"Now Here is Also Nowhere Part 1"

From the Henry Art Gallery website: "Now Here is also Nowhere is a two-part meditation and non-linear account of how—in making artworks about ideas and intangible concepts— artists continually question and destabilize the nature of the art object."

I haven't laughed out loud repeatedly in a gallery in a long time. It's quite refreshing when it does happen. I encountered Pierre Bismuth's work before on i like this art but this was the first piece I viewed in person: Following the Right Hand of Sigmund Freud, 2009. It is a one and half minute loop shot on 16 mm film featuring a laser pointer.

Tom Friedman always captures my interest and Open Black Box suspended from the ceiling continues his use of voids and drawing the audience's attention to areas of the gallery not normally used.

Stefan Brüggemann's This Work Should Be Turned Off When I Die made me question how the gallery attendants and preparators feel each time they unplug the neon sculpture at the end of the day or pack it for exhibition. I loved the temporary quality of it and wonder if there are instructions for the work upon the artist's death.

I was also fond of Ján Mančuška's While I walked... in my studio in ISCP, 323 W. 39th Street, #811, New York, 2003. The story wrapped around the room and one had to duck underneath it without touching it to finish reading. The materials were a textile rubber band with white silk screened text but it was reminiscent of old typewriter ribbon.

Hans Peter Feldmann's Lovers is another work devoted to absence - there was also a Felix Gonzalez Torres installation of white candies on display. I enjoyed the presentation of this found image with the wood grain activating the cavities where faces once were.

My favorite work in the exhibition was Francis Alÿs's Watercolor, 2010. It is an inspiration for contemplating what to do with my clear water samples. The video comprises collecting water, traveling with water, unceremoniously dumping water, and the interplay between the color of the water and the name of the location. It reminded me of taking a rock from each earthwork visited in 2009, bringing it to the next location and throwing it into the artwork. My actions remain open as the rock from Amarillo Ramp has yet to be deposited into Spiral Jetty. Alÿs closes the loop however in under two minutes.


I wish I was able to see Part 2 but the coming months will be filled with pilgrimages to the Wexner to see Christian Marclay's The Clock, Chicago for the Society for Photographic Education's 50th anniversary conference, and Photolucida in Portland, Oregon.

Where the Mountains Meet the Sea: Mountains Part 2

Maya Lin, Avalanche and Untitled, 1997


Wolfgang Laib, Five Mountains Not to Climb On, 1990


Kate Steciw, Depth Mapping the Mountain


Jasper Elings, Default Landscapes


From India Studio Portraits


Heidi Romana, Wept with Emptiness


Andreas Gursky, Cableway, Dolomites, 1987


Emmet Gowin, Mt. St. Helens, 1982


Frank Gohlke, Looking South at Crater and Lava Dome, Mt. St. Helens, 1982


Thierry Geoffory, From Colonel, 1995


Hamish Fulton, Broken Wood Mountain Skylines, 1993


Francis Frith, Pyramids at Dahshoor, 1858


Anonymous, Found Photograph


Emily Shur, Picnic Table, Queenstown, New Zealand


Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains, 2002

Yet another tornado warning

Francis Alÿs, Tornado, 2000- present

"Every year since 2001 Alÿs, at the highpoint of the dry season in March, drives his car to the southeast edge of Mexico City where smoky clouds rise from cornfields burning after the harvest, and grey swirls of ash and sand loom on the horizon. He carries his video camera and runs toward the tornadoes hoping to catch them as a surfer catches a wave. His nose and mouth are protected only by a handkerchief. Once he reaches one, he runs into the eye of the storm and stays as long as possible. This is an absurd act but he tries to forge a moment of bliss in the midst of chaos."


Susan Silton, From Twisters and Twisted, Twister #2, 2003

From the website: "Susan Silton's Twisters are digitally manipulated photographs of tornadoes originally taken by professional storm chasers, which she then reduces to a small, intimate scale, and converts to black & white with a richness and subtlety reminiscent of drawings or a fine silverprint. Long interested in the aesthetics and metaphor of movement, she is known for her colorful Aviate series of streaking abstractions generated from bookplates of birds. Her new tornado images show spectacular spectral funnels that fissure the atmosphere with a concentration of wind-energy and swirling pressures. Milky-white streams puncture a dark enveloping sky and touch the ground in turbulent, body-like, ways."


Twister #5, 2003


Twister #6, 2003

RAW Geographies Catalog

The Reed exhibition catalog has arrived! I received two copies (limited edition of 200), one pink and one green. It was printed and bound by Matthew Stadler's Publication Studio which is a whole new level of excitement. It's made with scrap manila envelopes and index tab stickers. Some quick images....








One of the best parts is being in a catalog with Francis Alys. There is a whole blog post devoted to him at some point in the future.

Borrowed some books on Italy today... thinking about "The Ambassador"

Francis Alÿs, The Ambassador, 2001

"Alÿs sent a peacock to the opening of the Venice Biennale. People were there to see the peacock but the peacock also functioned as a critique of all the preening people who were attending the opening."



Lee Friedlander, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1977



Mark Dion, Cabinet of the Allegory of Vision, 1996



Joseph Koudelka, Gardens of the Palazzo Borromeo, 2007