September 29, 2011
A/Illusiones Reviewed
Miguel Marcos just sent me the press coverage of his group show, A/Illusiones in last Sunday's LA VANGUARDIA.
September 25, 2011
September 24, 2011
simultaneously excited and terrified
Check this out:
...according to Professor Jack Gallant?UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the research published today in the journal Current Biology?"this is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery. We are opening a window into the movies in our minds."(Emphasis Mine. Source.)Indeed, it's mindblowing. I'm simultaneously excited and terrified. This is how it works:
They used three different subjects for the experiments?incidentally, they were part of the research team because it requires being inside a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging system for hours at a time. The subjects were exposed to two different groups of Hollywood movie trailers as the fMRI system recorded the brain's blood flow through their brains' visual cortex.
The readings were fed into a computer program in which they were divided into three-dimensional pixels units called voxels (volumetric pixels). This process effectively decodes the brain signals generated by moving pictures, connecting the shape and motion information from the movies to specific brain actions. As the sessions progressed, the computer learned more and more about how the visual activity presented on the screen corresponded to the brain activity.
An 18-million-second picture palette
After recording this information, another group of clips was used to reconstruct the videos shown to the subjects. The computer analyzed 18 million seconds of random YouTube video, building a database of potential brain activity for each clip. From all these videos, the software picked the one hundred clips that caused a brain activity more similar to the ones the subject watched, combining them into one final movie. Although the resulting video is low resolution and blurry, it clearly matched the actual clips watched by the subjects.
Think about those 18 million seconds of random videos as a painter's color palette. A painter sees a red rose in real life and tries to reproduce the color using the different kinds of reds available in his palette, combining them to match what he's seeing. The software is the painter and the 18 million seconds of random video is its color palette. It analyzes how the brain reacts to certain stimuli, compares it to the brain reactions to the 18-million-second palette, and picks what more closely matches those brain reactions. Then it combines the clips into a new one that duplicates what the subject was seeing. Notice that the 18 million seconds of motion video are not what the subject is seeing. They are random bits used just to compose the brain image.
Given a big enough database of video material and enough computing power, the system would be able to re-create any images in your brain.
Think about it: three/four dimensional reality, the reflected light from which is captured and flattened into two dimensions by cameras, converted into bytes, transmitted via cable/wireless signals which are fluoresced in a flat screen, whose light is projected onto our retinas, and cascade into three dimensional brain signals which are detected and mapped into voxels which are correlated into a two dimensional representation of the referent or subject of the perceiving brain which is converted into bytes, transmitted via cable/wireless signals which are fluoresced in another flat screen, whose light is again projected onto our retinas and again cascade into three dimensional brain signals...
September 22, 2011
Carpe Diem
Back in June, I posted an item about how Andrew Hahn took over my studio while I was away in Spain for the summer. I cleaned out the studio to the bare walls for him. He has an upcoming show at UNT/TLED in NYC early next year. (You can see his recent work in this blogpost: Unt/tled at the Armory Art Fair NYC 2011.)
Among the many wonderful things about his influence as a fellow artist is that he knows in his bones, the test of mortality on an artist's life. He's always working, he never whines about how precarious the struggle can be, he's always focused on the importance of the poetic, he's an amazingly quick read, and he's a wise ass who never misses an opportunity to pop your bubble with dry sarcasm.
I'm talking about Shaft Hahn.
I was more than pleased when I learned that he wanted to rent my studio over the summer. The following fotos illustrate how an artist accelerates from zero to sixty in three months:
September 17, 2011
All There Is
Tomio Koyama and his team has published the announcement for my upcoming show at his gallery in Kyoto, you can find it here. The show will open this October 1st.
tale of the bodies
tale of the bodies
WOP 18-11
46x38 cm
2011
The Opening: Galerie Pelaires
Here are a few installation shots of the show at Galerie Pelaires in Palma de Mallorca that opened on September 15th, 2011. It was also the night of "Nit del Arts", a synchronized opening of several galleries in Palma to inaugurate the fall season.
Here is a YouTube video of the exhibition to color in between the lines of this blogpost. In the video, I also go upstairs to show you the ongoing show involving Miquel Navarro, Jannis Kounellis, Rebecca Horn, Domenico Bianchi; called "Afinidad & Diferencia".
