Thursday, October 30, 2014

Charline von Heyl Etching

Charline von Heyl working on her prints in the historic Crown Point studio, San Francisco


Video by Crown Point Press, Published 27 October 2014.

Dust on a White Shirt (Evil Eye), 2014
$3,500
Dust on a White Shirt (Stripes), 2014
$3,500
The next item on Charline von Heyl’s agenda is a focus on her print work, at Crown Point Press. On the West coast, her new prints make their debut at the San Francisco gallery space, while days later a selection make their way to the East coast for the esteemed IFPDA Print Fair in New York. 

via Artsy

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Angela Bulloch & Rolls Royce: A Brief Overview


The Rich Artistic History of Rolls-Royce Motorcars

Rolls-Royce is perhaps aware that a few of their customers are slightly 'eccentric.' The cars have been a subject of interest for artists and collectors for more than 100 years. Rolls-Royce Limited was created over a famous lunch in May 1904. Henry Royce, a successful engineer, struck a deal with Charles Rolls, owner of one of the first car dealerships. The ensuing series of two, three, four and six cylinder cars broke the mould for engineering and craftsmanship. The Silver Ghost, launched in 1907, was a car of legendary smoothness that completed a 14,371 mile virtually non-stop run, creating 'the best car in the world' legend (2). The Spirit of Ecstasy, also called "Silver Lady" or "Flying Lady", was designed by English sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes and carries with it a story about a secret passion between John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, (second Baron Montagu of Beaulieu after 1905, a pioneer of the automobile movement, and editor of The Car Illustrated magazine from 1902) and the model for the emblem, Eleanor Velasco Thornton, Montagu's secretary.
Sykes, a graduate of London's Royal College of Art,  originally crafted a figurine of her in fluttering robes, having placed one forefinger against her lips - to symbolize the secret of their love affair. The figurine was consequently named "The Whisper" and is on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu along with other Spirit of Ecstasy figurines. Only three or four castings were ever made, and only two are believed to have survived.
"The Whisper"


 Rolls-Royce became later concerned that some owners were affixing "inappropriate" ornaments to their cars. Claude Johnson, then managing director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, was asked to see to the commissioning of something more suitably dignified and graceful. Sykes' brief from Claude Johnson had been to evoke the spirit of mythical beauty, Nike, whose graceful image was admired in The Louvre. In 1911, Sykes chose to modify The Whisper into a version similar to today's "Spirit of Ecstasy" - "A graceful little goddess, the Spirit of Ecstasy, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight and alighted on the prow of a Rolls-Royce motor car to revel in the freshness of the air and the musical sound of her fluttering draperies."Some critics and fans of the Rolls Royce have given The Spirit of Ecstasy the dubious nickname "Ellie in her Nightie", suggesting Eleanor's influence as Sykes' muse. "(3)
"Nike of Samothrace"




"The Spirit of Ecstasy"
 
Rolls-Royce Commissions Turner Prize Nominee Angela Bulloch’s Installation
Angela Bulloch with her 'Cipher of L' installation, the dimensions of which are identical to a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Photo courtesy of http://uk.blouinartinfo.com.

Berlin-based Angela Bulloch's sculpture of flashing ‘pixel boxes’ lights up the Mayfair showroom of Rolls-Royce for the duration of Frieze London, 2014. This one-off piece has the same dimensions, and a similar level of craftsmanship, as a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Bulloch went to the Rolls-Royce workshop in Goodwood to seek inspiration, and was ‘impressed by the technology and quality of leatherwork and veneers that go into the making of all their cars’. Using LEDS for the first time, she adds: ‘The light programme that runs through my 'Cipher of L' piece uses a range of secret colours usually found on the exterior of Rolls-Royce's cars and the work will have a puzzling pattern that nearly never repeats.' (1)

“The Ideological Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce Radiator” (1962) by Erwin Panofsky discusses the origins of English architectural and artistic styles. He begins the essay referencing the English penchant for gardens, as seen in the so-called “Garden Revolution” of the second decade of the 18th century. This revolution marked the replacement of the Italo-French garden of the preceding era with what the “English Garden.” The English Garden rejected the formal style of gardening, epitomized by the gardens of Le Nôtre Versailles. These gardens "had proudly imposed upon the infinity and irregularity of nature the finiteness and order of a little universe conceived by man—a universe cut out of (and off from) the great outdoors and rationally organized into a geometrical pattern of avenues suitable for the stately progress of horsemen...carefully clipped into stereometrical shapes, “mazes” which pose neat problems in topology, and bodies of water disciplined to the regular contours of basins and canals..." (4) 

Panofsky cites Alexander Pope's "Moral Essays" (1731-35), which states: "Treat the Goddess [Nature] like a modest Fair / Nor overdress nor leave her wholly bare." (5)

1. "As Frieze fever takes over London, we preview the best satellite exhibitions around town" O'Kelly, Emma. Wallpaper magazine online edition. October 10, 2014.
http://www.wallpaper.com/art/as-frieze-fever-takes-over-london-we-preview-the-best-satellite-exhibitions-around-town/8083#FsjC6bYVwi3Js8lq.99)
2. "The Beginning," http://www.rolls-roycemotorcars.com/history/
3. "State Master Encyclopedia: The Spirit of Ecstasy," http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Spirit-of-Ecstasy. Accessed 11 October, 2014.
4. Panofsky, Erwin. “The Ideological Antecedents of the Rolls-Royce Radiator,” Proceedings of the American Philiosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 4, August 1963. JSTOR.org, Accessed 11 October 2014.
5. Pope, Alexander. "Moral Essays," 1731-35. Ian Gordon. "Moral Essays." The Literary Encyclopedia. 24 Jan. 2002. Accessed 11 October 2014.<http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3487

Friday, September 19, 2014

COSMOSCOW 2015 to feature work by Rirkrit Tiravanija

September 16 - MOSCOW - Dasha Zhukova announced that the Rem Koolhaas-designed new home for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, which she founded in 2008, will finally open its doors in June 2015. The space consists mostly of a heavily renovated version of a once-famous, now-dilapidated Soviet-era fine dining restaurant in Gorky Park, not too far from their current location, which is in the name part of town. Plans were first released back in 2012, so this has been a long time coming.

