DANIEL ALFRED FIGUEREDO THESIS BLOG 2009/2010

new video work

2009-12-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

everyone's so drunk. you too, jeff koons.

2009-12-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

the guy in this picture is the curator of the MoMA and PS1. his necklace is so fancy! and he hates cameras at panel discussions!

also, this is his apartment.

whitney biennale 2010 artists announced by the curators of the whitney biennale omg it's a video and the one curator looks like he's 15

2009-12-12T15:53:00.001-08:00

i bet he hears that all the time and gets carded when he buys magic hat and is like "uggh"

Janine Antoni @ Luhring Augustine

2009-11-29T20:37:00.000-08:00

Janine Antoni speaks of the playfulness of rediscovery in her works. There is a romantic notion associated with artists that has to do with maintaining a childlike fascination with the world through adulthood. In a postmodern sense, a view such as this can be deemed only ironic and superfluous, it does not create a relevant engagement with art. Close ties to this idea can only produce bad and childish art. This is a ‘dumb’ idea to hold fast to and thus produces ‘dumb’ art (dumb, unfortunately, in all facets; not near or relating to the means by which artists such as Roaul de Keyser ‘dumb’ down their brush strokes to simplify the means to create). Antoni creates and maintains a curious relationship with references to childhood and the creative process that simultaneously flirts with ‘dumb’ ideas and can be taken seriously. As such Antoni moves irony into paradox. Her fascination is certainly not childlike- her works are sophisticated and smart- but it is derived from childhood.

Janine Antoni recently gave birth to a child and in her lecture at the Visiting Artists series in 2007 she addressed this in relation to art. People fall into patterns and assumptions and there are socially constructed confines within which we often forget we operate. An infant, however, is immune to these confines. In this rite, Antoni can call upon her child as a source of inspiration without being considered camp and sentimental. Antoni said that she would often let her infant engage with materials and in doing so create the means to find a new way to investigate art making, to use and consider certain tools. A paintbrush, as we know it, is to be gripped with the dominant hand, bristles outward, used in conjunction with a canvas, etc. A child however, unfamiliar with these constraints, is free to use such a tool anyway they please. Though Antoni does not exhibit painted works, the metaphor serves to illustrate her own playful rediscovery of art making in concert with the birth of her child.

From this playfulness there can certainly be derived a conceptual backdrop to Antoni’s work, though the work is not lost in concept. She does not ascribe certain loftiness to her art or demand a rigorous intellectual engagement that calls upon several references to bring her work into focus. Rather Antoni calls upon experience and physical circumstance and the body to create deceivingly simple works. And though they make references they do not lead the viewer to obscurity or exist as a means of separation. Antoni draws from her own life in her work and as such there is a seamless coherency of engagement.

In her work there is an obvious physical engagement that marries itself to the ideas of process and concept. Antoni engages with the body and physical limitations as a means to creates works but their aesthetic outcome is a recorded history of their means. The end is not necessarily the goal, rather there is an emphasis on process and that process exists in the physical. Several previous works may fall short of conveying to the viewer the painstaking process behind them and the limits to which the artist pushed herself, but the newer, photographic work, has some sort of parallel existence. This is because the photography literally documents the creation, as does the subject captured in the photo. Each photo reveals a process that documents a physical engagement with the body. This physical engagement is directly in relationship to the concept of the work being produced and, sadly, we come to the end of the road—a lonely serious of photos (and one installation) that communicate, though uninspiringly so, the history and physical engagement that led to the creation of Antoni’s latest body of work.

That is not a critique of Antoni’s work, more so of the unfortunate circumstance by which it must be displayed. Which is appropriate, as display has always been an issue in Antoni’s work. Her work does not often fit into a gallery setting and as such the display often renders the work underwhelming. It would be nearly impossible to experience her works, lest the viewer be Antoni herself. And experience is arguably the most apt method of absorbing the work.

video art? test

2009-11-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

clip from Planet Earth

the unbearable lightness of being

2009-11-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

a brief look at the first year show

2009-11-13T15:01:00.000-08:00

goddamn. i tried to start this one three times just now and erased each attempt. not sure what that means. i think i'd like to start with the installation of the show.

the paintings in the project space are really big. obviously they are paid some special attention and given a little more room to breathe but i must say the artist's scale seems a bit superfluous. erin dunn's installation also commands its own space. it makes it difficult to consider the paintings on display, though i see some correlation between the painted works and the installation.

