Tuesday, November 1, 2011

It Is There If You Want to Take the Time

George Landow (aka Owen Land) 1944-2011

We can individually identify with absurdist behavior, although, our ability to disregard material, visual or otherwise, is the catalyst to the manifestation and longevity of this human condition. Experimental film-maker George Landow, also known as Owen Land (1944-2011), used mode of “structural film” coupled with satirical wit and self-referential material to expose our trained attention span, given to us by media images and advertising culture, and assisted in locating substance within the “absurdity of all phenomena and the arbitrariness of all information.”

In an early example of Land’s work, a short film Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc. from 1965-66, he allows material to dictate the content. It is a brief loop of a Kodak color test showing duplicate images of a young woman’s portrait alongside the edge lettering, outside sprocket holes and dirt particles present on the surface of the film. The composition is quite minimal, however, the subtle shifts in the artists handling of the film, movement created in the repeated cycle of revealed edge lettering and overlaid with the continual ticking of the film in the camera creates a richly dynamic piece with depth and attention.


George Landow aka Owen Land, Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc., 1965-66, screen shot.

Expounding upon the capabilities of early film media, using 16mm and 8mm, Land formed non-linear abstracted content that provides an oddly fascinating combination of obstructed imagery and material residue that confuses time and space. The repeating loop of the edge lettering on the film indicates time in terms of isolated moments rather than a sense of duration while the cropped imagery limits the viewers’ perception of space and context. Ultimately, focus is given over to the presence of the material including dust particles and scratches on the surface of the film that have been intentionally left by the artist.

Land’s presentation of a seemingly banal subject in a very methodic repeated fashion invites an entirely new visceral and visual experience, which reorients the viewers’ response to duplicate media and advertising imagery. Author and friend of the artist, P. Adams Sitney wrote in a recent Artforum article that “Land’s unique contribution was to focus on the detritus of television and advertisement as the signature rerum – the more banal, the more spiritually immanent,” emphasizing the artists capability to augment shifts in perception of the mundane or absurd visual imagery.

Essentially, the impact of Land’s films is facilitated by time. Precision application of time in his work is revealed in the way he chose to make repeated imagery seem part of the composition of Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc. rather than any narrative. Simultaneously, Land understood the time and attention afforded by the viewer in order to mock that very same length of time impressed upon them by media and advertising, which is evermore applicable today. Land harnessed brief moments in time with direct visual vigor and gave back to the viewers their own breadth of experience.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

ArtCore Blog Launch

Thank you, to those of you who have been keeping up with ERIN DZIEDZIC (Je-jitz): Interactions with Art. This blog will remain and I will continue to post regularly in addition to a new blog that I have developed called ArtCore.

ArtCore

The mission of the ArtCore blog is twofold, requiring writers to engage with contemporary art beyond the borders of “home” or ones current city and to provide rigorous and informed writing focused primarily on spatial concepts in contemporary art and curatorial practice. Written material will include but is not limited to critiques/reviews, essays/reports and articles written on contemporary art, exhibitions, installations, projects and art fairs.

Specializing in the extended efforts made by a writer to expand beyond their geographical place as a major component, ArtCore is designed to establish a rich matrix of artists and writers interacting globally for the advancement of writing on concepts of space in contemporary art and curatorial practice using a blog format. “ArtCore” was developed in conversation with friends who make efforts to travel to view art, modeling it after the term “hardcore”, which references the most committed and dedicated members of a group. The prospectus for ArtCore’s dedication to concepts of space began with an essay I had written for a conference, which discusses the possibility for new methods of writing expanded text that could shape modern interwoven cultural globalization amidst the spectacle of the art fair. The ArtCore blog takes its queue from the notion of the art fair phenomenon as a “destination” and expands this format to stimulate critical and creative text in modern times, aiming to be a significant resource in contemporary art writing. After six months of myself as the primary writer for the ArtCore content, on a schedule of bi-weekly posts, other writers, critics, artists, collectors, dealers and scholars will be invited to contribute or may submit writing for consideration. Collectively, these entries will establish a rigorous and informed catalog of reviews and critical writing segments and will be tracked using a visual map.

The desire is for ArtCore to become the nexus for the development, advancement and exchange of ideas and writing focused on concepts of space in contemporary art in a moving global context. The ArtCore blog project aligns closely with and is an extension of my most recent research, writings and interests, which focus on the affects of space on contemporary art and curatorial practice. Currently, I maintain the blog “Erin Dziedzic (Je-jitz): Interactions with Art” which has been in existence for two years with a series of informed reviews and art world information at erindziedzic.blogspot.com. Ultimately, it is the hope that ArtCore will make a significant contribution to the dialog of space in contemporary art and curatorial practice and continue to inform additional research, writing, projects, important exhibitions, and productive writing networks.

