18th, the festivities paraded through the streets to the delight of residents and visitors alike. Families and friends gathered on the sidewalks and in front of their houses, block after block, to watch the Sculpture Derby and enjoy the day.

  

  

  

  This year, the crowds in the neighborhood far exceeded those that came out in previous years. The festival, organized by the East Kensington Neighbors Association, was excellent as always, providing a venue for local artists, artisans, groups like The Friends of Penn Treaty Park, and a wide selection of food and beverage. In addition, Fishtown?s Kenneth W. Milano, historian and author, had a book signing for his sixth historical narrative of Kensington and Fishtown.

   

  

  

  This year’s festival was full of life, vigor, and activity, and truly offered something for everyone.

  

  

  

  

  Additional photos of the day’s events can be found here.

  ?All photos by Roman Blazic. Roman is the second of three generations to participate in the arts: photography, songwriting, musical performance and Esperanto Haiku. Roman is a Board Member of the Friends of Penn Treaty Park and an active supporter of the Fishtown art scene. He also contributes photographs to the local community groups and newspapers.