2009 wrap-up

        In case you haven't been following my every move this year, here are my top ten favorite discoveries (all are artists that I had not known of before this year, since I sometimes write about long-time influences of mine):

April 18th : Bianca Casady (knew of her before 2009, but not her artwork)
April 29th : Jan Švankmajer
June 5th : Nadine Byrne
June 7th : Miwa Yanagi
July 24th : Compagnia della Fortezza
July 29th : Andrea Marshall
August 12th : Ali Scarpulla
September 23rd : Bert & Bertie
October 9th : Susanna Majuri
December 21st : Miru Kim




        I realize that the majority of this list is women, and while this did not surprise me (I tend to seek out female artists), I was slightly surprised after a bit of investigation, that the reasoning for this is also partially that the male artists that I've written about this past year are almost entirely artists I had prior knowledge of (and therefor did not include). This coming year I'll try to find some guys who are new to me.

images (top to bottom): Miwa Yanagi, Bert & Bertie, Andrea Marshall & Susanna Majuri

Zephyrance Lou

Zephyrance Lou 1989-

        A few other times I have posted photographers using flickr as their main web presence, and after stumbling upon Zephyrance Lou I felt she was more than worthy of a mention. I did a quick google search and she's been getting a lot of blog attention lately, (probably in part because the ever-popular "booooooom!" did a post on her) but it is well deserved, her most recent photographs are really great.
        While her older work is lovely it's not particularly stand-out, but her most recent photographs, specifically the set "[Extra Scenes]" are more realized, and strangely beautiful. ([Extra Scenes], she notes, are photographs taken but not being used for a larger project - which I hope she eventually posts if these are just the runoff) She maintains the beautiful lighting of her other photographs but there is more of a sense that something else is going on. Someone asked in a comment what they are about and she responded in Chinese, but a rough translation came out to them being about dreams, which definitely makes sense, and that the series should be done by April. Hopefully I'll be able to find out more soon. I'm really curious to see what the photographs she is choosing look like... I'll definitely be keeping an eye out.

Lou's flickr
post on booooooom!




images: flickr.com/photos/zephyrance

Bill Durgin

        You wouldn't typically expect to use the words "alarming" and "charming" (excuse the rhyme) to describe the same photograph, but that's what Bill Durgin's work does. I first came across his work at the Museum of Fine Arts, for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Scholar's show in 2008 (he graduated from the school in '95). The photographs shown were from his series of figure studies, awkwardly positioned bodies where limbs and heads often appear non-existent. They are almost a little disturbing at first, certainly enough to make you look again, but the level of humor and play in them is all too obvious. In one description he uses the word "uncanny"; perfect.
        I happened upon his work again yesterday, which I had not investigated further since seeing it at the MFA, and it prompted me to find my way to his website. There I found his series nudes & still lifes which juxtaposes his photographs of human forms with still lifes, which "riff on classical painting genres ... composed to unsettle the relative size of each subject by presenting them on a similar scale ... reverberating between ideas of attraction and abjection". The series (four diptychs) is not only visually stunning but very clever. His other series have an equal level of intrigue, discomfort, and humor.

Durgin's website




images: billdurgin.com/

Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Käsebier 1852-1934

        Following the new format, today's post will be a shorter one (a sip!).
        Though some sources claim Gertrude Käsebier to be one of the most influential early American photographers, I had not heard of her until my 20th century photo history class this past semester, and I am in my fifth year of photography courses. I am not sure if this points to gaps in my education or a gap in general "history". While her place in photo history is no doubt worth knowing, particularly as a woman, I was less interested in it than I was absolutely taken with a single photograph of hers; her self portrait as a gargoyle. It is not only a stunning photograph, but clever and daring. It seems to capture everything that she was as a woman, and the energy of the image is just so strong. Really inspiring in my opinion.

