Photo by Axel Tafener
First up, some eye candy! You may have heard about Tom Fruin and his proposed stained glass house installation - well it's finally up, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Pretty!
Speaking of eye candy, there's a group show (Ky Anderson, Meg Lipke and Vicki Sher) called "Paper Giants" at Proto Gallery in Hoboken. The Curating Contemporary Art Blog has kindly provided us with many, beautiful photos for those of who cannot attend in person. I find these works very affecting, even through just photos. Find them here
Over at the Great God Pan Is Dead, artist Robert Boyd has "discovered" (much like Columbus discovered America) fiber art and quilts. He has provided some beautiful examples and offers interesting (and amusing) commentary and theories as to how some of them were created. (I don't mean that in a mean way. It's rather sweet if you look past the condescension.) You can find that Here
My favourite subject: is "street art" art? Huffington Post asks the question in the light of recent events in Detroit. Artists were commissioned there to combat urban blight by painting murals on building and fences, but the police didn't get the memo... check that out here
More on street art here - this article talks street art as personal expression, but also touches on why I am so fond of it - not only for the beauty of it, but because street art is so often, also social commentary. It can really give insight into the pulse of a local culture, and even, sometimes, a country.
Speaking of social commentary - this isn't really art (?); but Elana Adler has reclaimed her body, body image and personhood, by embroidering catcalls she's received here There's another woman who is embroidering mean comments people leave on her blog, she calls it "adorabalizing the hate" here
An art project you can take up this winter, if you have access to a: snow, and b: wide open spaces - inspiration here
Here's an article from CNN about Iris Halmshaw, a five year old autistic girl, who seems to be shaping up to be quite a fine painter in the manner of the Impressionists. She's already selling for more than I do! ;) Read about Ms. Halmshaw here, and watch a video of her at work here
A 40,000 year-old rock stencil and associated cave paintings in Indonesia have proven that humans have been painting for a LOT longer than we had previously known. Having painters, artisans and crafters amongst your people indicates wealth - if you're scrabbling to survive, you don't have time to make pretty things, only utilitarian things - indicating that in this early modern human group at least, they had wealth and appreciation for art. (Which doesn't always go hand and hand in modern times!) Anyway, read the article and watch the video that here.
FRANKENFURRIES. That's all I'm saying. here
Feeling a little stressed? These childhood art techniques can relieve it!
And that's it!
Have a great weekend!
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Great links! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts! First, thank you so much for sharing your links! I'm exposed to so much wonderful art I wouldn't come across otherwise. I know it takes time to curate and find them and I'm grateful that you take time to pass them on.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I was especially drawn in by the Paper Giants exhibit. I'm going to have to look up more information about that, but one of the things I was especially attracted to was the paper itself. That is, many of the pieces were left as simply hanging sheets, with no need to try to obscure what they were by complicated mounting and framing, and in fact the curl and wave of the paper add another layer of texture to the work. I'm drawn to that as a quilt artist, since I'm always worrying about whether the occasional wavy or not quite straight edge make my pieces less professional or not as acceptable or whatever, while instead maybe I should embrace things like that as features of the medium I've chosen.
Finally, I was a bit troubled by the Robert Boyd piece. Obviously its great that someone new to the medium has come to appreciate quilt art, and of course there's not much point in being bothered by someone's opinion post, especially when I think (as you indicate) the net benefit is positive and educational. However, a couple things specifically felt "icky" to me. One is the idea that a formal art education is a distinguishing feature of artists vs. folk artists which seems a bit arbitrary, exclusive and not necessarily tied to the actual differences (whatever those may be) between fine art and folk art. Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the immediate and automatic assumption that one of the first pieces should have been some other medium, with later points such as the fact that the artist identified as a quilter and that the use of quilting as a medium lent puffiness to the piece coming across as justification for a secondary choice, rather than a genuine exploration of why someone might have selected that medium to begin with. Overall the tone felt like someone surprised (and thus a bit patronizing) to find art made out of stitched fabric. Obviously I bring my own biases to this, and its never safe to interpret too much tone into other's writing, so grain of salt with my opinions too!
Anyhow, thanks again for sharing all the great links!
You're welcome.
DeleteRe: Paper Giants - yes, that's part of what I found so attractive about those pieces as well
and re Robert Boyd - yes - that's why I was "amused" by his discovery of us. It was totally patronizing and what I would expect of a contemporary artist with a fine arts education just "discovering" that fiber artists exist. lol Rather like Columbus i.e.: "Wow, look! The Natives are totes making art by accident! Aren't they clever?!"
You have to be amused by that crap or else you'd be in a holy dudgeon about it all the damn time, because - if you're like me, and you read a lot of fine art and contemporary art blogs - the overwhelming majority of them are patronizing at best, dismissive at worst, of fiber art, if they even deign to mention it.
That said, I agree with everything you said - it's not jus you. ;)
I've missed the Friday links and really appreciate both the effort you make to find them and to share them. Thank you.
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