Art Here and Now

Color Photographs of Russia – Before Color Film Exists

Trout Monfalco — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:16:13 +0000

Today, photographs are taken from devices in our pockets, then beamed to a worldwide audience in a matter of moments. At the dawn of photography, the equipment was large and cumbersome, developing glass plates to reveal images was an intense process, and color, of course, didn’t exist. To take photos required an expedition of many to haul all this equipment, often at great expense. Simple black and white photos involved lots of labor to produce.

So add to this a great invention – shooting in color, before the invention of color film. This was accomplished by shooting three images, one quickly after the other, each with a red, blue and green filter over the lens. After the film was developed, they could be projected using three magic lanterns, also with red, green and blue filters, overlapping to recreate the color image. This is the screen plate color process. Prokudin-Gorskii had studied the technology in Germany, but invented his own camera and projectors for his photographs.

From 1909 to 1915, before the invention of color film, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii won the support of Tsar Nicholas II to set out on an expedition to photograph the Russian Empire. By 1918, the Empire had fallen, and Prokudin-Gorskii was living in Paris. In 1948, after his death, the Library of Congress bought the entire collection from Prokudin-Gorskii’s heirs.

Here are some examples of the collection. To view the entire collection, visit The Library of Congress – The Empire that was Russia, The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated.

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Haiti’s Only Film School Keeps Filming

The Electrical Colossus Ascends Icelandic Peaks

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:02:21 +0000

From the moment we began pumping electricity out to homes and businesses, we chose a completely utilitarian path. The designs for cables and towers were great invention and engineering. But what they looked like was solely based on use, not the people who had to live with them. How would a mass of cables look against the sky? How would electrical poles line the streets? How would electrical pylons break across the landscape?

A design competition was held by Landsnet, the national power company of Iceland, in cooperation with the Association of Icelandic Architects. Choi and Shine Architects proposed a new design for Icelandic electrical pylons so beautiful, yet so natural, you wonder why we didn’t build them this way to start with. And they cost no more than what we’ve built before.

These electrical pylons are in human form, the human arms and hands holding the electrical lines they carry. The human figures can be posed in different ways depending on the landscape they live on. Figures on the sides of mountains can appear to be climbing. Scaling down, they may appear to carefully side step, keeping balance. When two figures pass each other, they can look back to each other, even sharing glances. These human forms and poses are created using duplicated components and scaffolds similar to those used in traditional pylons.

“Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these one hundred and fifty foot tall, modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow.”

Telegraph UK – Chain of human pylons planned for Iceland
bustler – Choi+Shine wins BSA Unbuilt Architecture Award for Land of Giants
Wired – Iceland Considers Humanoid Pylon Design to Carry Electricity

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Update on Art and Artists in Space

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:59:25 +0000

In a post several years ago, Artist Astronauts, Artist Cosmonauts, Artists in Space, we covered a lot of history of art and artists in space. Lately this topic has re-entered the news.

History Detectives on PBS covers a story trying to prove the fabled Moon Museum true or false.

Watch the full episode. See more History Detectives.

History Detectives online only interview with astronaut and artist Alan Bean.

Watch the full episode. See more History Detectives.

Alan Bean, astronaut and artist, appears on The Colbert Report.

Buy related work: In the Stream of Stars: The Soviet-American Space Art Book (by Alexey Leonov and others), Apollo : An Eyewitness Account By Astronaut/Explorer Artist/Moonwalker by Alan Bean, Baghdad Journal: An Artist in Occupied Iraq, by combat artist Steve Mumford, They Drew Fire – a documentary about combat artists in World War II; and work by Laurie Anderson.

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Ten Contemporary Indian Artists

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:57:54 +0000

At this Ted Talk, Ravin Agrawai presents an overview of 10 upcoming contemporary Indian artists. Below is the talk, and more in depth information about each artist.

