Top to bottom: A Place; After The Dream; During Sleep; In Silence; One Place; Over The Continents; State Of Being; Unconscious Anxiety
http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/
Sunday, November 4, 2012
BEAUTY: Installation--Chiharu Shiota
Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota's background as a performance artist somehow manages to present itself like an echo in her installation pieces of knotted and tangled black or red wool thread. She uses everyday objects that are ripe with meaning such as clothing, beds, tables, chairs, and weaves a web of impenetrable memory around them. In this way, the installations are unapproachable: one can only look from the outside, lending a far-away sense, like a memory one can't quite pull out of the depths of one's mind... "What is this object and why do I have a nagging feeling that I know it, know what happened...if I could just remember what it is."
Top to bottom: A Place; After The Dream; During Sleep; In Silence; One Place; Over The Continents; State Of Being; Unconscious Anxiety
http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/
Top to bottom: A Place; After The Dream; During Sleep; In Silence; One Place; Over The Continents; State Of Being; Unconscious Anxiety
http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/
BEAUTY: Photography--Tim Flach
Tim Flach's series "More Than Human" features breathtakingly beautiful portraits of primates. These magnificent apes, chimps, and orangutans are so powerful, innocent, and beautifully authentic. How can anyone be upset at the idea of being biologically related to such sublime creatures of the natural world?
http://www.timflach.com/
http://www.timflach.com/
Saturday, November 3, 2012
BEAUTY: Photography--Andrew Brodhead
Andrew Brodhead's most recent series of photographic work features bodies wrapped in plastic and eerily floating in static landscapes.
Artist's Statement:
"Growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I worked at my parent’s health food store, and as a kid my daily job was to take out the recycling. Through the years I started to realize how much was not recyclable. I began to think about landfills and where everything goes. There are islands of plastic taking over the oceans, the earth is suffocating from plastic that never biodegrades, and our water and environment are leaching toxic estrogenic compounds. Visually, I want to convey the sacrifice we have made by our consumption and waste. The wrapped bodies represent invasive cocoons floating over vulnerable landscapes."
It also speaks to the related idea of mortality, and how the elements that compose our bodies return to the natural world.
http://andrewbrodhead.com/
Artist's Statement:
"Growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I worked at my parent’s health food store, and as a kid my daily job was to take out the recycling. Through the years I started to realize how much was not recyclable. I began to think about landfills and where everything goes. There are islands of plastic taking over the oceans, the earth is suffocating from plastic that never biodegrades, and our water and environment are leaching toxic estrogenic compounds. Visually, I want to convey the sacrifice we have made by our consumption and waste. The wrapped bodies represent invasive cocoons floating over vulnerable landscapes."
It also speaks to the related idea of mortality, and how the elements that compose our bodies return to the natural world.
http://andrewbrodhead.com/
Friday, November 2, 2012
Día de los Muertos 2012
Today is Día de los Muertos, a joyous, upbeat holiday originating in Mexico but now widely celebrated here in the United States. It is a day to celebrate and remember ancestors and departed loved ones. Altars are created in homes that feature pictures of dead loved ones along with favorite objects and food they liked when they were alive (called ofrenda or offerings), decorated sugar skulls, imagery of skeletons and calacas (a figure of a skull or a skeleton), colorful paper cut-outs, candles, and copious amounts of marigolds.
Families go to cemeteries to tend to family plots, gravesides and tombs. There is a carnival-like atmosphere in Mexico as huge crowds descend upon cemeteries to hold all night vigils and cook food not only for themselves but also for the spirits of the departed who can visit this earthly realm one night a year. Old women sit in chairs by the graves while children run and play tag, musicians play and sing, and people sit and talk with family members.
Above: A grave in Ocotepec, a town near Cuernavaca.
Below: Ofrenda in a cemetery in Milpa Alta, Mexico.
Below: Ofrenda in a cemetery in Milpa Alta, Mexico.
Below are four shots of my personal altar I created this year (2012) for Día de los Muertos with
images of my relatives, ancestors from Italy, and my mom and dad.
Photos by JEF
In the United States, the largest Día de los Muertos celebration is held in San Francisco. A street parade with drumming and dancing attracts thousands of people who dress up in traditional skull face paint and costumes. Nearby Garfield Park is home to many altars honoring the lives of friends and family members. Some altars invite people to participate by adding photos of lost loved ones. The video below, by David C. Hill, is a nice clip of the street parade from 2010.
For more information, visit The Marigold Project at
http://dayofthedeadsf.org/
which sponsors the procession and Garfield Park altars.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
La Toussaint 2012
Aujourd'hui est le jour de La Toussaint en France.
Today is La Toussaint in France, a national holiday. Although the word is a combination of the word tous ("all" in French) and saint, meaning "All Saint's Day," it is also "All Soul's Day." La Toussaint is closely related to the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in Latin cultures. It is a day to remember, celebrate, and honor departed loved ones and ancestors.
In France, people visit cemeteries to have picnics and to tend to the graves of family members and decorate them with chrysanthemums, a flower symbolizing death (a symbol shared with Day of the Dead); generally, the French do not use this flower for any other purpose.
