Thursday, December 06, 2007

The Gee Gees




Gilbert & George cutout dolls, 2000




Gilbert & George
(South Park-style spoof by Helen Bucknail)




Gilbert & George ("The Little Artists")




Gilbert & George - Son of a God, 2005




Tim Marlow with Gilbert & George, 2007


'Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.'

Oscar Wilde


N.B. Gilbert & George will be awarded the Lorenzo il Magnifico Prize at the Florence Biennale in December.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Groom Of Darkness




Rembrandt - Philosopher in Meditation, 1632


'Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.'

Arthur Schopenhauer

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Bride Of Darkness




Bill Viola - Ocean Without a Shore, 2007


'When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure.'

Ingmar Bergman in The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Radical Cheek




Paul Signac - Portrait of Félix Fénéon, 1890


'The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions.'

Paul Signac

Sunday, December 02, 2007

The Man Not In The Mirror




Duane Michals - Portrait of Joseph Cornell, 1970


'Joseph Cornell never reveled in his growing status as a seminal figure, however. His last years were his most isolated. He would watch neighborhood children from his window, leaving boxes out on the porch for them to play with. In 1972, Cornell died at his Utopia Parkway home. He was cremated. His ashes buried in a small wooden box.'

Paul Solman (PBS Online News Hour, December 3o, 1997)

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Through A Glass, Kaleidoscopically




Cindy Sherman - Untitled #424, 2004


'Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.'

Jonathan Swift

Friday, November 30, 2007

Art As War By Other Means




Francesco Clemente - Map of What Is Effortless, 1978


'So it's really not East or West, it's really part of the human experience that you are given certain conditioning and a certain character and that you have to live with that, and make the best you can of it. That is why we love the Hindu tradition, because of all these paradoxes we are confronted with - on the one hand this image of immobility and original knowledge and original uncontaminated being that we carry within ourselves, and on the other hand the deepest human desire: the desire for a narrative. And interesting narratives imply conflict. A narrative without conflict is boring - this is why I get very diffident about presentations of yoga or contemplative practices as "conflict free". When I hear about peace I get mad, because there is no such thing as peace, there is always war. It's either war with the other, or war within. If you are wise, it's war within.'

Francesco Clemente

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Seven




Mano Poderosa (Hand with Religious Figures Atop Each Finger) - Mexico, 19thC

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Six




Our Lady of Cocharcas under the Baldachin - Peru, Cuzco School, 1765

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Five




Calvary Scene - Ecuadoran, 18thC

Monday, November 26, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Four




The Baptism of Christ - Pulpit of Veit Stoss (Cracow), c. 1480-1490

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Three




Nativity Group with Angel - Guatemalan, 18thC

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Two




Gift-Bearing Figures (from a Nativity Group), Guatemalan, 18thC

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part One




Nativity Scene - Ecuadoran, 18thC

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Yakka Dur




Georges Seurat - Stone Breaker, Le Raincy (Casseur de pierres, Le Raincy), c. 1879-81

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

L’Heure Verte






Absinthiana: a. Vintage absinthe poster (French, 19thC), b. Lemercier Fountain, c. Ecaille Glass and d. Eiffel Tower Spoon

Monday, November 19, 2007

More Of Less: Part Seven




Eve Hesse - Aught, 1968


'Of course, any simplification runs the risk of mutilating reality; but it helps us establish perspectives.'

Gaston Bachelard

Sunday, November 18, 2007

More Of Less: Part Six




Man Ray - Rayograph, 1922


'There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.'

Edith Wharton

Saturday, November 17, 2007

More Of Less: Part Five




Marlene Dumas - Chlorosis (Love sick), 1994


'It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.'

James Thurber

Friday, November 16, 2007

More Of Less: Part Four




Sol LeWitt - Wall (Regen), 2001


'There are poets and there are grownups.'

Jean Cocteau

Thursday, November 15, 2007

More Of Less: Part Three




Ed Ruscha - Gas Stations (date unknown)


'The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.'

Elias Canetti

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

More Of Less: Part Two




Tom Wesselman - Great American Nude #69, 1965


"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.'

Anaïs Nin

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

More Of Less: Part One




Dan Flavin - The Nominal Three (to William of Ockham), 1963


'An idea comes as close to something for nothing as you can get.'

Robert Frost

Monday, November 12, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Eight




Edward Hopper - Morning Sun, 1952

Sunday, November 11, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Seven




Edward Hopper - Summertime, 1943

Saturday, November 10, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Six




Edward Hopper - Room in New York, 1932

Friday, November 09, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Five




Edward Hopper - Hotel Room, 1931

Thursday, November 08, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Four




Edward Hopper - Tables for Ladies, 1930

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Three




Edward Hopper - Automat, 1927

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part Two




Edward Hopper - Eleven A.M., 1926

Monday, November 05, 2007

La Femme Inconnue: Part One




Edward Hopper - Summer Interior, 1909

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Yesterday's Bicycle Of Tomorrow




Benjamin J. Bowden
(American, born England, 1907–1998) - Spacelander Bicycle (designed 1946, manufactured circa 1960)


'After the advent of designers, some pencil sharpeners looked as though they'd been put together in wind tunnels. For the most part, the change was only skin-deep; under the streamlined chrome shell, you'd find the same Victorian mechanism. Which made a certain kind of sense, because the most successful American designers had been recruited from the ranks of Broadway theatre designers.'

From Burning Chrome by William Gibson.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

This Too Too Molten Flesh








Julie Rrap - Fleshpool, 2004


'The transformation of place, and the intrusion of distance into local activities, combined with the centrality of mediated experience, radically change what 'the world' actually is. This is so both on a level of the 'phenomenal world' of the individual and the general universe of social activity within which collective social life is enacted. Although everyone has a local life, phenomenal worlds for the most part are truly global.'

From Modernity and Self-Identity by Anthony Giddens.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Woman Of Sorrows




Frida Kahlo - Girl With Mask, 1938


'I hope the leaving is joyful, and I hope never to return.'

Frida Kahlo

Thursday, November 01, 2007

This Mortal Coin




Life-Death Figure - Huaxtec, c. 900-1250


'It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.'

Woody Allen

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Full Marx




Carlos Garaicoa - Postcapital, 2006


'Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east, and west is west, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.'

Groucho Marx

Monday, October 29, 2007

Leaves Of Brass




Fiona Hall - Leaf Litter (Dioscored esculenta - air potato), 2000-03


'So you think money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?'

Ayn Rand

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Build It And They Will Muse










Nike Savvas - Atomic: full of love, full of wonder, 2005


'Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it "creative observation". Creative viewing.'

William S. Burroughs

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Devil Sends Cooks (41 of 41)




Paul Gustave Doré - Milton's Paradise Lost, 1866

Friday, October 26, 2007

The Devil Sends Cooks (40 of 41)




Paul Gustave Doré - Milton's Paradise Lost, 1866

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The Devil Sends Cooks (39 of 41)




Paul Gustave Doré - Milton's Paradise Lost, 1866