spasticrobot

New Warhol Documentary

PBS will air a new, four hour documentary biography of Andy Warhol on September 20-21. This gleaming NYT review has me very interested.

R.I.P. Jason Rhoades

Sculptor and installation artist Jason Rhoades died this week in Los Angeles at the age of 41. His funny and at times provacative work was some of my favorite to come out of the 90s. It's really sad to see such a talented person lost at such a young age.

Kara Walker at the Met: After the Deluge

Kara Walker has partnered up with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a special exhibition titled After the Deluge. Her work displayed explores "the transformative effect and psychological meaning of the sea" and the role assigned to black figures represented in art.

From the exhibition description:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, contemporary American artist Kara Walker (b. 1969)—widely recognized for her explorations of issues of race, gender, and sexuality through the 18th-century medium of cut-paper silhouettes—has selected a variety of objects from the Museum's collection that she juxtaposes with her own work in order to explore the banality of everyday life, water, and its impact. Taking her cue from J. M. W. Turner's Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) (1840) and Winslow Homer's sensitive depictions of black life in 19th-century America, Walker's aim is to simultaneously address "the transformative effect and psychological meaning of the sea" and the role of the black figure as they are represented in art. The narrative created through the combination of these disparate images gives rise to a foreboding sense of doom.

In her work, Walker unleashes the traditionally proper, Victorian medium of silhouette directly onto the walls of the gallery, creating a theatrical space in which her unruly cut-paper characters cavort seemingly with one foot in the historical reality of slavery, and the other in a fantastical, nightmarish space that suggests the world of romantic novels.

Among those works in the Metropolitan's American art collection that Walker incorporates in the exhibition is The Gulf Stream (1899) by Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910), which was based upon studies made during Homer's two winter trips to the Bahamas in 1884–85 and 1898–99. The work depicts an African-American male adrift on his rig in stormy seas, surrounded by sharks. A rigger on the horizon of the painting perhaps denotes hope of salvation. The Deluge towards Its Close (ca. 1813) by Joshua Shaw (1777–1860) is also included.

SGR ArtRock

My good friend Stephen G. Rhodes is in the 2006 ArtRock exhibition, which opens one week from today at Rockefeller Plaza. It's a well deserved show. Check out some of his work on the Guild & Greyshkul gallery site and look for the Art Rock ad in next month's ArtForum!

Rex Invitation

Willcore has posted some amazing scans on Prosthetically Hip of the invitation to the Rex Grand Ball that he received this year. These are amazing symbols of the beauty and history of the old-line Krewes. This is the first year that the Rex Ball will not be held in the Municipal Auditorium since 1930, due to flooding. Instead the Ball is being held at the Sheraton on Canal St. The traditional meeting of the courts between Comus and Rex will take place in a ballroom at the Mariott. Rex will more than likely walk down Canal St. to meet Comus, a sight that I may try to make it out to see.

Last Night, SXSW Day 2 and Code Blitz

Last night Haney, Nix and I hit the streets of downtown Austin for the first night of sanctioned SXSW events. The first one, a cocktail mixer at Lucky Lounge was way too crowded by the time we got down there so we opted for a delcious meal of noodles & dim sum at Noodle-ism.  After dinner we headed over to the frogdesign office for the Official Opening Party. It was a great event with free beer, dancers, projected motion graphics by a slew of great artists including renascent and music by Grupo Fantasma. After that party we headed over to the AMODA Digital Showcase for some interactive art and electronic beats. Unfortunately due to my current distaste for the nightlife I split before SmashTV hit the stage.

I got up early this morning and then attended Eric Meyer's panel on Emergent Semantics, the first of three panels all dealing with code. Following that was More HiFi Design with CSS and then Tantek Celik's very informative The Elements of Meaningful XHTML.

Right now I'm feeling really bushed from all the mental activity and I think I'm going to grab some dinner and then head back to the hotel to parse all of my notes so far and rest up for tomorrow. I promise to wake up early and post ALL of my notes that I've collected so far.

Addendum: I've posted all  of my notes & comments from Tantek & Meyer's panels.

SWAMP 2.0

SWAMP, aka my former collaborators and colleagues Doug Easterly and Matt Kenyon, have a new website that is resplendent in CSS/XHTML glory. Their amazing projects examine the effects of corporatism on our bodies, conciousness and the space around us, among other things. It's nice to see them represented in such a nice, usable website.

Agnes Martin R.I.P.

Agnes Martin, a pioneer of Geometric Abstract painting, died at the ripe old age of 92 this weekend. Her structured grid paintings were very influential to me as a young art student and I'm grateful for her contribution to art history.

Spore 1.1 Honors

Doug Easterly’s amazing bio-fi Spore 1.1 project, which I was lucky enough to collaborate on in the ideation stage of development, was recently awarded top honors at Vida 7.0 in Madrid.

The Life 7.0 site describes the project thusly: Spore 1.1 makes visible, in an ironic manner, the artificiality of our immediate reality by relating the business market to the ecosystem. The artist purchased a plant at the Home Depot superstore and inserted it in a mechanized installation that is connected to the Internet via a wireless connection and programmed with open source software. The installation periodically checks the value of Home Depot’s stock over the internet, activating a watering system: if share values are up the plant gets watered. The underlined paradox is that Home Depot guarantees the well being of the plant for one year and, if the plant dies due to either falling or rising share values it has to be replaced by the multinational, —a contract relating life and death.

It’s a huge win for Doug, a visionary artist and cultural critic whose time has come. Even Bruce Sterling is talking about it. Cheers to you my man!

Addendum:
Just came across some more links at We Make Money Not Art and TreeHugger.

Jeremy Deller won the Turner

Jeremy Deller, an artist I am only familiar with thorugh his excellent Acid Brass project, has won the prestigious Turner Prize. The particular piece he was rewarded for is called Memory Bucket, which documents Bush's Texas.