Aferro Studios

found

2012-01-25T21:12:00.001-05:00

These drawings have accumulated and gathered in my studio.

The 1st set_FULL VIDEO: THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 2nd set)_PART 1 of 2

2012-01-22T21:13:00.001-05:00

THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 2nd set)_PART 1 of 2 from Jomar Statkun on Vimeo.

The 2nd set_FULL VIDEO: THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 2nd set)_PART 2 of 2

2012-01-22T21:09:00.003-05:00

THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 2nd set)_PART 2 of 2 from Jomar Statkun on Vimeo.

2012-01-19T12:09:00.007-05:00

Sidewalk Alchemy News

I wanted to give an update as to the current state of the Sidewalk Alchemy series that I had begun while in residence last year. I’ve continued to work on and develop this project for close to a year after the residency has ended and the images below show various large and smaller scale iterations of the project, which involves using photography to document random patterns created by chewing gum on Newark’s sidewalks, re-examining familiar and overlooked relationships between social interactions and physical spaces. Gold leaf has been applied by hand, to each print, bringing attention to the less visible chewing gum remnants—memorializing these varied and complex examples of collective mark-making.

Also I wanted to share a link to an art related radio show broadcast on WVKR, the radio station out of Vassar College. I had an opportunity to meet up The Dead Hare Radio Hour co-hosts Chris Albert and Matthew Slaats, during the taping of episodes 27 and 29, to discuss some of the ideas behind the Sidewalk Alchemy Project begun at Gallery Aferro. Podcast episodes can be accessed online at: http://deadhareradiohour.com/

Chewing gum patterns, horizontal sidewalk joints, and gold leaf. 5 feet x 10 feet

Chewing gum patterns, vertical sidewalk joints, and gold leaf. 5 feet x 10 feet

Chewing gum patterns, diagonal sidewalk joints, and gold leaf. 5 feet x 10 feet

Framed series with diagonals. 22 inches x 55 inches

Framed series with horizontals and verticals. 22 inches x 55 inches

An installation detail.

An installation shot from my studio in Beacon.

Know your rights!

2012-01-15T14:26:00.003-05:00

From the ACLU: photographer's rights. Because it is often sort of hard in NJ to avoid photographing something connected with infrastructure, even if you're not trying to.

3 minute spot_THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - first set)

2012-01-13T12:34:00.003-05:00

3 minute spot_THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - first set) from Jomar Statkun on Vimeo.

THE CHINESE PAINTING:

A Distinguishable Moment within an Infinitesimal

Increment in a Variable

1. An original abstract oil on canvas is

painted by the artist Jomar Statkun.

2. A photograph is taken of the abstract painting

using an image analyzing program. The program

analyzes the abstract painting and tries to find

its image on the internet.

3. As the program naturally cannot find

the exact image of the abstract painting, it

proposes similar images based on color,

composition, texture, and other visual data.

4. These proposed images are collected along

with their accompanying websites.

5. A selection of the proposed images are then

emailed to an oil painting reproduction factory

in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, China. There

the proposed images are made into hand

painted oil on canvas reproductions.

6. These oil on canvas reproductions are then

collected and photographed. They are then made

into black and white halftone images for

silkscreen printing.

7. In addition to being printed, these halftone

images are imported into a program that

converts images into sound.

8. The artist Jomar Statkun acts as MC and

manipulates the sound.

9. Invited performers interact with the sound.

10. The viewer is welcome to take pictures of the

hand painted oil on canvas reproductions and

to have their own made by the oil painting

factory in China.

(www.oilpaintingproducer.com)

FULL VIDEO: THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 1st set)_PART 1 of 2

2012-01-13T12:29:00.002-05:00

THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 1st set)_PART 1 of 2 from Jomar Statkun on Vimeo.

FULL VIDEO: THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 1st set)_PART 2 of 2

2012-01-13T12:28:00.002-05:00

THE CHINESE PAINTING (performance - 1st set)_PART 2 of 2 from Jomar Statkun on Vimeo.

2012-01-13T10:03:00.001-05:00

For me, the creative process mirrors nature. There is always an experience of the cycle of renewal and destruction, a connection to environment, impermanence, and cause and effect. Here, I have the opportunity to explore this process in an undefined space, directly on the walls and floors with charcoal.

Read the comments too

2012-01-04T22:22:00.001-05:00

An interesting article on the culture of borrowing (and the Richard Prince case)

Out of the mouth of babes...

2011-12-30T17:44:00.002-05:00

intensification of intensity

2011-12-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

As my personal landscapes became unattainable to me, the studio work became offensives in emergency retrieval of memories to prevent their further disappearance. So I’m counting on photography, video and animation to assist in salvaging bits and pieces of scenes, things and sounds that define these landscapes the most. There are people like me for whom places possess and emit an intensity that is sensate, emotional, and for some, perhaps philosophical, political. Implicating media into this studio project is a furious intensification of this intensity.

11/28 studio shares

2011-11-27T16:49:00.002-05:00

It was really nice to participate in today's studio visits and see what everyone is working on. Ken's inner lives of paintings, Katrina's constellations/projections, Vikki's states of change and layers, Marci's story in a jar and peeled landscapes, Nell's grisage, my blackouts. Everyone is working very differently but I think it's really interesting that right now we're all working with ideas of transparency/opaqueness/layers/ghost images. Hmmm...

I'll raise you one...

2011-11-14T21:10:00.005-05:00

Over the past weekend I was out in the New York City attempting street photography. I was on my way to China Town when I randomly stumbled onto a building where these people were playing strip poker; hey it is the city after all I thought.

I didn’t notice what was going on but I began snapping photographs of the crowd in front of me. What really attracted me at first were the curious faces of the public. There was a large crowd of people who were all staring into this building. There was a lot of curiosity to what was going on as all of these people were innocent pedestrians. I quickly took advantage of this moment and continued photographing all the reactions of the public crowd.

Each person there had a different reason for staring into these large opened windows. Most of them were plain dumbfounded as to why these men and women were naked while others were there for simple enjoyment. What I loved was the different types of people I saw and their reactions. Since this was New York City, there was a bunch of different types of people. Everyone had something different to say about themselves and what was going on. Even the passing cars driving the road noticed the event beyond these opened windows, some even yelled out their windows.

Among the crowd was Courtenay Finn, who explained to me that she knew these people playing strip poker. She explained to me that this is performance piece by Zefrey Throwell, and Courtenay is the curator. The people who were playing strip poker were friends of Zefrey and Courtenay and they are apart of the exhibition titled I’ll raise you one.

I’ll raise you one is a continuous strip poker game through opened windows. The game is held inside Art in General’s storefront, transforming it into this public absurdity where anyone is allowed to engage with voyeuristic freedom. After each game ends, everyone redresses and another game begins. This ritual is performed through out the workday from 10:30 am to 06:00pm daily. Anyone can view this exhibition through out this week until the 19^th be sure to check it out, I was lucky enough to run into it myself, oh and I saw Jake Gyllenhaal walking about too! Great weekend.

http://www.artingeneral.org/exhibitions/518

I’ll raise you one…

November 12 – November 19
10:30am-6:00pm Daily
Art in General storefront Project Space

79 Walker St. New York City

Photos by Kevin Hau.

Gallery Aferro, Closing Reception and Open Doors

2011-11-11T16:46:00.034-05:00

Tonic for Aphasia

2011-10-28T22:01:00.004-04:00

I'm afraid of aphasia. The act of listmaking is a tonic, affirming: I can think, I can write. While lists can sum up fears (bills, tasks, cons/pros) the act of writing itself nonetheless always works for me as a more primitive summing up of things: I can think, I can gather my thoughts (sane.)

Running for the hills!

2011-10-28T15:16:00.004-04:00

(from left to right)
Emma Wilcox, Evonne Davis, Katrina Bello, Kylie Lefkowitz, Dahlia Elsayed, Marcy Chevali.

This has been a very exciting experience interning for Gallery Aferro. I have been interning for three weeks now and I am happy to say that everything is going well. I have been working with a lot of different artist already, many of which I quickly became friends with.

I first heard about Gallery Aferro through my school at Mason Gross, School of The Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. I didn’t really know what to expect but I felt that Gallery Aferros’ internship in Social Media could really benefit me in my field. I have always appreciated art and over the years I have developed a visual arts background and continued with a concentration in design as a B.F.A undergraduate.