image: ngv.vic.gov.au

Iris Schieferstein

Iris Schieferstein 1966-

        I am admittedly somewhat confused by Iris Schieferstein, and it is perhaps because of minor language issues or the simple fact that her work is absolutely bizarre. The latter also happens to be the reason that I like her.
        I stumbled across her website (which is in German and roughly translated to English) after seeing pictures on google images of hoof high heels that she made (I was looking to see if A. McQueen's shoes would come up, or what else would... just a little insight into the weird ways I come across things...) I was intrigued so I ended up at her website.
        It's difficult to figure exactly what she typically does, other than that it involves dead animals. On her website I found a menagerie of photographs and sculpture, both revolving around taxidermy. The image on the main page of her website is a Vincent Price-esque photograph of what I presume is the artist, standing over a severed sheep's head a and a glass of wine, wielding a pair of scissors. Again, not sure what to think. The description underneath makes her out to be some sort of Frankenstein, stating that she "...has worked with dead animals as raw material for her pieces of art. She joins the fragments together to new creatures and thus gives a new face to death. No matter, if her arrangements follow paintings of the great masters of art or if the joined objects turn out to be whole words - her work always gives evidence of aesthetic intutition and her inclination to subtle entertainment." -the last part of which can be seen in her taxidermy sculpture works which spell out words and phrases such as "life can be so nice" and "elvis". Her photographs (look at the series Fotoplastiken) would also suggest that she is possibly somewhat of a feminist.

If anyone knows more about her, definitely share!
Schieferstein's website
Breakthrough : show at HP Garcia Gallery NYC which is up until TOMORROW (sorry!)




images: iris-schieferstein.de & hpgarciagallery.com

Miru Kim

Miru Kim: 1981-

        Not to suggest that I am not always excited about the artists I write about, but Miru Kim was a particularly exciting discovery for me. I really admire her work and think that it is very interesting. I was waltzing around youtube, watching videos of TED Conference speeches when I stumbled upon Miru Kim's (from 2008). While it was a little difficult to sit through (15min and her speaking is a bit monotonous), she had some pretty interesting things to say, and I was really taken by her art, which I had never seen before. She addresses her personal history, what attracts her to these spaces, the way she works, and discusses a bunch of individual photographs (specifically from her main series, Naked City Spleen).
        Kim initially came to NYC in 1999 (she was born in MA and raised in Seoul, Korea) to become a doctor, because she was really interested in biology. She found herself instead taken by the "biology of the city" and exploring or "dissecting" the unseen layers. Starting by following the rats, creatures she felt a particular connection to because of their use in medical science and the way that we tend to view them, placing them on sort of the fringe. From abandoned tunnels, hospitals and factories she has graduated to locations as famed and loaded as the catacombs in France.
        By photographing herself naked in these spaces, a decision she has made to make them seem both timeless and feral, Kim activates abandoned space in a really powerful way. They remind me a little bit of Francesca Woodman's work, but they are still entirely different. They seem less femininely poetic and sad than Woodman's self portraits, something that I really like about Kim's photographs (and this being said Woodman is one of my favorite artists). Perhaps it is the scale of the spaces or the fact that they are in color, but I imagine it has something more-so to do with intent and the fact that at the base of it, they are self portraits, and entirely different women.
        In any case the photographs are absolutely stunning, and worth admiring.

video of 2008 TED talk
Kim's website
Naked City Arts - Kim's not-for-profit art space for young artists (loc. in Lower Manhattan)




images: mirukim.com

Fantastic Mr. Fox

        Tonight I finally got a chance to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I was extremely excited to see, because from the previews the animation looked BEAUTIFUL. And I have to say, it actually exceeded my expectations! Not only was the animation possibly the most well executed that I've seen (and this is saying quite a lot as someone whose favorite form of film is animations), but there are some really beautiful shots (something which is not made evident in the trailer).
        Although the storyline is just barely reminiscent of Dahl's version, the spirit of the book is upheld. The casting was perfect, and the soundtrack (which is comprised largely of banjo) is really fun and fits perfectly.
        All I can really say about the film is that it all came together really well, and I was smiling through literally the entire thing. They have created a perfect balance of something that is easy and fun to watch, and at the same time visually stunning, which I think is really lacking in film right now (but also optimistically on the rise).

