world - piece - resting - in

untitled pictures, 2007

(click to enlarge)

D o' D

Drawing of the day. Future icicle travel.

Snowden dusk

Shiva Linga paintings coming to Boston

A few months back, Feature Inc had a show of these magnificent
tantric paintings- which I didn't chance to attend, but did once come
across an exhibition catalogue in Paris detailing work of similar
origins- a little volume which pretty much changed my life. It turns
out that Feature's show was a smaller version of this Paris show,
the show is a traveling one and will be coming to Boston, to a
yet-undisclosed location.

An excerpt from the exhibition text, by Franck André Jamme:

"Even if Indian aesthetes have always collected them, as beautiful
as they appear to them, the sole purpose of these paintings is actually
meditation, hence their entire vocabulary. They are also used for
visualization. For example, you get up in the morning. Then, almost
immediately: face-to-face with the thing, for several minutes. Until
it has filled your mind, right to the top, until it has slowly eliminated
everything else. Then you come back to the world, attend to your
daily affairs. With the difference that, when you want to, you can
instantly recall the image in your mind, and what’s more, you
can re-create the entire world of this image, namely the image
itself enriched by its constellation, in short all that it first precisely
signified augmented by what it has produced, given rise to,
released in us, as crystalline and operative as in the morning."

Something to look forward to...will keep this post updated.

*thanks Shelley for the tip!

D o' D

Drawing of the day. Transliteration.

Jack Strange to Land Rainbow

At the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery a few weeks ago, this tiny piece by
Jack Strange caught my eye...and though almost the whole show was
composed of really good work, Strange's piece was memorable
in that latent, ha-Ha way when I realized that his "Spinning
Beach Ball of Death" is actually a lift from the little icon that
comes up when an action is waiting to be executed (on a mac).
Which is only really funny when you consider the work in
the light of All Painting, Ever.

ANYWAY, on the highway coming back from the MIA show,
with all the trucks going by and at the same time thinking about
big art installations, big things in general, and then from that
to rainbows,
it occurred to me that on a nice, long stretch of highway, it's
theoretically possible to create a massive moving chain of these
18-wheeler trucks, - maybe even one several miles long.
And, let's say they were painted the in full color spectrum, from
end to end (e.g. the first twenty trucks would articulate a subtle shift
from red into orange, and so on) so that the experience of viewing
the piece (from the side of the road) could last several minutes
(if the trucks passed by slowly)...and could MAYBE even change
the entire way that light is perceived as the piece goes by.

Like, grounding a rainbow.

M.I.A.

Worcester Palladium and M.I.A. was short and sweet, 11 + 3 song set,
the last song of which she put herself on the crowd, - of course, no
worries. I don't know, but there's something about the blinding
flash-flash combined with the ritualistic dancing (definitely not an
American dance- but a willing to work with the American dance)
hardened by the killer instinct and softened by the lycra, that
makes the girl's combinations of music and self really worth
paying attention to.

We met a photographer from the Globe outside, waiting
for his reporter- they're running a feature on Friday,
supposedly.... link TBA, and further thoughts regarding
the MIA Trojan Horse theory.


update: so here's that link...

And while yeah, the "sonic murk" was true (her work comes
off much truer with headphones on, as there's subtlety that
the Palladium venue is perhaps not NASA'd up for), I don't know
what she would think of the Globe (the photographer clearly
wasn't down -"I only have to stay for the first three songs ")
and the show wasn't even sold out, unlike both NYC shows....
once again falling back on its puritanical roots, New England
rubuffs the advances of the anarchists.

Tar Sweater at Smith & 9th

It looks like the MTA finally realized that even elevated railways
need a little snug, what with the winter coming...

Zurich Plant Installation

Walking through Zurich airport, I happened upon this fascinating
display of airport decor...




If you look upwards, the plant extends through several floors above.
What's so quintessentially Swiss about it, though, is that someone
thought to tailor a habitat specifically for a plant- this in a passageway
of the airport. Almost random, but definitely serendipitous, and the
construction of the container substantiates that feeling: it seems
just right, both for the plant and for viewing purposes.



Even the label is artful. Plant life taking the place of art!



There is a man who comes with his nice rolling thing and
clears away the leaves that have been shed by the plant.
Maybe this even happens several times a day.

Everything in Switzerland is so kempt!