The Garage squad out in Moscow, which includes director Anton Belov and chief curator Kate Fowle in addition to Ms. Zhukova and Mr. Koolhaas, also rolled out the programming schedule for 2015. The initial slate of shows—spread throughout five exhibitions spaces in the 58,000-square-foot compound, which also sports an auditorium, a cafe, a screening room and a bookshop—will include a project by Rirkrit Tiravanija.


 Anton Belov, Rem Koolhaas, Dasha Zhukova, Kate Fowle. (Photo courtesy Garage)
A Rem Koolhaas rendering of The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, set to open June 2015 
(Photo courtesy blouinartinfo.com)


The fair is currently on view through September 21st at the Moscow Manege (pictured above). For visitor information, see http://cosmoscow.com/

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Jorge Pardo and the 11th Bienal de la Habana

We recently went to Havana with Jorge Pardo for the installation of his new room-sized work in the 11th Bienal de la Habana. Founded in 1984, with the goal of promoting "Third World" art, the Havana Biennial was originally focused on artists from Latin America and the Caribbean, expanding to include Africa and Asia in 1986. In 2009, the organizers decided to invite artists from the US and Europe as well, and the 2012 Biennial was attended by 115 artists from 43 countries.

Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center

Held at multiple traditional venues, this year's Biennial also saw performances and interventions spread throughout the streets and squares of the city. The main venue is the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, named for one of Cuba's most influential artists. Born in 1902, the same year Cuba gained independence from Spain, Lam studied art in Madrid, later fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's. Afterwards, he moved to France where he fell in with Picasso, Breton and other members of the avant-garde. Returning to Cuba in 1941, Lam re-connected with the traditions of his homeland, fusing elements of Cubism and Surrealism with Afro-Cuban religious imagery. This can be seen in one of his most famous paintings "The Jungle," often compared to Picasso's "Guernica".

The Jungle

Saturday, February 5, 2011

The Gallery: Art Los Angeles Contemporary 2011

This year Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC) was in the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport, a favored venue for the fair. ALAC is a relatively small-scale and digestible fair which has a very diverse group of galleries from ACE, Los Angeles to Mother's Tank Farm, Dublin. The fair had an independent spirit which we view as one of ALAC's positive attributes.


1301PE's booth at ALAC 2011




Tracy William's booth exhibited three artists, Matt Mullican, Peter Stickbury, and Anna Craycroft, all of whom use portraiture for different means. Many LA artists' space also held booths at the fair. WOR focused on Marnie Weber and Jennifer Bolande. Night Gallery made a day appearance at the Eight Veil booth. The late night Night Gallery experience could not be replicated but the attempt was notable.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Abroad: Peonies considered

There are many obvious advantages to digital substitutes: speed, accessibility, etc... And if digital media can meet or exceed the parameters of human perception what is lost in substituting digital for analog media can be unclear.

LED or RGB digital color is fast and convenient but it is inherently a programmed approximation. The spectrum of color that is visible when light passes through a film membrane reflects the spectrum of light captured during filming. Input reflects output. There is no approximation. Even though our eyes cannot recognize all of the colors in a film, the source of information is true. Digital color is programmed to mimic analog's infinite spectrum of color. Even if digital color is a very good approximation it can never be a true substitute. The digital experience is doubly mediated (first by human perception and second by digital approximation). The correlate analog experience is mediated by only human's physiological limits. It is hard to know what is lost by this secondary mediation but it can often be sensed, if not articulated. The colors in-between the colors we can register are imperceptible but they are there. Perhaps such imperceptible increments, whether they occur in social, aural, or color space, are more vital than we realize.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Abroad: Diana Thater's Peonies

Diana Thater's exhibition "Chernobyl" opened this past week at Hauser & Wirth in London. "Chernobyl" is an impressive video installation about the nuclear disaster that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986. Rather than using editing cuts to convey Chernobyl's landscape Thater opts for film layers, superimposing images on top of one another. In doing this, Thater avoids linear time created by a sequence of images, in favor of time that is sculptural and has depth.


In an adjacent room is Thater's video installation "Peonies." As with "Chernobyl," "Peonies" also utilizes film layers, depicting 3 ghosted peonies on 9 video monitors. To make the video, Thater used her Standard 8mm film camera, which allows back-winding of film, to shoot a true double exposure of the flowers. The layers in "Peonies" were made with analog materials, as opposed to"Chernobyl," whose layers were made digitally. Regarding "Peonies," Thater states that she wanted to make the viewer aware of the difference between analog and digital techniques. Digital techniques may be analogous but they are never identical to the analog techniques they emulate. For example, digital media is pixelated and has only a finite number of colors. Analog media, on the other hand, provides an infinite spectrum of colors - many of which the eye cannot register.


To hear Diana Thater talk about "Chernobyl" and "Peonies" click here.