Thanks Booooooom!, for faithfully bringing the beauty.
Author: arantxatxatxa
Just to Give You An Idea
Just saw this joyous collaboration of James Dawe and Fallon, wherein he has adorned their die cut cover of the re-printed One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich with his gleaming and exploding collage goodness. I was transported back to my first experience of the novel, during my eleventh summer: the summer of solitude and self-discovery. Solzhenitsyn’s depictions were so rich, I was romanticizing even *gruel*, hating Mom’s stew a little less when I was made to eat it. Now go check out Dawe’s stuff.
Decynicalize Here
Graeme needs to change the name of his website, as it excludes all of his work but the animation (the name excludes work, not the site – the site is fairly comprehensive). The animation was the first work of his that I saw, which would be the case for most people I would think, access to YouTube being much greater than access to galleries presenting his installations. Monkey and Deer, excerpted above, completely mesmerized me with its slow, quiet expressiveness emerging from a gorgeous and intricate model set.
I did not know that it was but one part of a larger body of work incorporating sculpture and robotics, inspired by the tiny Saskatchewan village of Woodrow, where Patterson’s grandfather had lived. Graeme actually moved to the town from his home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and created the work over three years.
I’ve meant to post about Patterson for some time, and his recent rocketride of profile known as the Sobey Art Award has been a constant reminder. His selection as a finalist for the award blasted away a good chunk of my cynicism about such things.
Overthunk, again
“How can an invitation to step onto a painting of a magic carpet, or throw a coin on to a painting of a wishing well create dialog about the social function of painting?”
This opens up a deep crevasse in my mind, separating my logical inclination to dismiss this idea as unrealistic, from my YAY FUN. I think this can be resolved by a simple (and familiar) self-admonishment: do not overthink, Sasu.
No, instead, just continue to gaze with pleasure upon her lovely works online, and hope for an opportunity to experience them sometime offline.
In Other Words, Smoking Helps
Hurrah, I have finally seen Elephant, Gus Van Sant’s award-winning 2003 film based on the Columbine school shootup. If I’d written this post last night, it would have been passionate, maybe all caps. I was a little stoned. Today, I am still inclined to post on it, but with the knowledge gained overnight that it hasn’t had the impact on me that I originally thought it had.
Strangely, I think both the immediate impact and its rapid dissipation come from the same feature of the film’s design: shallowness. Watching the slaughter of characters you’ve been getting to know for an hour or so is called Everynight TV, right? The reason you can yawn around between that and decorating and dancing shows, at the same time as you’re in IM on your laptop, is the artifice. You can recognize a Benz from the grill, and you can recognize a cop show from the music, cinematography and script cliches. You can only be so drawn into those stories, when you are constantly aware it’s Season 4 Episode 9. With Elephant, however, Van Sant presents you an unrecognizable scenario, in part by working improv with non-actors. But also by withholding dramatic devices which could be recognized as tropes: character arc, plot progression. The parts of your mind that normally turn off once they recognize the tropes, don’t turn off. You are observing more keenly. When the shit hits, you feel it more. Thing is, you developed no relationships, and you contemplated few or no concepts, so it doesn’t stay with you, like, in your heart. It stays in your brain as a masterful cinematic exercise, certainly. But you are untouched, ultimately, once the shock wears off.
And here is Gus Van Sant cutting the bugger on a FLATBED EDITOR. Divine.
The Pleasures of Owen Freeman
If you like what you see here (done for LA Weekly), you should build a schedule of regular visits to Owen Freeman’s site and/or blog, and be one step closer to true happiness.
Not Convinced They Come In That Colour
I imagine this Jonas Wood as a sort of compulsive painter, continually painting, unable to stop. I imagine this because the subject matter appears to be every detail of his surroundings, including basketball cards, stacks of stuff in rooms, and people in kitchens and so forth. And milk crates. But I don’t know.
Some of it reminds me of South Park.
Booooooom! sent me there.
Number Two…Number Two…Number Two…
Second verse Book City Jackets sweet as the first. These work on you from several angles: the nostalgia for that period of your life that also includes wet mittens, lunch ladies, and bullies. Er, no, not the bullies. Moving on to another angle: the aura of simplicity and authenticity that radiates from craft paper. And transcending all angles, the crazy dope artwork on these bad boys.
Featured above is Michael Hsiung’s “Betwixt a moment of adoration and obsession, the man is taken aback by the baby angora unicorns”. If you know what I mean. Other works this round by Cheeming Boey and Nishat Akhtar.
artists edition no. 2 « Book City Jackets — Make Every Book Beautiful.
F*ck Art School
A crushing reminder from The Cool Hunter that it is, as you feared, far too late for you to do anything worthwhile with your life. This stuff is the work of 19 year old, SELF TAUGHT Minjae Lee.
The King
© 2007 Olafur Eliasson, courtesy the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and neugerriemschneider
“No museum wants [a work involving] water on the fifth floor, right on top of a Picasso show.” Just came across this great interview with my hero Olafur Eliasson from a couple of years ago. Swoon.
Even More Legendary 
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