It’s easy to be all ‘2.0′ and ‘open source’ when you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s an entirely different thing if you’re one of the biggest rock bands of our time (and indisputably the most influential band of the fin de siècle of the 20th century). I’m talking about Radiohead here. After they let their fans download their newest album directly form their website for free (paying was optional) and their innovative idea of selling the several separate tracks to their single ‘nude’, they’ve now put the source code of their new video ‘house of cards‘ online for all the vid-techie-fans out there to manipulate. (I’m a BIG sucker for ‘making of’ films, so that site’s an absolute treat for me…)
When I bought the DVD of the brilliant David Payne film ‘About Schmidt’ it included as an extra, some edits of the opening sequence, made by different editors. Very entertaining and inspiring to watch. The various remixes of ‘nude’ mainly proved the brilliance of Radiohead themselves; none of the remixes came close to the original. I still can’t wait to see some of the ‘fan-made’ video version of House of Cards. You may call Radiohead whatever you want, but you cannot deny the fact that their innovative ideas for making their fans experience their music keep revolutionizing the music industry.
In a previous post I briefly mentioned the artwork of Jason Shawn Alexander, whose work is currently exhibited in a group exhibition with, among others, Sarah Folkman. But Alexander is not an artist one can briefly mention without giving him your full attention, even if this is only for one blogposting.
Alexander’s work is a lot of things, but ‘cheerful’ is not one of them. As he puts it himself, on his website: “The subject is suspended in moments of pain or sorrow.” A description like that could point in the direction of adolescent paintings, filled with gore, but it could also describe the paintings of brilliant artists like Francis Bacon. Fortunately, Alexander’s paintings have a lot more in common with the latter. That is; had Bacon been employed by Stan Lee to do a comics version of his paintings. Alexander, who is also a very gifted illustrator, is a virtuoso with the brush.
Alexander does not overdo it with all the pain and suffering. He leaves his audience room to come up for air; “The ultimate expression, however, is one of survival, if not hope.” And he doesn’t overdo it with the realism either; even though his talent as comics artist shines through, on closer inspection the undeniable personality of the brush is there. It’s not work that would have looked just as good, had it been a pen and ink image.
Perhaps it’s not the sort of stuff you’d take your mother to go and see on a sunday morning (not that I know your mom’s taste), but that can be said for many works. To me, the paintings feel true and the images sincere.
Works by Jason Shawn Alexendar were recently in a group exhibition in the Corey Hertford Gallery. After taking a quick peek at his blog, I guess the results were pleasing to the artist. And as a fan of great painting, I can only agree to that,
“The increasing digitalization of our culture has consequences for art.” Not a very strong opening for a press release for the show ‘Deep Screen – Art in Digital Culture’at the Stedelijk Museum CS in Amsterdam. It actually made me yawn with utter boredom instead of filling me with energizing anticipation of information to come. It also made me doubt whether or not to go see it. When a show is promoted with one of the most commonplace clichés, what does that say about the quality of what’s to see? Will it provide me with anything new and exciting, or just more annoyance?
The Deep Screen hosts works by some ‘big names’, such as Geert Mul or internet-art pioneers JODI , as well as artist who I had not yet heard of like Meiya Lin -part of her video can be seen on youtube (below)- and Marnix de Nijs & Edwin van der Heide (a video of their installation ‘Spatial Sounds’ can be seen above). The works of the more senior artists seems to have focused on the digitalization itself. What does that digitalization mean for our culture? The younger ones, some of which will barely have a memory left of a non-digitalized society. used the technology as a given. for them it’s just another way to express themselves of their message and a medium for their art. In most reviews I’ve read, the journalist seems to feel that the second form is the superior one. They suffer from the ‘been there, done that’ syndrome. As if everyone is already aware of every aspect and finesse that is influenced by this digitalization after the ‘The Matrix’ trilogy. However, I feel that there is still a lot to be said for art that takes a step back and makes us aware of what this digitalization really means for our culture, but also for other matters such as world politics and science. In that sense, the digital medium means a bit more than a painting and makes for far more interesting research into the medium.
A more interesting question is, does digital art still have a place in a museum? Isn’t; the most interesting digital art to be found outside of museum and gallery walls? What does the SMCS building add to seeing an animation instead of watching it online somewhere? That question, unfortunately, still remains unanswered by Deep Screen.