I couldn't really find any screenshots that show the feel of the film (and as I stated while the trailer is really good, it does not accurately show just how good the film is), so here's a little taste, but this is one of the few films this year that I truly believe is worth the $10+ to see in theaters, I intend to see it again.

trailer


(director/producer/writer Wes Anderson with a bunch of the stop-motion figures)

Walton Ford // info on NEW FORMAT

        This coming semester I am going to be very busy, so I will be changing the format of Brass Tea. What I imagine will happen is that I will be writing a combination of shorter posts (sips) and longer more analytical posts (cups) depending on what I have time for that day. This way I will still be able to get in five artists a week.
In the next few weeks I will be trying this out, so bear with me if things seem a little wonky or uneven at first. I'll have it hammered out by January.
        So without further ado...

Walton Ford 1960-

        First of all, if you are not familiar with the PBS series Art: 21 - Art in the 21st Century, I suggest you become acquainted. Art: 21, which was Emmy nominated, "documents artists in their own words". New seasons are every two years (starting in 2001), and each episode covers a theme (such as "loss and desire", "memory", "transformation") and includes 3-5 contemporary artists working with the theme. The series is really awesome, because you get to see the actual artist (often working) and speaking about their work and how it relates to the greater scheme of things.
        I have been sort of non-systematically working my way through the series (which you can watch on their website pbs.org/art21, or on Hulu or Netflix Instant View as well) and most recently watched the bit on Walton Ford (who is featured in the "humor" theme).

        A self described "maximalist", Ford's work is modeled after the work of Audubon, a name which is surely familiar to most. Ford however, has a focus on contextualization. He notes that Audubon probably killed more animals than he ever painted, and that this "hero/villain" aspect of early natural historians is a source of inspiration to him in his dark comedies.
        Ford injects current political and environmental tones into this vintage style, creating extremely strong paintings in which he confronts current culture and history (both shared and his own). The tension this meeting of times creates is mirrored in the "hero/villain" side of the work, as well as the "attraction-repulsion" that he says he tries to create. "The big, big thing I’m always looking for in my work is a sort of attraction-repulsion thing, where the stuff is beautiful to begin with until you notice that some sort of horrible violence is about to happen or is in the middle of happening." This reaction to his work directly relates to the sensation of digging a little deeper into history and realizing what was really going on in some situations (Audubon being a perfect metaphor to speak through, as he is is all too frequently painted as some sort of valiant sportsman). I will also add that each of his paintings has a really interesting/strange narrative behind it, not all of which are immediately obvious unless you have an extensive knowledge of history, and he outlines some of these narratives in the episode of Art: 21. There are also explanations with the images in the slide shows on the Art: 21 site.

If you are interested in watching his bit on Art: 21, as I said you can watch it on Hulu or Netflix, but if you watch it on the PBS site you can also read a couple of really interesting interviews with Ford as well as see a couple slide shows of his work, and a brief bio. All that is here.


images: pbs.org/art21/artists/ford/index.html

Sam Moss

        This month Sam Moss launched a blog which chronicles his most recent visual project, daily drawings which he has titled Imagined Faces. He states that though the "imagined" aspect is not a rule, the drawings (which he often does "on the cusp of sleep") typically turn out this way. He scans the drawings directly out of his sketchbook.
        The faces remind me of a combination of Ray Johnson's work and Ken Kesey's sketches in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (though this may be off the mark as I haven't seen the book in a while and google books has removed ONLY the pages with illustrations). Johnson for the composition and Kesey for the style.
        The fact that he is so close to sleep is possibly responsible for some of the stranger aspects of the drawings, as just before and just after sleep are generally considered to be the times when the creative and subconscious are most readily accessible. Little bits of other information (sometimes less immediately obvious) find their way into the portraits, giving them a strange transitory movement. Some of the drawings feel like they could be imprints of the artist's mind, with floating shapes, images and text all mashed into the same plane as the figures. It is difficult to speak for them because their language is very visual.
        The works very clearly represent Moss' artistic style, which can be seen in his other visual work (mainly drawing and collage) as well. While I imagine he would identify foremost as a musician, Moss is also a visual artist, a sizable sampling of which can be seen on his website alongside his music.