A lot of the work I do for Gallery Aferro involves the management of their Facebook updates, tweets on Twitter and uploads on YouTube. I occasionally post blog entries too as you can see! I have worked well before with video editing and my experience in design has really helped my work at Gallery Aferro. They seem to react strongly to my work and I appreciate the real world experience they offer me. I have been working really hard to be apart of this world and finally everything is coming together in this internship.

I work along side a man named Danny DeLiberato, who like myself is a Social Media intern at Aferro. Together we tackle all sorts of different projects our superiors want us to push out for their Gallery. He is an incredible asset to Gallery Aferro and a strong person to work with. Our first big project was the closing reception here at Gallery Aferro. Danny was able to put together a LIVE-POD-CAST of the performing art work done by Irvin Morazan.

Irvin Morazan performed an amazing ritualistic performing during the closing ceremony at Gallery Aferro. People all over the world were able to live stream his performance, which everyone was ecstatic about. I don’t want to give away too much in this post since we are working on his footage right now and that in itself will be a whole new post but we really excited with the video and how successful the live stream became. Irvin mentioned that his girl friend, who wasn’t able to make it to his performance that night, actually pulled over at a gas station and watched the live stream through her cell phone!

The night itself was really fun, I been wanting this for a long time and it is only going to get better. I met a ton of interesting people that night, and if I missed anyone you can always contact me! I am always happy to make new friends and look forward into meeting everyone who is interested in the arts.

Definitely keep up with our online channels; we will be pushing out a lot of work during our internship at Gallery Aferro. Many of the new friends I have made are studio residents at Gallery Aferro. I am very interested in interviewing the artist and everyone can get a better grasp of who everyone is soon.

Hope everyone enjoys our future post and video uploads!

My name is Kevin Hau, Facebook me!

Hyperallergic! Born this Way! Actual Artists Seen Within!

2011-10-21T13:51:00.004-04:00

Dahlia Elsayed studio, from Hyperallergic

I was at a breakfast yesterday for arts and cultural organizations and Essex County elected officials at the Newark Museum's (awesome) Ballantine Room. I fear, and hate to think that I may have sounded as if I was being sarcastic, but with total and naked sincerity, I invited everyone to come to the gallery tomorrow, Saturday October 22, from 11-6 to meet the resident artists. Actual, living artists, who come in various genders, color, sizes, ages and temperments. Who have bills, jobs, sometimes kids, who drink the same coffee as other folks, drive the same roads...So now I may be being a bit sarcastic, but my point is that while sometimes being an artist means veering wildly off other life trajectories or otherwise being "different", we are not some tribe apart, and that a good place to start arts planning would be talking with some artists about Newark, and their experiences of the city. I mean this with total sincerity. Part of the values behind our education offerings at Aferro such as tours and Identity Blueprint are to demystify "what an artist looks like," and hopefully model that an artist can look like anyone. The residency is urban and open 24/7 to help make it accessible to all kinds of people, all kinds of people who are artists.

As with many issues, many of us begin to care about the arts either because we are artists (duh), or because we have kids who are creative. Many Gallery Aferro supporters have told me that they invest in the arts, volunteer, etc because their kids may end up growing up to be artists. A wonderful NJVLA lawyer who helped Aferro years ago told me that he volunteers his services because his child's drawings are at his desk, reminding him that, um, as they say, you're born this way. Parents the world over have learned that you can discourage the kid, but more often than not, you can't take the desire out of them. They will just keep painting/drawing/etc.

Anyway, please visit the studios tomorrow. The ENTIRE BUILDING will be open from basement to the 4th floor, and there is so much to do and see. And, yes, actual live artists will be there.

Live Stream of Irvin Morazan's Back to Brick City 8 PM Tonight

2011-10-21T13:48:00.003-04:00

What are you doing tomorrow? Go to the Closing Reception and Performance by Irvin Morazan

2011-10-20T17:25:00.001-04:00

Please join us for the closing reception of Personal Effects, Scabs, Bandages and Skeletons: Caroline Mak, Barbara Wallace: Facts and Figures, and GlassRoots: Collaborations with Matter on October 21, 7-10 PM.

At 8:00PM there will be a special performance , "Back to Brick City" by Irvin Morazan.

Feel free to investigate the exhibits and come enjoy the performance.

Personal Effects:
Personal Effects is a sprawling exhibition presenting the idiosyncratic, street art based collection of photographer Eric Wolfe, and featuring works by more than 65 international artists including SWOON, Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Faile, Bast, Kara Walker, Brian Eno, Claes Oldenburg and Anna Gaskell.

Scabs, Bandages and Skeletons:Caroline Mak:
By performing and enacting a series of repetitive transformative actions – whether it is painstakingly braiding and knotting length of tubing, or tearing and gnawing through slabs of foam – through the physicality of my actions, I bestow upon the material an ability to further decay, multiply or spread beyond its original confines. The systems that emerge in my installations contain references to disciplines ranging from topography, biology and the decorative arts. Natural processes are translated, reflected and re-created in my installations. In the process of construction, systems become apparent in the spaces they are assigned to, each self-contained worlds with their own inherent logic.

Barbara Wallace: Facts and Figures:
Sculptor Barbara Wallace’s spare, confrontational installation in the Liminal Space consists of two large scale sculptures representing the full-sized figures of a man and a woman, and a series of sculpted portrait heads based on the individuals from the artist's inner circle. The works are created in the faux-bronze technique that Wallace has mastered

GlassRoots: Collaborations with Matter:
Gallery Aferro and GlassRoots are proud to unveil an exhibition that includes works created by young artists, teaching artists and artist friends of GlassRoots. The exhibition takes inspiration from the three states of matter. At its most elementary level, matter is anything that takes up space. The states of matter refers to the three classical states that matter can take- gas, liquid and solid. Through a highly collaborative process, the works on exhibit represent the artists’ attempt to interpret and reflect the unique qualities of glass and its ability to be transformed into expressions of themselves in one or more of these states.

If you can't make it to Newark Irvin Morzan's performance will be streamed LIVE at 7:45pm. All you have to do is click the link below and Gallery Aferro will be streaming live on your computer. Don't miss out on any of the Closing Reception!
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gallery-aferro

2011-10-19T17:53:00.002-04:00

New Work/Newark

Jomar Statkun/Nadja Frank

Number two pencils.

2011-10-15T15:45:00.004-04:00

Scabs, Bandages and Skeletons by Caroline Mak.

Among her pieces shown, the one titled “Peeled”, which consist of used pencil shavings, ask the reason of why was this done. It shows the previous life of the pencil as if an object had a life but how does an inanimate object have a life?

It is greatly interesting to see the pieces of the pencil shavings being put back together to create the new discombobulated Frankenstein creation of what it once was however. The visual design the line of each layer creates is very textural and snake like in appearance. This was definitely one of my favorite pieces.

I have always enjoyed artwork that is interesting and fundamentally interactive. Caroline’s art work captured me as the viewer in its space. The way everything was set allows me to be physically be immersed within their world.

Each of the pieces shown were set in a way where they were separate functional works of art that made you step around or through them which I highly enjoyed. I have always found that sculpture is not always just meant to be seen from one point of view but the entirety of it. It was great to understand the spatial structure of her work which in corporates the objects around them.

There were a wide variety of different techniques used by Caroline. On top of the series of sculptural objects she recorded a video of her work showing the futility and tediousness of her process. That in-it-self feels more of what she was going after.

“I attempt to show the absurdity and futility of my repair & reconstruction process, but ultimately creating a whimsical and humorous collection of objects that also speaks to the materiality of many of our second hand and discarded objects.” – Carol Mak

I agree perfectly with her description of her work. In an instant I noticed many of her materials used and related them to what I knew. I found a lot of it to be uplifting.

The show is still going on until October 23’rd, be sure to check it out.

-Kevin Hau, Social Media Intern @ Gallery Aferro

X

2011-09-30T21:50:00.002-04:00

This is for the perfectly timed X theme...
X performing in Asbury Park, sounding amazing.

the body is our tool/wanting to see it

2011-09-30T18:41:00.004-04:00

Ballet dancer Sarah Lamb on Degas. I like how she notices imperfect dance pose but acknowledges the possibility of either a changing art form or a tired dancer.

Wanting to see it:

I sometimes want to see representations of artists on film, and often am irritated with what I find. As with other subcultures (forgive the use of this term please) I think we sometimes embrace so-so movies because they at least represent us. (I can practically hear John Waters saying, and why should want that from the mainstream anyway???) What most of my students are exposed to are the music biopics, ie Ray, Cash, etc. Going back a bit further, Coal Miner's Daughter is a guilty pleasure. In all, the trajectory is tidied for maximum plot arc.

