Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Mountain Goats unify a contemplative crowd at the Fillmore | SF Music

The Mountain Goats unify a contemplative crowd at the Fillmore | SF Music

Heyyo, new review up!

Clarification:

If a piece of art "looks like a photograph," that's because it was copied from a photograph.

Since when did imitating the depth of field or washout/darkening effects created by a camera become more real than making those choices manually? And I'm not so old fashioned that I think this can only happen from life, I've seen a lot of complex awesome paintings made more real through inventive photoshop manipulations. Its just that to make this work you have to keep very clear the difference between the eye, computer code, and a lens.
This is why a bit of me dies when I hear that reaction, "wow... it looks like a photograph," like its a triumph of technique. It's a triumph of accuracy and patience maybe, but lacking in the innovative and creative stuff that creates truly impressive technique.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Found Objects

Exciting bits of collected information from the most recent week of wildlife, soundscapes and scenery on this strange peninsula.

Art and Money do not go togethor:
One of the most depressing things this week was reading about the sad reality of the art world. Its a really strange business when "its disconcerting" that a single one of your buyers goes missing. Everyone of or relating to making money off of (or spending money on) fine art was at Art Basel this weekend, schmoozing, boozing, and perusing . And I want to be a part of this?

but... Beyonce wearing the Resort 12/13 440 Top Handle handbag...at Basel

Too efficient to be convincingly human:
I met a fellow who listens to the podcast of Dreyfus's Heidegger lectures while he runs. And he's been through them THREE TIMES. I feel like my entire life has been invalidated. He also knew that Dreyfus was inspiration for the professor from Futurama.



the Dirty Projectors
I've listened to "Morning Better Last" several times, once just to listen and several times while painting/drawing. I'm liking it because it keeps up the spirit of the minimalist composers I've been listening to but distilled into short songs that follow each other like little rooms of varying texture. I like as well their moments of indie-pop perfection, which are classy, catchy, and demonstrate a nice range. Like this one from the newer Bitte Orca (which, if you like, you can also hear covered by Solagne Knowles):

Guess I got my swagger back
Lol. of Montreal is seeing Kevin getting back into the groove of the energetic, quirky, eye-candy show. I feel mildly cheated that I ended up at the one depresso, I'm just going to ironically dump balloons on you while I pretend to be God telling you that you're an irrelevant piece of shit performance.


Sunday worship at the de Young
I went to the Taste for Modernism exhibit at the de Young (blog post about this to come) but maybe had more fun in their permanent collection. Second time I'd been through, but with fresh eyes I decided to sit down in front of this Jo Baer and listen to some Morton Feldman. I think it may have been the most interesting 15 minutes of my life.



Monday, December 3, 2012

In late high school and early college I did a few stencil runs with friends. Our collection of hand-cut stencils included a swine flu pig, tentacled robots, Pope J.P. with a sniper rifle, an intricate zebra, and maybe an anatomical heart or two. I also used to make mail-art spray paint collages that are now up in a lot of my friend's rooms. Recently, I've been thinking of getting out my collection of spray paint again and learning free-hand technique. 
    "Urban art" has been manically in for a while now. I own several street art books, including Banksy's Wall Piece, and I saw the controversial Art in the Streets exhibit at the MOCA. I do enjoy a good witty comment or visual popping off a wall, but I've never thought it was something I seriously wanted to be a part. It wasn't until recently that I started to care about the overt yet cryptic nature of tagging. I want to say (sorry if this sounds demeaning, I really don't mean it that way) that its like dogs competing to mark a tree or fire hydrant in the most fashionable way possible. I like this, because when you look at it that way, it seems like a profound expression of the existential question.
   I've been mulling this over and looking into a bunch of taggers who have made some cross over into fine and other arts worlds. I've tried my hand at a few designs. Unfortunately, they look more like Braque and Picasso converging on failed matrices of semantic intent than actual tags. I'll post some stuff if/when I make something I'm happy with. In the meantime, here are some things I like:
 
MIKE GIANT  : I heard about this tattoist and tagger from my cousin, a video artist. He recently traded a video for the original mural it documents the creation of. He also made this video in which you can watch the artist at work.
 
OPTIMIST :  Read about this tagger on the Daily Cal website of all places. Apparently their arts writer is very into urban stuff. Plus points for the paper. Cool symmetry and some pac man inspired tags.
APEX : One of the guardian writers covered his show at the 941 Gallery. I love how this one works with the green stuff growing in the crack between the wall and the ground.
REKN : From Endless Canvas a great source of graffiti news in the bay area.
OURS : Also endless canvas. I love the name.
NEWII : This Australian graffiti artist has a show opening next week at White Walls Gallery. The work present will all be paper cutouts of probably pretty interesting compositions.

Poetically Titled and Ethereal Eye Candy from Joe Sorren

 
Everything is Alright Sweetie, Go Back to Sleep


If In This Fire 


Seemed So Very Real