September 14, 2011
a lit torch to his bare chest
From Wikipedia:
Fray Jun?pero Serra (Spanish: [xuˈnipeɾo ˈsera], English: /dʒuːnɨˈpɛroʊ ˈsɛrə/), known as Fra Jun?per Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue (Catalan: [ʒuˈnipər ˈsɛrə]) (November 24, 1713 ? August 28, 1784) was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain?present day California, United States....
Jun?pero Serra was born Miquel Josep Serra i Ferrer in Petra, Majorca, Spain. He later took the name "Jun?pero" in honor of Saint Juniper, who had also been a Franciscan and a follower of Saint Francis. On September 14, 1730, he entered the Order of Friars Minor. For his proficiency in studies he was appointed lector of philosophy before his ordination to the priesthood. Later he received a doctorate in theology from the Lullian University in Palma de Mallorca, where he also occupied the Duns Scotus chair of philosophy until he joined the missionary College of San Fernando de Mexico in 1749.That year he journeyed to North America, first to Mexico City, where he taught. Father Serra refused to ride the mule that was provided him and walked from Veracruz to the capital. He was bitten by a snake and suffered from it throughout his life, though he continued to make his journeys on foot whenever necessary. He requested a transfer to the Sierra Gorda Indian Missions some 90 miles north of Santiago de Quer?taro, where he spent about nine years. During this time, he served as the mission's superior, learned the language of the Pame Indians, and translated the catechism into their language. Recalled to Mexico City, he became famous as a most fervent and effective preacher of missions. His zeal frequently led him to employ extraordinary means in order to move the people to penance: he would pound his breast with a stone while in the pulpit, scourge himself, or apply a lit torch to his bare chest. He established ten missions including Velicata.
Posted by Dennis at 2:44 PM | Comments (0)
widening gyre
The exhibition of my recent paintings will open this coming Thursday evening, September 15th at Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires, Palma de Majorca, Espa?a.
The Frozen Matrix
The Frozen Matrix
WOP 15-11
Oil on Paper
46x38cm
2011
Dangerous. Wonderful.
Dangerous. Wonderful.
#391
122x98 cm
2011
...the answer to everything...
...the answer to everything...
#390
122x196 cm
2011
September 13, 2011
widening gyre
The exhibition of my recent paintings will open this coming Thursday evening, September 15th at Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires, Palma de Majorca, Espa?a.
way it is
Masscult and Midcult is not without its words of praise, though these surface with difficulty and often with qualification?as when Macdonald tells us that Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a masterpiece only after declaring that his friend James Agee led a ?wasted, and wasteful, life.? The objects of Macdonald?s admiration are no less revealing than the targets of his scorn. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men manages to draw ?poetry from journalistic description?; that is, the work transcends the facts out of which it is shaped. In its largeness of scope, Famous Men resembles Moby-Dick, which Macdonald had praised for its ability to build fact into art, ?a happy Triumph of the Fact: from an intense concern with the exact ?way it is,? a concentration on the minutiae of whaling that reminds one of a mystic centering his whole consciousness on one object, Melville draws a noble poetry.? This is how facts rise above trivia; a knowing voice makes something of them. Without the voice to give shape to the thought, you might as well be reading the undersides of bottle caps, or that tightly packaged collection of bottle-cap-worthy facts, Time.From Cult Hero, How Dwight Macdonald became a Macdonaldist by KERRY HOWLEY
Horizons, Colinas.
Horizons, Colinas.
#386
162x128 cm
2011
Advice to a Young Artist
Recently, I had discovered a half brother, born to my father in a subsequent mariage. It's a huge and epic story, wonderful, and crushingly sad in that we had both lost a father together before we had an opportunity to connect within a physical presence of each other, all of us father and sons. It's also too personal to relate in its fullness at this time in my life, especially in a blog post.
Along the way via FaceBook, I "met" my half niece, daughter of my half brother. She wants to be an artist and she asked for advice. I answered. It was written on the fly and it needs refinement (I've nipped and tucked it along the way), but here is what I wrote in response:
Ok Heather. I can get a little long winded sometimes, I'll try to keep it short and break the answer up in posts. There are three things that you can do immediately:
1) draw or otherwise make something every single day.
