NEWSgrist - where spin is art
An e-zine covering the arts since 2000
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Vol.5, no.19
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read it on the blog:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com
Archives:
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Friday, September 17, 2004
Inconvenient Evidence (the photographs are us)
via Eyeteeth:
Art of Abu Ghraib: Given Andy Warhol's oft-repeated "15 minutes of fame"
quote, his namesake museum in Pittsburgh seems a perfect place to examine
the art and technology behind the tabloid-ready, snapshot-rich Abu Ghraib
scandal. Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib,
opening at the museum on Friday, aims to offer a "look at the
extraordinary impact that amateur digital photographs have had on the
public's view of the Iraq War, and the human rights issues that this
technology exposed at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere." […]
Veterans groups are "displeased."
This exhibition was co-organized by the International Center of
Photography and The Andy Warhol Museum.:
Inconvenient Evidence:
Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib
International Center of Photography
September 17-November 28, 2004
1133 Avenue of the Americas @ 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
ph 212.857.0000
The Andy Warhol Museum
September 17, 2004 through December 31, 2004
117 Sandusky Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
ph 412.237.8300
From the ICP introduction to the exhibition:
It was amateur digital photographs transmitted over the Internet that made
the public aware of shocking human rights abuses and jolted our perception
of the Iraqi conflict, something that signaled a sea change in the
representation of war via image-making technology. We saw events unfolding
directlynot through the lenses of objective observersbut through the eyes
of the men and women who were involved.
As a result, issues of ethics, law, politics, leadership responsibility,
the use of torture, and the role of electronic media have become even more
immediate. These concerns, as well as the place of photography in
documenting or constructing truth, must be reconsidered. This is an
opportunity to reflect on Susan Sontags contention that the photographs
are us, and to question if in fact the horror of what is shown in the
photographs cannot be separated from the horror that the photographs were
taken.
A brochure with a text by Seymour Hersh will accompany the exhibition.
Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib is
organized ICP Chief Curator, Brian Wallis.
In conjunction with the exhibition, there will be a major symposium held
in conjunction with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New
School Auditorium (NYC) in October. Panel participants will include
Seymour Hersh, Luc Sante, David Levi Strauss, and Brian Wallis.
Friday, September 17, 2004 at 02:54 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/inconvenient_ev.html
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Bowery Development Destroys WTC Mural
Back in the summer of 2002 NEWSgrist posted this image [left] we took of
the WTC memorial in the East Village–the memorial we liked best. We now
have it from Anil Dash's Daily Links that it's been painted over:
via Curbed:
On August 12, real estate auctioneer Sheldon Good is overseeing the
auction of 150-year development rights for the buildings south of Dolphins
restaurant between 5th and 6th Streets on Bowery. (Minimum bid: $2
million.) A Curbed reader writes to alert us to an ancillary threat:
"There are plans to replace the wondrous WTC covered in flowers mural on
the side of the Dolphins Restaurant with a billboard.
and:
"They painted over the WTC mural, apparently in the middle of the night.
it's now an ugly shade of mauve. horrible."
Friday, September 17, 2004 at 09:59 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/bowery_developm.html
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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
African Portraiture: Nigerian Scam Mail?
Last night I was in the zone deleting my spam when I came across this.
Assuming that it was merely another piece of Nigerian Scam Mail I was
about to delete it but paused, intrigued; I'd as yet never received an NSM
that purported to be art related. And then I had a look at the attached
image of our ex-Prez – a classic!
Makes me think of the longstanding tradition/s of African portraiture in
Mali and elsewhere: Cheri Samba, Seydou Keita, Malick Sidibe, Samuel
Fosso, Philip Kwame Apagya, Zwelethu Mthethwa, etc. etc.
Check out Cheri Samba's Santu Papa
So here's the message:
———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 01:11:57 +0100 (BST)
From: ayodeji fashina
To: [email protected]
Subject: Fwd: your art exhibition
Dear Sir/Ma,
I am Ayodeji Fashina, A talented artist an a citizen of NIGERIA. I'm
interested in you upcoming art exhibition in UK. I will like to come with
my co-artist friend that will work together in nigeria.
Due to the problem we have in nigeria post, I will like you to send us an
OFFICIAL INVITATION LETTER through UPS or DHL. We are set for your
programme with our art works in difference kinds of African culture.