Specific to my medium, I'm always looking for good depictions of 4x5 photographers. And if for the purpose of this post we exclude both the super obscure and the documentary, where do the large format artists show up in the mainstream? I have to say, at least Jude Law's psychotic photographer character in The Road to Perdition was using his gear correctly.

Can anyone think of depictions of artists on film, dead on, terrible, or otherwise?

1 pm, 9/25/2011

2011-09-26T08:40:00.000-04:00

1st group crit by the Fall/Spring 2011-12 Studio Residents

Agnes Martin Letter

2011-09-24T16:32:00.003-04:00

This letter is on display at Pace in the Agnes Martin Grey Paintings show.

the text reads:

Dear Arnold:

I have only one worry in the world! It is that my paintings will show downtown and fail there. They will fail because they are non-aggressive – they are not even outgoing – in a competitive environment, with big displays of aggressive artwork.

With the dark paintings it was not bad because they do have some “force.” I did not get one compliment on that show, however!

The competitive environment is made by the huge audience of mostly young (ambitious) painters that are “making” the “scene!”

The “art scene” is really a lot of words put out by journalists. With its changing trends it bears very little relation to ART defined as part of the structure of social human life. I particularly do not want to be on the art scene. If you come on with the scene you go off with the scene. I want to stay away from it. It is downtown with these young artists. They are not like the students who do not yet think of “the market.” They are really wild.

I am deeply concerned about this. What I want is so far from the downtown scene, just a little room, just a few paintings contemplated quietly. Unaggressive paintings* unaggressive showings – just the opposite. It worked well in the past. Hoping you agree with me.

Agnes

PS: * for unaggressive collectors

Fervor

2011-09-21T11:36:00.000-04:00

Faith exists in a vacuum. It’s the invisible we see, the nothingness we grasp, the silences that sing to us in all this terrible emptiness.

The Word became flesh to take on the sins of the world - - -and somehow complicated things a little. Jesus Christ was a ghost in a shell, a human embodiment of the divine. But he also embodied a schism - - - supernatural/natural, body/soul, spirit/flesh. His physicality became the seeable, the graspable, the audible. The corporeal made corporal. And everything made in his image and in his name gains this totemic charge - - -the statuaries and rosaries and holy oils. But it’s not as if Catholicism is riven by all these polarities, more like it feeds off them, it’s faith as talisman and ritual - - - visceral, theatrical, sensory. And tactile - - -there’s this mania for the tactile. Something to touch and be touched by, if you will, manifested in this almost hysteric exuberance, this mad ecstatic frenzy. It’s as if the commune between human and divine had taken on a tinge of the carnal.

Who knows where devotion ends and hysteria begins - - -and is there a difference between the two? But could there be more than just some pidgin iteration of faith here? More than just blind fealty? Could there be,perhaps, a genuine and deep-seated longing? Touch these facsimiles of divinity and something happens - - - a transfer of energies, a crackle of transcendence, a brush with divinity itself. In their profound hollows exist vacuums, after all. These vacuums that are the muck of insatiable mysteries. Imagine what awaits anyone tapping into them. What invisibilities we’ll see, what nothingness we’ll grasp, what silences will sing to us.

Fervor: A Study of the Black Nazarene, 2009-2011

a collaboration by Katrina Bello (video) and Dodo Dayao (text)

lane cooper: somnibus

2011-09-21T08:32:00.002-04:00

in the interests of sharing ...

one of my various projects ...

somnibus

an ongoing anthology of oneiric poetry ...

Hive Culture

2011-09-17T13:27:00.000-04:00

This show looks great, and features alumni Anonda Bell.

what they ask

2011-09-17T13:21:00.004-04:00

People are always asking artists about real estate. If I start talking about this I'm going to have to talk about Richard Florida, and I'm not up for that today. But I'm happy to share this interview with alumnus Walter Zimmerman.

"The challenges, I think, arise not from the locale, but from larger cultural biases, prejudices and misconceptions about art and art-making. I call it the Van Gogh model — the idea that artists are unstable and that their art is a product of that instability. To the contrary, I think art is a manifestation of great mental and physical vigor and coordination, and I find making art to be a grounding, sanity-saving activity."

HANDS

2011-09-16T16:38:00.002-04:00

My father worked in the logging industry when I was a child. He was one of eleven children from a Catholic family in rural New York. In some ways my father was a difficult man, in other ways he was kind and light hearted. My father had large, hard hands. The deep calluses and meaty fingers frightened me, I did not want my hands to look as worn as his. Of course in retrospect those hands were the result of the hard work he performed and loved. Now that he is gone I think about his hands often in the studio when I am working with tools he left me. His hands and his laugh, mostly his hands.

HANDS - last call

2011-09-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

She's A Talker

2011-09-15T22:23:00.002-04:00

continuing the spread of this piece by Neil Goldberg

mark making

2011-09-15T17:32:00.003-04:00

Mark making is something I care about, as a reader and artist.

New Australian passports allow a third gender option, which is "X". My initial reaction to this was pleasure that at least one country in the world is doing something progressive. But my mind kept wandering to X as "blank" somehow conceptually. I also was thinking about X as a substitute, as in signing with an X, and leaving it as a variable. Evonne pointed out the X is the unknown.

On a humanistic and practical level, I'm thrilled about this new development and the only people whose opinion really matters, I think, are the bearers of such passports. But in honor of this news item I'm suggesting X as a totally open ended blog topic for the next month.

"Australians have been given a third choice when describing their gender on passport applications, under new guidelines aimed at removing discrimination.

Transgender people and those of ambiguous sex will be able to list their gender as indeterminate, which will be shown on passports as an X.

People whose gender was different from that of their birth were previously required to have reassignment surgery before they could change their passport to their preferred sex.

An Australian senator, Louise Pratt - whose partner was born female and is now identified as a man - said the reform was a huge step forward.

"There have been very many cases of people being detained at airports by immigration in foreign countries simply because their passports don't reflect what they look like," she told Australian radio.

"It's very distressing, highly inconvenient and frankly sometimes dangerous."

Governors Island Art Fair

2011-09-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

Every Friday, Saturday & Sunday in September, 4heads present

The Governors Island Art Fair

Friday - 11 AM to 4 PM

Saturday & Sunday - 11 AM to 6 PM

Run by artists, for artists, The Governors Island Art Fair enters its 4th year this fall as 4heads rally an exciting and diverse selection of artists from around the world. Well over 100 independent artists are selected entirely on the merit of their work and, once chosen, each is given a room of their own in which to create an exhibition environment of their own design. A selection of galleries are exhibiting in the Fair as well and, this summer for the first time, 4heads are also offering art workshops and artists' studio residencies beginning in June. For more information visit www.4heads.org.

Naomi Campbell created a beautiful arch of fans. The imagery on the fans revealed itself to me after a few minutes of standing amongst them. Her installation is even more dramatic in person than in the photograph.

Andrew Harrison referenced the history of the area. The shapes were collected during a walking tour of Manhattan. You'll have to visit to hear the sound component!

Einet Imber created a beautiful cave drawing that you can view from inside or outside.

Although Molly Sawyer's sculptures are rather simple shapes, they are able to capture so much emotion. She uses a lot of natural materials, sheep wool, wood, moss, I love her pedestals. Her studio is in Jersey City so be sure to check it out during open studios while you're visiting Aferro!

Here are some images from my attic space. The buildings on Governors Island haven't been used in years and as a result, paint is peeling, there are stains and some rooms have torn up floor boards. I was particularly pleased with the character of my three little rooms. I wonder how the salt and the thread will change over the coarse of the month.

While you're enjoying Governors Island, stop by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council gallery http://www.lmcc.net/spaces/building_110_on_governors_island and Gallery Ell http://galleryell.com/home.html in Nolan Park.

50+ year art project

2011-09-03T21:42:00.002-04:00

Open Culture is a great compendium of free educational/culture links.
I spent a lot of time (too much?) on it tonight. Here's two that I liked a lot.
Way back in 1963, Jerry Gretzinger began making a map of his imaginary world.
and
Terry Gilliam's intro to animation.

the other constellation

2011-08-25T16:25:00.000-04:00

August 13, 2011 – This was the forecasted day when the 2011 Perseid Meteor shower would reach its prolific peak, and it brought me to the search for the best location to watch this in my New Jersey neighborhood. Atop a hill I stayed vigil in the pre-dawn to sunrise hours for this, but the experience was less than stellar because of light pollution.

