The culminating performance of the Fear Out Front project will showcase the works of over 15 different local artists who have collaborated with J.R. Uretsky in four performances on the subject of fear. Uretsky worked with local actors, visual artists, and poets in creating artistic environments where the artists could respond to, connect with, and create artworks about fear. You are invited to come and see what Uretsky and these local artists have come up with at a one night event, entitled Fear Out Front: sing, that begins at 7pm on 11 July 2009 at fine art base.
Sigh. I haven't trashed anything on my blog for a while, but when the opportunity arises- I just can't help it. This video frustrates me the same way Bill Maher's film "Religulous" did. Both flicks are shot with specific intentions that come through more obnoxious than beneficial. In Maher's case, he's Bill Maher- he knows he's an asshole; the unfortunate thing about the Biola video is that the students in the flick have no idea.
At this point I have to say two things: First, I actually really enjoyed Religulous, once I got used to Bill Maher. The film had a point of view and I appreciate Maher's call to agnostics and atheists to speak up in regard to their religious views. Second, I graduated from Biola and had a difficult yet, life changing experience there. This critique on the "Biola Rocks" video should be taken as... oh, what would the Christians call it.... loving accountability?
That being said, the Biola Rocks video was the most unfortunate pile of bullshit I have seen in a long time. For those of you who put the video together I want to acknowledge some rather artistic shots and good pacing. It was also very professional; the students who made the film actually won a contest put on by the US News and World Report, and in my heart of hearts I am kind of proud.
Unfortunately, like the Maher film there was too much time spent on idiots doing idiotic things rather than, smart people saying and doing interesting things. The video was supposed to be fun, I get it. College is fun, Biola is fun, everyone is having fun but come on... A topless, rippled, blonde guy exclaiming "oh hey, what's popping?" followed by him tossing a football to himself? And this all from a school that proudly takes a stand against masturbation.
One commentator said, "Some of the students seemed really sarcastic in their interviews." Another comment was, "I have to say, I found it to be a little cheesy, and not really all that funny."
That is my issue. The cheese-ball antics of trying to make Biola something that it's not. Biola is not a normal university. For over a hundred years Biola has taken a stand against the norm by being at the forefront of Christian education. Biola scholars have every right to be taken seriously because, regardless of what I or the rest of the world may think about it, they stand up for what they believe in. Another confusing aspect of the video is that academically Biola is no joke. One has to be somewhat intelligent to attend Biola University; therefore, I have a hard time rationalizing the scholastic achievements of the student body with: "Dude, Biola rocks cuz' we can ride scooters... scooters!"
The thing is, it would be simple for me to write this video off as just some stupid youtube flick that is pretty easy to avoid. Yes, the video is easy to avoid but the stereotypes of Evangelical Christianity are not. It is not fair for people like Bill Maher to deem all christians idiots; however, the important things the video said such as, "I love the people," "the teachers are actually involved with the students...it's great to see such a huge family," and "everything we stand for...our core beliefs...are integrated into our classes," are befuddled by a tall asian boy giving hopes to other guys out there, as he confidently pronounces with three hot brauds on his arm, "Biola rocks because the guy to girl ratio."
Working from Jen's house has been a blast. Her home is a hand always giving. Gifting: productivity, walks, and strange and beautiful tan lines. This year, in this very house I found love in a dog, a man, and cancer. Here, in her house on a hill, I have become soft again.
This week I have been working on the Steinbeck installation; the project hasn't been timid about letting me know what it wants to be, and thus it grows-and grows.
I have also been working on this collaboration- yet another beast.
"...they are, like desire itself, born without mouths." -Sean Nevin
While every other artist out there seems laden with the concept of meaning (that is, to understand the work or having their work mean something), Fiona Banner, a contemporary British artist, cannot help but keep her head above the murky waters of understanding. That's not to say that Banner's work is easy to "get" but rather, her works seems to be the product of an art practice that is constantly rethinking the means of meaning. Banner arms herself with the written word, using it to create vortexes of visual meaning. For example, "Life Drawing Drawings" are a series of drawings/ sculptures in which Banner recreates the covers of drawing books by hand...i.e. drawing the drawing book. Two of my favorite Banner projects are her written descriptions of films and her performance works about the nude. "Banner investigates the limits and possibilities of written language, drawing on source material from military hardware and films to pornography and the tradition of the nude."
In her work "Apocalypse Now," Banner gives in her own words, a rundown of the entire film production of Apocalypse Now. She does this with several other war moves as well as a porn entitled "Arsewoman in Wonderland". I see Banner as an artist who is taking the way viewers typically see something, say an epic hollywood film, and runs the viewer's understand of the film's subject matter through the machine of language by using the written word and thus changing the meaning. Banner then recycles the subject matter again through the form her words take and the various histories that are attached to that form; "Arsewoman in Wonderland" is silk screened while "Apocalypse Now" is graphite on paper. By changing up her media, Banner is introducing different histories to her version, of a filmmakers rendition, of war or sex; thus, giving them a sense of permanence despite the continual reinterpretation of their original meanings--or even the original act. Banner then took her crafted-text-interpretations to the nude by preforming her literary descriptions in the gallery, as if she were in her studio drawing a nude model. What interests me most about this body of work, is that the multidisciplinary nature of Banner's projects seems to bleed into her collaborative efforts with her models. Banner's work entitled "Mirror" illustrates this best, in that the performative aspect of this piece was done by the model rather then the artist. View Mirror here! Mirror, 2007 Performance with Samantha Morton, 4 minutes, Whitechapel Gallery, London The actress (Samantha Morton) came to the artists studio where she posed for a nude portrait. This resulted in a piece of writing. Never having read the text the actress performed the portrait, in front of a large audience, at the Whitechapel Gallery the following evening.