2) read history and theory
3) see art in museums, galleries and elsewhere
Drawing or otherwise making things. Drawing is a fundamental medium.By drawing what you see before you, you can come to know the difference between what you think you see and what you actually see. You can appreciate how we configure in our minds, a schema of the world, and by becoming self aware, you can rebuild and refine it.
By drawing what you imagine, you can grow your ideas and build the power to imagine more and richly.
While drawing is fundamental, it is ultimately a beginning. There is recognized today a whole range of media from the traditional arts ("painting, sculpture, architecture", as I recall the words that are chiseled on the pediment of the Art Student's League, a famous art school in New York in the 40's-if my memory serves correctly), there are a multitude of media from video to dance, from printing to installations. Experiment with what intrigues you, with what challenges you. Expand your familiarity with as much as you can.
But do something every day no matter how small, or how brief the moment. Once you become unsatisfied by a day unfulfilled with a creative act, you are on the right track.
Get to know your history. Read as much of art history as you can. Start with your library and ransack the place, read everything they have on art. Get to know the biographies of your favorite artists, read them in depth and via several biographers.
To really know art history, you have to know it in context to world history. That way, the story of art can be made sensible, and you will see how naturally it came about in relation to the world as it changed around each artist. To become really well grounded in art and world history, you have to get familiar with the history of ideas, with philosophy. It will take a while to form a mental map of how all this will integrate, but in time you will appreciate your effort, I assure you.
The history of ideas will help you comprehend the argot of art theory. There is as much poppycock as gemstones intermixed in art theory, and if you aren't well prepared, you might get overwhelmed by the Alice in the Looking Glass aspect of it and discount it altogether.
Art theory is currency of what we call the art dialog. Art is about community as much as the other identifiers, and this is a good way to think about the art dialog. The term is written in a singular form, but it is really a plurality. There is no art dialog, there are art dialogs. Think of them as chat rooms. Each one dreams of being the top of the heap. And some are for a time and then another takes its' place. One place to find a dialog is in magazines such as Art Forum... but I hesitate to get much more specific than that. It's best if you tunnel into that world yourself, and articulate your own path.
Get out and see physical art. I don't know what is near you in this regard, but I know that St. Louis is the home of a few museums and private collections that I think might be available to the public. By getting face to face with art, you can understand scale, the "hand" (a tactile thing), how presentation helps or hurts art, the relation between the artist and the audience, stuff like that.
Every city that has something going on in terms of culture will tend to have art galleries. Like that there are many art dialogs, many kinds of artists, many kinds of art, there will be many kinds of art galleries. You have to get to see enough of them to discern the bad (disconnected from the art dialog) and the good (so connected). The cities in the states with a decent population of art galleries ranks like this: New York, LA, Chicago or Houston, San Francisco... and the list dwindles fast after that. Houston is excellent and near you, I think. Chicago too. If you get to make a road trip, be sure to check out the art schools in the area, poke around and sit in on a class if you get a chance.
But ...are you sure about being an artist?
It's an uncertain life. Risky. Many years ago when I was young, the choice was much more stark. The choice was between security and the life of manifesting one's vision. It still is, but today, security via a structured career in a larger entity (corporation/government/etc) is not so stable and sure. Risk has migrated to what was considered earlier safe and secure. Nowadays, a degreed credentialization from higher education is not always a path to a secure future. As universities have become alienated from the marketplace, they have been making promises that they can't keep in terms of careers. Trade schools have been getting more attention today because ultimately, acquiring skills (in other words, the capacity to do something that most cannot) has become a botom line that was earlier hidden in plain sight.
This idea of uniquely possessing skills in the conventional business world is parallel to the reality of the importance of uniquely possessing an aesthetic/conceptual/media expressant point of view within the context of the art world. When you come out of art school, you will know what everyone knows but only what everyone knows. Finally, the arc of the life of the celebrated artist is marked by the articulation of a uniquely insightful point of view. Risk has indeed migrated, but the arts will forever remain a riskier bet.
The idea of art is large and getting larger. Art of cooking, the art of war, "thinking out of the box" is another way of considering the role of "art "in business. The definition of art has been expanded a great deal. It's also wise to bear in mind that while creativity is critical in all business arenas, only the people near the top get to exercise it at scales as expansive as the narrow arena of "high art". Folks in the low rungs of General Motors are in the assembly line, it's only at the higher rungs that you get to make the call on the next model of automobiles.
