NEW WORK 

      NEXT WEEK

the impossible in effect

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WILLIAM LEAVITT, "THE IMPOSSIBLE," 1980

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"BORROWING FROM MELODRAMA, FILM, THEATER, AND INFLUENCED BY THE CULTURE AND AURA OF HOLLYWOOD, WILLIAM LEAVITT CREATES "THEATERS OF THE ORDINARY," MAKING OBJECTS OR STAGING SITUATIONS IN ORDER TO SUGGEST A VAGUE NARRATIVE THAT WILL PROMPT THE VIEWER TO FILL IN THE DETAILS. THE IMPOSSIBLE LOOKS LIKE A STAGE SET FOR A MOVIE INVOLVING  A MEDIEVAL DUNGEON AND AN ESCAPED PRISONER. WHAT MAY HAVE ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED IS UP TO THE VIEWERS IMAGINATION."  >>MOCA

CHUCK JONES, "HAIR RAISING HARE," 1946

 REFER TO 4:24 

today, for your viewing pleasure:

auto bodies with 
   short poems
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   hello henry wessel

 see the sunrise 
sheaths

one sad wagon
in black and 
   blue

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Lately II

from  "Finding Fragonard,  I-IV"
for Pith and Peel, December 2011 
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bushes, thighs, peaks, holes.

I-IV of VI

pigment based archival prints

17x28 each

2011

lately

PITH /&/ PEEL
OR, THEATER OF THE WILDERNESS,  

GARDEN AS A STAGE
OR,  FIELD NOTES FROM THE FIELD

OR, WHAT I HAVE BEEN UP TO LATELY

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opening reception
Thursday, December 15, 7:30 pm

CalArts 

24700 McBean Parkway

Valencia, CA 91355

>>

today's reading

recently

lately

E.W.W.  AND CAMERA.

look, then tilt your head and look again.

ROBERT CUMMING. The Ball was Left by the Foot of the Folding Screen / The Ball Was Left by the Foot of the Stairs, 1974. 

ON DISPLAY PRESENTLY AT cherry and martin.
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FOR THIS EXHIBITION, MATT CONNORS AND FLORIAN MORLAT INVITED ROBERT CUMMING TO EXHIBIT THE PHOTOGRAPHS HE MADE IN LOS ANGELES IN THE EARLY AND MID-1970s. LIKE MANY CONCEPTUAL PHOTOGRAPHERS, CUMMING EMBRACED THE PHOTOGRAPH AS AN OBJECTIVE TOOL TO DOCUMENT HIS NARRATIVE CONCEPTUAL IMPULSES. HOWEVER, HIS PHOTOGRAPHS ARE SEPARATED FROM THOSE OF HIS PEERS JOHN BALDESSARI AND WILLIAM WEGMAN BY HIS INTEREST IN THE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PHOTOGRAPH ITSELF, ESPECIALLY WITH REGARD TO THE PICTURE PLANE...THE EXHIBITION MATT CONNORS, ROBERT CUMMING AND FLORIAN MORLAT, PRESENTS AN OPEN-ENDED DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE STRUCTURE OF ART OBJECTS AND HOW WE LOOK AT THEM.  - cherry and martin.

ALSO NOTEWORTHY  >> Cleaning the Sleeping Endymion Flute, 1975.

notes on looking

HARIS EPAMINONDA, UNTITLED#16, 2009, FRAMED FOUND BOOK PAGE, 27x21 CM

>>CURA. MAGAZINE #08 SPRING SUMMER 2011

cura. on Haris Epaminonda:

HARIS EPAMINONDA DRAWS ON THE LIMBO OF MEANING THAT SEPARATES TRUE ARTISTIC CREATIVITY FROM THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY FICTION OF CERTAIN IMAGES. SHE DOES SO BY FLIRTING, IN A SENSE, WITH A VAST COLLECTION OF PICTURES, WELL-THUMBED BOOKS, ARCHIVED PHOTOS AND FINDS WHICH HAVE MISLAID THEIR ORIGINAL PLACE AND CONTEXT, GIVING THEM A NEW TWIST IN A SPACE THAT IS BOTH NARRATIVE AND NARRATED. THIS DIALOGUE MEANDERS THROUGH NEW FUNCTIONS, RULES AND COORDINATES, WHILE THE PASSING OF TIME DRAINS OUT THEIR CONTENT SELECTING AND REPOSITIONING THEM. IN THEIR MOST ABSTRACT FORM OF PERFECTION, PLATONIC IDEAS DIRECT THE FLOW OF NARRATIVE ACROSS A SHEET OF PAPER OR THROUGH SPACE, WHERE THE IDEA BECOMES FORM, SUBSTANCE, SCULPTURE.