This is the name of my co-artist friend: Anthony Adelowo. the attached
picture is one of my art works.
" I look forward to hear from you soon"
Best Regards,
AYODEJI FASHINA.
Note: forwarded message attached.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004 at 10:49 AM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/african_portrai.html
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Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Bottled Up at The Aldrich Museum
["Votive." Image courtesy Bethany Bristow]
Bottle: Contemporary Art and Vernacular Tradition
September 19, 2004 January 2, 2005
Opening Reception: September 19, 2004; 4 to 6 pm
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
from the press release:
Bottle: Contemporary Art and Vernacular Tradition explores the use of the
bottle in contemporary art making, and seeks to reveal how deeply rooted
the bottle is as an archetypal object in our culture. Curated by Aldrich
director of exhibitions Richard Klein, the exhibition opens at The Aldrich
Contemporary Art Museum […]
Rather than focusing on glassblowing as an art or craft, Bottle examines
the use of the bottle as a poetic container, a space that is both in our
world and uniquely separated from it. The nature of the bottle as a
spiritual space, its metaphorical potential, and its use as container for
liquor ("spirits"), drew self-taught artists to use it, particularly in
the latter part of the nineteenth century. The bottle's intrinsic
psychological and physiological associations, as emphasized by folk
artists, attracted the attention of the Surrealists in the 1920s and other
modernists who were interested in raw, unmediated expression.
Additionally, the bottle's role in preserving food and biological
specimens has not gone unnoticed as a rich source of meaning over the
years. Artistic revolutionaries including Marcel Duchamp, Ren Magritte,
Jean Dubuffet, and Joseph Beuys have all understood the bottle's potential
power as a vehicle for aesthetic inquiry […]
In addition to selecting recent works, The Aldrich will also commission
several new pieces especially for the exhibition. In an age increasingly
governed by electronic media, Bottle illustrates how humble containers can
hold a collective fascination that transcends both time and place.
Exhibition artists include:
Joseph Beuys
Dove Bradshaw
Bethany Bristow
Tony Feher
Phil Frost
David Hammons
Mona Hatoum
Damien Hirst
Whitfield Lovell
Josiah McElheny
Barry McGee
Sean Mellyn
Maria Porges
Charles Ray
Alison Saar
Claude Simard
Kiki Smith
There is round trip transportation available to the reception from New
York City provided by the museum, free for members, $5 for non-members.
Call 203-438-4519 for a reservation (already half full as of Friday…) Or
you can drive yourself.
If you've never been to the renowned Aldrich Museum, this is an excellent
opportunity to see their new building.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004 at 03:38 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/bottled_up_at_t.html
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Saturday, September 11, 2004
Bucket of Blood
Remember Roger Corman's Bucket of Blood? with my favorite tagline ever:
"INSIDE EVERY ARTIST LURKS A MADMAN."
Well. Here is "the best art crit ever" (just noticed at Choire Sicha– I
bet it almost made his recent top ten):
Monday, April 12, 2004 | Art Class
As I was painting this morning, I thought back to one of my art school
critiques. The project was an installation that included some photography,
sculpture, and a bucket filled with 'blood'. The crit focused, of course,
on the bucket.
Teacher: (dipping her fingers into the bucket and then holding them up to
the class) This project would be OK if he actually got the color right.
You really should know by now that blood is actually more of a brown
color. This is way too red. You need to study your color wheel a bit more
closely. You should have mixed some more green paint in there …
Me: Um … Actually …
Teacher: [holding her red hand up to silence me] You know there's no
talking til the end of your crit … [insert 4 minutes of talking] …
Now, if you'd like to respond …
Me: Um. Well. Um. I didn't actually use paint. I used real blood.
Teacher: [uncomfortable pause] … I guess I should wash my hand then.
Me: Yeah. That'd probably be a good idea.
Gotta love art school.
[link via newsgrist]
Saturday, September 11, 2004 at 05:09 PM in Misc. | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/bucket_of_blood.html
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Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Steven Andrews: Collateral Damage
Stephen Andrews
Curated by Atom Egoyan
September 9 - October 16, 2004
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, Sept 9, 2004 6-8pm
The Cue Art Foundation
511 West 25th Street, Ground Floor
New York, New York 10001
Tel: 212-206-3583
from the curator's statement:
Andrews is obsessed with how we differentiate ourselves in a crowd, how we
can recognize and cherish the precious nature of a single life. This deep
concern has produced a particularly resonant set of drawings for the
present exhibition. The disturbing confluence of war crimes with modern
communications has produced a shocking gallery of public images over the
past year. Whether the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison were recorded as
grisly souvenirs or as tools to prepare the detainees for interrogation,
they are heartbreakingly dehumanizing. Hands over faces, bags over heads,
each image confronts the erasure of individual spirit to the sadistically
staged ritual of extreme humiliation.