More about the artists

Bharti Kher at Hauser & Wirth
Alwar Balasubramaniam
Chitra Ganesh
Excerpt from Rabbithole
Jitish Kallat
Perspectives on contemporary art, interview with The Economist
N.S. Harsha
Dhruvi Acharya
Raqib Shah
A group show including the work of Raqib Shah where ornamentation is given voice.
Raqs Media Collective
Subodh Gupta
Show from the Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Ranjani Shettar

Indian culture found in the artist’s work

amar chitra kathas – “Immortal Captivating (or Picture) Stories”, is one of India’s largest selling comic book series, with more than 90 million copies sold in 20 Indian languages. Founded in 1967, the imprint has more than 400 titles that retell stories from the great Indian epics, mythology, history, folklore, and fables in a comic book format. (wikipedia)
bindi (as used by Bharti Kher) – is a forehead decoration worn in South Asia (particularly India) and Southeast Asia… Traditionally it is a dot of red colour applied in the center of the forehead close to the eyebrows, but it can also consist of a sign or piece of jewelry worn at this location. The bindi has become a decorative item and is no longer restricted in colour or shape. Self-adhesive bindis (also known as sticker bindis) are available, usually made of felt or thin metal and adhesive on the other side. These are simple to apply, disposable substitutes for older tilak bindis. Sticker bindis come in many colors, designs, materials, and sizes. Fancier sticker bindis are decorated with sequins, glass beads, or rhinestones. (wikipedia)

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City Hostel, Seattle – Every Room by a Different Artist

Trout Monfalco — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:21:48 +0000

City Hostel, in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, features 54 rooms, each designed and decorated by 47 Seattle artists. The hostel also features a 20 seat movie theatre, with frequent art events, screenings and openings. In 2008, City Hostel was voted the top hostel in the United States by Hostelworld.com.

Artists were asked to volunteer their efforts instead of being paid outright, which caused some controversy in the Seattle art community. As some artists pointed out, when artists work on spec or for free, it devalues all artist’s work, making it likely future jobs to any artist will be for free as well. Hostels are however usually operated less for profit than passion. Hopefully in the future artists will be paid for their work. If the capital isn’t there for up front payment, then give them a royalty – 1% of the proceeds from each room stay goes to the artist who designed it.

Even without payment, the artists are largely excited about the project and the exposure it has actually brought after the hostel opened. The artists were uncensored and allowed free reign to the final outcome of each room, and have formed a community from the experience. Several reported commissions and buyers from the exposure even before the hostel opened.

Like other Art accommodations, this one is a unique, creative place to stay, celebrating local artists.

City Hostel site
Hostel Art Collective, a blog by the hostel’s artists
A list of all City Hostel artists
Hostel Art Collective Flickr Photostream
Lynn Shirmer’s Blog, thoughts on her experience working on her room
It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times, The Stranger Slog. Includes comments by many artists who argue the benefits they received from working on the project, even though for free
City Hostel Seattle – Some Actual Information, from Belltown People
Hostel in Seattle Voted Best in US from ABC News

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Conan O’Brien’s Portrait Made From Cheetos

Trout Monfalco — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:33:21 +0000

Here is a timelapse video of cheesy art posted by Eclectic Asylum Art. The portrait is made from 4 varieties of Cheetos (much like this more traditional agriculture art is made from 4 varieties of rice), using 2,000 individual Cheeto.

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Charles Clary’s Deep Paper Sculptures

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:46:04 +0000

Artist Charles Clary creates organic sculptures from deep layers of cut colored paper.

From Wired:

Artist Charles Clary says he wants his constructions to appear ever-expanding — overwhelming exhibition spaces like replicating viruses or reverberating sound waves. Inspired by microorganisms, anthills, and auditory phenomena, he layers colored paper to build up the variegated textures and sinewy shapes of his room-sized installations.

Charles Clary’s Massive Paper Cuts, image gallery from Wired
Charles Clary’s blog Percusive Art
Interview with Charles Clary from Design Milk

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Kurt Vonnegut’s Letters Home After Release from Nazi Prison

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:07:01 +0000

Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five as his own science fiction take on his experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II. Letters of Note prints his letters home after being released from his German camp, Schlachthof Fünf – Slaughterhouse Five.