I used to entertain the notion that I should first discourage young folks like you from being an artist in situations like this. As in Judaism or a Shaolin Temple, the initiate should first be discouraged and only after the evidence of demonstrated persistance, should the applicant be admitted into the ranks.
Are you sure? It can be hard. It can be disappointing. Destiny might require that you go to the bitter end to be true to your vision. Art implies an audience and recognition from the audience the measure of your success as an artist. When an artist pops out of school, the first prize to reach for is the nomination as the next wunderkund. Short of that, you shoot for recognition as the overlooked gemstone. Short of that you shoot for posthumous recognition, via the presumably undeniable physical evidence of one's oeuvre. For example: one of the greatest architects in Southern California was Irving Gill. He wa the absolute beginning of Modern Architecture in California, a real pioneer. He designed and built icons that should be preserved for eternity. He also died with a bag of avocados to his name, partial payment for a commission for a house he designed. Of the 25 or so students in my grad school graduating class, only a few continue to make art. I see artists struggle all the time, it can be brutal. Many of them are staggering under student loans, some are on unemployment, others get swept into the jobs they first used to service their art (with no shame intended in this description, we all have to do what we have to). Do you have what it takes to be an artist?
Are you sure?
September 10, 2011
September 7, 2011
One Year of the Moon
One Year of the Moon
#383
91x77cm
2011
September 4, 2011
September 2, 2011
Noche Que No Acaba
Stephanie and I went out tonight to watch a screening of Noche Que No Acaba (2010) at the esgl?sia de Sant Vicen?. I found a suitable description of the archeological site here:
The most often photographed building of the oldest part of the town, the Vila Vella is probably the ruin of the old Gothic esgl?sia de Sant Vicen?, which was built in the beginning of the XV centuries and was destroyed in the XIX centuries when Frenchmen stocked explosive in the church - which exploded. Later, the citizens of Tossa destroyed other parts in search of stones of the church they could use to construct or repair their houses. From the church esgl?sia de St. Vicen? remains only the apse with the sculpture of the saint patron, a part of the nave and the right transept as well as parts of the church tower.
Longtime readers of this blog will know that the remake of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman has been a preoccupation of mine for some time now. You can brush up here, here, here and here.
Synopsis of Isaki Lacuesta's film from IMDB:Like so many other actors, Ava Gardner hated to watch her films. She said that the woman on the screen wasn't her. But all films tell two stories: the plot and the tale of the bodies filmed. This film narrates what happened between two images: a first shot of 'Pandora' and a first shot of 'Harem', the first and last movie filmed by the actress in Spain. Ava must certainly have thought that neither of these two women had anything in common with herself.
The following four YouTube clips will give you a feeling for the documentary:
Once Emerging Now Emerging
Jean Milant of Cirrus Gallery is having a huge year long exhibition (Sept. 24, 2011- May 5, 2012) called Once Emerging Now Emerging, which is a celebration of Jean's 41 years (and counting, Jean is going strong, very impressive) history in the art scene in Los Angeles. As a hybrid of a print atelier and gallery, Jean has worked with a full spectrum of the stars who lit up the LA art scene since the sunset of the Cool School.
Here is the introduction from their site, Once Emerging Now Emerging:
In September, a forty-year archive of L.A. art history will be presented as a multi- media exhibition. The exhibition, Once Emerging Now Emerging, expands upon this history by literally projecting the archive of Cirrus Gallery into its own gallery space. Cirrus was established in 1970 by Jean Milant after printing some of Ed Ruscha's famous Standard Stations and taking a rental suggestion by the artist. This seminal gallery and publishing house began promoting Los Angeles artists locally and internationally early on, including its pioneering participation in Art Basel. As a rotating, four-part exhibition aligned to the entire span of PST, the exhibition will operate "excavation-ally" to Cirrus' archive and how it pertains to the current artistic climate of Los Angeles. By focusing on moments of particular artists' early involvements with the gallery, such as Guy de Cointet, Barbara T. Smith and works by international and local emerging artists of today, the exhibition presents a liberal marriage of the past and present. Progressively, Cirrus invites artists today from Los Angeles and beyond to react to the archival information through a specially created website which will funnel into the exhibition; integrating the once emerging with the now emerging. Aaron Wrinkle
(Image above: Jean Milant, Stephanie Hollingsworth awaiting another great dinner -Jean is a naturally talented chef- at his home in the crest of the hills of Echo Park, Los Angeles, 2010.)