‘Everybody’s a photographer‘ is just about as big a mistake as ‘everybody’s an artist‘. I am sympathetic towards the thought, but it’s just all wrong, dude. Photography is hard. It’s difficult to get a good shot with an intruiging subject, exciting composition… or just something that worth looking at. But since everyone is capable of the act of pushing the shutter button everybody’s able to make a registration of an image through a lens. And if the end result sucks… Let’s call it art.
Well… let’s not call it art. Let’s call it ‘crap’. Which is what it is, most of the time. With the rise of the digital camera, photography courses have been flooded and one amateur photography exhibition after the other has been organised. Flickr was worth millions when it was bought by Yahoo and why? Because everyone is a photographer.
I’ve just been leafing through the photography special of Juxtapoz, which is always a beacon of good taste in a world that’s becoming increasingly amateur-image-crazy, but in a lot of cases… I just don’t see it. Could it be that the photographer that managed to get his image up in a gallery and published in this magazine is way better at his/her PR than his/her photography work? I’d imagine so. Fortunately there are also a lot of gems to be discovered. Beautiful heart stopping images that made me gasp for air when I looked at them. My faith in photography as a mature art-form has been restored. With this posting, a couple of wonderful examples. Please click on images for links to the photographer’s websites.
Credit: all pictures published in the Juxtapoz photo-issue 2008 and taken from the Juxtapoz website. Photocredits top to bottom: Aaron Hobson, Patrick Smith, Alex Prager and Graham French (click on photos for their websites).
Making sarcastic comments about the intellectual and philosophical qualities of advertising or financial people is taking cheap shots in front of an open goal. But if they are asking for it, they are asking for it. Last weekend I drove past a billboard of the Belgian financial multinational Fortis on which I read in big letters (images on billboards are overrated anyway): “Life is a curve, where on this curve are you?” (and where on his curve is their new shareholder, the Libean leader Khadaffi? Or, where on this curve is Fortis itself? I’d say on a downslope….).
My first thought was: “Life is a curve? … No, it isn’t” Actually, it may be one of the most stupid comments ever printed on a billboard poster. Many beautiful, insightful, philosophical things have been said and written about life. Socrates wrote that true wisdom is in knowing how little we know about life, I wonder if he would have thought that deeming life ‘a curve’, was perhaps oversimplifying matters a bit. We all know the analogies that have become bad clichés: how life is a rollercoaster, a river. Or perhaps the bizarre quotes like “life is like a tin of sardines, we are all looking for the key.” Every era gets the quotes it deserves and these times may not be bizarre, a cliché, or wise. Our era might deserve populist, unintelligent quotes. Actually, I don’t know who to feel more sorry for, the idiot copywriter that wrote it, or the idiot that approved of it and paid several million euros for this campaign.
At the same time I felt rather offended actually. “Where on this curve are you?” they have the nerve to ask me. Not only do those arrogant people at Fortis have the poor wit to inform about the alleged ‘curviness’ of life, they immediately try to convince me that this is a given fact and, since I undoubtedly accept this fallacy, ask me about my location on this curve. For the sake of argument: would life have been a curve (which, by intelligent and logical lines of reasoning, it isn’t), it would have been completely impossible for anyone to say where on this curve you are. Theoretically, it could be possible to say where you were in life at a given point, after your death, but I doubt that Fortis has informants in the hereafter.
In a press release Adrian Martorana, the Fortis exec that is guilty of this so-called ‘corporate campaign’, states”The ‘Life is a curve’ campaign encourages people to think about their financial needs today and plan for tomorrow, with the help of a trusted partner such as Fortis.” And to make matters even worse: “We carried out extensive global research over 12 months to make sure our message was relevant in today’s environment.” I don’t expect bankers to be good philosophers, I do expect them to able to do a bit of decent research, draw some solid conclusions from it and act according to them. I might be expecting too much.
I should mentally have linked Fortis with qualities such as ‘future financial needs”and ‘trusted financial partner’. How on earth this should have been done by bad philosophy is beyond me. The creatives at their advertising agency Grey EMEA were probably a bit too high on bad cocaine. When they listened to the lyrics of their superior in philospophy, Jessica Simpson, who begins her song “Walkin’ Round in a circle” with the sentence “Life is a curve BALL”. There is virtually no job easier than that of creating a corporate advertising campaign to build a brand image. That’s why, when you fail as a proper artist or writer, you can still work in advertsing (and if you even fail there: ‘corporate advertising’).