In December of 1944, whilst behind enemy lines during the Rhineland Campaign, Private Kurt Vonnegut was captured by Wehrmacht troops and subsequently became a prisoner of war. A month later, Vonnegut and his fellow POWs reached a Dresden work camp where they were imprisoned in an underground slaughterhouse known by German soldiers as Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five). The next month – February – the subterranean nature of the prison saved their lives during the highly controversial and devastating bombing of Dresden, the aftermath of which Vonnegut and the remaining survivors helped to clear up.

Now interviews Kurt Vonnegut about his experience in World War II. “People always fail to recognize when they are happy.”

HowardFair goes to Germany and visits the site of Slaughterhouse Five.

I had no idea what Vonnegut had gone through. The letters are amazing and touching.

Read scans of Kurt Vonnegut’s original letters at Letters of Note.

Get the books of Kurt Vonnegut.

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OnTheBoards.tv – Performance Art On-Demand

Trout Monfalco — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:22:54 +0000

Musicians, filmmakers and performing artists all invest a lot of time and money into writing, rehearsal, design, and sometimes character development and technology innovation. This investment can include hard costs and the time of dozens, or even hundreds, of people. For musicians and filmmakers, the fruits of their investment live on. The films and music can be copied and distributed, allowing their work to spread and even earn them a living. If the work is innovative or challenging, the places an audience can find it grow even narrower.

For performing artists, whose investments in time and money are similar, the art only lasts until the end of the show. You have to physically be there with the artists to experience it, and it’s not easily copied. This severely limits who can see the art – usually to sizable cities with performance venues. It also limits the artists ability to earn a living, or even recoup the investment they’ve made in creating the work.

On the Boards in Seattle has presented contemporary performance artists from around the world for over 30 years. Last week, it launched OnTheBoards.tv to present contemporary performances to wherever the audience might be. This is the first site of it’s kind to present complete, sometimes challenging, contemporary performances.

A trailer for Transition by Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith

Several years ago, On the Boards began documenting work in HD using five cameras. The final edit is performed with the cooperation of the artists. These HD videos are available for $5 rental (for 48 hours), or $15 to buy. There are also several subscription packages for the site, starting at $50 for a year of unlimited streaming, up to the educational subscription, allowing an entire institution unlimited streaming for $250. The earnings are split 50/50 with the artists. This is not as generous as other online splits (Apple’s is 30/70 in favor of artists), but On the Boards has been footing the $10,000 bill required to film and edit each performance. Having their shows professionally documented is also a huge benefit to artists. They can provide the online video as worksamples to other venues and funders, without the expense of filming, editing and producing DVDs.

So far there are eight artists represented at OnTheBoards.tv. Seven artists have full performances available, and one artist, Michelle Ellsworth, is delivering video directly online during a one year residency. On the Boards hopes to add 7-8 artists per year, and also hopes to partner with other organizations. PS-122 in New York is already a partner.

Alaska by Diana Szeinblums, shot at PS-122 in New York.

Documentation of many contemporary performances exists only in arts org archives and libraries with very restricted access. Even professional researchers and scholars have trouble accessing these videos and recordings. Especially for well-known and historically significant artists (e.g., Meridith Monk, John Cage, Laurie Anderson), opening this material up to a much wider audience is another goal of OnTheBoards.tv.

The site is new, so currently has a small sampling of work. Hopefully On the Boards will attract funding and partners to add more than 8 artists a year. Music rights remain a tricky obstacle to adding more work, as they are for many online video projects. Artists may clear rights for performances, but don’t have rights for online distribution. On the Boards has to clear music for each production, or the work can’t be included on the site. The bios, performance credits and other artist information is provided in PDF, which is helpful but would be better as a fully integrated part of the site.

Hi There by Melissa Ellsworth, a piece made available directly through the site, part of an OnTheBoards.tv artist in residence.