(BOTTOM RIGHT) RENE MAGRITTE IN JERUSALEM, 1966

>>TATE ETC. MAGAZINE ISSUE 22 - SUMMER 2011

an Editors Note by Bice Curiger and Simon Grant on the photograph:

ON THE COVER OF THIS ISSUE YOU CAN SEE...A PHOTOGRAPH OF RENE MAGRITTE-HIMSELF TAKING A PHOTOGRAPH OUTSIDE THE ISRAEL MUSEUM IN JERUSALEM. IT IS AN APT IMAGE, AS TATE LIVERPOOL'S EXHIBITION OF MAGRITTE WILL REVEAL HOW THE ARTIST SOURCED HIS IMAGES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, MAGAZINES AND ADVERTISING. THE PICTURE WAS TAKEN IN 1966, SEVERAL MONTHS BEFORE THE START OF THE SIX-DAY WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND NEIGHBORING STATES EGYPT, SYRIA AND JORDAN...ONE WONDERS IF MAGRITTE HAD BEEN IN JERUSALEM A FEW MONTHS LATER, WHETHER HIS CAMERA WOULD HAVE DOCUMENTED A VERY DIFFERENT REALITY FROM WHICH HE SAW. 

as seen in Nina Fischer and Maroan El Sani's Blind Spots

works from 1998 - 2007

PHANTOM CLUB BERLIN KUNST + TECHNIK, BERLIN-MITTE, 1997

THE "PHANTOM CLUBS" OF NINA FISHER & MAROAN EL SANI

"A SERIES OF ILLEGAL BERLIN CLUBS AND BARS, SHOT IN THE DAYTIME, AROUND NOON, WHEN NOTHING HINTS AT THEIR NIGHT TIME LIFE. THESE PLACES HAD IRREGULAR OPENING TIMES, SO SOMETIMES, PEOPLE WENT THERE IN VAIN. YOU COULD NEVER BE SURE, IF YOU'RE AT THE WRONG PLACE OR IT WAS JUST THE WRONG TIME."  

SEE MORE / READ MORE

3 of 100 previously unpublished photographs by Cy Twombly as seen in Photographs III 1951 - 2010

CY TWOMBLY (1928 - JULY 5, 2011), WHOSE SPARE CHILDLIKE SCRIBBLES AND POETIC ENGAGEMENT WITH ANTIQUITY LEFT HIM STUBBORNLY OUT OF STEP WITH THE MOVEMENTS OF POSTWAR AMERICAN ART EVEN AS HE BECAME ONE OF THE ERA'S MOST IMPORTANT PAINTERS, DIED IN ROME TUESDAY. HE WAS 83.  - RANDY KENNEDY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

AND HERE

am schönsten ist das gleichgewicht kurz bevor's zusammenbricht

or: "THE JOY AND DISAPPOINTMENT THAT IS TRIGGERED BY THE LAPSE OF FRAGILE ORDER INTO CHAOS:...IT IS ONLY DURING THAT SPLIT SECOND OF THE DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPH THAT THOUGHT CAN CONVEY A DECEPTIVE IDEAL OF BALANCE AND STANDSTILL; IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, REALITY AND THOUGHT RUSH BACK INTO THE CREATIVE CHAOS..."  

Schumacher, Rainald. "Salt and Pepper for Reality: Peter Fischli & David Weiss " 2010.

PETER FISCHLI AND DAVID WEISS, 1984

one solid year
Yes, scoring Apartamento for the shop has been a year long challenge: convincing the folks I work with that this journal is special, emailing the creators in Spain, (then emailing them again in Spanish), emailing their distributors in Italy, then patiently waiting and waiting and... waiting. At last, this week, a dozen issues at the door.-

Apartamento as explained by Apartamento:

Apartamento's first issue was released in April 2008 as a magazine interested in homes, living spaces and design solutions as opposed to houses, photo ops and design dictatorships. The magazine is a logical result of the post-materialist mind shift. People are bored with the ostentatious and über-marketing. There is a real quest for identity in the midst of mass production and globalization, and that quest leads to what is personal, what is natural, what is real. 

