Concrete Menagerie

no prayer for dead gods

2012-02-23T21:16:00.003-05:00

there i was in late middle age cut loose in a thoroughly looted, bankrupt nation whose assets had been sold off to foreigners,

a nation swamped by unchecked plagues

and superstition and illiteracy

and hypnotic TV, with virtually no health services for the poor.

Where to go? What to do?

Words: from Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut (1990)
Images: Jacob Whibley

Apocalypse Expressionism

2011-12-31T00:00:00.003-05:00

I will occasionally use this blog to comment on art, not only to post gorgeous imagery alongside heartbreaking texts.

image source: Trash & Treasure

Images: Yet to be Titled / The Leaf and the Wind, both 2011 by Landon Metz

I've been on notice of a recent surge of neo-Abstract Expressionism. It manifests in fine art, design, fashion, home decor.

Kline-esq / de Kooning-esq Pillows by Wary Meyers

ffixxed less world silk scarf from POUR PORTER / Scarf by Unknown (help?)

Shirt by Paul Cowan at Contemporary Standard / Tote by Unknown (help?)

Do these artists execute their works under the same maniacal influences of raw spirit that their predecessors channeled? Are they influenced by certain MOMA retrospectives? The 20-something year swing around of all trends? Or is this the work of a generationally loud last gasp of lost soul? A wisply leak into the ozone-depleted ether of something beautiful and prevalent enough to quiet the darkness that envelopes the current zeitgeist?

"It Tastes Like Ashes" by Bert Huyghe

Abstract expressionism has always (in my aspect) shared a root of with the marrow of true humanity. It is not often representation of figural form, but there is human being all over it. In color, shape, stroke, texture, sensation. Abstraction is hard, but expression is as natural as pre-30s rain, as easy and fulfilling as taking a shit. It may have pushed boundaries for the art world, but what it did for the artist was release, release, release. All anger, frustration, joy, ecstasy, pulsating desire, envy, insanity.

"fucking hack" by Mitchel Spider

I'll speak now of WE, my generation, of (young) artists and makers. Collectively, we worry in those tiny black boxes hidden deep inside our minds, that population explosion means we probably won't have kids or grandkids; at least not comfortably, not without fighting a few more wars to weed out the less rich and armed. Or not without staging a worldwide guillotine-style rebellion and reorganization that completely sets the world right just so it can fall apart again. (these pipe dreams keep our heads bowed upon the whiskey fumed planks while our asses are glued to timber bar stools). The not-so-terribly-distant wasteland to which we are steered--however unwillingly-- eradicates the notion of gallery/museum based presentation of artwork. In fact, it makes all preservation obsolete. WE don't hope to become names in an already corpulent lexicon of Art History, we just want to ease the terror sting of that burning Apocalypse on the horizon.

"Untitled" by Thomas Jessome, 2011

NOTE: I would like to thank the tumblr RainbowGradientCatBoom where a lot of the images/inspiration came to me from.

Prophecies of Earthly Hungers

2011-12-05T16:15:00.004-05:00

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

Words: Kahlil Gibran on Love, from The Prophet
Images: Megan Diddie

Blow-Up

2011-07-24T18:58:00.005-04:00

It'll never be known how this has to be told,

in the first person or in the second,

using the third person plural or continually inventing modes that will serve for nothing.

If one might say: I will see the moon rose,

or: we hurt me at the back of my eyes,

and especially you the blond woman that was the clouds that race before my your his our yours their faces.

What the hell.

Words: opening lines of Julio Cortazar's Blow Up
Images: Yago Hortal

These problems are not at all hard to solve.

2011-03-17T13:46:00.002-04:00

Only one month till our eyes get megadosed with neon flash happynassss.

Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

2011-03-05T08:28:00.003-05:00

Gossamer Beynor high-heels out of school.

The sun hums down through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of her heart

and buzzes in the honey there and couches and kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.

Eyes run from the trees and windows of the street,

streaming 'Gossamer,' naked past the Sailors Arms,

the only woman on the Dai-Adamed earth.

Sinbad Sailors places on her thighs still dewdamp from the first mangrowing cock-crow garden his reverent goat-bearded hands.

Words: from Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
Images: Fredrik Akum

I Hit My Head

2011-01-16T16:03:00.007-05:00

"Take up now a handful of good earth.

Do you find in it at seed,

and perhaps a worm?

If your hand were spacious and enduring enough,

the seed might become a forest,

and the worm a flock of angels.

And forget not that the years which turn seeds to forest,

and worms to angels

belong to this Now.

all of the years,

this very Now."

Words: from The Garden of the Prophet by Kahil Gibran
Images: Hernan Paganini

there is no greater pleasure than in having what is a great pleasure

2011-01-12T10:18:00.005-05:00

Inside there was only an enormous

transparent block

with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken up into colored stars.

Disconcerted,

knowing that the children were waiting for an imediate explanation,

Jose Arcadio Buendia ventured a murmur:

"It's the largest diamond in the world."

