Distracted

Abrasive, Offensive, and Heretical

/ arantxatxatxa

reclining-dude-150x150tricycle-150x150dickheads-150x150

l-r: Reclining Dude, lithograph; Tricycle #1, torn steel and chain; Duelling Dickheads, acrylic transfer.

And now to get off the roundablog of art-of-the-moment, and share a little rearview of Peter Walker. Walker was born in London, England, but grew up and studied primarily in western Canada, before switching coasts to practice and teach in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Walker has worked in painting, lithography, photography, drawing and sculpture for over forty years. The work is in private and public collections, including that of the National Gallery of Canada. Walker’s work has often been controversial, as it goes to the places we are taught not to go in polite discourse, such as sexuality and religion. Read more courtesy The Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Mount Saint Vincent University Gallery, and the artist’s own site. Or just hang out, offended and abraded, with the images here. The tricycle works, by the way.

The Veils Sashay

/ arantxatxatxa

RDEST_PocketStorms4_8

Pocket Storms 4, Aleksandra Rdest, 2009

Aleksandra Rdest has been blogged almost as much as Alex Prager lately. That shouldn’t stop me from prettying up my stream with her work, though, should it? Tip: do visit the artist statement, as it reads like this looks.

ALEKSANDRA RDEST.

Gaelic For Time

/ sasukakir

All is forgiven, Netdiver. How can I stay mad at you for stealing so much of my time this morning, when it is this very theft which is responsible for my improvement through knowing Emilia Forstreuter?

And maybe I left the doors open on that time anyway. After all, your link to Forstreuter’s work was only to her Vimeo, and I had to click around all on my own in order to experience the mindblow of her full site.

Anyway, now I am in post-discovery wonderment. Such fertility and diversity at age 27 – what esteem should accrue to Braunschweig University, to the U of Dundee, to the parents, to destiny? And of course my perpetual wonder: is she nice?

I think she probably is, because one of the things she created is a series of idents and bumpers for a made-up tv station that “wants to be a peaceful haven amidst the television jungle”. She calls it àm, which is Gaelic for time. Here it is. Oh, and lest I replicate Netdiver’s omission of the rest, here is her site.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1651090&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

àm //ident dancer from Emilia on Vimeo.

When Heavy Is Beautiful

/ arantxatxatxa

Meant to post this earlier, but Christmas chaos has diminished my efficiency. The Inspiration Room has featured the arresting work of Seven Meters in Copenhagen, including some commentary by founder Jens Galschiot.  Their grim and dramatic statues were installed around the city for the COP 15 Summit on Climate Change. Much of the work deals with the issue of climate-driven displacement.

Copenhagen Statues by Seven Meters.