The basics behind this idea aren’t new. Similar projects have been tried, using DVD and VHS as distribution, and for other types of performance. The cheaper costs of internet delivery and it’s easier access for audiences now makes the idea much more feasible.

Many performing artists believe their art should only exist in the moment, that it’s somehow cheapened or made worse by capturing it, and creating the definitive performance of record. But audiences of the world will get more and more of their art on demand. TV, film and music all move this direction, and audiences will likely not go back. Expanding their audiences, and being able to earn a living so they can continue making work, is a new, amazing opportunity for artists. It doesn’t diminish the power of seeing the artist and the work in person. It just exponentially expands the possibility that someone will be able to see an artist’s work at all. Cumulatively, efforts like this will also give us a historical memory of contemporary performances, that all to often fade away completely.

The site was created with funding from the Wallace Foundation and Dance USA, to test new successful models for sustainably expanding audiences.

Artists on the Site

Learn more

OnTheBoards.tv
Recording Staged Works for All the World to See – The New York Times
PS-122
Digital Theatre
Metropolitan Opera, Live in HD

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Paintings from Living Rice – Inakadate, Japan

Trout Monfalco — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 06:23:00 +0000

Back in 1993, people of Inakadate in northern Japan began planting four types of rice in patterns, which when mature, would form huge images when viewed from above.

Here’s a timelapse of several of the paintings growing into place.

Farmers use computer-aided plotting to design images and determine where the different varieties of rice should be planted.

A close up view

In the years since, other regions of Japan (and people in other countries) have joined in the practice. Meanwhile, Inakadate’s creations have become much more complex and sophisticated. Agreements between farmers have also allowed the artworks to span multiple farms.

View from a paraglider:

Haiti’s Only Film School Keeps Filming

Trout Monfalco — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:55:16 +0000

The PBS Newshour Art Beat reports that students of Haiti’s only film school, Ciné Institute, have kept filming after the earthquake, shooting and editing despite their own personal circumstances.

Ciné Institute Students Effort from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

Learn more

Ciné Institute
Ciné Institute online videos at Vimeo
Conversation: Students from Haiti’s Only Film School Keep Their Cameras Rolling from PBS Newshour, Art Beat
Haiti’s Film Students Find a New Mission by Salon

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Short film for the day

Photographers Produce Onè Respe to Benefit Haitian Relief

Trout Monfalco — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:44:37 +0000

San Francisco Bay Area photographer Lane Hartwell gathered photographers to publish a special magazine titled Onè Respe to benefit Haiti. The images celebrate life in Haiti, all taken before the earthquake. Other participating photographers include Mary Ellen Mark, Chet Gordon and Peter Pereira. The magazine was printed through HP’s MagCloud service. HP has decided to donate printing costs to the effort. All proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.

Order Onè Respe.

Learn more

Photographers Unite for Haiti Fundraising from Wired
Lane Hartwell Photography
Mary Ellen Mark photography
Chet Gordon, photographer
Peter Pereira, photojournalist
MagCloud, print on demand by HP

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Nichitsu Ghost Town, Haikyo of a Mining Town

Trout Monfalco — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:39:43 +0000

Nichitsu was a mining town in Saitama Prefecture, about three hours from Tokyo. At it’s peak in 1965, there were about 3,000 people living there. Now the town is completely abandoned.

Here the Tokyo Times blog posts many Haikyo photographs (廃墟写真, usually meaning photographs of modern ruins) of the ghost town.

Other photographers have also visited Nichitsu, including Michael John Grist, producing these photos of an abandoned Firehouse.

Read more about the history of Nichitsu (Google translation).

Two books by haikyo photographer Shinichiro Kobayashi:
Deathtopia and Ruins.

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“Please Don’t Touch the (Touchable) Art.”

Trout Monfalco — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:00:57 +0000

I’ve had friends who collected Star Wars toys and kept them in the original packaging to protect their value. This certainly protects the monetary value, but doesn’t it deprive you of getting everything out of that toy it was created for? If you want to spark your imagination, have a fun afternoon, and play with your friends, you need to rip open that package and start shooting storm troopers and levitating x-wings. It’s almost impossible to experience all the joy, fun, creativity and bonding with friends those toy-makers intended if you leave the toys in their package.