But perhaps all this is my mistake. The fact that all I think about is their poor ability in logical reasoning, and not their superior qualities in banking, is all my mistake. Or maybe I just have it wrong. Maybe ‘life is a curve’ actually makes wonderful sense. I don’t think I’ll be taking any of my banking to the lovely people at Fortis. But they probably don’t care anyway. I don’t have a clue about where I am on my curve.
Men are strong, brave and dependable. Women are caring, loving and understanding. Those are easy to understand rules. Another set of rules determines that male artists get to paint monsters and gruesome images filled with torture and pain. Female artists on the other hand get to paint cute animals or, should they be politically active, perhaps a homeless or starving child. But not nightmares. That’s not in the female art-domain. Sarah Folkman doesn’t care one bit about those conservative and backwards ‘rules’. She paints your nightmares like the best of men. She even paints the nightmares you weren’t aware of you ever had them. … oh, and a couple of cute animals don’t hurt…
However, don’t let the ‘cuteness’ fool you. You’d better take these pets seriously. As in a David Lynch movie, or a Gregory Crewdson photo, there is always a hidden layer of suspense. Like a mortal threat buried just beneath the surface of the beautiful and tranquil lake.
Sarah is currently (till June 21st) exhibiting her work at the Corey Helford Gallery, in Culver, California, with colleagues Karen Hsiao, Jason Shawn Alexander (whose works pretty much ‘rock’ as well), Miso and Melissa Forman. You can check out some opening photos at the Juxtapoz website.
A thing I really should’ve find out is whether or not the artist Sarah Folkman is also the singer and songwriter Sarah Folkman of the trophop band T.H.C. . Should’ve, could’ve, but didn’t. Guess I’m just not a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer music…. Go check out her art!
Beautifully painted, utterly uneasy, often disturbing works. I have declared before that I am a great admirer of the work of Kendrick Mar. There are many other artists that try the same trick: “I’ll paint a beheaded teddy bear and make my parents worry about my emotional state.” More often than not: this only leads for very immature and shallow works (granted: it does usually make me wonder about the emotional state of the maker…) Not so for the works of Luke Chueh (pronounced Luke ‘Chu’). This wonderful artist manages to paint sceneries that have all the aforementioned qualities, but add that extra layer that separates the men from the traumatised boys.
Over the last couple of years Luke Chueh’s become a very popular artist. His works are very accessible to look at, without seeming to want to be pleasing. Chueh says his work is ‘character driven’ which helps in this age where you can stick a Disney or Looney Tune sticker on just about anything imaginable; we’re used to this sort of iconography. (Much like those cartoons; Chueh’s characters make for very good toys indeed.) However, in contrast to the overly commercial happy cartoon animals, Chueh’s work seems to carry a message (even though his paintings are enjoyable without seeing it).Take his work ‘reach‘ for example, where an obese bunny can’t bend over to pick up a carrot. This can easily be seen as a comment on our consumption society and fat-addiction.
Unlike a lot of paintings depicting ocean sceneries and mountain views, this sort of work is generally very personal, even though in this case I would not go so far as to label it: unprocessed childhood trauma. Chueh’s work is clever, wonderfully executed but personally I prefer the work of artists like Kendrick Mar that use a lot of the same iconography. Chueh graduated from the California Polytechnic State Uni with a BS in graphic design. Since he had a hard time finding employment after employment (any companies that turned him down should feel very stupid indeed) he resorted to painting stuff to keep busy. That background is still very visible in his work. They’re not so much paintings as they are painted designs on a painted background. Which is not criticizing his work by any means, but merely my personal preference.
Should the non-US readers of this site/blog want to see some of the works of Luke Chueh in real-life, as I can imagine, he has working relations with galleries all over that states from NYC, to Detroit to LA. Have a look at his site for some cool works and info on expositions.
We’ve known it for a long time and we stood by, watching it happen. The Chinese are coming. And they’re ready to take over. Bad news? Not really. Okay, so there’s a lot ‘not quite right’ yet about China and the Chinese politics… that does not mean it’s all bad over there. And you certainly can’t blame all Chinese. Especially not the Chinese citizens I would like to discuss here; Chinese artists.