the works in the main gallery certainly have enough room to breathe, including photographic pieces seems to disrupt the coherency of the room, as do the two hanging walls. i think they could be installed otherwise, in a manner less distracting and more conducive to walking around the walls and viewing them in the round. perhaps creating a faux hallway with the two parallel to one another?

i can't say i'm in agreement with the room shared by erik and megan. the works aren't meant to be in concert with one another and are at odds in the space, rather than just sharing it. i get an entirely different sense from each; megan's work has a striking silence to it while erik's has a louder playfulness to it. that being said, the installation of each makes sense. though i don't know about the television. it seems that the photographs all lead up to the video, i felt as though a smaller, flat screen might lend itself better to the idea of the video being an extension of the static works (though i obviously don't know if that's the idea at all).

in the room the right of that. the painted works are displayed neatly and simply, which seems to relate to their content. they lead into the barrier and thus into john's work, which i think is a clever display. john's projection wasn't on when i went in though.

chris's work literally takes over the space and casts a shadow over summer's wall. i guess that shadow isn't literal. the paper pulp sculpture's are displayed haphazardly, at every angle, on every wall and from the ceiling. i suppose it relates to the sculptures themselves. unfortunately i don't feel i receive the invitation to investigate their space. it feels more to me like i should stay away from them. summer's work opposite that becomes a little difficult to consider.

the back room makes sense, especially in terms of the scale of the paintings. they are all given enough space. but they lose coherency. the figural paintings abruptly turn into abstract works (two different artists displaying, i'm sure, but labels were missing) that are around the same size. i don't think these paintings displayed together create a harmony in the room.

i think i'm going to take another look and revisit this post.

thesis! woop wooop wooop woop!

2009-11-06T07:15:00.001-08:00

some notes on chapter 3

2009-10-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

elitist society, almost juxtaposed with artists themselves but almost exclusive to art in terms of the market, the economics of art and owning artworks

exclusivity, absurdity, excess

the secrecy of the fair prior to its official opening

contrast between the importance of art in the ‘real world’ and this microcosm, exists in a way similar to the stock exchange, few people have a strong understanding of the goings-on and are heavily invested in them, the investments are made somewhat blindly, as returns can rarely be predicted and money is entrusted to objects that may or may not be worth anything in the future

commerciality of the art world, concerns with art very independent of those taught in art school, paradox of dealing with the subjective at a strictly objective level

“There is an implied incompetence. Out of everyone in the art world, collectors are the least professional…”

mfa research

2009-10-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve been researching MFA programs for a bit now. I’ve looked at several schools’ catalogs and read some about their curriculums and faculty. If I were to make the decision to pursue a visual arts MFA I’d likely apply the following schools:

- Yale

- Rhode Island School of Design

- School of the Art Institute of Chicago

- Virginia Commonwealth University

- Pratt

artist statement

2009-10-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

first draft.

Sol LeWitt @ PW57

2009-10-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

Sol LeWitt's show is really very interesting. It's interesting because Sol did not physically create any of the works on display. But the forms are also so obviously his work. He created the parameters and studio assistants made the works, directly on the wall. It's interesting that he's DEAD and essentially a show of NEW WORKS has gone up. What was I reading about the ideal artist being a dead artist? Not really a dead artist, but you can't really consider an artist's work unless he or she is dead because if they're alive they can defend it and say things about it and argue with you. But if they're dead everything is up to you. And it's interesting because even if Sol LeWitt were alive and studio assistants made these works he'd still be dead. Because he didn't make any work by him. Oh yeah, it was a Jonathan Lasker essay. And also because it's always up to you. Like how last thesis meeting Pillis said it doesn't matter what your work means. Elkins says "every meaning is a projection of the viewer's inarticulate moods," so artists neither have the words nor the means to communicate specifically what they want. BUT the fact the Sol LeWitt's works can be produced in his absence insinuates that he is saying exactly what he wants, so much so that he needn't be there. Which means that because he knows what he wants to communicate, and because it doesn't matter what your work means, Sol LeWitt may be the only artist to ever actually piece together what it was he was doing articulately. He put into words a means to create forms that are exactly what they are and can be made so by almost anyone. Which I find very interesting.