Erosion and evolution. By breaking these photographs down - as the
subjects have been so effectively brutalized - Andrews aims to dignify
these disposable pictures with his painstaking artistry. A random news
clip played on a television news cast several months ago becomes the
subject of intense scrutiny as it is re-animated and brought back to life.
A moment of random death is given consideration through the human act of
retouching.
Andrews transforms horror into a moving image.
from the artist's statement:
Like everyone, I have been both fascinated and horrified by the news
coverage of the war in Iraq. In early 2003, I started searching the
internet for photographic evidence of the war that was not being reported
in the mainstream press. Web-based news sites offered a rather different
picture. Photos of 'collateral damage' captured the obscenity of war in
all its pornographic detail. In the wake of Abu Ghraib, these images are
now ubiquitous. Like all pornographic and violent pictures, they tap into
something instinctual, eliciting some gesture in response.
Like my paintings, the drawings re-create the look of four-color
reproduction using a homemade separation technique. They are done as
rubbings using window screening and crayons. The process softens the
colors to a pastel palette, reminiscent of children's book illustration.
The contrast of the war imagery with the pastel color scheme brings to
mind the moral tales of the Brothers Grimm. Gruesome lessons in a candy
coating.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004 at 04:37 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/steven_andrews_.html
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Nous Sommes Dsols Que…
This is a clothing label from a small American company that sells their
product in France. Note the French washing directions:
translation:
Hand wash with warm water.
Use mild soap.
Dry flat.
Do not use bleach.
Do not dry in the dryer.
Do not iron.
We are sorry that our president is an idiot.
We did not vote for him.
[thanks Barbara!]
Wednesday, September 08, 2004 at 03:58 PM in Misc. | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/nous_sommes_dso.html
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Bunker Archaeology Revisited
[left: book cover, Richard Ross: Waiting for the End of the World; right:
Dominic McGill, model for a deathwish generation]
The Bomb is back (did it ever leave?) so goes the first sentence of the
press release for an A-Bomb-centric exhibition curated by Christian
Steyner, Building the Unthinkable, which opens at New York's Apex Art
tonight:
"The bomb is back. In the past twelve months, the world's stockpile of
22,000 nuclear warheads has re-emerged on the network news, in political
rhetoric, and in debates worldwide. In the spirit of Paul Virilio's 1975
exhibit Bunker Archaeology: Building the Unthinkable investigates the
impact of the nuclear age on contemporary spatial practices. The exhibition
examines the subtle ways in which ultimate power has, over time, changed
the spaces we inhabit. Collectively, the works included provide a
reflection on history's bearing on the present and a reinterpretation of
history–a consideration of both the construction and the destruction
brought by the nuclear age."
Participating artists are:
The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Gregory Green, Michael Light,
Andreas Magdanz, Peter Marlow, Dominic McGill, Beryl Korot and Steve
Reich, World Power Systems and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.
Check out the nifty brochure (PDF)
Also new on bookstalls is photographer Richard Ross's Waiting for the End
of the World, published by the Princeton Architectural Press. Here are a
few blurbs:
The New Yorker:
"Ross's photographs of shelters around the world are colorful and
melancholy, suffused with a creepy Egglestonian light. . . Most amazing is
the scale of such hidden places as Beijing's Underground City, built to
hold three hundred and fifty thousand people, of the bunker beneath the
Greenbriar hotel, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, designed to
serve as the emergency shelter for the entire U.S. Congress." (7/5/2004)
Wired:
"It seems small comfort to know that when the world ends, our PIN numbers
will survive. That's just one of many disconcerting takeaways from from
photographer Richard Ross' latest book, WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD,
a survey of postapocalyptic havens. . . The 31 serenely beautiful, if
chilling, spaces presented here are equally contradictory; they combine
stripped-down survivalist aesthetics (reinforced concrete, fluorescent
lighting, and Navy-surplus hatches) with a troglodytic domesticity (blue
shag pile, board games, and ruffled bed skirts)." (July 2004)
Ross's work will also be exhibited as part of a 2-person show at LA's Otis
Art Institute, opening September 11.