But magically, by dawn, this experience of lack was compensated by my visualizing of similarly impressive phenomenon: not from above, but from below; not stellar, but earthly; not large and expansive, but small and measured. The dawn light illuminated to me that the meadow I was standing vigil on was covered with sheets and sheets of funnel spider webs glittering with thousands of dew orbs. The experience of space that I lacked earlier had been replaced by a dewy and spiderry one by my feet. Had the conditions been favorable I would have experienced 2 different notions of constellation within a matter of 3 hours.

Constellations are these stellar patterns that have been watched, observed, read, measured and contemplated since the dawn of humankind for various purposes. During antiquity they helped in navigation and agriculture before being replaced by later technological devices. At the same time –and even in the present- their distance, mapping and connections are the material of myths, legends and poetry.

But because constellations inhabit this space outside the confines of our planet, there’s always been this otherness to them. It has been Other from the time that humans walked the earth. It is still Other today - a surprising notion since there’s been reasonably sophisticated accomplishments in the level of spacecraft and space studies within a teeny tiny fraction of cultural time.

My guess for its otherness is we -as conscious beings bounded by the imperatives of our dimensionally solid and stable bodies -there is something in us that finds more security in the tactile attainability of things. Despite the vastly proven equal power of other sensate presences (sight, sound, smell and taste of a thing), touch often gives a final say in the confirmation of the stability and believability of things. Hence we have this category that covers these things that possess otherness, the enigmatic, mysterious, and unknown – a category that we associate with what lacks a physically defined, attainable and measurable body. Space belongs to this category. And so do belief, feelings, thoughts, memory.

With those last 4 things just mentioned, this category is therefore powerful. But its being a power lacking tangible body makes it also threatening. And so our history will show us that a great bulk of it contains chronicles of our efforts to assign some tangible or measurable form to these enigmatic things –efforts to eliminate our fear and harness their power. And so structures have been built, sculpted, painted, written, drawn, drafted to map, organize, and put them all in place with us.

But that putting into measurable form is merely one strategy of dealing with the category of the enigmatic. Surely there are several, but one I find more compelling, compassionate, and less driven by a fear factor is analogy.

Analogy could also be employed in form building, but intrinsically it is driven more by our human desire in making connections. In her impressive book Visual Analogy, Barbara Maria Stafford wrote, “Perceiving a lack of something- whether physical emotional, spiritual, or intellectual- inspires us to search an approximating resemblance to fill its place.” (p2)

With analogical thinking, there’s no imperative to make structures to put the formless enigmatic in place; instead, through some connection or approximation, we can link it to something that already exists, something we know and possess, so that the link between them will grant us this oscillating knowledge and understanding of their similarities and differences without subjugating their distinctive qualities. With analogy, the enigmatic keeps its indecipherability, but it is illuminated by our lived experience and knowledge of what we already have. With analogy, the impenetrability of the enigmatic is replaced by coherence brought by its resemblance to a thing we possess, or a certain quality of that thing.

With analogical thinking the constellation above me on those pre-dawn hours of August 13 is no longer as remote and unattainable. The constellation on the spider web on the meadow I’m on gives me a visual likeness that is enough to close the distance between myself, the constellation-like web below, and web-like constellation above.

For more on analogy, check out Stafford’s book-it’s awesome!

hands

2011-08-21T12:35:00.002-04:00

My parents have a photograph of my grandfather taken before I was born. In it, he is gesturing, his fingers seem exaggeratedly long and thin. Though not quite as extreme, my sisters and I all inherited his fingers. My work would defiantly be different if my fingers were thicker. Larger fingers and I'd be a different person entirely.

NEA interview with Alumni Caroline Mak

2011-08-20T17:04:00.002-04:00

Caroline Mak, who is having an upcoming exhibition in the Project Room on September 10, was interviewed for the NEA blog about the importance of residencies. She participated in overlapping residencies at Elsewhere and Gallery Aferro.

HAND POST

2011-08-14T10:05:00.002-04:00

Here is my Hands post. It is my favorite youtube video!

translator traitor

2011-08-09T20:54:00.004-04:00

I'm interested in translation, both of the nuanced and the totally provisional, not-really-right variety. I noticed when we were building the first Aferro that the isolation from outside of our small building community led to slang that then turned into a smallish working vocabulary that was odd enough to confuse others.

As a nonsigner, I can't tell what they are really saying in this video, or comment the quality of the language. Wonder if there is any Lorca in ASL. Any signers out there? How are they doing?

and

interuption from HANDS week

2011-08-09T20:47:00.002-04:00

Greetings everyone! These are the countries visiting this blog most:

United States

1,720

United Kingdom

110

Russia

Germany

Ukraine

India

South Korea

Canada

Poland

Uganda

hands with words:

2011-08-05T00:02:00.000-04:00

When I see tattooed hands, I sometimes think about the inscribed hands Robert Mitchum's character in Charles Laughton's 1955 film, "Night of the Hunter" (top). It was cool how Spike Lee echoed that with Radio Raheem in "Do the Right Thing". Mitchum has the words Love and Hate tatooed on his knuckles, while Raheem wears the same two words as gold mega-rings. I don't think the monologues they deliver, describing the epic battle of right and left, love and hate, good and evil (directed at the fourth wall) are word-for-word identical, but they are pretty close...

tattooed hands

2011-08-03T16:21:00.002-04:00

I'm interested in people who get tattoos on their hands. The hands are a "total commitment" tattoo (and your face, obviously) in that you can't hide them. I love seeing what people get on their fingers and the variations on four letter, related, meaningful words.

Tag you're it!

2011-08-02T22:00:00.001-04:00

Theme of the week(s)

HANDS

and HANDS

the pencil of nature:

2011-07-15T20:11:00.001-04:00

I've been steadily photographing my studio here since I moved into Aferro in February. I use the camera for a number of reasons. As I work, I find that I'm constantly inventing (reinventing, I'm sure) ways to do things. Sometimes in the middle of it I notice that I'm interested, in sort of a detached way, in how a process looks. I try to record those views. I also want to remember specific things that I did, and especially to recall ideas that emerged on the way to something else. I take a lot of notes and make lots of little sketches, but photography is another way to keep an idea around.

Here are a few shots from the past months:

just moving in...

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

an array of very small works

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

painting process shot

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

idea/process

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

painting process shot

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

painting process shot

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

painting wall

Ken Weathersby

click image to enlarge

2011-07-15T12:42:00.002-04:00

and

AiOP Ritual 2011

2011-07-03T18:51:00.002-04:00

Fellow Aferro Resident Patricia & I are going to be part of Art in Odd Places Festival this year. We didn't know until we ran into each other at their meeting. Small World!

Two pantomime children

2011-06-29T16:33:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, I saw To What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong? at the Power Plant in Toronto. http://www.thepowerplant.org/Exhibitions/2011/2011_Spring/To-What-Earth-Does-This-Sweet-Cold-Belong-.aspx I picked up a copy of Christian Bök's poem "Midwinter Glaciaria" which was available with the show. It's a long and dense poem filled with dreamlike imagery and spiderweb tangents. I cut the poem into stanzas and have been letting them float around on my desk. Even though I've read it all many times, each reading brings new details and another trip down the rabbit hole.

Deciduous trees, black without foliation, etch neural pathways on a dream of glass photographs. Nitrates of silver electroplate mirrors. Peroxide evaporates from smashed ampoules of ice. Timberwolves circle the clearing. Two pantomime children perform there the drama of winter. The girl in lace pouring pitchers of ice water over the kneeling form of her nude sister, whose shivers subside into an icy chrysalis. The audience unseen as it watches liquid nitrogen spill over the edge of the stage.

Blue

2011-06-26T22:20:00.001-04:00

Can’t stop applying the color blue to my work. “Long associated with the serenity of a clear, cloudless blue sky reflected over a calm sea, the light, mid and deep blues bring a feeling of respite and introspection – a quiet, cool permanence. The human mind embraces the concept of blue as tranquil and constant and translates it into a symbolic image of dependability and loyalty.”

Don Edler: Performance Artist, Sunday, June 26, Chelsea

2011-06-23T11:56:00.001-04:00

For Immediate Release - June 22, 2011

Artists Meeting Presents:
Being and Event - A Free Night of Performance - Live at Postmasters Gallery
459 West 19th Street, New York NY
Sunday June 26th - starting at 8pm.

Artists Meeting and Postmasters Gallery invite you to attend the collectives latest multimedia showcase investigating the borders of performance art. Being and Event refers to the book of the same title by philosopher Alain Badiou. With special guest MC Al Lupiani, Artists Meeting loosely addresses his theories in two types of performances. The overarching questions are, what constitutes being and what constitutes an event in the 21st Century.