Also, the works are all for sale. Which means each wall on which they are displayed is for sale. Which means you can own and install in your home an original Sol LeWitt not made by Sol LeWitt.

things i made

2009-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

some images of works i've made.

things i found

2009-10-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

some images i've compiled that may or may not inform my work.

i copied pillis

2009-10-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

music by the beach boys

dan on dan

2009-09-30T23:17:00.003-07:00

the transcript of an interview between the two of us. pillis may not know i took this picture of him. prior to now. read to the end, there's a video there!

also check out works by pillis

Dan Pillis: Dan interviewing Dan. My name’s Dan.

Dan Fig: I’m Dan.

DP: I’m Dan. Um…

DF: What’s up Dan?

DP: Hey Dan. So…what’re you thinking about Dan?

DF: I’m thinking about asking you, what are your current projects?

DP: What I’m doing?

DF: Yeah, right now.

DP: Well, as you know, I am primarily video visual artist right now so I’m working on a homo erotic claymation. What are you working on right now?

DF: I’ve got a series going of paintings about, in response to technology and blog imagery and addressing that in painting. I don’t really know why and I’m also just trying to work my drawing technique into my paintings.

DP: So, it’s interesting, you’re trying to merge two forms of media that are very dissimilar when you talk about a painting in a technological manner.

DF: Yeah. They don’t really, it doesn’t really make sense to me to put them together…cause they’re not being put together, they’re kept very separate but one idea is informing the other. It doesn’t really make sense to me. It’s just taking imagery and using that as a reduction, reducing my process, my involvement with the painting, Composition and subject matter is already figured out for me. I’m just kind of interpreting color and space.

DP: So you’re using technology as a backbone to…that allows you to kind of have a conduit, I guess, for yourself through that media

DF: Yeah, it’s a backbone definitely. And it’s interesting that it’s a backbone because technology is very…technology makes a lot of sense right now but painting doesn’t really necessarily make sense.

DP: Yeah, I completely agree.

DF: It’s almost like a new technology is the driving force behind something obsolete.

DP: Cause, I mean, the idea of a painting these days in terms of how we experience life seems as if it doesn’t really necessarily have an immediate place, as least in the minds of progressive generations, whereby it still retains an obvious center in culture, yet in our day to day life the flatness of the painting is extinct compared to the speed and velocity of other forms of media.

DF: Do you think working in video has some kind of dialogue with the speed of technology, the way in which we receive information today?

DP: Well I think if you look at the way painting moved through the abstract expressionists and into action artists and those who are using paint as less of a delicate and manipulative substance but instead as a process and as an immediate, action oriented process… I think you saw in that the urge to make a painting move and to make painting mimic the evolution of film, which was occurring simultaneously. That vain attempt, not vain, it was very successful obviously, and very interesting what was occurring but I don’t…if you can make a video a painting why would you make a painting a video? I guess is the way I look at it, it’s not like I use my videos as actual or intentionally articulate reproductions of reality, I use them as I would use paint, in a very abstract and disorienting way. So it’s a compromise, I guess.

DF: I like that way of thinking of it.

DP: What do you think…why would you, at least at this point, why is it that your art is retaining that basis in painting and not moving into other media?

DF: I can’t say that I really know. The idea of appropriate medium has come up for me as something I like to think about a lot. It doesn’t…I don’t fucking know. I guess in some sense it’s easy to just say it’s appropriate because I enjoy painting.

DP: And to a degree your aesthetic mindset is already intrinsically connected to that as the process by which you creatively imagine things. If you’re involved in it so much, as I know you are, it’s going to limit you because you want to be focused. It’s not a limitation but it’s a focus, I guess, right?

DF: Yeah, it’s a focus but it’s also, there’s a point where I feel like it becomes a presumption and limitation is probably a good word because I would rather…I would like to work in more technology based media, like video and new media stuff, being brought up in painting to this point it almost feels like there’s a barrier because I’d have to learn new programs, which is not really a barrier but has a lot more to do with personal ignorance or laziness.

DP: It’s probably something about your lifestyle. I think that there’s a definite credibility to retaining the artistic practice as one of interaction instead of, the kind of disconnected, alienating situation of a computer and a person so…there’s something savage and avant garde and there always will be about the painter as a person who restricts but also follows and obeys a strict, deliberate guideline for how to create. And there’s still so much to do in that field, its not as if…I mean, there is, there isn’t but there is. The death of painting is obviously just a joke to mention that these days, but it is a funny thing, painting.