"No," the gypsy countered. "It's ice."

Words: from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Images: Jeremy Miranda

People & Other Aggravations

2010-12-06T19:09:00.003-05:00

It was a town of red brick,

or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it,

but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.

It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys,

out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever,

and never got uncoiled.

Every Angel is Terrifying

2010-10-14T12:40:00.006-04:00

Favored first prodigies, creation's darlings,

mountain ranges, peaks, dawn-red ridges

of all genesis--pollen of a flowering godhead,

links of light, corridors, stairs, thrones.

spaces of being, shields of rapture, torrents

of unchecked feeling and then suddenly, singly,

mirrors: scooping their outstreamed beauty

back into their peerless faces.

For our part, when we feel, we evaporate, ah, we breathe

WORDS: from the Duino Elegies by Ranier Maria Rilke, The II Elegy.
Translated by Edward Snow
IMAGES: click for source

I Am Slow to Answer

2010-10-03T18:07:00.004-04:00

Tiger got to hunt,

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder 'why,why,why?'

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

Round and round and round we spin with feet made of lead and wings made of tin.

Seeds to Plant

2010-09-22T08:51:00.006-04:00

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration

that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.

There is no such thing as death

life is only a dream

and we are the imagination of ourselves.

Here's Tom with the weather.

In Minimalism You Make the Least Mistake

2010-09-12T12:40:00.006-04:00

He was more to be envied than pitied, for his sleep was not a lull or an interval but sleep iteself which is the deep and hence sleeping ever deepening

deeper and deeper in sleep sleeping, the sleep of the deep in deepest sleep, at the nethermost depth of full slept, the deepest and sleepest sleep of sleep's sweet sleep.

He was asleep. He is alseep. He will be asleep.

Sleep. Sleep. Father, sleep, I beg you, for we who are awake are boiling in horror...

A Textural Map of the Jungle

2010-09-07T19:16:00.003-04:00

Update 1/24/12: I can't get over the way the first video lights only her eyes, masking her mouth and throat, and we can hardly see how she makes the sounds, except what seeps out of her eyebrow's dance.

Formation Flying

2010-09-02T22:22:00.004-04:00

Birds from the plumage of African butterflies:

One Loom Over the Cuckoo's Vest

2010-07-06T21:28:00.006-04:00

This week we sold the original boxed Ronco Flower Loom kit in the store. Before it flew off to Australia, I took some scans from the instruction booklet.

I do very much wish to make myself into 1000 flowers.

And there are more where these came from. Been looking tirelessly for a loom of your very own? Lucky you--there is an Etsy seller who is working tirelessly to find them for you.

Swim Caps

2010-06-23T17:04:00.005-04:00

Joel and I are making a short film this week and I am pulling together wardrobe. It is thematically water-laden sans the visual presence of any water. I wanted a vintage swim cap and was rather floored by all the incredible options available. Really:

Here's a shopping list in case you are making an immediate purchase.

UPDATE: Here's the short, our postcard from our months in Maine:

Zig Zag Witchery

2010-05-31T11:58:00.002-04:00

Reminds me of someone elses' couch....

Select scans from Zigzag Stitchery (1972). Procured at a church basement rummage sale in Wiscasset, Maine. More here.

The Best Etsy Store Ever?

2010-05-18T21:31:00.003-04:00

Dance of the World by KARART.

Always and Forever by KARART.

Four Seasons by KARART.

Those are not really for sale, but big whoas nonetheless.
She has another store with more ready-made product, like

Object of Most Desire

2010-05-10T09:20:00.005-04:00

This is a very personal post. I'm going to tell you about what I want most in the world. It is this music box. The moment I picked it up, it began to spiral and hum, is nearly indescribable. Love at first sight. I'm a little embarrassed that my love story is about a music box and not a proper--human--mate; but I can honestly say, I've never felt this way in my life.

It belongs to a friend and is something of a family heirloom. The story is, it was a gift from his aunt's boyfriend in her youth. He begged his aunt to pass it on to him. Apparently he must have felt something of what I feel in regards to the singular greatness of this object.

So I can't have it but I must! Conundrum! Every so often I go on a hunt. I scour the internet for it, or something like it. Custom music box companies do not even offer this tune (it is "Goin' Out of My Head," appropriately). To have a truly custom tune produced is a laborious, thus expensive process. It requires placing an order for at least 2000 movements (the part of the music box that makes the music) and a $6000 deposit and 2-6 months of production. That is only half the battle. Then I must find the spiral mechanism. It is neon, Plexiglas (or acrylic) and gorgeous, the crappy video I am including does not do it justice. It was made in Japan, and that is the ONLY lead I've got.