On the being side are performances by Maria Joao Salema, Don Edler, Paulina V. Ahlstrom and Abigail Weg. On the event side are performances by Sofy Yuditskaya, Olga Lysenko & Fernando Sanabria, Lee Wells, Douglas Kelley, GH Hovagimyan, Raphaele Shirley, the Nsumi Collective with Dungeon Master and surprise special guests.

This will be Artists Meeting's fourth multi-media performance event at Postmasters and follow up to the 1st YouTube Slam, Triptych Party, Weirder The Better, and A-List Cannibal Cage Match.

Being and Event – Program

Being - 8-9pm

Don Edler - Drinking about the Universe
Inviting the audience for free beer at his portable minibar and encouraged to talk about their views of the universe.

Maria Joao Salema - The Moving Still Life
A projected video of an endlessly collapsing still life

Paulina V. Ahlstrom - This Moment
Upon entering the audience will be givin slips of paper with the words “this moment” written on them and record participants thoughts throughout the evening.  

Abigail Weg - Interactive Face Painting
will be conducting an interactive installation using projected imagery to paint portraits of the audience.

Event – 9 -11pm

Sofy Yudiskayana - Differences in Duration of the Eternal Return
Objects are captured and reprojected onto their original site of occurrence quantized sound and objects in interactive performance.

Olga Lysenko & Fernando Sanabria - The Wino
Compositions performed on a full-scale wine-bottle-glass piano in an attempt to create a moment of magic.

Lee Wells - Artistic Survival Techniques for the End of the World and Beyond
A multi-media event within an event, briefly touching on a wide range of new topics with special guests including:

• Douglas Kelley - Revenge of Art History
A discussion on Artists Survival Technigues that reference to Francis Fukuyama’s, The End of History and the Last Man.

• Victor Sheely - Myth Thunder Standings
On hind legs, King Coyote Butterfly floats a stinging bee blessing ceremony of the evening's proceedings.

• David Henry Brown Jr - The Thinker
Will present a performance about survival in a future where the state and private thought are ever merging.

GH Hovagimyan - Boxing Rants
An interactive shadow-boxing rant performance using a hacked Kinect Camera.

Raphaele Shirley - Red line, cigarette, running man, spinning circle
A minimal performance act and multimedia visual landscape that morphs into a full scale kinetic sculpture in the spirit of Nam June Paik’s fluxus performances.  

NSUMI Collective with Dungeon Master - The First International Speed Metal Drumming and Arts Education Symposium
Ashort discussion with five one-minute speed metal drum performances, concluding with a five-minute discussion about feelings experienced by drummers as they perform.

For more detailed information please see www.artistsmeeting.org

Note:
For more information contact: artistsmeeting@nujus.net or Postmasters Gallery
459 West 19th Street, New York NY 10011, 1-212-727-3323

Postmasters Gallery opened in East Village in December 1984, moved to Soho in 1989 and in September 1998 the gallery relocated again to a large ground floor space in Chelsea. During its 25 years Postmasters has shown young and established artists of all media, actively seeking new forms of creative expression and show them in a context of painting, sculpture and photography. The artworks are generally content oriented, conceptually based, and - most importantly - reflective of our time.
www.postmastersart.com

2011-06-21T09:00:00.002-04:00

A former studio resident is showing a new installation in a group show "Festival" at Kips Gallery.

If you have a time check out the opening reception this coming Thursday.

Opening Reception is June 23, 2011 6pm-8pm

Show is up until June 30th.

Kips gallery

511 W. 25th Street. 2nd fl. (Btw 10th Ave and 11th Ave)

New York, NY

www.hyojeongnam.info

The Sticky Parts

2011-06-19T08:29:00.003-04:00

If you are in Seattle area or have any friends out there, I have a show opening this Thursday June 23.
Dahlia Elsayed: The Sticky Parts
June 23-July 21, 2011
Gallery at S. Seattle Community College
6000 16th Ave SW
Seattle WA 98106

What I saw Today in Newark

2011-06-03T18:56:00.002-04:00

June 3: A hairpiece in a pothole.

inspirations....Doris Salcedo

2011-05-23T11:15:00.002-04:00

The new work, Plegaria Muda, asks us to reflect on the grey zones that always appear in the murky margins of our societies; zones in which the roles of perpetrator and victim tend to merge and where a human life more easily can be degraded ...into nothing. It stems from a three-year-long research of the ghettoes of South East Los Angeles, but it is also a direct answer to repeated atrocities committed by groupings within the Colombian army between the years 2003 and 2009.
more at http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=47584

Blithe Riley: The Edna Experiments

2011-04-28T18:13:00.002-04:00

The Edna Experiments: Blithe Riley

New Media Room and Liminal Space
May 7 - June 3, 2011
Opening Reception May 7, 6-9 PM

The Edna Experiments is a multi-media installation project based on the found diaries of a rural housewife named Edna. The diaries span approximately 15 years—covering the late 1950′s to early 1970′s— and are full of meticulous everyday details but no emotions whatsoever. The books are records of an edited life, where what is preserved is terse, systematic and rooted in domestic and rural labor. Insight is gained only through repetition of action (washing, ironing, mending), as very few entries stand out above the others. In addition, Edna’s writing forces us to interpret and imagine what we assume are the missing details. That act of interpretation is a key point of interest in the project.

The diaries not only represent records of personal discipline (Edna wrote almost every day), they are also archives of banal moments that rarely get memorialized. Edna’s diaries question what constitutes a lived life. They reveal how the things we leave behind frame our lives after we die.

Blithe Riley works in video, performance & installation. Her practice investigates systems that regulate human behavior, including self-induced structures as well as those inflicted from external sources. Riley received a BFA from Alfred School of Art and Design in 1999, and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 where she taught courses in video and performance. In 2009 she was a resident of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and an Aferro Studio resident in 2010. Her work has screened nationally & internationally at venues such as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Kitchen, Roulette, Broadway 1602 Gallery and Monkeytown in New York City, The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and The European Media Arts Festival in Germany. She has taught classes at Columbia College Chicago, Parsons, and George Washington University. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Riley also makes site-specific video and performance work with artist Mary Coble. Together they have made work in an abandoned spring house in Maine, and in a soon-to-be demolished housing project in Northeast London. Their collaboration is represented by Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, DC.

Facebook

Gallery Aferro site

Blithe Riley site

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

2011-04-23T10:58:00.001-04:00

At the beginning of my artist career, I was doing performance and video art. Since then, I am aware of the public or audience. I found this to be an interesting exhibit and reading : Without You I'm Nothing: Art and Its Audience

Newark Bunker Projects

2011-04-22T12:26:00.002-04:00

is by artist Katrina Bello. Down the street on Broad St:

http://web.mac.com/kimbello/iWeb/kimbello/home.html

New Grantee: Gallery Aferro

2011-04-19T17:19:00.000-04:00

New Grantee: Gallery Aferro

Shoutout to alumni here! Top image: Ann LePore in her studio during Open Doors 2010.
Bottom image: public interaction with Kate Okeson's exhibition in the Liminal Space.
and thank you very, very much to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for their support of Gallery Aferro.

A partial list of things in my studio...

2011-04-16T12:56:00.008-04:00

lint from Julie and her cat Charlotte

lint from a studio mate

repetition with cotton balls

I'm trying to think of a name for this. Maybe 'Gathering For a New Coat'

a paper house

in my supply box

my notebook

my reading stack

Young Artists from Newark

2011-04-15T15:35:00.002-04:00

These young women are part of our new education program, Identity Blueprint. Check it out!

old but good

2011-04-15T14:58:00.001-04:00

This has been all over the internet for a while, but as it is dead on, I see no reason not to share it here:

Work Work Work

2011-04-07T18:21:00.001-04:00

Work and more work

back from Berlin

2011-03-24T22:37:00.003-04:00

7 woman artists - 12 days - 1 city- 1 history - unforgettable - all under the shadow of magenta - I am dying to do it again - thank you everybody!

Magenta, group exhibition at
Galerie R31 - Berlin

2011-03-04T14:09:00.002-05:00

...I think my work really started, when I embrace my own history.
Alexis Rockwell

2011-03-03T14:13:00.002-05:00

Please join us at Valley Arts next Sat! The whole neighborhood context of Ironworks/Valley Arts is really great. They have an urban farm next door.

