Graffiti. There, I said it. Graffiti: that dirty word, that nasty concept. That simple term that good, law-abiding citizens use to describe a crime that has been committed. And for the majority of our society, that’s what graffiti is. A crime.
But there are others for whom that word is so much more. For some, graffiti is a lifestyle, a challenge, and a revolution. Yes, a crime, always a crime. A crime just waiting to be committed, and those who do will each have their own individual reasons. There are overlapping similarities, sure; the adrenaline rush of breaking a law, or the chance to remind society that the world is what we make it.
William Hogarth, Breakfast Scene, from Marriage a la Mode, ca. 1745.
what is going on here
John Singleton Copley, Paul Revere, 1768-1770.
Oh man I developed such a thing for Copley during American Art earlier this year.
(Source: sommartidsvarmod, via danlblack)
“Madison Square Park celebrates May Day with the unveiling of a brand new, site-specific work by Orly Genger. The Brooklyn-based artist has been spending the last several months constructing a huge, three-part “landscape” made of over a million feet of painted, hand-knotted rope. The work is called “Red, Yellow and Blue” and Genger explains: “The tradition of knitting carries the sharing of stories and the installation draws on that idea. The repurposed rope brings with it the stories of different locations and by knotting it, a space is created for the words and thoughts of viewers in New York City to complete the work, creating a silent dialogue that waves along.” It will be up until September.” [x]
We’ve got preview images from ‘Vandals’, a new book of photography which follows graffiti artists as they tag. We wish we were this badass.
(via anythingphotography)
Iveta Vaivode - Opera: The Spectacle of Society
Opera was once seen as the exclusive reserve of aristocracy, a polite social occasion or an event to attend to affirm your cultural capital as a member of a social elite. Iveta Vaivode’s images tell a different story of intense participation by a more heterogeneous audience in a drama unfolding out of the frame. She watches the watchers, much as painters like Edgar Degas or Walter Sickert did at the music hall a hundred years ago. The long exposures she employs render the subject in a high contrast impressionistic way, like Édouard Manet, but instead of Baudelaire’s Flaneurs, Vaivode sees a more stratified contemporary audience. From box to balcony to stalls the make-up of the spectators clearly differs, but the difference from seat to seat is equally enthralling as many people sit virtually stock-still for the entire 45 minutes of the performance & exposure, whilst others move around to the point of visual extinction. Some sit forward in their seats wringing their hands as the narrative grips them, whilst others coolly recline, arms folded.
In one image Vaivode shoots looking down from the balcony on the red velvet curve that separates the orchestra pit from the stalls. The marked contrast either side of the line, one of light activity against dark observation, puts us in mind of Plato’s cave or Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, as those in the dark sit transfixed by the energy of others – passion by proxy. And yet the work is less social critique than affective visual feast as the audience is drawn into the play.
(via bbook)
The Art Institute of Chicago recently acquired an amazing collection from the Yoshida family including works by Hiroshi and Fujio, their sons Toshi and Hodaka, Hodaka’s wife Chizuko, and Hodaka and Chizuko’s daughter Ayomi.
The Yoshidas were essentially an epic print-making dynasty, with each generation getting increasingly abstract and no les stunning. My favorites were by Fujio, particularly the prints done when she was in her 60s. Now that I’m thinking about it, it sort of reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe, how Fujio painted these gorgeous, abstract flowers… But anyway, I also loved Chizuko’s and then Hodaka’s more abstract ones that could easily be contemporary screenprints.
Albert Chong is one of nineteen artists featured in the exhibit War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art, opening at DePaul University Art Museum today. Chong is of Chinese-Jamaican descent. He was raised in Jamaica and immigrated to the US at nineteen. Over the past thirty years he has created an extensive body of photo based and installation art (with the occasional forays into video, sculpture and artist books). His piece Portrait of the Artist as the Subject of Colonial Mentality (2010), is a recreation of his 1979 photograph as a tile photomosaic. Chong’s photo mosaics have the mass and presence of sculpture and the transmissive abilities of photography. The opening reception is April 25th from 6-8 PM. There are events scheduled throughout the run of the exhibit, including an Artist Talk with Mequitta Ahuja on May 15th, 6-8 Pm. Ahuja’s piece Dream Region (2009), is featured on the cover the book published in conjunction with the exhibit. The book features a collection of essays, artwork, and interviews at the intersection of critical mixed race studies and contemporary art. More about the featured artists including a link to the video feature HERE.
DUDE this is my school’s art museum, and this exhibition (as well as most of DPAM’s exhibitions) is seriously excellent!
(via eastasianstudiestumbl)