September 1, 2011
Galerie Pelaires
This is the entry to Galerie Pelaires in Palma de Majorca. My show there will open on September 15th. The work is ready, tomorrow I will be shooting photographs, images of paintings to come soon. Travel frames have been prepared by Ramon Gascon, my carpenter and I get to screw them on after the foto shoot. Titles, signatures, a few neighbors invited to see them all in the ground floor of the house, then the shipper arrives Monday to deliver the paintings to Pelaires for the install.
All There Is
My gallery in Kyoto has prepared the invitation card.
October is rushing up to us!
Crow's Nest
A note for when we can think pie in the sky again (after the downturn, whenever that will be). From the top of our house in Tossa, you can almost see the sea, if you can get a little taller. Solution: a lifeguard's chair, customized into a lover's seat.
A Mediterranean pie.
Fil R?ting opens at WPA/LA
Fil R?ting | AUSTRALIAN
September 3rd - October 2nd, 2011
Opening Friday, September 2nd, 8-10pm
WPA is pleased to announce "AUSTRALIAN",
a new Video Installation by Fil R?ting.
Fil R?ting | AUSTRALIAN
September 3rd - October 2nd, 2011
Opening Friday, September 2nd, 8-10pm
WPA is pleased to announce "AUSTRALIAN",
a new Video Installation by Fil R?ting.
"AUSTRALIAN" consists of two video projections screened on opposing walls. As the title suggests, the work's focus is on the artist's homeland, exclusively sourcing its imagery and sound from the cinema of Australia. The video is the next installment of R?ting's ongoing process he refers to as "Tri Repeta?". "Tri" referring to the human ability to see three channels of color, trichromacy. "Repeta?" referring to meaning affirmed through repetition and context. R?ting uses cinematic sources, wrenching them from their linear format, cutting and shifting time, recomposing imagery in colorful ghost-like forms and figures moving through a stationary camera space. In "AUSTRALIAN", the tri repeta? form explores a compositional narrative focusing on the question of what the term "Australian" means.1
Themes explored in R?ting's video installation include primitive utopianism, colonialism, gender politics, transgression, the modern condition and spirituality. The artist has subtitled a few segments within the installation, "Nura (Country)", "White Fellas", "Petrol Heads", "Blokes and Sheilas", "The Big Smoke" and "Dreamtime".
The result is a thirty-minute drop into a psychedelic Down Under, filled with wonder, angst, hedonism, transformation and suspense. Sonically abrupt and mesmerizing "AUSTRALIAN" disarms the viewer into a bi-polar space, where iconography and narrative meet to create a poetic identity hidden within the cinematic condition of a unique modern nation.
Australian refers to the inhabitants of the island continent in the South Pacific. Though large in land mass this culture is populated by a mere 22 million people largely due to an uninhabitable central desert region that takes up a large percentage of this United States-sized island. It's ancient cultural history, dates 68,000 years and is reflected in the indigenous culture generally referred to as Aboriginal. 2 Its relatively recent colonization by the British occurred directly after the loss of the American colonies with settlement occurring In 1788. White Australia in its infancy was a penal colony to house "transported" convicts from Britain's overwhelmed prison system.
The Australian continent quickly became a natural resource bounty for Europe, with key historical growth during the gold rushes of the 1850's and later in the cyclical resource booms predominately in minerals, coal, wool, beef and wheat, that continue through today. In 1901 the colony claimed non-violent independence from Britain and surged on to an egalitarian affluence by the end of World War II. The demand for skilled labor to support mining and agricultural endeavors led to a flood of immigration from all over the globe. Despite an apartheid-like immigration policy that was in place until 1973, Australia has become one of the most ethnically diverse modern nations per capita in the world; more diverse than either Europe or North America.3
A great resource on Aboriginal culture and history can be found at CreativeSpirits.info
"Nationmaster.com" - Net migration rate (most recent) by country
Gallery hours:
Open 12-6pm, Saturday and Sunday or by appointment.
WPA | 510 Bernard Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 | +1 213-290-5632
Tonight's Root Surf = Viral Studies
Tonight's Root Surf = Gizmodo ? YouTube/Voray ? YouTube/Stop, Drop, Roll ? YouTube/Can't Stop, Won't Stop Interview