2011-03-03T14:11:00.001-05:00

Blithe Riley

Apocrypha
Kenseth Armstead, Dahlia Elsayed and Blithe Riley
curated by Evonne M. Davis and Emma Wilcox from the Galllery Aferro Studio Residency Program

March 5 - April 15, 2011
Opening Reception March 12, 6-9 PM

Ironworks Gallery
Valley Arts
406 Tompkins St Orange NJ

Gallery Hours: M-Fri 10-5, Sat 9-12

Kenseth Armstead, Dahlia Elsayed and Blithe Riley

are artists whose current projects are rooted in biography and autobiography.

The questions of authorship and authority that arise when artists work with found autobiographical material, or in the realm of “unofficial history,” are complex. Each text-based project has been shaped by the artist’s motivations.

Kenseth Armstead’s “Spook 1781” project began with a full length screenplay and continues to assume new forms, including video, interactive tapings, drawings and murals, all concerning the life and activities of James Armistead Lafayette, an African double agent during the Revolutionary War. Armstead writes “Like many other African Americans living in the shadow of the decline of the slave trade, family history is subject full of mystery.” The web is an easy first step toolbox for the novice historian. Sometimes it leads to interesting fiction and in my case it led me to a Google search on one of the spellings of my family name, Armistead.”

Dahlia Elsayed’s journalistic, text-driven, paintings record the minutia of the artist’s daily life. She writes, “Part data-tracking, part topography, these conceptual maps examine the aesthetic surfaces and ephemeral cultural markers of recent immigrant populations, of which I am a product.” Elsayed originally studied to be a novelist.

Blithe Riley has been creating drawings, videos, and installations based on the diaries, covering roughly 50’s-70’s, of a rural American housewife named Edna. Riley found the diaries in 2009, and “The Edna Experiments” are ongoing. Riley writes, “The diaries interest me not only as a records of personal discipline, but also as records of a life that features the minute details that are rarely memorialized. They ask the question of what constitutes a life, and what we leave behind. What are the tools that we have to understand the lives of the dead when there is nobody to speak on their behalf? “How do we fill in the emotional gaps that exist with what we’re given to reconstruct from?”

Hallucination invitation:

2011-02-28T11:29:00.000-05:00

There is currently an excellent show open at Kent Place Gallery.

I am gallery director there -- the gallery is on the campus of Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, where I also teach art.

There will be a closing reception for the artist on Friday, March 11 (see below for details). Summit is not too far away (geographically-- i.e., it is in northern New Jersey), and Bruce is an amazing artist. I hope will see you all there at the reception!

sweet stain, oil, acrylic, pencil & ink on canvas, paper, wood & cashmere

Bruce Stiglich

click image to enlarge

“Accumulation/Hallucination”

Bruce Stiglich’s “Accumulation/Hallucination”
Kent Place Gallery Monday, February 14 – Friday, March 11
closing reception 6—8 pm on Friday March 11.

Works in the show combine painting, drawing and the gathering of found objects to create complex, beautiful and densely painted collections of surfaces and images.

“Sweet Stain” (above), uses a wide range of means, including oil paint, acrylic, graphite, ink, wood, and, crucially, cashmere. A tiny scrap of stained cashmere formed the starting point of this complex work. Stiglich painted a portrait of the scrap of fabric, enlarged and copied his own painting, represented it again in another way, again and again, and each new view became a part of the whole. The cluster of representations contains mirrorings and repetitions, but also surprises that open up space for the imagination. It is a kaleidoscopic outgrowth of remembering and reflecting. Yet the subject (if that shred of stained fabric is really the subject) remains enigmatic.

Such a ceaseless return to a mute and mysterious object, and the possibly obsessive circling around it with art, brings to mind Citizen Kane’s rosebud, Proust’s madeleine, that little scrap of blue velvet so prized by Frank in David Lynch’s film. The point for me is that Stiglich creates an exciting, almost hallucinatory visual world, and the work resists collapsing into an easy interpretation.

New York Times art critic Ken Johnson has said, “Style in Bruce Stiglich's work is psychological, as the seemingly obsessive repetition of tiny marks that build up into dense vibrating textures suggest the feverishly compulsive activity of an inspired monomaniac. You may be reminded of Jackson Pollock's drip works or folk artists who are driven to decorate their homes with countless polka dots or flattened beer cans.”

Bruce says, “My work is a compiling of personal history. I work in series. These series become installations. They span an extended period of time. It begins with a discovery of found images, objects and doodles that to me seem incomplete. The process of completing the images is self referential in nature.”

Bruce Stiglich’s art work has been seen in numerous exhibitions in recent years in New York City and the New York area, in Pennsylvania, and in Miami, Florida. He currently teaches at Parsons School of Design, and has also taught at Pont-Aven School of Art in France, and at the State University of New York. He has been a curator of several art exhibitions at MyPAC, in Miami, FL.

Kent Place Gallery
42 Norwood Ave.
Summit, NJ 07902

http://www.kentplace.org

--Ken Weathersby

2011-02-21T19:35:00.002-05:00

I really like this breakdown of a workspace- it articulates reality as I see it-

A place of work: in this sense of the meaning, it is the artist’s identified location of work. It is an address, an office, a workplace. It is an actual and psychological place that compells the artist to go to work. It legitimises the artist’s practice. It locates the artist in a geographic place but also, by extension, in society.

A place to work: this refers to the physical studio, light, heat, equipment and facilities that enable the artist to get immersed in the artistic process and in the making of art products. It is also a place for other work to happen such as research and planning. This definition is about work happening.

A place for work: this definition brings in the other functions of the studio - a place where work is kept; where work is waiting to be finished; where collected references are displayed and stored; a place where work is exhibited.

PS- I am about to create this sort of rubric for my body, as current events unfolding seem to have been predicted many years ago by Margaret Atwood.

Beginning:

2011-02-19T14:53:00.003-05:00

It was great to get started today officially on my February-through-August residency-- at least in the sense of getting keys and finding out which studio will be mine. I was glad to meet Emma and Evonne again, and to be introduced to the other artists. Actual move in will be soon.

Ken Weathersby, painting / paper collage (acrylic & graphite over printed image of linen, with printed paper inset)

5.5" x 4.25" , 2-11

I've made some very tiny works lately, like the one above, and before yesterday I actually never thought about that being a reaction to the crowdedness of the rather small studio I've been painting in for the last ten years.

These little pieces might be models or mockups, or they might be works in their own right.

I am definitely thinking about a containing spatial element and aspects of architectural space in planning my next paintings, pieces I want to make at Aferro.

So beginning to work in a different and bigger room might have more than simple practical advantages.

--Ken Weathersby

2011-02-17T16:00:00.003-05:00

Grid with gold leaf.

2011-02-17T15:59:00.003-05:00

Detail with gold leaf added.

2011-02-02T15:32:00.006-05:00

Over the last several weeks I’ve had a chance to print out more than 30 images shot on Market Street of the varied and random chewing gum marks found on the sidewalk. It’s been an exciting project to pursue, and one that I'll continue working with once the residency is finished. My current approach has been to crop in closely to each section of concrete and view each as a separate composition.

2011-02-02T15:30:00.003-05:00

In the next versions that I’ll pursue, I’ll be utilizing the expansion joints as compositional elements, which will allow me to incorporate vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines along with the random patterning created by the chewing gum markings.

It has taken quite a bit of experimenting to hone in on the post-processing of the images. Its important to me that there is sufficient contrast between the pavement and marks; I have taken a number of steps with each image to enhance the rich gray and black tones of each individual mark.

2011-02-02T15:28:00.001-05:00

Each series of photos is displayed in a grid; while all of these photos document random mark making, I’m interested in the suggestion of order that a grid format provides.

2011-02-02T15:26:00.003-05:00

The next step for this series involves adding gold leaf, by hand, to individual marks on each photo. My intentions are to re-examine familiar and overlooked relationships between social interactions and physical spaces. Gold leaf, in this project, functions as a signifier of value—raising questions about what has intrinsic worth and what is discarded, both materially and personally, in contemporary society.

2011-02-02T15:26:00.002-05:00

Thank you!

2011-02-01T16:20:00.003-05:00

I am delighted to become a member of your community! can't wait to start (my residency) and get to meet you all.

2011-02-01T13:27:00.001-05:00

here are the images from my recent natural history museum project.

Northern Soul?

2011-01-27T14:18:00.005-05:00

Snowing again.