For much of the art in the world, you can look at it or listen to it and get everything the artist intended. It doesn’t matter if most paintings are behind glass, you can still see it just fine and get the full effect. Like a baseball card collector who keeps his cards in plastic sleeves, you can still see the cards just fine and enjoy them to their full effect. Their monetary value is still protected too.

But more and more contemporary art is created by artists who intend you to play with it. The full meaning and experience of the work requires you to interact, contributing your ideas and sometimes even physically building what the work becomes. This work needs to be touched for it to have any significant form, emotion and meaning.

Most museums and galleries are the stewards of the art in their collections. All objects are treated as historic artifacts, and must be maintained, restored, protected and studied. Museums must also protect all the money they’ve invested in building and maintaining the collection. Insurers, donors and the community, also understandably want to protect their own investments. Insurance rates may go up if art isn’t thoroughly protected from accidents, wear and theft. Many museums and galleries sometimes borrow work from other organizations. Obviously they want to return any work leant to them in the same condition it arrived, and want the same for their own work that’s been let out into the world.

Unfortunately, for that growing collection of contemporary artwork that gets its primary meaning, emotion and significance from interacting with it, keeping it locked behind glass isn’t good enough. Most museums and galleries have not caught up to this idea, even though this type of work has existed for almost a hundred years. All objects, regardless of the artist’s intent, are treated the same.

I first noticed this when I attended a Yoko Ono retrospective in the ’90s. In most of her work, Yoko gives direct instructions to be completed, sometimes completely in the reader’s imagination, other times interacting with objects she’s made. In this exhibition, though, there were guards and watchers in each room who would stop anyone from touching anything, even when Yoko’s instructions told you to. One example is Play It By Trust, a long table with 10 completely white chessboards. In Montreal, 2009, it happened as it should:

Yoko Ono’s idea of license, the setting up of a situation where others could complete a work of art instead of the artist, was a radical departure from the existing concept of the role of the artist. – Jon Hendricks

Yoko Ono’s work continues to cause interaction problems for museums. In August of this year, the Seattle Art Museum fired a security guard who interacted with Painting to Hammer a Nail In, a piece which asks you to hammer a nail into the painting. On the wall next to the painting was this text placed by the museum, along with a box of nails:

Museum visitors are invited to pound a nail into this painting. Like so
much of the work in this exhibition, while the idea might at first seem a
destructive, physically aggressive act against the accepted traditions of
painting and museums in general, in the end the concept opens up new
potentials for painting, and for bringing others besides the artist into
the creative act.

Yoko Ono herself poetically states her intentions.

What I’m trying to do is make something happen by throwing a pebble into the water and creating ripples…I don’t want to control the ripples. – Yoko Ono

In 1957, Paris, a group of “reactionary nihilist intellectuals” stormed a Dada exhibition and grabbed Man Ray’s piece titled Object to Destroy. They threw it on the ground and shot it with a pistol before police arrived and arrested them for doing just as the title commanded. Time Magazine wrote about the incident at the time in The Theater: Battle of the Nihilists.

How do we know what’s allowed and what isn’t? Should we do what the artist tells us or follow the rules of a museum? Who gets to decide? A simple, direct solution is presented by The Onion in Struggling Museum Now Allowing Patrons To Touch Paintings:

“Though it contains more than two million pieces and represents a profound legacy of artistic achievement, most people remain completely indifferent to our museum,” Met director Thomas P. Campbell said. “So we decided to try something a little different and give visitors a chance to experience our timeless works of art up close and personal.”
“You can’t grasp the brilliance of a great painting just by looking at it,” said Phil Brehm, 32, who acknowledged that he hadn’t set foot inside a museum since a mandatory field trip in high school. “To truly appreciate fine art, you need to be able to run your fingers over its surface and explore its range of textures.”
“Or just rub your face all over it, like I do,” Brehm added.