DF: It is, it’s at a funny point now.

DP: It’s at a funny point. How do you feel, this is like an obtuse question that doesn’t really always have meaning, but…why are you an artist? Do you call yourself an artist? What’s an artist? Why would you not…why would you be…

DF: I feel weird calling myself an artist. I feel like people in art school just call themselves art students and then, I don’t know, are you an artist after that? After you get a degree? Does that make you an artist? I don’t think so. I got in to school with graphic design and I was interested in that as just a form of communication, magazine design and text based work and just making things that looked really ‘pretty’ and communicated very directly and I ended up just painting that and had the ‘express yourself’ phase and that manifested itself in painting and drawing and printmaking and then those became learned forms of creating and then the ideas changed from that, it’s not self expression anymore. The meaning changed but the medium remained.

DP: So, in that sense, the meaning still has strong correlation to what I guess I’d call your daily necessity or, how does it seem to propel you? How do these choices you’ve made in the past seem to be…how do they subsist?

DF: In terms of just continuing to make? I guess the…I’m really concerned with the physical process of creating and creating systems by which to work, it almost feels that each day I need to adhere to one of those systems and that means creating. Not necessarily creating something but working, whether it ends up being a painting or a drawing or just a sketch or a study, just following the systematic approach.

DP: So like any other person who works you’d say that you work, that you daily require that kind of activity to make sure that you are who you are day by day, cause the work of the creative man, when it comes down to it, it’s just work. It’s still physical and intellectual labor, to a degree.

DF: Yeah, I feel it’s become a necessity.

DP: Like a pattern in your behavior, it’s consistent.

DF: Does that exist for you as well?

DP: Yeah, by all means. I feel like a lot of the same things you said are true for me whereby I was motivated initially by external requirements and now I’m motivated if only by patterned behavior and how you bring those external expectations internally. Now I’m motivated absolutely internally on a day to day basis to know that it’s exciting, know that there’s an excitement to it, a joy to knowing that your entire life is a creative quest almost, to know that you’re going to dedicate something as fragile and impermanent as your life to something which will be fortuitous of itself or that life. It’s a very interesting time span or just a very interesting, comprehensive result, the life of the artist, regardless of its places in culture or its relevance. It’s a good life, right? It’s just looks like a good life, you know, if you were in heaven and you had to choose a life and you saw all these outlined, organized patterns of lives and archetypes, the artist, historically, has a fun time. It might be tragic, it’s also suffering and endless self-deprecation and anger but, it’s fun too.

DF: Do you feel a selfishness at all in that? I guess it’s just the pursuit of the creative process…

DP: Well…artists are definitely innately selfish creatures, by all means. We are creating for ourselves and others, of course, but only as an extension of ourselves. It is as much creativity as a general human process in the sense of rebirth and procreation it is, it goes the same way for the artistic process whereby taking part in that act gives you a sort of self worth because you’re responsible for something that exists outside of you. That responsibility can be frightening and it can be disorienting but its also self-stabilizing and self-gratifying. So, I’m a horrible person, I do not shed or share my compassion completely or my life completely with noble pursuits such as other people and culture and the economy and I have no interest in saving babies or, I don’t know anything about the news, I only care about myself. And I love myself. Whatever, that’s horrible but it’s about looking at the world as an isolated sequence of individual percepts and I guess understanding yourself as one of those individual percepts by which you have to substantially be completely all you are as that, whereby a lot of people cling to other things. I guess we cling to art, but that’s what’s interesting about art, cause it clings too…

DF: It exists in limbo and we’re just clinging to what we may or may not know

DP: Well, the economy and, you know, social struggles don’t exist in limbo. Those are real things that exist over people. But art without the artist, it doesn’t really always, well it exists, of course, but it doesn’t exist in its unique way when it becomes art through the artist.

DF: It needs, it needs more to exist than several other things, like the economy or receiving checks twice a month, art needs an artist and an audience to exist. Do you think things need and audience to exist, things that you make? That anyone makes?