It used to be, before the internet, that if you had heard a song somewhere, or a friend made you a mix tape with no papers, you might go years without knowing whose song it was. You would memorize the lyrics. I used to tape off the warping records (steam heat in the media room of the Morris County Public Library) and then not write down the names of the tracks. I'm not a musician, (or a hipster.) But I like spaces, corners, spatial relations. I'm a photographer of buildings. One of my major goals is to take a really great photograph of a corner someday. And I often think about the pictures as either poems, or songs.

You can stop gagging now.

I simply mean that what would satisfy, what would count as a good day's work for creative output- I want it to have the qualities that I find in, say, a Kevin Young poem's near rhymes, or the haunting quality of a live recording, by Champion Jack Dupree, of Frankie and Johnny. I didn't know who had sung this version, not for years. I just knew I liked it, how the sounds of a room were in the track, the sound of glasses or bottles, the way someone, probably a woman, yells towards the end. It makes me think of echolation, in water.

The room is in the track.

If you can put aside larger cultural debate on Robert Johnson for a moment, you have to admit that all the craziness with figuring out whether his tracks were sped up is amazing nerdery- they are remaking the room, inhabited by ordinary mortal breath.

I love cheap wordplay and I love covers. Forget Lord of the Rings, give me "Dempsy," which reads to me as a pastiche of Jersey City and the South Bronx, created by Richard Prince. I love the scene where high school kids make their own version of Spoon River Anthology but set in Dempsy, where they live.

Back to Robert Johnson.

E, who had a trust fund and thus was always coming up with criminal schemes (the edge is safer with a cushion) out of warner brothers, used to play a wonderful cover of Come on in my kitchen. He was very shy about playing in front of people, like it was obscene. He stole from us later, but that's another story.

Anyway, R., his friend, would say, "accidents happen", as he skinned rats from the apartment building. He was from the country originally. I have two pelts, the little feet are articulated so well. He would say that, but that was before he fell multiple stories onto his head, went to Bellevue, and now is a different person. When I first met him, we were listening the Ramones, I sometimes think of him when I hear Cretin Hop, though in some ways that isn't funny anymore. But really, that was the song that was playing, I swear. For some reason I always remember what song was playing when I meet people. Cretin Hop makes me think of summer, and Coney Island. Where it isn't snowing, because it's a memory and I can have it any way I want.

Te-na, Te-na-na
Te-na, Na-ne-na
Te-na, Na-na-na
Te-na, Na-na-n'-na

Te-na, Te-na-na
Te-na, Na-ne-na
Te-na, Na-na-na
Te-na, Na-na-n'-na

Coming Back to Newark!

2011-01-25T08:31:00.003-05:00

What a happy soul you have made me, Aferro comrades! Thank you. I looking forward to coming back to Newark and working hard at Aferro. Emma's idea of artists' books intrigues me greatly. It's snowing up here in Providence. A real winter.

Night School / Art School

2011-01-18T16:25:00.000-05:00

The unitednationsplaza archive is now online. Missing from the "night school" section, though, is the lecture by Walid Raad, No. 10, which was provocative and poetic. Adjectives, adjectives, I know. But it was. He described a scenario where authorities might instigate the creation of a art spot that would be open irregular hours and appear, in every way, to be avant, underground, etc...

Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) edited by Steven Henry Madoff looks good.

2011-01-17T12:35:00.000-05:00

also

2011-01-13T08:43:00.001-05:00

I have applied to be an ArtReach mentor this year. I will be thrilled to be accepted, while I am of course busy I feel a significant debt to the sundry and various people who have helped me since I was a teenager. It would be great to try to pay some of that back in.

One of the ways in which mentors may work with their students in in studio assistant mode (old school!). In the case of my practice, the most pressing need in my studio is to wash and de-label my pint bottle collection, which must be damn close to 1000. This seems kind of unseemly though. Many art materials are "messy" and might require an apron and gloves, but not all art materials are loaded with specific signifiers, like say, a bottle of cheap fortified wine is. Probably inappropriate. But this is what I need help with. Do not want to be a thoughtless mentor.

Verbiage

2011-01-13T08:26:00.000-05:00

My output at the end of the Newark Museum residency was a powerpoint I had created by retyping and collaging (zine copier style) different sentences, paragraphs and text fragments from manufacturer directories of Newark, mostly circa 1850-80, and many eras of histories of Newark, including books for children. Will get into why I work with specific time periods later, not in this post.

Anyway it was supposed to be a short film of sorts, allowing me to emphasize pauses and certain words to make a different, more doubtful and subversive narrative about my old standbys, failure and expectations. I can't say I succeeded. There is plenty of bad text art out there, and as a photographer the tension in working with words (which I love doing) is always there.

How about a palate cleanser?

However, I am bound and determined to try to make an artist book from these 2009 efforts. There is always so much text and reading behind every picture I make, it would be nice to show some of the source material. I've proposed to the Print Center that I work with an old, early survey of Newark, which is a beautiful piece of language. The last time I wrote about working with them, I was promising to grow things. The seeds grew sprouts, but I didn't get them into the ground in time. Going to try again this spring. I know, promises, promises...

persistence ...

2011-01-08T22:39:00.001-05:00

Gallery Aferro, Lane Cooper, "Blindness"
Gallery Aferro, Lane Cooper, Studio View
Gallery Aferro, Lane Cooper, Studio View

Charing Cross: Newark - video link

I write you

you smile
you say wise things
and guide the orphans we’ve become

thin dry tendrils become fertile laughter
and rings like bells
now more than dogs
greet us at the door
there is plenty
more than enough

and we are not a burden

(The above is an excerpt from the text for the artist book I’m working on.)

The past few months have been amazingly productive for me. The atmosphere of working at Aferro and living in city have created for me an incubator of thought that has been profound. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the most committed and thoughtful people I’ve ever known, really an inspiration. Seeing the commitment of Evonne and Emma … and then making new contacts through friends and people now becoming friends … all of this has afforded me remarkable opportunities.

Working with Margret Hjaltested, Malina Rauschenfels and Melissa Bybee has opened up tremendous possibilities in the sound for my pieces. All accomplished musicians, they’re incredibly generous in their time and energies. These connections would not have been possible had Aferro not given me the opportunity to participate in the residency.

My project, “What Persists”, has unfolded in ways that have informed all aspects of my work. The content and visual connections between sound, video, painting and writing have revealed themselves in a way that now I feel my work makes sense as a body.

All of my work productions stem from the understanding of reading and writing. Everything is a text of fragmentary information. We read and fill in the gaps, imaging the bigger picture, giving ourselves a means of understanding. It is why two people to do not, cannot, see the same painting, cannot read the same book, or even hear the same sound. We cannot meet the same person. Each approach fills the gaps differently. This is the home of wonder.

What persists? A infrastructure of meaning … a screen onto which we project … experience … and wonder.

The work continues and I can’t wait to see how it continues to develop from here.

--
so far - production – Extending from my so far while here I’ve produced a number of paintings and completed four videos with sound pieces. Two of the sound pieces were done for me by Malina Rauschefels. I’ve also made good progress on the text for an artist book, although this part of my project is perhaps not as far along as I’d like. In the end I foresee an installation centered around one or two of the videos.

Ecce Homo

2010-12-23T11:19:00.000-05:00

On December 11, 2010 Gallery Aferro joined in expressing support for freedom of art and expression by screening David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly. It is a cause which demands attention and which shows us the same daunting and opportunistic politics which played so viciously in the 1980s.

It is a cause that demands we all perform gestures in the face of it. So for David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujur and my own well-loved Michael ... I offer my own thoughts ...

There is nothing which makes us so human as our awareness of the coming of death. There is nothing which binds us to our fellows so fully as the longing and desire that is grief. When one is so honest as to reveal the substance of this unspeakable, un-writable condition - when one has the courage to forego the affectation of coolness and aplomb and to take the risk of revealing this most fragile, telling internal dialogue that is the knowing of the coming of death and the insatiable longing of grief – we’d best do well and offer our hearts to it. It is only in this profound generosity, this hospitality of the soul, that there can be any relief from the infinite solitude which is the awake human mind. If we are so mean, so limited in our hearts as to not make room for the grief of an-other – then we risk the oblivion of a failed humanity.

...

further reading and writing ...

