Anselm Kiefer's "Ur," 1997

Artist's book.

William Eggleston encore

The next two images are from Graceland:

Globes

Laurie Simmons, 1991



Richard Misrach, Desert Croquet #1, Nevada, 1987



Zoe Leonard Globe, 1989



Jenny Brial, Le monde epingle, 2010



Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Kingdom, 2000



It gets really interesting at 1:50.

Marilyn Monroe

Nickolas Muray, Marilyn Monroe, 1952



Bruce Davidson, Marilyn Monroe and The Misfits, 1960



Cornell Capa, Marilyn Monroe while filming The Misfits, 1960



Bert Stern, Marilyn's Last Sitting, 1962



Jane Hammond, Norma Jean, 2006

Rachel is here!

Rachel Hines is a Visiting Artist at Ball State this week. She'll be put to work with her performance workshop, role as guest critic, and lecture in the next couple days. Above is her sculpture Inclined from 2008.



Will You Spoon with Me? 2008

"The Smithson Effect" at the Utah Musuem of Fine Arts

Peter Coffin, Untitled (Rainbow), 2005

Never have these words fallen from my mouth: "I wish I could go to Salt Lake City and see this art exhibition." From the website:

"The Smithson Effect aims to narrate a widely recognized, yet little discussed story: that of Smithson's pervasive presence in contemporary art since the 1990s. The exhibition underscores his significance for a generation of artists whose work is informed by his radical approach to making and disseminating art: especially crucial is Smithson's rethinking of the place of art's production (from the artist's studio to the unbounded landscape) and the place of art's exhibition (from the site of the unbounded landscape to the ‘nonsite' of the gallery). The most ambitious contemporary art exhibition ever mounted by the UMFA, The Smithson Effect presents a dramatic range of objects-sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, videos, installations, and works of sound art-which register Smithson's influential mode of working across various mediums."

Let the Deluge Begin...

Week One into this cat collecting business and I have 70 paper cats. Only 3700 more to go!



The funniest image from Amelia's spectacular stash.



64 from Amelia (above). Thanks!

Last Studio Photographs of the Cakes with their Plates/Puddles

Thank you Serena, Brent, Mike and Ben for all your help!

Wexner Center for the Arts Part One

Off to see Pipilotti Rist (above) talk about her new installation The Tender Room at the Wexner this evening. Plus "perverted objects" in the Double Sexus exhibition of Hans Bellmer and Louise Bourgeouis' artwork. Art in the flesh! Yay!


Hans Bellmer (I haven't seen his work in person since working at the Center for Creative Photography).


Louise Bourgeois's Paris retrospective in 1995 bumped her up into my top 10 favorite artists.

The Lists are Growing

281 Since 1st June 2010 (yes, they are in chronological order with the dates of their "retirement" listed on back).

Bologna

bologna |bəˈlōnē| (also bologna sausage)
noun
a large smoked, seasoned sausage made of various meats, esp. beef and pork.

WANTED: 3770 Cats!

As my quest for collecting cats begins (allow me to specify that these are not live animals, internet forwards, or 3-D objects), I would like to beg my humble readers to send me any card, sticker, newspaper clipping, or piece of paper that depicts a domestic cat to the following address (or pass them along in person):

PO Box 1247
Muncie, Indiana 47308

I am eternally grateful for your contributions. Anything I receive from this day forward will go toward the collection and I will stop once I reach 3,770 - the exact number of cats in the thrift store found cat scrapbook as posted below.

In the meantime, I scanned all the objects on my refrigerator that featured a furry feline and here the are!




The Tale of Two Obsessions (Cats and Marilyn Monroe) officially begins.

Tales of Obsession: From the Cigarette Pack to the Cat Scrapbook

In 1999, I collected 1,743 cigarette packs after my great-aunt's obsession with the object. I wanted to participate in her actions - not emulate then but interpret it in my own way. She used the cigarette pack as a notepad, recording the license plates of all the cars parked in front of her house on the backside of the shiny paper. The clear plastic exteriors were used as a wallets found in the pockets of her flannel shirts. I have never smoked a cigarette but for three months, I picked up every pack I found on the street and begged my friends and family to collect them for me as well. It was my first lesson in obsession and now I'm working with two subjects that have a direct relationship to this activity.


Fear of Schizophrenia, University of Arizona Museum of Art, 1999

While I was living in Portland, Oregon, my father gave me a cat scrapbook. One woman collected hundreds and hundreds of images of cats and adhered them in this gigantic five inch thick book.


