Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Problem Is The Answer




The Trapezium Nebula


'Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.'

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Friday, July 13, 2007

If I Were Roman, Ya Ha Deedle Deedle, Bubba Bubba Deedle Deedle Dum




Johann Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829)- Goethe in the Roman Campagna, c. 1848


'A unused life is an early death.'

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Clouds Are A Dreamer's Best Friend




John Constable (1777-1837) - Cloud Study, 1822


'One symptom of impending nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.'

Bertrand Russell

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Back To Black




Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) - Guarded Conditions, 1989

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Toying With Beauty And Beastliness




Action figures for 'Eye of the Beholder', The Twilight Zone, 1960


'A civilised society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.'

Robert Frost

Monday, July 09, 2007

Martin's Creed




Martin Creed (b. 1968) - Work No. 275, Small Things, 2003


'Reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.'

Philip K. Dick

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Andres Get Your Gun








Andres Serrano (b. 1950) - The Objects of Desire: Virginian Dragoon .44 Magnum (top), Virginian Dragoon .44 Magnum (8), 1992 (middle) and Colt D.A. 38 (3), 1992 (bottom)

Saturday, July 07, 2007

A Void Cannot Be Vacuumed




Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963) - Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1995


'It is not certain that everything is uncertain.'

Blaise Pascal

Thursday, July 05, 2007

How To Make A White Elephant




Maurizio Cattelan (b. 1960) - Not Afraid of Love, 2004


'In the cultural field, authentic provocation serves to indicate an equally authentic and incurable contradiction. The modern rendition of the tragic is precisely the awareness of the irresolubility of the contradiction, and the impossibility of choice. Instead, the reality we are living today is the neutralisation of all conflict transformed by spectacle.'

Giorgio Vertozzi

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Seven




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Duke of Richmond’s First Bull Moose, 1770

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Six




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Lincolnshire Ox, 1790

Monday, July 02, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Five




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - Two Indians with a Cheetah and Stag, c. 1765

Sunday, July 01, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Four




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - A Monkey, 1799

Saturday, June 30, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Three




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - A Couple of Foxhounds, 1792

Friday, June 29, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part Two




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - The Nilgai, (1769-71)

Thursday, June 28, 2007

He Painted Horses, Didn't He?: Part One




George Stubbs (1724-1806) - Lion Devouring a Horse, 1763

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Prism Of Nostalgia




Thomas Cole - Rainy Season in the Tropics (1866)


'There is nothing dead in nature.'

Seneca

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Shooting Candles Of The Night




Joseph Wright of Derby - Firework Display at the Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome (1779)


'The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.'

Gaston Bachelard

Monday, June 25, 2007

Pantomimes Of Sin And Sorrow




Kara Walker (b. 1969) - Excavated from the Black Heart of a Negress, 2002 (detail)


'I didn’t want a completely passive viewer. Art means too much to me. To be able to articulate something visually is really an important thing. I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful. I wanted to create something that looks like you. It looks like a cartoon character, it’s a shadow, it’s a piece of paper, but it’s out of scale. It refers to your shadow, to some extent to purity, to the mirror.'

Kara Walker