Fact: China is a big place. And there are a whole lotta Chinese people. So, statistically, there should be quite some very good Chinese artists among them. for the last couple of years we’ve been seeing more and more of them, their works are no longer a rarity in Western contemporary art galleries. And that’s not just because the works are, by default, politically charged since they’re from China (although it does help: paint a building with some Chinese writing on it and the work immediately gains in meaning when it is shipped to the western hemisphere, deny it as much as you like).
Too much talk, not enough images. For your enjoyment, some images of talented and hyped Chinese painters. (click on artist’s name for a link)
I, for one, am a pleased person. I’m not sure if you have noticed it yourself, but we are currently living in a figurative era. Paintings depict something. The abstract painter is, on the average, persona non grata for the time being. Of course, as always, there is a big difference between the large, international galleries in the cosmopolitan centers of the world and the smaller galleries in the faraway rural towns where the well meaning, moderately talented, paint dripper can still find clientèle. And there are still a couple of abstract painters that are simply good enough as an artist to still cut it, but over the whole: figuration is king. And I, for one, am absolutely thrilled.
Obviously, not all figurative painting is good. I have seen more less-than-mediocre paintings of cows, flowers, Tuscany hills and ocean sunsets than I can handle but still. If those painters would have been guilty of abstract paintings, matters would have been much worse. Three types of abstract painting I find particularly annoying and why they are so enormously outdated:
1. Paintings about painting
Marshall McLuhan may have said (in one of the most mis- and over-quoted phrases in history) that ‘the medium is the message’, over the whole I’d still say that the medium carries the message. Obviously, this whole thing about investigating ‘the medium of paint’ and ‘interactions between painting and audience’ is a phase we had to go through, after all; knowledge is power (another over-quoted phrase). All the research into to painting as a medium that needs to be done, will be conducted by the people at Talens and their competitors. Artists may move on to different pastures.
2. Painting your personal inner-life Granted: most artist are selfish narcissists and believe that their deepest emotions and feelings are important and unique enough to be shared with the world. However, the more talented artists have discovered that they can take their art a bit further than by merely splattering a visualisation of their inner-life on a canvas (or chopping it out of a piece of lumber). It also gives people who don’t give a toss about your difficult childhood or pains of existence something nice to look at while you engage in your public self-help therapy. So it’s just a nice thing to do.
3. Painting the soul of things Artists that make abstract works because they aim to paint the souls of their subjects should hand over their brush and go hug a tree somewhere. Furthermore: painting the soul of an onion is very, very rude towards the onion.
I know, there is still a lot more abstract painting going on out there, a lot which I have no appreciation for whatsoever either. But especially these three have lost their conceptual basis as well. There just not worth doing anymore since it has all been done many, many times.
Figurative painting Actually, this posting has not said much about why figurative painting is good and a lot about why (most) abstract paintings suck. I apologise. A painter communicates in a visual way and should use a language that the audience is used to. If a writer wants to get a message across, he/she doesn’t write in a made-up language (except for certain poets, but that kind of poetry has been sufficiently dealt with, sort of like abstract painting). Creating a scene in which your public can recognize something to make them perceive the world in a different manner, that’s what I consider a work of art.
Finally…
About this unkind post. Should I have hurt your feelings, please feel free to make a sad painting. Should I have merely annoyed you and you feel I am a completely stuck up son of a something… you might be right. Feel free to leave a comment. I’ll approve it.
As we announced a couple of days ago, CultBlender is working on the definitive tool to make the final, objective and irrevocable verdict whether a work can be called ‘art’ or not. One aspect we will surely be part of the tool is that a work of art should move you in a way. There are some artforms however, where the movement is not merely a result of the art, it is a part of it. And I am not talking about the art of driving a Formula One car here.
The internet is a great place for making discoveries and expanding you world, but for theatre based arts it’s usually insufficient to give you a sufficient experience. Dancecompany ‘Zure Room‘ (translation: Sour Cream) have made a ‘Zure Room for beginners’ video, an introduction to their work that’s perfectly fitted for Youtube and all those who wander the world by roaming the internet in their small, damp, sweaty and unlit rooms. Art that moves, Movement as art, it’s all moving towards the digital age.
