Tuesday, November 24, 2009

when sophie met marcel, or proust part 3

questions to ask yourself, or to let sophie calle and grégoire bouillier ask you...(as seen in Jacket 28, Oct 2005 )

When did you last die?
i die a little each night and am reborn in my dreams

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
love & coffee image is from here, lovely blog about food and love

What became of your childhood dreams?
I carry them in a pocket in my heart


What sets you apart from from everyone else?
dna, I suppose




What is missing from your life?
being close to the sea






Do you think that everyone can be an artist? nope - being artistic doesn't mean you have the drive or discipline to be an artist; producing bad work doesn't preclude you either. being a dilletante does, though.
bunnies >>
Mari Newman is showing a collection of works at MOBA. While many pieces were taken from dumpsters or found in abandoned buildings, Mari seems to have willingly submitted.
The Museum of Bad Art (MoBA) in the Dedham Community Theater . It's in the basement outside the men's bathroom, illuminated by a single fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling.

Where do you come from? the other side of the universe

Do you find your lot an enviable one? i’ve never thought about it, but having heard the question I wonder what someone else would have done with it.

What have you given up? my “youth"
What do you do with your money? buy fripparies
What household task gives you the most trouble?
what household tasks don't give me most trouble?
What are your favorite pleasures?
sleeping, laughing and loving
What would you like to receive for your birthday? time to unravel and sprawl
Cite three living artists whom you detest.
jeff koons, juan davila, gilbert & george. all yuck!









What do you stick up for?
myself, and a weird set of ethics and morals – recycling plastic, driving savviness, not being mean, painting elephants

What are you capable of refusing? various cuts of meat



What is the most fragile part of your body?
my mind
(illustration of/by david shrigley's mind...)









What has love made you capable of doing?
believing and trying
look at these billboards of love










What do other people reproach you for?
being late and forgetting






What does art do for you?
it makes me catch my breath, think and imagine - what i love most is that art is everywhere

Write your epitaph.
we just thought she was sleeping

In what form would you like to return?
a parrot








What do you wish you knew?At this moment, I wish I knew how to answer your questionnaire, even though it would not change things much if I could.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
In my studio there is a stuffed giraffe that I bought when my mother died, to replace her. Her name is Monique too, and she looks at me from on high with sadness and irony, just like my mother did. So in a way it is the image of my mother that keeps me company.
What was the first piece of art that mattered to you? What is your favourite title of an art work?
Why is it so easy to talk about my mother’s death and go absolutely blank when asked about a work of art that matters, or its title? I guess because I never ask myself that kind of question.
What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do? What should change? What music are you listening to? What are you reading? What is art for?
I should have been a secret agent: if I were secret enough no one would ask me what music I listen to, what books I read, or what art is for. I don’t like to answer questions. At the opening of the show, ‘Dislocations’, at New York’s MoMA in 1991, I was introduced for the first time to Louise Bourgeois. She told me, drily: ‘If you have any questions for me, ask my son.’ Out of irritation, I said: ‘I don’t have anything to ask you’. To which she replied: ‘Aren’t you the one who asks questions?’ Indeed. So here’s a questionnaire for you.

When did you last die? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What became of your childhood dreams? What sets you apart from everyone else? What is missing from your life? Do you think that everyone can be an artist? Where do you come from? Do you find your lot an enviable one? What have you given up? What do you do with your money? What household task gives you the most trouble? What are your favourite pleasures? What would you like to receive for your birthday? Cite three living artists whom you detest. What do you stick up for? What are you capable of refusing? What is the most fragile part of your body? What has love made you capable of doing? What do other people reproach you for? What does art do for you? Write your epitaph. In what form would you like to return?

I don’t think my mother would have chosen to return as a stuffed giraffe in the studio of her daughter, but she is dead.

Monday, November 23, 2009

i spy, or things are not always as they seem




mirage no 1
robert smithson at the museum of contemporary art (los angeles)
photo: mario anzuoni/reuters

good image!



and another, this time by photographer/street artist j.r. - his work in a rio favela, brazil
a photo pasted along a steep set of stairs in the favela morro da providencia as part of his ingoing 28mm: women project.
reviewed here

Monday, October 26, 2009

simple

it's important to keep things simple
keeping things simple doesn't mean you avoid the sophisticated, complex or complicated
i'm not sure what i mean by this, but it feels right to me

anyway, i've seen some things lately which have felt the right kind of "simple" to me








all of this, mural at bodega

these dots








this cityscape


this collage

















a very smart kind of business card,

Thursday, October 15, 2009

glorybox, or proust part 2

while idly wasting time online i found a "make a mosaic of me" thing online
you answer a list of questions (like rsvp or the proust questionnaire) and find pictures you like (suggested to plug your answer into flickr because then you get a weird collection of results, often completely unrelated to you answers which makes it "interesting")
and then you put these into a mosaicking machine

and then you get, well, supposedly: you in all your glory.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

okay i give up

have just looked at a blog by a 13 year old girl (unless this is one of the police set-ups, and the blogger is not 13 at all but a bored dyslexic 31 year old who needs a gimmick)
http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com/
it's funny, it's snazzy. i want to be cute as a drowned rat too. and rude to newspaper-people.

snap em up

just lately i've seen a few photo blogs that look at the world from a particular viewpoint

by theme
light + victory are two photographers on either side of the tasman, one in melbourne and surrounds, one in "rural new zealand".

some themes have been "orange", "words" and "three".

by geography
52 suburbs is a odyssey through sydney suburbs, one week one suburb but many photos. more than this, photos are presented as a diptych - the images hum against each other,

glimpses of cabramatta











and cronulla












i find this really special because this is what i try to do with my collages and, i guess, on my blog. a collection of ideas and images which (i hope) shimmy against each other, and produce thoughts and further ideas, rather than just being.
think, laugh, love. these are things i live by. i want to add create, inspire. then i reckon i'll be happy to think my work is done.

Monday, October 5, 2009

listing slightly

sometimes i find it hard to put my ideas or goals in motion
i need to motivate myself
over the years i've tried all sorts of ways
i made those foldy paper answer questions things (google searching tells me they're called chatterboxes or cootie catchers - yuck. i call them foldy paper answer questions things)
i like that the one pictured has "hedonism" as a choice. mine's nicer because it's made of pictures. however, it has no intrinsic use or purpose. it just is. it's an object i enjoyed making.
i also had a reward system going, using laminex colour swatches.

it didn't achieve anything, although i had lots of fun putting it together. deciding on rewards, finding images that matched the rewards

now i'm trying to put a 5 year plan in place. i'm trying not to be too soviet about it, naturally. no gulags or anything. although constructivist design is rather attractive.
and i am trying to introduce colour and various items of stationery as i try and conceptualise my goals and milestones.

i'm going more for thumb-tacks and coloured string, date stamps as well as some posh things, like a 5 year diary from moma
i'm sure good graphics and good design can help! suzy tuxen's lettering







lists can be pretty,
moon garden by mikala dwyer
a crazy world of words and pictures and actions and pictures
a crazy world of words and pictures and actions and pictures
and then there is the crazy world of infografics
showing you the answers to the important questions
like
and
WHO
is
the


there are also self-made graphs as part of the mycrocosm project,











of course i'm supposed to do exactly these kinds of graphs to track my blood sugar levels ... things get tricky for me when pretty becomes purposeful
other good infographics i've seen,
an animated red riding hood (oh i forgot how good this was!)

there's a whole world of diversionary, i mean motivational, tactics out there!

and let's not forget Christoph Niemann's wonderful monthly blog, abstract city - this one's about sleep