DP: That question goes a lot of different ways. Art doesn’t really seem to have an audience these days, except for artists. This is a complicated discussion of course because art for me is in everyday life in ways that I could never even, you know, pretend to understand, and it has a lot dimensions in that but also the ‘art world,’ the self-sustained, small group of aestheticians who are creating these small things that, god forbid, my mom doesn’t know shit about…you know, the majority of everyday and regular people in America, it’s not saying that they’re philistines, it’s just people who don’t care about the art world. They care about media and the art world criticizes the media and uses the media internally, within the art world to make fun of itself whereby most people just watch the media and its just a superficial glance of the screen which doesn’t really go any further than that, but um, I don’t know…I think the audience is definitely still there, it’s limited and it’s, it’s just part of human nature to have art, regardless of the audience. The audience matters but not as much as the fact that its inextricably connected to humanity, art is regardless of who watches.

seven days, chapters two and six

2009-09-30T23:17:00.001-07:00

the crit.

- I would never sit through a crit this long.

- You have to find something that is true to yourself as a person- some non-negotiable core that will get you through a forty-year artistic practice.

- Perhaps creativity is not on the agenda at art school because being creative is tacitly considered the un-teachable core of being an artist?

-Baldessari believes that the most important function of art education is to demystify artists: Students need to see that art is made by human beings just like them.

- Creative is definitely a dirty word...it's almost as embarrassing as beautiful or sublime or masterpiece.

the studio visit.

- "Every morning, I upset people," admitted the unrelenting aesthetic micromanager.

- If just looking at one project, then immediately get the feeling it boring.

- "I don't know how to operate Illustrator, but I will say 'yes, yes, yes, no, no, no' when I check the work," he said.

- In Japan, these geeks have a reputation for being socially dysfunctional, sexually frustrated young men who live in a fantasy world.

- When it comes to sleeping, Murakami is equally indiscriminate about place.

- Murakami's bedroom didn't look much like a bedroom at all.

-That was very stressful.

James Turrell @ PaceWildenstein

2009-09-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

James Turrell presents an interesting question/paradox/consideration in his works at Pace. I don’t really know what to make of them, for me this is certainly a case of existence transcending good/bad and like/dislike. None of these is a good fit when it comes to addressing Turrell’s works. Painting comes into question when seeing these works and the idea of the canvas as a field upon which artwork is displayed. Turrell’s surface seems to relate to painting in that it is a conduit for a subject matter that is composed within a field. It is interesting that he chose to contain and limit these forms in a canvas-like shape. I can’t say I really understand. In fact Turrell’s works kind of mess with my mind. Is it metaphoric? Because in the corniest sense we ‘project’ ourselves onto our canvas and he has literally installed projections onto ‘canvases.’ Are they a paradox made to recontextualize the ideas behind painting? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, JAMES? I feel like this is what painting would look like were we to live in Tron. I can’t tell if everything has been dumbed down to shape, form and color displayed on a reflective surface or if all those create intricate complexities that exist as some form of composition while simultaneously being non-painted paintings, a commentary on painting and the penultimate convergence of painting and technology. Of course I’m also ascribing my own thoughts concerning such things to his work. I’m going to work on forming a new perspective about this work. UGGGGHHHHH.

Enoc Perez @ Mitchell, Innes and Nash

2009-09-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Commanding is the word that comes to mind when I look at these works. What a terrible way to start a review. Enoc’s works exist so well on each of his canvases. They’re simple and composed and straightforward. In this case however, I exclude the works that portray the human figure, I’m not particularly interested in those. Those that address geometry, composition, perspective and color though, are commanding. Enoc creates a stark sense of decay that when applied to his subject matter evokes a jarring sense of aloneness. Certainly not loneliness however, these structures are alone and abandoned. In that sense I find myself attributing a sense of dystopia to some of the works, maybe because I see their architecture as akin to Nostromo or the set of Blade Runner. I think sound would be an apt term by which to describe these works. They certainly are very sound and as such successful, but within limitations. The repetition of the process and subject matter reveals a series but perhaps a series too complacent with itself.

alex bag

2009-09-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

yeah, i dunno, i guess i laughed.

srsly though. what?

new museum

2009-09-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

went to the new museum friday. some thoughts on the work on display.

Emory Doulgas: Black Panther

I have some difficulty penetrating the presentation of these works and finding enough disconnect to consider their existence as art objects. The New Museum’s treatment of the exhibition certainly hindered considering these works in a gallery setting. The setting felt much more like a history museum to me. I felt I was essentially presented with a time line documenting the goings on of the Black Panther Party. It seemed the most discernible difference might be the fact that the documents on display all came from one source. The organization of the room also lent itself to the idea of history/documentary. In coming up the stairs you are faced with some lithographs on newsprint on the wall, as you follow from left to right you come upon a video portion that also works to document a brief history of the Panthers, much like a history museum setup in which you are given some context with the help of visual aides followed by a short video and the end of the exhibit.