" The 'Fire' man, Essay by Philip Kennicott in The Washington Post

CBC News Article on artist AA Bronson's response to Censorship of the Smithsonian Exhibit

Website for Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

Contact for United States House of Representatives

Contact info for the Senators of the 11th Congress

Contact the White House

article about NYC and life as an artist vs. other places

2010-11-16T19:21:00.000-05:00

This was an interesting article about living in NYC as an artist. I think this kind of "artist exodus" thing comes up every couple of years, but this struck me because this year I did get to see more of/compare how artists are living like in other places, (berlin, kansas city, santa fe).
Worth reading. anyway all fleeing those people should check out Newark.
Crain's: Artists Fleeing the City

2010-11-09T16:24:00.000-05:00

During the term of this residency the project that I am currently pursuing involves an investigation into the varied marks left on the sidewalks in front of the gallery and around the surrounding blocks by chewing gum. My interest here stems from the collective history that each of these marks represent. I’ve approached documenting them as individual compositions whose original authorship is unknown.

2010-11-09T16:12:00.000-05:00

Two part silicone ready to be mixed.

Initially my approach was to make castings with flexible silicone rubber molds of the various patterns that I found on the sidewalks outside the gallery space.

2010-11-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

Coddles set up to hold the mold rubber.

2010-11-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

Silicone curing.

2010-11-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

Back in the studio.

Although I liked the idea and process of creating a record of the chewing gum patterns through mold making. When I made castings from these silicone patterns I wasn’t at all interested in the results. The difference in texture between the gum and the concrete was too subtle, to the point of being undistinguishable. I tried adding color and tonal changes in a number of ways to the castings but it always felt like something artificial and disconnected was being added to the surface.

2010-11-09T15:59:00.000-05:00

Currently I have begun using photography as a way to document the chewing gum marks on concrete that I was initially interested in. This approach has allowed me to document the random and varied patterns while preserving the high contrast graphic quality of the black chewing gum on near-white concrete.

2010-11-09T15:58:00.000-05:00

These are 13" x 19" inkjet prints

hours of happiness below

2010-11-07T22:10:00.000-05:00

Really.

http://www.nationalphilistine.com/oh/

Response to my query about female artists

2010-10-18T19:30:00.000-04:00

I emailed female artists and curators known from working with Gallery Aferro a request to hit reply with names of female artists-in any media, era and continent-whose work and/or lives they had found meaningful.

This is the list right now. I have typed it in order of response, with any repeats from person to person retained.

I was overwhelmed by the thoughtful and opinionated writing, stories and commentary I got back. I do not have permission as of right now to print it all, but it was inspiring and will not go unused in the universe.

Thank you to you all for your time in sending names, links and stories! At the bottom is my original email, please continue to add to this list.

Sadie Benning
Lynne Hershman Leeson
Shana Moulton
Mary Coble
Rene Green
Marianne Amache
Pauline Oliveros
Kara Walker

Ana Mendieta

Niki de Saint-Phalle

Martha Rosler

Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Adrian Piper
Yoko Ono
Nancy Spero
Ana Mendieta

Paula Modersohn Becker

Elizabeth Murray

Lois Dodd

Joan Snyder

Louise Bourgeois

eva hesse
julia margaret cameron
elizabeth cotten
lady hawarden
adrienne rich
dorothea tanning
claude cahoun
agnes varda

Annette Messager
Cynthia Madansky
Martha Rosler

Yoko Ono

Yayoi Kusama

Lili St. Cyr
Jeanette Piccard

Nan Goldin

Ana Mendieta

meret Oppenheim

kiki smith

mona hatoum

Eva Hesse
Natalie Jeremijenko
Lee Bontecou
Mary Lucier
Steina Vasulka
Dara Birnbaum
Marina Abramovic
Louise Bourgeois
pipilotti rist
Kara Walker
Jennifer McCoy
emily breer
mary lum
Janet Cardiff
Kristin Lucas
shirin neshat

marjetica potrc
Alice Guy-Blaché

Catalina Parra

Mierle Laderman Ukeles

Maria Nordman

Joan Nelson
Eva Hesse
Louise Bourgeois
Lee Bontecou
Nancy Spero
Suzan Frecon
Ann Hamilton
Janine Antoni
Sarah Sze
Arlene Shechet
Johanna Drucker
Ghada Amer
Rosalind Krauss

Susan Sontag

Alluquere Rosanne Stone

louise bougeoise

kiki smith

doris salcedo

ann hamilton

janine antoni

harmony hammond

amy sillman

siobhan liddell

frances stark

tracey goodman

jillian conrad

sarah sze

uta barth

mama anderson

heather rowe

jessica stockholder

polly apfelbaum

linda benglis

sophie calle

ellen gallagher

jessie henson

rita mcdonald

rachel whiteread

mona hatoum

Nancy Spero

Lynne Cohen

Pipilotti Rist

Louise Bourgeois

Swoon

Carolee Schneeman
Ursula von Rydingsvard
Barbara Kruger
Laura Hauptman
Thelma Golden
Linda Nochlin
Carol Duncan

janine antoni
ana mendieta
Marina Abramović
Orlan
Patty Chang
Regina José Galindo

Frida Kahlo

Eva Hesse

Louise Bourgeois

The nameless women that have created the "artifacts" displayed today in museums, especially those that have created the intricate and beautiful textiles, jewelry, and pottery of the Pacific Northwest Native American tribes. African women artists' textile and pottery skills-- some of the most beautiful pottery pieces in the world have come from Africa and derive from women artists, who receive little credit for their inspired works.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Rosa Bonheur

Julia Margaret Cameron

Gertrude Stein

Imogen Cunningham

Dorthea Lange

Frida Kahlo

Meret Oppenheim

Martha Rosler

Hannah Wilke

Yayoi Kusama

Carolee Schneemann

Eva Hesse

Ana Mendieta

Annette Messager

Barbara Kruger

Lorna Simpson

April Gornik

Adrian Piper

Marina Abramovic

Kara Walker

Pipilotti Rist

Janet Cardiff

Jennifer Linton

Dana Schutz

Catherine Opie

Jenny Saville

Janine Antonie

Emily Kame Kngwarreye
patricia piccinini
polixeni papepetrou

Chantal Akerman
Gail Scott
Betye Saar
Ida Applebroog
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Viola Frey
Marisol
Helen Mirra

Ntozake Shange
Nawaal Saadawi
Alice Walker

Lillian Bassman

"Hi everyone

I'm writing female artists and curators that I know to ask for a quick
"hit reply" with a name or names of notable female artists in any media, era or
continent whose work and/or lives mean something to you. We are
developing materials to share with the junior/senior female high
school students participating in Identity Blueprint, our pilot
educational program.

http://www.aferro.org/websitebaker/wb/pages/opportunities/identity-blueprint.php

I am hoping to have our cool flyer and trifold online soon, but if you
would like this info I can share it with you via email more quickly!

We aren't aiming to develop an entire curriculum
per se but simply to have some interesting info about a diverse
selection of artists. Think about how you might have found out about
an artist who matters to you. It might have been in a bookstore or
from a friend. The point is you found out about them and it did
something for you.

The entire program is very much inspired by and shaped around the
activities of working female artists that we have been lucky enough to
get to know through Gallery Aferro. We therefore want to continue this
approach by asking you to contribute names. My personal contributions
include Carrie Mae Weems and Marjane Satrapi, but I think it will be
much, much better list if everyone joins in.

Thank you so much for being who you are, and for contributing to this
project! If you would like to share this call for names with friends,
please do so.
Thanks!"

2010-10-13T17:24:00.000-04:00

objects needed

2010-10-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

Hello out there. I'm preparing for a show at the Providence Natural History Museum. The museum collection is made up of a lot of things collected by amateurs, and pretty much anyone who wanted to donate to the museum could do so. So they have enormous archives of bugs, butterflies, nests, eggs, rocks, etc, some of which are rotting away, or unlabeled, or stored in cigar boxes. I am soliciting donations from people, and am creating a vitrine that inserts my new donations into the museum's collection. Also, there is a large collection of disassociated labels (lovely phrase!) which are labels- some of which are over a hundred years old- that have been separated from their objects. I am classifying them according to handwriting/label type and installing them in a display case in typical insect-display format. They are so pretty! Anyone who wants to send me an object for the museum collection (your favorite shell or rock, pressed plant, vial of sand or dust, etc) please contact me and I will let you know where to mail things. Or studio residents, you can put things on my desk in my studio. Please include your name, what you know about the item, and where it was found. I'll start installing in about three weeks.
thanks

work ii - persistence

2010-10-09T10:09:00.001-04:00

Notes On Derrida, l cooper
Notes On Derrida, l cooper
studio view

We had open studios as part of the Open Doors 2010 event ... alas I didn't take pictures as it was happening. I did make Pen Poems featuring clips of Derrida. It was funny when I gave them out, people often expected my name to be in them. I never thought of that actually. I'll have to consider it.