nevermind the bricolage

Coupland

Douglas Coupland is a writer, or at least, he is principally known as a writer, but he is actually an artist, and art is what shapes his writing arc. His site is always full of interesting stuff, visually as well as textually. I spent some time going back over his New York Times blog recently, and the stuff he wrote on that blog still has some resonance. A particular piece he did on fashion, based on some design work he did for Viktor and Rolf, was quite brilliant. Like me, Coupland believes that fashion should be taken more seriously than it usually is, particularly by academics and those who spend a lot of time critiquing culture.
    I really like his take on most things, there is a wry sense of humour and social critique in most of the things he does. I liked the pieces he did as a homage to Jeff Koons and the Logo Security blankets--they say so much about our culture and our relationship with stuff--what consumerism and shopping offer us, or at least the illusion they offer.

Collage!!

Some pretty intense collage work from German artist Florian Kuhlmann. This piece is called, Dystopian Death Star.

Last Supper for the Laptop Generation

Leonardo Da Vinci's, Last Supper, is one of those iconic pieces of art that gets played with again and again over the years, as different artists play with its symbolism. I particularly liked Vik Muniz's chocolate version, executed a few years back as part of a series of pieces he did using chocolate as a medium. The latest person to explore the dynamics of Leonardo's piece is another favourite, film-maker Peter Greenaway. I have always enjoyed his films, and the complex ways he plays with signs and symbols. I have used The Pillow Book, my favourite film of his, many times in my advertising class when we have examined the way words becomes symbols and signs. He was recently allowed into the hallowed space that houses Da Vinci's masterpiece and used a host of lights, digital effects and other tools to transform the mural into a living work of art again. There is a small video of his work on The Guardian website.

Hanging in the Aisles

I don't know much about photographer Denis Darzacq, but I came across some really interesting work that he has done...(denis.darzacq.revue.com/)

The Biggest Drawing in the World

A GPS device, a briefcase, DHL shipping--what do you get? The biggest drawing in the world. A thesis project by Erik Nordenankar attempted to create a huge self-portrait by plotting co-ordinates on a map, the lines of the drawing created by the path the briefcase took around the world. Because of expense the project was only partially attempted, but the site (biggestdrawingintheworld.com) offers a glimpse of what it might look like were the project executed.

Youth In Asia

Rikki Kasso has a couple of really interesting sites, both exploring elements of life in Asia. He has produced a series of watercolours called, Youth In Asia, on kassoart.blogspot.com. There is a wistfulness about these pieces that I really like, they also seem to evoke a particular watercolour tradition that emerges from Japan.

If Hitler Had Been A Hippy...

Jake and Dinos strike again. White Cube Gallery has opened an exhibit of some new works by the ever-provocative Chapman brothers entitled, If Hitler Had Been A Hippy How Happy Would We Be? The brothers anonymously collected a number of watercolours made by Hitler and, in their words, 'annihilted' them by painting rainbows, butterflies and lovehearts, over Hitler's originals, which were largely landscapes. The work is an attempt to explore the ways in which we look at art, trying to make connections between what we see on canvas and the artist him/herself. Hitler's water-colours are not good, and they don't give much away about the artist. Jake Chapman says,"It's endemic to the way people read art, to look for something in a work that's an indicator of some kind of symptomatic trauma or a revelation of the artist's inner self, rather than trying to identify how the work works. When you look at the Hitler paintings you try to work out if this person was ill or mad or whether this is in some way axiomatic of someone who will go on to kill seven million people. [But] the drawings themselves aren't offensive.” I am sure the brothers will draw some ire for even attempting to deal with Hitler, but it's not the first time for them. The exhibit is open until July 12th, if I lived in London I think I would make it a point to go and check it out.

Untitled: Beneath The Roses

I first came across photographer Gregory Crewdson at a friend's house. A huge colour image of woman floating in a flooded suburban living room was my introduction to Crewdson's work. He was in a punk band before he was a photographer--the punk days are far behind him now as he has carved a pretty significant career for himself as both a photograhper and college professor, teaching the art. He creates large composites of small town life that are characterized by a disquieting feel. Twilight features heavily in much of his work--the half-light only adding to the strange, unsettling nature of the photos. They are large and feel flat, but somehow you are drawn into them--it's probably the nuanced details of life that most of us overlook--waiting at traffic lights, cars tracks in the snow, small tract homes, non-descript people-all of them put together in familiar scenarios of everyday life, but with a twist--shafts of light, like beams from alien craft, shoot down into unmown grass while a pregnant woman stands caught in some thought. A couple in the throws of naked sex, are found, not in the confines of a bedroom, but under a broken-down bridge--life in its ordinariness warped and twisted into a sort of fetishized realism. The photos are composites-Crewdson takes very calculated shots in specfic time slots--and that allows for the surrealist feel of the pieces. The Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills has a great show of Crewdson's latest works, which gave a nice twist to my afternoon, when I droped in to take a look.

Doctrinal Nourishment

There is an interesting exhibit at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) called, Art and Anarchism in the time of James Ensor. It is an examination of political art, or art that is loaded with political content in one form or another--revolutionary politics, revolutionary art. The influences of Dada, German Expressionism, symbolism and even surrealism came together in the work of James Ensor in profound ways. His most popular work, and one worth seeing if you get the chance (at the Getty), is Christ's Entry Into Brussels, a majestic portrayal of Christ, as socialist revolutionary, entering the city, surrounded by a massive crowd of colourful figures. Ensor mastered a new technique, using colour symbolically and infusing his works with immense style and commentary. This exhibition is full of political and religious commentary--true revolutionary art; challenging institutions, and, more importantly, the status quo.

Space Between Art And Life

Robert Raushenberg died today at age 82. One critic said that he mined the space between art and life, which I thought was a great space to put oneself. He mined pop culture, but in very different ways than his contemporaries like Warhol and Lichtenstein--he brought things together from the various trajectories of life, creating three-dimensional pieces that were at once timeless and immediate. I liked his stuff immensely and his works helped me to see the value in the everyday and the ways in which the spaces between disparate things can be mined to great effect.