In honor of the day, I present some lovely images of the most famous cemetery in France, possibly the world: Père Lachaise, the largest cemetery in the city of Paris.
There are many famous people--writers, actors, composers, public figures, politicians, scientists, even rock stars (Jim Morrison)--buried at Père Lachaise. Below are the graves and monuments for Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde (a very interesting, very Streamline Moderne monolith for him!), and Chopin. I have visited these tombs many times over the years and it never ceases to amaze me, as I wander and look at the names, just how many well-known people are interred here. For an easy alphabetical list of famous citizens of the cemetery, see the Wiki entry for Père Lachaise here.
Visit the Père Lachaise website for an absolutely fantastic virtual tour. You can wander around the beautiful serene avenues, admire the sculptural tombstones, or search graves by name!
http://www.pere-lachaise.com/
Today is La Toussaint in France, a national holiday. Although the word is a combination of the word tous ("all" in French) and saint, meaning "All Saint's Day," it is also "All Soul's Day." La Toussaint is closely related to the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration in Latin cultures. It is a day to remember, celebrate, and honor departed loved ones and ancestors.
In France, people visit cemeteries to have picnics and to tend to the graves of family members and decorate them with chrysanthemums, a flower symbolizing death (a symbol shared with Day of the Dead); generally, the French do not use this flower for any other purpose.
In honor of the day, I present some lovely images of the most famous cemetery in France, possibly the world: Père Lachaise, the largest cemetery in the city of Paris.
There are many famous people--writers, actors, composers, public figures, politicians, scientists, even rock stars (Jim Morrison)--buried at Père Lachaise. Below are the graves and monuments for Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde (a very interesting, very Streamline Moderne monolith for him!), and Chopin. I have visited these tombs many times over the years and it never ceases to amaze me, as I wander and look at the names, just how many well-known people are interred here. For an easy alphabetical list of famous citizens of the cemetery, see the Wiki entry for Père Lachaise here.
Visit the Père Lachaise website for an absolutely fantastic virtual tour. You can wander around the beautiful serene avenues, admire the sculptural tombstones, or search graves by name!
http://www.pere-lachaise.com/
Currently listening to...
...the gently percolating "Star Eyes (I Can't Catch It)" from the album "Dark Night Of The Soul" by Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse, featuring David Lynch (yes, the director). It is compelling, enigmatic, layered, shifting, elusive, peculiar, beautiful...
Sparklehorse, or Mark Linkous, was an alternative singer, songwriter and musician. He recorded "Dark Night Of The Soul" in the late 2000s with Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and the film director David Lynch. Linkous committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart on March 6, 2010. Due to legal problems, the album was not released until after Mark's death.
http://www.sparklehorse.com/
Sparklehorse, or Mark Linkous, was an alternative singer, songwriter and musician. He recorded "Dark Night Of The Soul" in the late 2000s with Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and the film director David Lynch. Linkous committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart on March 6, 2010. Due to legal problems, the album was not released until after Mark's death.
http://www.sparklehorse.com/
BEAUTY: Art/ Sculpture--Alexander Korzer-Robinson
Alexander Korzer-Robinson does something sort of mind-boggling to 19th century encyclopedias and illustrated children's books...
His Artist Statement on his website:
"By using pre-existing media as a starting point, certain boundaries are set by the material, which I aim to transform through my process. Thus, an encyclopedia can become a window into an alternate world, much like lived reality becomes its alternate in remembered experience. These books, having been stripped of their utilitarian value by the passage of time, regain new purpose. They are no longer tools to learn about the world, but rather a means to gain insight about oneself.
I make book sculptures/cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. In this way, I build my composition using only the images found in the book."
Wow.
These amazing pieces are for sale. Visit his website:
http://www.alexanderkorzerrobinson.co.uk/
His Artist Statement on his website:
"By using pre-existing media as a starting point, certain boundaries are set by the material, which I aim to transform through my process. Thus, an encyclopedia can become a window into an alternate world, much like lived reality becomes its alternate in remembered experience. These books, having been stripped of their utilitarian value by the passage of time, regain new purpose. They are no longer tools to learn about the world, but rather a means to gain insight about oneself.
I make book sculptures/cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. In this way, I build my composition using only the images found in the book."
Wow.
These amazing pieces are for sale. Visit his website:
http://www.alexanderkorzerrobinson.co.uk/
High Trestle Trail Bridge
Designed by RDG Dahlquist Art Studios, the High Trestle Trail Bridge is part of a paved scenic recreational trail that runs through four counties in Iowa. The bridge is near mining shafts that were worked by Italian immigrant families and others who settled in the Des Moines River Valley. David B. Dahlquist, the creator of the upper bridge sculptural elements, used the idea of mine shafts for his twisting-square design. Walking across the bridge mimics the act of looking down a mine shaft. At night, the iron squares are lit with blue LED lights...
http://rdgusa.com/high_trestle_trail/latest_news/
http://rdgusa.com/
http://rdgusa.com/high_trestle_trail/latest_news/
http://rdgusa.com/
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