Check out more from Fiona Banner at her website and also on itunes.
Aimee Buffum Zach Buffum Kristofer Cowen Renee Infelise Daniel Kelley Carri Newhouse Elizabeth O'Malley Marla Polk Yvonne Polk Alisha Ragland Amber Renee' Duncan "The Wizard" Russell Greg Schroeder Julie Uretsky Tom Uretsky David Wilkinson
My work is currently being shown in two art exhibitions; one in Monterey and the other in San Francisco. If you are in the area it would be beyond awesome if you checked them out.
"Carnal" a group exhibition at East Village Coffee in Monterey.
When I think of Janet Biggs I think of juxtaposition... and that she is damn good at it. Her videos, performances and installations use large scale projected images of uncommon relationships to create an undeniable intensity among her viewers.
Because intensity seems to be an undercurrent throughout all of Biggs' work, from form to film, I will refer to her subject matter as "powers" rather than people or places or animals. These video projections put the viewer in the middle of two powers (be them a highly trained athlete or a running horse) and by way of interesting shot framing and good pacing, cause the viewer to join Biggs in celebrating aspects of the individual powers surfaced by the juxtaposition of the the two.
Rather then exposing the human condition, Biggs celebrates human connections and obsessions.
Janet Biggs' lettuce bowl of odd pairings are the result of her having a great talent for cross- disciplinary collaborations, and this is what really excites me about her.
Brian Dick is a contemporary artist who lives and works in San Diego. Elly and I ran across his work in a gallery but couldn't spend too much time observing Dick's projects because Sydney's apartment was being engulfed by burnt bagel smoke... it's true. I had seen Dick's work before in the San Diego Museum of art and was intrigued by his whimsical look at self by way of ritual...sound familiar? His sculptures and performances are wonky and hard to talk about without using words like 'fun' or 'weird'. One critic had this to say about his work, and I thought it was a pretty interesting comment:
The work suffers though from too much open ended and fill-in-the-blank interpretations to be successful. Instead it relies on the inherent iconic and bas culture attraction of the materials used which is in sharp contrast to their real-life non-art meaning and existence. The piece is not subversive enough to be critical, not kitschy enough to be catchy and not humorous enough to be satirical – it’s just fun. Art can be fun – or a totem to one’s life.
Dick's work seems to be one of those telekinetic influences of mine: we are both looking at self-identity while being self-conscious about doing so. Check out Dick's video entitled How to Impersonate Myself
Dick's sculptures are haphazard and ritualistic...
"playful temporary sculptures (surrogates) created out of bedding-blankets, quilts and pillows-that serve double-duty documenting his daily ritual of making his bed differently each day ("Making My Bed")."
"Dick’s photographs documenting his daily ritual of making an artwork out of bedding"
Brian Dick's Nationwide Museum Mascot Project is one of projects I saw and the Museum in San Diego. Dick collected items from the community surrounding the Museum where his exhibition was held, and then created a mascot for the Museum.
One Free Corn Dog for the Price of Admission at San Diego Museum of Art a museum 'mascot' created from secondhand materials found at local thrift stores ("Nationwide Museum Mascot Project")
The following work is from the show Elly and I saw. The show was weird; the immediate highlight of the show was a video of a woman making faces. The work has been bouncing around my head sense I left San Diego and thus, has grown on me. There was "a self-portrait of Brian standing in a field wearing a 10 foot air-filled balloon on his head with a giant caricature of him on it" in the show and the image itself I found rather unappealing. However, Dick's work sparked my fancy in that he seems to be capturing a sense of self through embodying characters of himself that he has created. This concept is something I attempt to do in my own performance work.
"by embodying the essence of his subject (Tim Robbins) through facial memory, or what he terms ‘muscle mimicry'. These and other works illustrate Dick's continuous dissection of the varying ways the self can be generated and represented. Each can be seen as an experiment-a playful, humorous excavation into his true identity that continues to unearth endless possibilities."
When I'm not in my studio I am mostly an atheist; on the job, in the grocery store or taking a shit I consider myself mostly an agnostic. This morning I woke at 7...well, 7:30...ate, pressed some coffee, stalked some old schoolmates on facebook, and then told myself to go to my studio. I mainly just walked around and picked up some trash; I have plenty of deadlines but this morning all I can do is pick up paper, sweep, and empty the cat box. I attempted to revive a dying silk screen, and as I pressed bleach through screen I started to hear that familiar church song that Rothko never found despite L'Engle's entire body of work. Everyday, every moment I'll have to reconsider my spirituality, but this morning the aroma of God came to me through bleach burning my nose.
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