Writing on the subject of space exists in critical essays like Gilles Deleuze’s “The Exhausted.” Contemporary scholars like Nicolas Bourriaud, Ian Buchanan, Claire Colebrook and Nigel Thrift also contribute to the field of spatial relations. Critics respond to the artist and institutions use of space in pointed reviews like art historian Meredith Martin’s for ARTFORUM and Elain Sciolino or Rooksana Hossenally’s for the New York Times on the contemporary art installations at Versailles. In the context of the art blogging genre ArtCore is uniquely relevant in its specification that the writer advance from one geographical location to another and respond to art in terms of space. ArtCore would be the first blog of its kind to collect a combination of written material on contemporary art and curatorial practice, where concepts of space are engaged exclusively.

My research and practice is greatly devoted to the investigation of space in contemporary art, resulting in essays, blog entries and exhibitions. For example, in a recent essay I presented the idea of considering the “crisis” of art criticism in terms of our greater need to apply “altermodern’s” push for modern globalization. Suggesting, that the spectacle of the art fair provides opportunity for an expansion of global geographical perspectives and is ripe as a platform for deep consideration of how galleries, artists and institutions navigate space. In an exhibition called “The Masquers” that I produced for a group show at P.P.O.W. I employed the use of works by Craig Drennen to articulate a theoretical space, a fissure in the complicated dance between Modernism and Postmodernism to suggest a new hybrid practice that assimilates traits from modernism and postmodernism, and in the process intensifies the desire for a new perspective beyond the available vocabulary.

The intended audience for the ArtCore blog includes art students, scholars, collectors, gallerists, dealers, critics and artists as well as philosophers and theorists. Open to the fields of art and theory the ArtCore blog would generate a sense of community amongst practitioners in the broad spectrum of art, theory and praxis. ArtCore’s purpose is to act as a positive platform for collaboration and development amongst genres in the art world to expand the concepts of space in contemporary art.


ArtCore has already begun but official posting will begin December 2011! Check back at http://artcorecontemporary.blogspot.com/

Monday, April 25, 2011

Twist & Go

Exhibition by Jonathan Yoerger at Fahm Hall Gallery | 9 N. Fahm St. Savannah, GA
April 1-14, 2011

Twist & Go

M.F.A. Painting candidate Jonathan Yoerger is keeping the discussion of the perplexing nature of Postmodernism alive, and I like it. Amongst all of the big –ism questions, discussions and aesthetics Postmodernism really does get caught up in its own cyclonic wind-up, and the tension, wonderment and suspense of whether it will move beyond this period is becoming much more engaging and optimistic than it was a decade ago and especially took precedence during the market collapse. As the art world emerges from the last pummeling Yoerger’s “Twist & Go” aesthetic is an optimistic tale of discovery, invention and the pleasantries of nostalgia.

Yoerger's work engages an assortment of eras, subcultures, markets and avant-gardes connected to one another by a method of strategic overlapping of familiar visual references. At the same time, he is entirely plugged into developing his own voice or in many ways his very own brand.



Front and center, through the glass storefront-like façade of the comfortably concise square gallery, is Yoerger’s blazing acronym of “YASA.” It stands for his very own “NASA-type” mission to pioneer in a not-so-descript space between art, science and commodity culture. Three larger than life painted female figures, his Space Chicks named after Columbus’ ships, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, immediately bring the conversation to painting. Lining the wall adjacent to the lit “YASA” sculpture and looking like a trio of other worldly explorers who have just landed in the show, these super heroines seem to be surveying the environment, artifacts, remnants and sounds left behind by an eclectic group of inhabitants. It is unclear whether they’ve crash-landed in the shiny silver space capsule that floats in the gallery or if they too are listening in, carefully, to the sound of the Atlanta-based rap group emanating from the tiny vessel. My guesses is these three sultry Space Chics might have actually had something to do with the capsules’ change of course and ultimate system failing and are surprised at what they’ve discovered.


Jonathan Yoerger, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, 2011, oil on canvas, 90”x78” each. Photography by Whitney Dail.