Of course, In the real world, I hope for a middle ground. Museums need to determine which pieces derive a large part of their meaning and significance from interaction. For these pieces, the museum’s primary purpose should no longer be to simply protect their objects. They must protect the full artistic experience, so that people can feel for themselves the art’s purpose and meaning.

One museum that gets this is the Tate Modern. I visited several years ago and found the five-story swirly-slide by artist Carsten Höller. Laughter echoed around the large room as people slid down the tubes.

In 1971, the Tate exhibited a very interactive artwork, Bodyspacemotionthings, by artist Robert Morris. After only four days, and many splinters and bruises, the artwork was broken by all the interaction and then closed. Last May, a new version of the work was exhibited, and this is what it looked like:

Even knowing the potential for destruction, possibly higher insurance rates and injured patrons, Tate did it anyway.

So what’s the answer? And why should we care?

I forgot to mention that I had lots of Star Wars toys when I was growing up. I played with them all the time. They ended up with broken arms, unrecognizable dog-chewed heads, peeling paint and caked-in mud. Every dent and scrape added more to their made-up history in my imagination, making them even more fun and interesting. Today, I no longer have them. If I did, I certainly couldn’t sell them for any money. No one would want them.

I don’t want irreplaceable, important parts of our history destroyed. But in the museum’s Star Wars collector zeal, preserving every piece of art behind plastic and glass, we lose the art’s spirit, we lose it’s importance, the very reason it’s worth collecting to begin with. And the people visiting this work are disconnected from it. They don’t get it, shrug and move on. This is the very work that has the most potential to deeply connect with people in our modern world.

I think there must be a middle way.
Maybe museums can have artists build two copies of each work. One to protect for value and history, the other to take out of the box, to get dirty and broken. That’s what the most passionate toy collectors do.

Time Magazine, The Theater: Battle of the Nihilists, April 1957
Yoko Ono’s Official Site
More about Man Ray
What is Conceptual Art?
The Seattle Art Museum
The Stranger Slog, Dear Yoko: This is an Intervention
Tate Modern, Bodyspacemotionthings
BBC, What Closed Tate’s 1971 Art Show?
Artists Robert Morris and Carsten Höller

Buy stuff:

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Conceptual Art – Not a Good Investment

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:54:42 +0000

Conceptual Art relies on ideas (concepts) and audience participation for it’s effectiveness, where many other kinds of art rely more on the object, and the skill the artist used to create it.

The New York Times asks Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark?

…conceptual art after Duchamp reminds me of paging through old New Yorker cartoons. Jokes about Cadillac tailfins and early fax machines were once amusing, and the same can be said of conceptual works like Piero Manzoni’s 1962 declaration that Earth was his art work, Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 “One and Three Chairs” (a chair, a photo of the chair and a definition of “chair”) or Mr. Hirst’s medicine cabinets. Future generations, no longer engaged by our art “concepts” and unable to divine any special skill or emotional expression in the work, may lose interest in it as a medium for financial speculation and relegate it to the realm of historical curiosity.

I think the premise of the story – that conceptual art doesn’t have good resale value – is sound. It’s hard to determine a piece’s monetary value when the object itself isn’t where the value lies. Because the artistic merit of something as etheral as an idea is very subjective and changes through time, how will you have any idea what it’s worth? This is in contrast to an object, good idea or not, that is created with a great deal of skill and effort. Even if the idea is a bad one, or whose merit fades over time, the high level of craft will likely still be appreciated.

This really raises the question – how should conceptual artists make a living? Those New Yorker cartoonists still get paid to create cartoons, even though the cartoons might not have the same impact 20 years from now. I’m sure some are understood to have a cultural lifespan. Yet their current value is still understood, and artists are paid. If this is true, that some conceptual art has concepts which have a lifespan, how can artists pay for their livelihood and efforts just like those cartoonists?

I have some ideas, but what do you think?

Books on conceptual art.

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“Please Don’t Touch the (Touchable) Art.”