One day (or more aptly, over several days), I counted the cats, one by one, placing a post-it on each page. The page with the most totaled 90. The page with the least equaled one.



The cats ranged from greeting cards to stamps to newspaper clippings and cartoons. This woman was as obsessed with collecting cats as I was cigarette packs. After looking at Matt McCormick's The Great Northwest in the previous post, it dawned on me that I must participate in the action I see before me. I must collect 3,770 cats. I currently envision creating wallpaper with what I find but we'll see how that idea transforms.

The Scrapbook as Source Material

Matt McCormick, Vista House, 2011

Ever since I received the press release one month and four days ago, I haven't stopped thinking about Matt McCormick's latest project. From the Elizabeth Leach Gallery website: "The seed of The Great Northwest, Matt McCormick’s second solo exhibition at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, is a scrapbook, created in 1958 by four friends, and found by McCormick in a thrift shop. This scrapbook details a 3400 mile road trip undertaken by Sissie, Berta, Klarus, and Bev, a group of thirty-something-year-old single women from Ballard, WA. McCormick himself recreated their trip, attempting to pinpoint and visit all the locations documented in their meticulous travel journal. He became interested in creating his own documentation, using the more contemporary media of digital photography and HD video, focusing his attention on the ways things had changed, and the ways they hadn’t. McCormick encountered entire towns that had disappeared, and a completely new Interstate system. Featuring a beautifully photographed 75-minute film with an ambient soundtrack The Great Northwest reminds the viewer of the fragility of history, of the swift passage of time."


Matt McCormick, Crater Lake, 2011

I relate to so many aspects of McCormick's project: the found object/found photograph, making art from a road trip, leaving this artifact to dictate the nature of the expedition (giving up control), the location (Northwest = home), and the sense of loss (evident in finding this object in a thrift store and also in the location no longer as it once was). In addition, the comparison between what was then and that which is now in grainy black-and-white photographs vs. contemporary digital imagery relates to my interest in old photographs of Land Art.


Matt McCormick, Glacier, 2011

Needless to say, I love this series! It hasn't left my mind in over a month and I keep stalling on blogging about it because it's helping me answer a few questions about what to do with my own thrift store scrapbook. Perhaps Matt is giving me permission to follow the example set before me. Although his book produced an unforgettable road trip (and mine will not), I'm going to consider his process and employ it in my own way (stay tuned).


Matt McCormick, Oregon Coast, 2011

In the meantime, I'll dream of Astoria, Oregon that looks quite like McCormick's photograph above. I haven't gone back to that home in two years. It's time. This summer... it's time. Yes, it has changed and that is all part of the "loss."

William Lamson's "Emerge"

First day of spring and all I can think about is how soon I can get back to summertime in the Upper Peninsula. William Lamson is one of my "art crushes" (term courtesy of Nate Larson) and although I don't know where this video was taken, everything about it reminds me of my day last August at Whitefish, Michigan on Lake Superior.

Falling Water

I've been dreaming of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water recently. I can't pinpoint why other than wondering what it would look like in the spring instead of early fall (it was October when I last saw it in 2008). This 60º weather makes summer look like it's just around the corner. I need another verb for 2011. I spent last year "floating" objects and the previous year "burying" them. What's it going to be this year? I'm thinking....


Falling Water from the parking lot, October 2008


Guest house swimming pool, Falling Water, October 2008

A Trade is Made: Jason DeMarte's "Bologna"

One fake cake floating in Barton Springs for Jason DeMartre's Bologna, 2009. Of course I also want to acquire:


Sheepish Intimation, 2007


Pink Placebo, 2008


Forage, 2007


and Cream Filled, 2007

From Jason's website: "Utopic investigates how the artificial nature of our modern day interpretation of the natural world compares to the way we approach our immediate consumer world. I am interested in modes of representing the natural world through events and objects that have been fabricated or taken out of context. This unnatural experience of the so-called natural world is reflected in the way we, as modern consumers, ingest products. What becomes clear is that the closer we come to mimicking the natural world, the further away we separate ourselves from it.

I work digitally, combining images of fabricated and artificial flora and fauna with graphic elements and commercially produced products such as processed food, domestic goods and pharmaceutical products. I look at how these seemingly unrelated and absurd groupings and composites begin to address attitudes and understandings of the contemporary experience. I represent the natural world through completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is real, and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence."