Molly's River coming to Times Square

This summer, Times Square is getting a river! Brooklyn-based artist Molly Dilworth (a hard working friend) has landed the the commission to paint the pedestrian plazas on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets. Her piece is titled "Cool Water, Hot Island," a graphic representation of NASA's infrared satellite data of Manhattan.

from the DOT:

The artist's concept focuses on the urban heat-island effect, where cities tend to experience warmer temperatures than rural settings. The proposed design's color palette of striking blues and lighter hues reflects more sunlight and absorb less heat - improving the look of these popular pedestrian plazas while making them more comfortable to sit in. The color and patterns evoke water, suggesting a river flowing through the center of Times Square, and they also provide a compelling visual counterpoint to the reds, oranges and yellows of the area’s signature marquees and billboards.

Molly's river will begin flowing by mid-July, and is expected to run about 18 months. If you want some early Manhattan geography check out this site for an interactive map. Additional history here.



via: Gothamist

National Gallery of Art in 365 days

365 days of exploring the National Gallery of Art, one artwork at a time! sounds like an incredible project and certainly a test of stamina. If you've never been to the NGA this is a virtual treat for you. Art 2010 is a blog project on Head for Art, that’ll run from January 1 to December 31, 2010.


image:Willem van Aelst :Still Life with Dead Game (1661)

@

Apparently MoMA has acquired the @ symbol for its permanent collection.

from their blog:

Contemporary art, architecture, and design can take on unexpected manifestations, from digital codes to Internet addresses and sets of instructions that can be transmitted only by the artist. The process by which such unconventional works are selected and acquired for our collection can take surprising turns as well, as can the mode in which they're eventually appreciated by our audiences. While installations have for decades provided museums with interesting challenges involving acquisition, storage, reproducibility, authorship, maintenance, manufacture, context--even questions about the essence of a work of art in itself--MoMA curators have recently ventured further; a good example is the recent acquisition by the Department of Media and Performance Art of Tino Sehgal's performance Kiss.

The acquisition of @ takes one more step. It relies on the assumption that physical possession of an object as a requirement for an acquisition is no longer necessary, and therefore it sets curators free to tag the world and acknowledge things that "cannot be had"--because they are too big (buildings, Boeing 747's, satellites), or because they are in the air and belong to everybody and to no one, like the @--as art objects befitting MoMA's collection. The same criteria of quality, relevance, and overall excellence shared by all objects in MoMA's collection also apply to these entities.

For more on the story and history of the symbol. Read here.

via:CORE 77

Office of Blame rising

I was quite pleased to see a mention of the Office of Blame over at Paddy's AFC! The project is the brainchild of artists Carla Repice and Geoff Cunningham, The Office of Blame (OBA) highlights a few fieldwork samples from their archive of blame forms and recorded conversations.

During the presidential elections, I blogged about the project a couple times as they made the rounds of the conventions. I even had the surreal pleasure of subbing in one day here in NY. I'm happy they are getting a much deserved bigger platform. It's a fantastic project with huge potential to screen the national mood and the ghosts that haunt each of us.


Image via: OBA

anatomy of a painting [7]

Some more time has passed since I trotted out this piece for the ‘anatomy series’ of posts. No reason other than it has been on the back burner as other works demanded more attention. Apologies again for the lack of a quality image here but it should give you an idea as placeholder. As you can see from previous posts that the lifespan of this work is starting to become substantial. This is simply circumstantial but also reflects my general interest in slowness as an approach to picture building. The silences between stages are what set up the reverberations I need to advance the work into a more realized state.