Of course, both projects are currently featured on The Bomb Project, a
cumulative comprehensive resource for all things nuclear conceived of and
designed for artists (and hosted at our parent site, First Pulse
Projects).
Wednesday, September 08, 2004 at 12:09 PM in Art Exhibitions | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/bunker_archaeol.html
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Monday, September 06, 2004
Back in Baghdad
I'm reproducing this post from MTAA-RR in its entirety:
Email from Baghdad
posted at 09:41 /news/twhid
Steve Mumford is an artist who has been making trips to Iraq for the past
year (read my first post re: him). He publishes his thoughts and sketches
in his Baghdad Journal on artnet.com. A recent email sent to friends was,
I thought, interesting so Im posting below with his permission.
Hi Everyone,
Yeah Im back in Baghdad, hanging out with my Iraqi friends here. Its
awesome what different opinions they have about the situation from some of
the journalists here, who are aghast when I ask them how they think things
are going - that is, the journalists assume I share their view that the
sky is falling. In contrast, my Iraqi friends (both Sunni and Shia) regard
the Najaf episode as a triumph, both for Sistani and the Iraqi gov - and
by association, the US - Sadr was essentially humiliated, resulting in a
big loss of popularity in favor of moderate Sistani. The destruction of
Najaf was grave, but reconstruction money is already flowing from the
government, with most people apparently blaming Sadr, more than the US,
for the damage.
Even in Falluja, my friends maintain, the majority want peace and
stability and are willing to join the government, but for the time being
are scared into silence by the jihadists. However, talks are going on
between Allawi and the tribes of Falluja. Theyre optimistic that this will
all be reflected in the coming elections.
So, who knows - I can say that I feel some journalists Ive met are so
blinded by their hatred for Bush and recent US foreign policy that they
clearly want this to become a massive failure. Its certainly hard to find
Iraqis who will openly compliment the US at this point, for a variety of
understandable reasons. But crucially, this doesnt mean that they are
lending their support to the insurgents. In fact, my friends maintain,
just the opposite.
As usual, Baghdad is surreal in its normalcy amid explosions - you hear
them almost everyday, yet the Iraqis barely turn their heads and go about
their business. I use caution traveling about, generally with my friends,
but Im not holed up in my hotel either. The local art world continues
apace, with the usual salons held every Monday at the Hewar Gallery and
the Shebander Tea House, internet cafes filled, the streets bustling,
everyone eagerly anticipating the cooler days of Fall.
I was saddened to find that Nezar, a haircutter on old Rashid Street, who
gave me 2 haircuts, was killed along with his nephew by a car bomb parked
right outside his shop, about 3 weeks ago. He was a sweet guy who wouldnt
take my money the first time, and was a friend of my friend the artist
Ahmed al Safi. His blackened, ruined store is still there, with
traditional Shia obituary flags draped over the storefront.
Baqubah remained relatively peaceful for the remainder of the time I was
there. Rumors of an impending insurgency keep circulating but have yet to
materialize. The police and Iraqi National Guard are gaining strength and
confidence with better training, heavier weapons and flack vests. In spite
of recent conspicuous failures, theyre getting better. Theyre starting -
in baby steps - to stand up to insurgent attacks. You see them everywhere
in Baqubah and Baghdad, whizzing around in new cars and SUVs with the
Iraqi Police insignia on the side. I cant overstate the importance of this
to Iraqis. You cant have a democracy or even an economy without security.
Ill remain here a bit longer, replenish art supplies, and try for another
embedding for a couple of weeks, then return home.
Please, everyone, try to keep an open mind about things over here -
Muqtada Sadr is NOT Che Guevara! Bremmer fucked some things up very badly,
but somehow, Iraqis are optimistic that the situation is improving.
Love, Steve
MTAA cont'd:
Ive been critical of Steves project in the past (but always giving
respect). Reading some actual on-the-ground info from a friend is
interesting but I have to ask: If his Iraqi friends think things are
getting better, better than what? All out war? Normalcy and explosions?
Your barber got killed in a car bombing! What is this better than?
And now the news today.
Monday, September 06, 2004 at 08:53 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/09/back_in_baghdad.html
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