AS SEEN IN ISSUE 7

Wucius Wong for change

Memorial weekend in Ojai, California. For 50 cents I picked up Wucius Wong's Principles of Two-Dimensional Design at Bart's Used Bookstore. The 1972 text outlines the fundamental elements of planar design: conceptual, visual, relational, practical. It's all very dry and well, flat. Yet, there's something so basically appealing about Wong's information graphics and diagrams, the book is worth every penny.

CHAPTER 8: ANOMALY

"IN DESIGN, THE USE OF ANOMALY HAS TO BE OF GENUINE NECESSITY. IT MUST HAVE PURPOSE, WHICH MAY BE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: (a) TO ATTRACT ATTENTION (b) TO RELIEVE MONOTONY (c) TO TRANSFORM REGULARITY (d) TO BREAKDOWN REGULARITY...BREAKDOWN IN A REGULAR STRUCTURE MEANS THAT DISCIPLINE IS COMPLETELY DESTROYED IN ONE OR MORE AREAS OF ANOMALY. STRUCTURAL LINES GET ENTANGLED, SUBDIVISIONS DISTORTED OR DISLOCATED, OR THE STRUCTURE PARTIALLY DISINTEGRATES."

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>> and for PRINCIPLES OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN click here

check plus, collaboratively speaking

The extra-curricular endeavors of my extra-talented coworkers: Justine Babb's  illustration and design for Laura Kelsey's band. Don't miss The Flytraps on July 5th at La Cita downtown.

recently

SEE MAP, BELOW

SEE IMAGES, ABOVE

 

check plus, typographically speaking

 >> FRED MARCELLINO FOR THIS 1979 COVER ART AND DESIGN 

MADE AVBL COURTESY GOODWILL INDUSTRIES, HOLLYWOOD

this is Margo Ducharme

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Last year I had the pleasure of assisting the brilliant and talented Margo Ducharme with the Raquel Allegra F/W 2010 Lookbook photoshoot.  Margo just has this way of transposing her carefree, effervescent energy into an ambient, dreamlike world of images...

This is what she made. 

last month

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That is Pierpaolo Ferari's photograph on the cover of last month's Abitare.  Toilet Paper, his magazine project with artist Maurizio Cattelan is great, too. Actually, it's amazing. Very Italian and very surreal. Give it a look  here.

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>> abitare

>> toilet paper 

also, you may have forgotten your bubbles on my front stoop

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William Leavitt, where have you been?

MANTA RAY, 1981

Saturday night at MOCA's opening of William Leavitt: Theater Objects, a  couple, patrons in similar hideous grey suit and ensemble circa 1970, stood and chatted in front of the sculptural installation, California Patio. It was perfect, like another figment of Leavitt's imagination stepped into the piece. The highly original show is the 69-year-old artist's first museum retrospective, begging the question, "William Leavitt, where have you been?" Forget any sort of website, prior to the opening but a few (two) of Leavitt's works were available to view online. And while he is occasionally referenced in print, the show's catalog may be the first in depth career examination.

Los Angeles based, Leavitt's art helped form the city's conceptual movement in the 60s and 70s. Fifty years of his work comes together in Theater Objects, highlighting storytelling  as a major concept. Narratives unfold with a strange blend of mid-century-ism, sci-fi and the everyday. 

Leavitt is a jack of many trades: architectural paintings, photo-montages, installations and excerpts from his plays are a few of the mediums explored. Los Angeles is a prominent theme- images of the city's vernacular are theatrical backdrops. Curtains are commonly used to push this point even further. Works are not singular, but build on each other to produce vignettes,  worlds within worlds; a painting of a manta ray, then a photograph of this paining of the manta ray, then the photograph of this painting of the manta ray hung  on a built wall. 

Leavitt's take on the Angelino's sense of taste and desire, crossed with off-kilter narratives make his work relevant and compelling years after conception. Thank you Bill, it's about time. 

CALIFORNIA PATIO, 1972

DESERT HOUSE MOLECULES, 2009

TWIN LAWN CHAIRS, 1987

>> Wiliam Leavitt: Theater Objects

Japan, dream sequence

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Five winters ago

I fell in love with Japan.

I stayed in Shinjuku, Tokyo

with three best friends.

One day,

we took the train to Kyoto.

It snowed that day.
It was cold and beautiful.

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ARCHIVE, 2005

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Japan, get well soon.

Daniel Freytag if you are reading this...

...please print me one of your posters. The Editions of 100 store is sold out. Thank you.

100% OF ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED  TO THE >>BRITISH RED CROSS JAPAN TSUNAMI APPEAL.

>> EDITIONS OF 100 STORE