Since the last time I spoke of this piece, I have employed the nuclear option. I eradicated the bottom quarter several times with huge swaths of muddy paint in part to fill in surfaces gaps and also to actually submerge the former grid into a sludgy demise like river water saturating turned soil. (some sanding/scraping also to make the current state change)

Next in order is a reworking of the part of the painting that was actually working. First I wanted to expand the sky upward as the darker passage which bracketed it previously was troublesome in that it suffocated the work as a whole. Painting that out presented unforeseen problems. Uneven surfaces seams and some paint loss due to taping lead me to an endless game of reconstruction that is only now complete in a version not pictured here. Despite this, it was the right call as now there is room to work. This leads to what was the center point of the painting, the smoke/chemical cloud that largely acted as the catalyst and entry point for the painting. I was very satisfied with this part of the painting and have clung to it as the anchor point since its completion. However, now that other changes have taken place, this part now has to be removed and reworked.

This is where painting gets hard. The challenge is having the courage to let go of ‘success’ for the betterment of the whole. Generally when an artist paints themselves into a corner as the expression goes, it is because they are holding to a passage at all costs for fear (or realization) that it cannot be improved or replicated elsewhere throughout the painting. The trouble is, painting is a relationship that requires give and take. It is not static. Letting go is central to the process of realization. At this moment, I have sanded down that centerpiece and blown out the former horizon line. I am now ready for the final leg of the work. I hope to have one more posting of this process before the piece is complete.

new works

Thought I would post some new works recently documented. These are the tail end out my output from 2008. The top image is the latest in my WhiteNoise series. The second image is a reworking of and numbering of the first painting in that group. I was never satisfied with the upper portion for a variety of reasons so I reworked it to make it more in line with how the works have progressed.

Pictured above:

WhiteNoise no. 6, 2008
Oil on linen
24 x 18 in.

WhiteNoise no.2, 2008
Oil on linen
24 x 18 in.

Below are some new paper works each measuring 30 x 22 in. These are both oil as well.

Relique Detroit

An excellent and chilling photo essay at TIME reveals one great American city's dissent into a living apparition. Photography by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.


hat tip: Bill Gusky

box of clouds

This is very cool.

Digital artist Kim Laughton made this cloud viewer out of an old keychain photo viewer. The backlight of the LCD screen was removed so you have to hold the box up to the light to see the clouds drifting by inside.

Go here for more cloud cycles.



via: Make

new work

I've been meaning to post this one up. Here is the latest in my loosely titled 'whitenoise' group.

For the most part I'm pleased. The hardest part about these small works is the lower quarter which is only about three inches in height. Very difficult to devise a world in there but I think I'm getting better at it. Just glad to get another one under my belt. One more coming soon if I can get the linen to behave. The precip this winter has been super irritating to deal with.

Charles Darwin gets a Hirst re- brand

Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species is now 150th years old and a special edition is due for release next month. Damien Hirst gets the cover honor

Hirst in his own words [the Guardian]:

The painting sits firmly in the tradition of "still life" and is made up of objects I've come to imbue with my own meanings, some of them Darwinian in origin, and that I guess are seen in other areas of my work. The painting has an X-ray-like quality to it, as if it is revealing something about the structure of the objects painted.

I suppose the work, in a modest way, acknowledges Darwin's analytical mind and his courage to believe in those ideas that questioned the very fabric of existence and belief in his time.

Discuss amongst yourselves. It's a very Schnabel moment - smirk.


Image: Copyright Damien Hirst 2009
hat tip: phronesisaical

anatomy of a painting [6]

So I actually got a real shot of this piece at it's current stage. Not much to report other than that. Some minor tweaks to the grid are still in order but the next big issue is how best to activate the left quadrant of the painting and whether or not a figure(s) will be required. Also, I'm half considering the nuclear option of painting over the lower third entirely and rethinking that part of the painting. It's an ugly choice but I learned what I needed from the grid process even if it doesn't remain in piece. We'll see where the trail of dead leads.

new paintings

The WhiteNoise Suite (no.4), 2008

The WhiteNoise Suite (no.4), 2008


So I'm continuing the White Noise series that I started and posted about back in the summer. The top one is the newest (no.4) in the group which ultimately will number 9 I think. The second one is actually no.3 from the summer but I reworked the cloud/dust portion. I'm much happier with this result than previously. Each measures 24 x 18 in.

New paper works cont...

Here are a couple of more. These two are also oil on primed paper. 30 x 22 in. each.