The Country Bookshop

2010-05-06T16:23:00.005-04:00

Poetry, A Modern Guide to its Understanding and Enjoyment by Elizabeth Drew

Foundations in Modern Biology: Adaptation by Wallace and SRB

Better Polaroid Pictures, In Color and Black & White

from Better Polaroid Pictures, In Color and Black & White

Joel and I really fell in love with this used bookshop. Housed on the bottom floor of a tilted old Victorian, across the street from a waterfall, it is a little piece of heaven in Plainfield, Vermont. I found The Story of Lucky Strike here. One of the best parts: all the books on porch are free. And there are hundreds of them. We picked up these beauties from the free zone (mostly to play around with the covers).

See more here.

My Lollipop Girl

2010-05-02T12:23:00.006-04:00

1998 Gallimard, Paris / 1961 Olympia Press, Paris

2000 Penguin, London / 1970 Mondadori (Gli Oscar), Milano

1990 Eesti Raamat, Tallinn / 1957 Hans Reitzel, Copenhagen

1981 Gallimard (folio), Paris / 1959b Sur, Buenos Aires

1969 Mondadori, Rome (Poster) / 1994 Companhia das Letras, São Paulo

1973 Transworld (Corgi Books), London / 1974 Altin Kitaplar, Istanbul

1982 Bertelsmann Club, Gütersloh / 1977 Europäische Bildungsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart

Over 150 book and media covers from 33 countries and 54 years, found at Covering Lolita.

Listen to by Bad Manners.

Revolution's a Lie

2010-04-23T08:38:00.004-04:00

A lot of the work I've made lately has dealt with trash, and by extension, print advertisement materials. I enjoyed this paragraph from Player Piano much. The soverignty that big business and industry act under is almost inscrutable to the everyman. Like a giant umbrella that guards their select interests in the storm of global challenges at hand: economic instability, climate change, a poorly managed scarcity of resources, so on. It does begin make a bit more sense when you put it in the context that Vonnegut has here: the notion that the heads of industries are simply drunk off their own koolaid. Even today, the advertising depicts these giant corporations as the frontiersmen of progress, the conductors of humane services, a whole new army of salvation (See: Genuity).

Its Toasted: The Story of Lucky Strike by Roy Flannagan

2010-03-31T11:44:00.003-04:00

cover of "The Story of Lucky Strike".

I found this short histoire in the tabacco and addiction center of a tiny bookshop, housed in the bottom floor of the owner's two-story Victorian, in a rural town of Vermont near where I am currently in residence quietly focusing on art manufacture.

My collection of Lucky Strike logos.

As it happens, one such of my art works in progress features a large collection of hand-cut Lucky Strike logos--an icon I consider to be of impeccable visual excellence. A primo example of the height of American design, and the embodiment of the country's general aesthetic. The logo was designed in 1941 by "legendary" Raymond Lowery (who is also responsible for the Coca-Cola and Greyhound logos), as an article tucked away in the book informed me.

The Story of Lucky Strike reads like old-timey reporting, the sort of news reel that would have appeared at the beginning of a film showing in the 30's; and incidentally this first (likely only) edition was published in 1938. At the time, tobacco was regarded as a harmless and prosaic industry. It is this image that Roy Flannagan's history reflects, as he traces the tobacco plant from Pocahontas and John Rolfe, through the (then modern) farming and curing process, to the Lucky Strike factory. (At one point, while in the fields, Flannagan remarks that, "No other crop seems to draw so much rich, graceful beauty from the soil. Every leaf in the sturdy plant seems like a page from the book of health.") The production of the pack, from seed to shipment, spans 3 years.

In the oldey-goldy days, cured tobacco was hauled to large warehouses by farmers and sold at auction to buyers from the cigarette manufacturers. At the particular auction Flannagan observed, Ned Jones, the auctioneer, would conduct the bidding at a remarkable 460 words per minute. When the auction was over, however, he resumed casual chats with old friends in a delicious southern drawl, "'At was good leaf you brought in today, old timer. Made my soul fat to see you still makin' such fine tobacco. At 'at boy o' yourn's no slouch either. He's gitten' right smart gumption."

I much enjoyed the photo tour of the old Lucky Strike factory, made my soul fat to see all those beautiful Lucky's stacked so perfectly, like the interlocking crystals of ice-nine.

One last little tobacco fact of yore: "Yes, every twenty cigarettes bears a tax of six cents. It is one of the oldest excise taxes levied in America. Uncle Sam collects more money on a pack of cigarettes than the combined profit of farmer, warehouseman, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer."

First (and likely, last) Shoe Post

2010-01-13T21:51:00.002-05:00

Merryl Tielman, Blufpoker

Hester van Eeghen, Fiorissimo

Egbert van der Does, Pumpkin Yellow

Jan Jansen, Build Me Up

Kobi Levi, Tongue Shoe

Bernadette Deddens, Wraps and Heels I

Rem D Koolhaas, Fold

Suzanne Poort, Graduation 009

Marte Rodenburg, Pump with Colored Straps

Merryl Tielman, Varnish

Virtual Shoe Museum [OS]