Imagined Faces
Moss' website




images: imagined-faces.blogspot.com

InsideOut

        InsideOut is the School of the Museum of Fine Arts' annual sale. It is the largest fundraising event for the school (at least 50% of all sales go to the student scholarship fund) and with thousands of works, it is possibly the largest art sale in New England. The artwork comes from students, faculty, alumni and associated artists; ranging from smfa freshman to contemporary greats such as alumni Nan Goldin and the Starn twins and associated artists Chuck Close and Kiki Smith. There are paintings, drawings, photographs, video installations, jewelry, sculpture, ceramics... the list goes on. Work is reasonably priced, and is a great opportunity to add to or even start your art collection. People have come back and stated that they purchased student work at a low price, and the student has now become well known and pricey.
        Not only is it a great opportunity to buy art, but as I mentioned it does help out the school, which is especially important right now. It is also a fun and casual atmosphere, and you may even get a chance to speak to many of the artists. Tonight is the opening, so if you can make it you ought to! It is also open through Sunday the 22nd, I have posted the hours below. (The two show pictures I've posted are from the set-up week! It looks much nicer now!)

Weds, Nov 18, 12–8 pm (opening celebration – 5–8 PM)
Thurs, Nov 19, 12–8 pm
Fri, Nov 20, 12–6 pm
Sat, Nov 21, 12–6 pm
Sun, Nov 22, 12–6 pm

More details at the SMFA website
Online gallery of some of the student and faculty work
On facebook



        And I have a line of jewelry in the show so hey, if you're looking for some cool original and wearable work for a nice price... here's a preview of all 12 of my pieces...!


images: daylynn richards & facebook.com/insideoutsmfa

Ahmed Abdalla

        This past Thursday I had the pleasure of attending Ahmed Abdalla's opening for his show Melody and Witness, which is currently up at GASP Arts in Brookline, MA. Abdalla's statement for the show reads as follows;

        In melody and witness, there is anxiety about what is happening and what might never happen. There is frustration, sometimes, with the impossibility of communication.
        Humility and arrogance, power and greed, guilt, redemption, forgiveness, ambiguity, paradox and contradiction are all present in this art event."

        This "art event" (described by Abdalla as something that lies between theater and fine art - his background is in both stage design and fine arts) incorporates elements of painting, drawing, sculpture, video projection, sound and light, culminating in a wildly powerful installation. He has effectively controlled every aspect of the experience within the space, and the effect is overwhelming.
        The viewer enters through the street entrance to the gallery, and is immediately confronted by a small space, a temporary wall covered in pencil marks, and a curtain to the left. Entering into the actual gallery, it is dark. The lights are set up to alternate between two overhead bulbs, darkness, and lighting underneath a table that is set up, with a large glass of oil and tar set next to a slab of special type of tar that has the appearance of both wax and charcoal. Small beads (I'm unclear on what they actually were) cover the ground, Abdalla explained that he hoped visitors would step on them and feel that they had done something wrong (something that I certainly felt before having the discussion with him about it). The second smaller room is pitch black, aside from a video projection into a pedestal sink, a man's hands scrubbing to get almost gold brown oil of his hands under running water.
        By nature of the piece, it really must be experienced (and I encourage anyone in the Boston area to do so) to understand the true power of it. Abdalla has extreme mastery over experiential language; his political and emotional message can almost be sensed without explanation or text.

Information on visiting the art event Melody and Witness:

GASP Arts
362-4 Boylston Street
Brookline, MA 02445
617.418.4308

The gallery is open Thursday - Saturday 11am-5pm and is less than two blocks from the Green D line Brookline Hills stop.




images: taken by me, c. Ahmed Abdalla Melody and Witness

Reed + Rader

Back to normal posting from my 2 week hiatus! Midterms are over and I am ready to go.