New paper works

I'm finally getting around to documenting some work from the last few months. These two are oil on primed paper measuring 30 x 22 in. each. More to follow.

anatomy of a painting [4]

A little time has passed since my last update on this painting. The election consumed much of my head and heart space and then of course other works were demanding more of my attention. Last week, I got back into this one. Mostly still adjusting the grid and have some play with the colors. Tiling and discothequing endlessly, which turned out to be a good exercise and annoying at the same time. I decided to move into the center of the work with a different read of daytime. I moved heavy on the turquoise- really just to see it as I haven't explored the color enough. It's not really what I want at this stage but it has been useful to have it there for a day or two. Ultimately what is above is now a pretty well aligned ground for the painting to be which should more or less see this come to completion. This is the ugly duckling part of my process or the transition point where it seems like nothing is working but all most of the clues are there speaking in some way, however muffled.

Color adjustments for the grid are in order, more recession and sublimation as well as a new resolution for the midsection. After that the main focus will be to determine if this painting has an action, what player will activate the field or will I go another route. Perhaps some doubling/repetition of a sequence. Not sure and I'm guessing that makes little sense to anyone, but I know what I mean....the piece is coming into focus for me as you'll see in the next "clip".

A detail in closing with a somewhat better color accuracy.

oh shit

Finally, a snarky piece that actually made me laugh instead of implying that I'm supposed to laugh. The ultimate salesman strikes again.

A piece of art by Damien Hirst has set the new record for a single item at auction. The piece entitled ‘Oh Shit’ fetched £2.3bn after frantic bidding by an anonymous investor. The work, which features a Merrill Lynch employee suspended in a tank of formaldehyde secured the highest price yet paid for a single piece of banking history.

Office of Blame now at the RNC

Last week I posted on the exploits of artists Carla Repice and Geoff Cunningham at the DNC. They have moved office to the RNC in St. Paul. So far no tear gas or aerial gunshot wounds from separatist candidate Sarah Palin. Here are some pics from their Flickr page where even Joe Scarborough plays along...

water falls in new york

Wired readers submitted the following the pics of Eliasson's waterfalls here in NY. Some good images in there and not everyone in the crowd is impressed....

intervention

image: William Lamson(2007-2008)
via: Space and Culture and Phronesisaical

anatomy of a painting [2]

So this is the new stage for the painting shown last week or so. This is a probing period, and like I said, I ditched the photocopy you saw in the last image. I like to attack the canvas(linen) at this point in the process with as much paint as I can reasonably manage. This is always, a wet into wet situation, rough, fast handling with highly charged colors. If I'm doing it right, I'm combining as many colors as I can at once. Of course there is a pre-set of colors, that are quite considered for mood, tempo and scale. I trowel these on and work the surface for a few hours - playing the drying times of each color - manipulating the high oil density colors against the more absorbent colors.
The results, if I'm on my game are that within the drying process I get rewarded with some encaustic type areas along with passages that feel geologic, and reflective. What I'm looking for here is a topography that will lead to other decisions. Lately, I am also concerned with the smoothness of the surface, and this seems to be pushing me towards and almost c-print quality.

Also, I want to have a certain freedom with the materials that can at times overwhelm me physically. If my arms and hands are not fatigued and aching after this stage, then I haven't fulfilled my obligation to get as much of my physical presence into the piece as I should. For me this is critical at this point in the process because I need to feel a commitment to and from the surface before proceeding into more complicated waters.

This "second stage" may repeat itself a few times until the skin of the canvas feels right, this skin being critical to how the paint glides in future passes. The glide has everything to do with how the colors combine and mutate seamlessly. Another critical aspect besides an internal commitment, is somehow getting a light to present itself. Light is very important to me and I need to have a source developing immediately upon covering the ground layer. This isn't necessarily directional light but should be evident throughout the surface in this foundational stage.

So I think I'm pretty sure about where this is going next, and I have a maquette or two in the wings. I should have a new update in a week or so on this one.