Weekly post

I got introduced to a few interesting artists this week during my crit with Eileen Neff.


John Stezaker was a British artist who could be described as a conceptual, surrealist collagist. 

 Mask XXXV

Mask XXIX

James Gallager is a contemporary collagist. From his bio:

James Gallagher uses collage to investigate human form and personal identity. Piecing together images cut from discarded books, forgotten issues of National Geographic, and the occasional vintage sex-manual, Gallagher creates stark and provocative scenes that reflect the world around him.

Guyton Series 4 / 2011 / 10"x10"

Threads / 2010 / 4"x6"

James Gallagher's Website

Mark Bradford is a comtemporary artist from L.A. who makes collage and décollage from found material, as well as video installations. His stuff seems like it would be awesome to see up close and in person. 

This video is definitely worth checking out: Mark Bradford Art 21

Susan Hiller is another contemporary artist, but she is not amonst the collagists. Her work seems to be all over the map, from 2-D prints reminiscent of Andy Warhol, to sculpture, to installation, video, and on and on. She was recommended to me by Eileen as an anthropological artist. 

Her website is worth a visit: http://www.susanhiller.org/

Red 

"We live in a world of lost meanings. Journey to the Land of the Tarahumara explores my preoccupation with the undecipherable signs transmitted to us by extinct cultures, signs scattered around the world that now exist solely in material form as if they were empty shells. The title of the series evokes the hallucinatory journey made by Antonine Artaud, surrealist poet and playwright, to the secluded and little-known Tarahumaran people of Mexico in 1936. On my own travels around the world I've looked for and photographed 'mysterious symbols' engraved on rocks by earlier cultures. The images in this series are the result of rethinking and re-presenting those symbols as configurations of prints that directly illustrate their power. These works record my personal meditation on remnants, fragments and lost meanings. "

Homage to Yves Klein: Levitations 2008

Susan Hiller – review from Tate Britain show last year

Finally, a famous surrealist artist who I like, who did collage and saw some of his work at the MoMA last week: Max Ernst. 

His surrealist collage novel "Une Semaine de Boite" ("A Week of Kindness) is excellent. I recommend it if you think you might be interested in it.

News and art articles:

Collaboration four: Rami Farook and Christian Jankowski

Berlin conceptual artist Christian Jankowski travels to Dubai to meet curator and artist Rami Farook, to work together for the BBC's Collaboration Culture project.

Over three days Farook guides a blindfolded Jankowski through the souks and the desert, the artificial snow mountain and the hectic streets, while they make a film of their journey together.

Dressy Hiking Shoes

 “For me it was something I always wanted to do: draw a five-mile line on a city map and mark it as a trail. The trail had to be an interesting cross-section, showing the transportation, highway, electric infrastructure of the city. I always wanted to find the area between the urban and the suburban, the first patch of homeowner’s lawn.”


John Cage 

How To Talk About Art: Conceptual Art Edition

So, don’t be caught with your pants down in front of some inexplicable wall full of squiggles: Not only will you get arrested (umm…maybe) but you’ll look like a schmuck.