I also found it difficult to remove myself from how politically driven the work was. The political device behind the work created some distance because of my personal ignorance concerning the subject matter. I could not immediately relate to the context of the work thus I found myself having a hard time considering the works artistically. It was hard to look at each and consider composition or line quality or form, mostly because of the propagandist nature of the work (though this may be a compliment).

Intersections Intersected: David Goldblatt

Goldblatt’s work, though also politically driven, was much easier to consider. Though I did feel including black and white photography felt odd, maybe superfluous. The color photographs with very little human presence often had interesting, sometimes haunting compositions. They brought to mind arenas in which one would expect human interaction and presented them as a void, left unattended and eerie. The black and white work felt more documentary and all had a very noticeable human presence, often the subjects were posing for the shot. While I did feel that this grounded the work, in terms of the artist’s concern with documenting South African life, I felt it unnecessary and disconnected from the color photos. I felt the color photos came into their own and could be taken just as seriously without knowing the artist’s intentions. I was drawn most to the composition of several of the works. The scenery is so banal and abandoned, I couldn’t help but find some sort of mundane beauty in Goldblatt’s framing.

some design based work i like

2009-09-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

pont aven

2009-09-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

jackie's studying in pont aven this semester. she took this picture. i like it a lot.

touch a stranger.

it's 2009

2009-09-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

i'm very overwhelmed by the media output we face today. america garners an insatiable appetite for media at the fastest pace possible. once you've caught up you are far behind. everyone exists in paradox.

currently i'm working on a painting series that has to do with technology and blog imagery. i can't say i'm sure what it means or if i'm making a commentary or not. the main idea is that of the readymade. i am selecting images that essentially remove a step of the process for me. i'm no longer responsible for composition or subject matter, instead i am reducing what is already given me to shape and color and form. i believe that, thus far, the project has to do with what remains in one's periphery after being exposed to an abundance of imagery, most of which is more readily ignored than acknowledged. below is the first of the series, paired with the source image (from ffffound.com).

on a similar note, i found the below video earlier today and i'm not sure what to think. does this exist as an artwork? is it a novelty? with the accessibility to video these days and the ease of learning some of the simpler editing programs arises a new problem. it seems the days of 'i could do this' 'yeah, but you didn't' are over. more and more are doing simply because they can. the only thing that creates any separation lately is intent. it seems a new challenge may come about because someone may be doing what you'd like to better than you by accident. i suppose it's time to rise to the occasion.

video is from weloveyouso.com, made by pogo.

"you have to not watch anything so you can be aware of everything"

2009-09-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

i've been considering working with screen shots lately. a few semesters ago i did a series of ink drawings based on screen shots from scorsese's 'raging bull.' i've taken stills from several movies i've seen recently and given some thought to how much thought the director has put into the framing of shot or, maybe, how arbitrary it is. it's difficult to believe that in capturing film one can always be aware of every element on the screen and how it exists and interacts with the rest of the shot. it removes one from the experience of watching a narrative. bruce nauman said "you have to not watch anything so you can be aware of everything" which makes so much sense in this context. below are a few screen shots i found interesting.

from john boorman's 'deliverance'

from roman polanski's 'repulsion'

from dziga vertov's 'the man with the movie camera'

recent works

2009-03-17T13:35:00.001-07:00

wax drawing on canvas board

linoleum cut on canvas board

reductive woodcut printed on hosho

geometry in spanish

2009-03-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Geometry of Hope was a show that made it's way to NY in Septemeber of 2007. It showcased the work of several Latin American artists whose imagery had a basis in geometry. The work was superb and 2 years later I find it interesting to stumble upon Los Carpinteros. I found these guys in Vitamin D and they stuck with me, especially considering that I didn't write down any of the artists' names. They managed to make it out of my periphery and I looked them up again several months later. Their works on paper have a lot of basis in line and geometry, and although they differ greatly from the GoH show I couldn't fight, if only subconciously, connecting the two. These are artists coming from predominantly Spanish speaking societies creating works with seemingly similar ideas in mind. Los Carpinteros draw stunning compositions in large planes of negative space that somtimes reminds me of Amy Cutler's work, another artist I admire. Still, I can't help but dislike their installations.