Oh look...

Ed Ruscha's bookshelf features two of my favorite Barry Lopez books.

Also from Ed Ruscha's studio/library... I have flat file storage and desk envy (the latter even looks like an old book).
[Both images via]

Speaking of books, today I read that one of my favorite artists, Hans Peter Feldmann was rejected from art school and spent two years as a sailor before creating his bound and stapled collections of repeated, ordinary subjects (Bilder).

Hans-Peter Feldmann's "Sea Paintings"

Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sea Paintings, 2016

From 303 Gallery's press release:

"His ‘Sea Paintings’ for example, consist simply of 15 seascape paintings (both old and new, large and small, and from a mix of amateurs and better known painters such as Patrick von Kalckreuth) arranged salon style on a single wall. Repetition becomes a disjunctive impulse, as the paintings in combination with each other begin to reveal a certain latency of shared experience...."

Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sea Paintings and Horizon on the left wall, 2016

That "single wall" is floating, however. The back becomes as important as the front (not unlike this famous series Verso). Walking through and viewing is more of a participatory act than a stagnant one.

Feldmann's new exhibition at 303 Gallery caught my attention at a time when I try to assemble all my family's photographs of the ocean and when I am equally enamored with the idea of overlap as a form of presentation.

Hans-Peter Feldmann's "Katalog Catalogue"

I am notorious for packing far too many books than I have time to read. For this eleven day residency, I brought five - thank goodness for Fed-Ex shipping a big box to Clearmont, Wyoming. I perused Hans-Peter Feldmann's Katalog Catalogue at the New Museum in March and fell in love with it as an archive, a collection of an artist's work and influential images, and most significantly, the multitude of ways flat objects are photographed and displayed. Here are a few highlights:

Demonstration 1: Hands in Action

Demonstration 2: Hands as Props

Framed (gold, wood, metal)

Human as pedestal emulating the subject matter (left), meticulous wrapping (top right) and keeping the unnecessary remains (bottom right)

  

Suitcase as storage and display (left) and photograph of framed art at an awkward angle (right)

The Picabia quote (above) and the caption from the collection of car radios (below) were too good not to share.

The hope is to incorporate more variety in how I photograph the pile of lists that now line the studio wall and table.

Money Money Money

I found this in the parking lot at the Post Office today: a $1 bill from 2006.



A few hours later I opened a letter from my mom to discover this gift from my grandmother arriving 3 decades later:



The two bills were significantly older.



I still carry this $2 bill around in my wallet that I found at the motel in Clemson, South Carolina in the fall of 2010:



Needless to say, money is on my mind.


Will Steacy, Washington, Rip, 2011


Abelardo Morell, $4 Million, 2006


Hans Peter Feldmann's 100,000 $1 bills, 2011


Art Guys, United States of America, 1994


William Powhida, Griftopia, 2011

Hans Peter Feldmann's "Pictures," 1971

Hans Peter Feldmann