An avid collector of a range of objects from taxidermy forms and wrestling masks to Vespas, bicycle parts, model airplanes and helmets, Yoerger’s exhibition integrates these artifacts, that tend to function in very separate worlds and imbues them with a unique second life. In giving these artifacts a new or renewed life Yoerger’s works operate in a manner similar to French philosopher Gaston Bachelard's poetics of space, in which he insists on the transfer of the poet's affectivity to the surrounding space and objects; a process, which endows all matter with a poetic essence and expands the intimate space into a poetic space: "To give an object its own poetic space is to give it more space than it has objectively [...], it is to follow the expansion of its intimate space." (see notes 1,2)


Jonathan Yoerger, Artifact Wall, Photography by Whitney Dail

These artifacts reveal what Yoerger explains as “histories that never happened,” rather than specific narratives, whereby adding to the mystery of their altered functions. His method for displaying these items involves reworking versions of them installed on his studio wall. Always changing and evolving within each new space. Yoerger displays found objects like film reels and a broken model propeller plane to hang comfortably with very large and very tiny oil paintings, small screens that kinetically vibrate with small animated GIF image sequences, sound bites and a slew of re-appropriated tinker toys, taxidermy critters and scooter helmets. They are hung together on a wall where a section is painted gray to denote the standard dimensions of his large acrylic on canvas paintings on the opposite side of the gallery. They reside in a world created by the artist and at the same time reflect aspects of their actual history providing the viewer, Yoerger notes, “with a case study of their own,” leaving an intermingling of visual imagery and objects teetering on the brink of “the end, a new beginning, a discovery or a hidden past.”

A work that best describes the theme of “Twist & Go” is a vintage police Vespa stockpiled complete with tool belt, video camera, a comic, radio, cup holder and parasol. It has all the things anyone could need and a little bit more and although it remains inoperable its accoutrements embody the distinct sensation of something at the ready and on the brink of release or escape. “Twist & Go” leaves us with an interesting awareness of nostalgia and wonderment that looks to the past via Yoerger’s pairing of uncanny and ad hoc imagery and propels scores of pathways setting viewers’ imaginations trailing off into a connected future somewhere on down the road. “Twist & Go” is a successful kick-start to a promising future in the arts.

1. Excerpt from the press release for “The Poetics of Space” at Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris (June 19 – July 24, 2008) curated by Anja Isabel Schneider.
2. Gaston Bachelard, La Poétique de l'espace, Paris, éd. Quadridge/PUF, 1994, p. 183.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Twist & Go

Coming up....review of Jonathan Yoerger M.F.A. thesis exhibition "Twist & Go."

Monday, February 7, 2011

James Franco: Who Knew?

I’ve been doing some thinking about (gasp!) James Franco as a lightly complex way of easing back into writing after my blog hiatus. I’ll use him as a jumping off point. Although, gathering from the responses from many of my artist friends when I mention his name it seems as thought they would prefer a jumping off point as well, perhaps off a bridge. So, to kick off some serious blogging in 2011 I begin here, or there, or maybe everywhere.



On top of wearing an array of wigs to the Sundance Film Festival for his screening of “Three’s Company: The Drama” Franco is now slated to teach a course on himself at Columbia College Hollywood called “Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco,” where students works to create 30 minute documentaries on Franco. Apparently, he is also keen to TA a course at Yale as well, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate, will co-host the Oscars and is traveling the solo exhibition “Dangerous Book Four Boys” to Peres Projects in Berlin beginning in February. Not to mention, teaming up with performance artist Kalup Linzy on co-projects including albums, films and live performances. This all comes post solo exhibition at Clocktower Gallery in New York City last summer, the releases of Howl, 127 Hours and The Green Hornet all in 2010 and a forty-one episode stint on General Hospital that landed him in many homes across America. Essentially, if you didn’t know Franco before chances are you do now.

My interest does not reside in loving or hating Franco, because frankly (no pun intended) I really don’t know how I feel about him, but rather in trying to extract a point of interest from his vastly prolific cacophony of projects I've found myself suspiciously intrigued by him. Perhaps that is what is so interesting, the fact that he interests me. I mean who doesn’t want to be struck by curiosity in a field they love, he just happened to step into mine along the way so now I am being dragged inquisitively throughout the rest of his oeuvre.

Sometimes I wonder if it is all an elaborate performance. One that could culminate in Franco creating his own documentary of the documentaries made by his students. Or maybe I am reading into it all a bit too much and he was simply bored at the moment with acting and wanted to try his hand at a few other disciplines of which his star status afforded him the necessary access. Either way, it is a healthy interest folks and even one that has quite possibly spurred a renewed interest in collaborative models. I surely won’t be stalking his movie sets nor traveling to Berlin to see his show. However, I will continue to delight in artists and projects that pique my interest and send me off onto modes of thinking and development in my own practice. And I will most definitely be adding Freaks and Geeks to movie night with my friends.

In conclusion, let this be a launch pad, a starting gate or an off the line topic that will propel this years blog to new heights and begin to gather some substantial feedback from readers.