        And of course I am back with something bizarre and fascinating. I usually try not to post more than four images, but since these were just so amazing, and because I've been gone for two weeks, I possibly went a little overboard. But I'm not apologizing, because as I said, the images are amazing.
        Reed + Rader is made up of fashion (photography/ video/ installation/ graphics) duo Pamela Reed and Matther Rader. What initially attracted me to their work was the strange feel and unconventional look. Two minutes into their website I was hooked.
        I can not tell you much about the artists themselves, other than that they are 26 and live in New York. Their website also states that they "enjoy cats, stuffed animals, nintendo, pizza, robots, deli sandwiches and computing on the internet". I imagine that they are fun to be around. What I can speak to is their work.
        While all of their work is very different, it is all distinctively theirs. Looking through their website, I began to notice that images were moving (a startling discovery at first), sometimes animated very subtly (a blink or breath). While many of their photographs and videos are simply set up to be strange and other-worldly, many of them have also had some sort of outside intervention, whether that be drawing strange sci-fi additions over the photos, collage, photo manipulations, and animation. While I am always excited to see anything different going on in fashion advertisement, their work is particularly interesting because it also speaks to other things, such as technology, medium and contemporary culture. Their work very successfully resides in both the worlds of fashion and art, and comments on both.

I know I always say this, but you really, seriously, need to look at their website. I couldn't post the moving images or their videos here, and there is just so much more on the website that I wish I could've posted. All of it really.

their website -so many amazing things here
their blog meowzas -has a complete list of their other projects and sites (flickr, youtube etc) on the links page






images: reedandrader.com
(last one is a video still)

Wild Things' Forts

        This past Tuesday I wrote a lesson plan about forts (for my cultural/developmental art ed class) so when I saw these I knew I absolutely had to post them. I'm not 100% on the concept of the project, which is supposedly Where the Wild Things Are inspired (all this extra nonsense is starting to be overload and taking away from the actual movie a little for me, but I guess it's to be expected with such an adored story). Anyway, the project seems to have been inspired by a similar project Kelly Burgess did, where she asked people to build forts and fill them with what they love, then photographed them.
        The project itself is a collaboration between the "booooooom" arts blog, and "We Love You So", Spike Jonze and Co.'s blog. (And because of their involvement the prize for the winner of the project was a "bus shelter sized" Where the Wild Things Are poster! not bad...) Basically booooooom told their readers to build forts and send them a picture.
        I won't get too into depth regarding what I think fort-building is about visually and artistically, since I just basically wrote a paper on it, but I will say that the seemingly universal desire to create these spaces is very interesting... Not surprisingly my favorites were the ones with really beautiful lighting, but all of the different fabrics and materials used are really great. Looking through the eight pages (!) of forts really made me want to make one of my own. I might have to in these coming winter months.

Forts 1, Forts 2, Forts 3, Forts 4, Forts 5, Forts 6, Forts 7, Forts 8
booooooom blog
We love you so blog
Kelly Burgess' website




images: booooooom.com

MPH Art Salon

        I've been (and will be for the next few weeks) really busy because of midterms, and since I don't really have the time to dedicate to writing up an artist today; shameless self-promotion! In all seriousness though, this show is for a really good cause. The Michael Peter Hayes Art Salon is currently having a show of ATCs (artist trading cards), and the participating artists got to decide if they would donate 50 or 100% of the proceeds for their pieces (set at $50 each) to the National Cancer Center.
        As someone who has had people very close to me both overcome as well as pass away from cancer, it is something that has had a heavy effect on my life, and I know that a growing number of people are affected in some way by it. Being a part of this show was my way to honor these people, as well as contribute to fighting cancer and promoting cancer awareness (my pieces are all 100% contributions). The four trading cards that I created are, albeit in a quiet way and personal way, in conversation with the effects of cancer on the way I live my life.
        If you live nearby Locust Valley, NY, you should definitely check out the show, which is open until November 27th. The artists involved are highly talented and some even have pieces in museum collections.

Exhibit page (the first card (with the owls) is one of mine!)
general info on what ATCs are

And here's the gallery info if you'd like to go:

MPH Art Salon
169 Forest Avenue, Locust Valley, NY 11560
516.671.5011
www.mphsalon.com

(click to enlarge poster)

images: ATC poster, c. mph salon and respective artists
first image, "heart", c. daylynn richards