Eva Farago, in memoriam

1950-2007

All Souls' Night

"It wer a col nite but we wer warm in that doss bag.
Lissening to the dogs howling afterwds and the wind
wuthering and wearying and nattering in the oak leaves.
Looking at the moon all col and wite and oansome.
Lorna said to me, 'You know Riddley theres some thing
in us it dont have no name.'
I said, 'What thing is that?'
She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its
looking out thru our eye hoals. May be you dont take no noatis
of it only some times. Say you get woak up suddn in the middl
of the nite. 1 minim youre a sleap and the nex your on your feet
with a spear in your han. Wel it wernt you put that spear in your
han it were that other thing whats looking out thru your eye hoals.
It aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan
and sheltering ow it can.'
I said, 'If its in every 1 of us theres moren 1 of it theres got
to be a manying theres got to be a millying and mor.'
Lorna said, 'Wel there is a millying and mor.'
I said, 'Wel if theres such a manying of it whys it lorn then whys
it loan?'
She said, 'Becaws the manying and the millying its all 1 thing it
dont have nothing to gether with. You look at lykens on a stoan
its all them tiny manyings of it and may be each part of it myt
think its sepert only we can see its all 1 thing. Thats how it is with
what we are its all 1 girt big thing and divvyt up amongst the many.
Its all 1 girt thing bigger nor the worl and lorn and loan and
oansome. Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us like we put on
our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the
arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that
much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatis it mor.
It dont realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal
how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you
some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. What ever it
is we dont come naturel to it.'
I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.'
She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it. We dint begin when it begun
we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I don't know
what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to
it or boils on the arse of it I dont know. Now lissen what Im
goin to tel you Riddley. It thinks us but it dont think like us.
It dont think the way we think. Plus like I said befor its afeart.'
I said, 'Whats it afeart of?'
She said, 'Its afeart of being bearth.'
I said, 'How can that be? You said its ben here befor us. If it
ben here all this time it musve been bearth some time.'
She said, 'No it aint been bearth it never does get beartht it
all ways in the woom of things its all ways on the road.'
I said, 'All this what you jus ben tellin be that a tell for me?'
She larft then she said, 'Riddley there aint nothing what aint
a tel for you. The wind in the nite the dus on the road even the
leases stoan you kick a long in front of you. Even the shadder
of that leases stoan roaling or stanning stil its all telling.'
Wel I cant say for cern no mor if I had any of them things
in my mynd befor she tol me but ever since it seams like
they all ways ben there. Seams like I ben all ways
thinking on that thing in us what thinks us but it dont think
like us. Our woal life is a idear we dint think of nor we dont
know what it is. What a way to live. "



from Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban , p. 5-7

off to Budapest.

"Virtual Popcorn Popper"

Ok, link scrambletime:

-Nosnibor has a new blog here, well worth checking out.

-Jay di Feo has an excellent show (only the second best after Chris
Wilmarth's, at the Nielsen's) to be reviewed in minutae soon.
(Go shaped paper as passage between drawing and sculpture!)

-I had a 4-day show (which also took 4 days to prepare) at Studio Soto
last week, and am now thinking about this as a possibility for all art
shows in the future- as a way of aspiring towards the temporality of music.

Philippe Lejeune graciously created this page from a video interview of
the show.

-Studio Soto might be on its last legs; with a lease renewal pending, but
by no means certain, Soto will need to find some sort of substantial support
in order to continue. PLEASE GO TO SOTO SHOWS! and donate!

-Roberta Smith weighs in at the Anaba/Chris Buchel debate...but oh...oh!
Let's move on.

-To the 2008 calendar: there is, rumor has it, a revolutionary way of
paper-organization for next year.
To be published soon.
Start saving your 25 dollars now.


that's the beaut of a floor at Soto.

Bee Update

Back from Europe and listening to the news with voracity, yesterday heard a show about the real cause of CCD in North American bee populations. As it turns out, our cellphone-radiation speculations
were wrong: it's viral.

(the whole story here)


The fascination with the morality of the story, has turned into
fascination with the science of how this diagnosis was actually
obtained: researchers actually sequenced the genetic material
in bees, to find a possible agent of cause. Following this thread,
check out the video on the (new and expanded) X-prize page....
With bees it was probably much simpler than with humans, but
the ultimate question is...do we want a disease-free world?