Can I request a sippee top?
This post was mostly for Emily to be jealous, because I remember her mentioning something relevant a while back. But maybe you can be jealous too! Let's hope. Fingers crossed.
The List Visual Arts Center here does an art lottery every fall. You go into the gallery, pick out your three favorite pieces, and if you win one, you get to hang the piece your room for the year. Hooray for culture.
They had a lot of rockin' art. I had to narrow it down to three. A few that I liked but didn't make the cut.. a series of phrases in some typeface on canvas(?) called The Man Who Would Be King (my memory's a little foggy, but I think this is right):
The Man Who Would
Be King
The Man Who Would
Be B.B. King
The Man Who Would
Be Aunt Bea
The Man Who Would
Be Bea Arthur
The Man Who Would
Be King Arthur
The Man Who Would
Be King
Another, print of simple white egg shapes arranged in a pyramid, with EGGYPT written below.
My three choices, in order, were:
1) Wall Drawing #869C - Sol Lewitt
I can't remember the explanation on the wall, so here's an excerpt from some internet explaining it. You should read it, it's interesting.
"For LeWitt and his colleagues, Abstract Expressionism had become an entrenched style that offered few new creative possibilities. LeWitt began to create works that utilized simple and impersonal geometric forms, exploring repetition and variations of a basic form or line as a way to achieve complex works. Perhaps most importantly, he evolved a working method for creating artworks based on simple directions, works that could be executed by others rather than the artist. The fertility of this approach is demonstrated by the aesthetic richness and variety of the wall drawings, none of which were drawn by him. LeWitt rejects the notion of art as a unique and precious object. Formulated from an initial idea outlined in a diagrammatic sketch accompanied by a set of instructions, his works are installed on the wall of the gallery or museum by a team of assistants, who rigorously follow the artist's directives. Some instructions are simple and straightforward, and some are long and complex. By placing his drawings directly on the wall of the gallery or museum, LeWitt merges his drawing with the architecture, while also calling into questions ideas about permanence, value, and conservation."
So this selection was the opportunity to follow a set of directions given to you from Mr. Lewitt on a chunk of my wallspace. Damn, that would have been cool. Here's an example of some directions of his directions.
2) Save Our Planet - Buckminster Fuller
I need to shut up about Buckminster Fuller. He comes up too much in my life. It's okay though, because everyone should know about him. He's the most documented human life, and oh what a human. Eccentric to a ridiculous level, most famous for the discovery of geodesics (the only structure that gets stronger as it gets larger.. houses made from them are earthquake and hurricane-proof... don't mess with Texas), also made the first world map displaying all the continents without size distortion (think top-down, appropriately unfolded geodesic with a group of land islands surrounded by one ocean) and loads of other equally interesting things.
He was on the verge of suicide in his early thirties and as he was about to jump into the churning Great Lakes, he instead he decided to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity." He from then on kept track of his life and thoughts in what he called the Dymaxion Chronofile.. every 15 minutes for the rest of his life. He was on a polyphasic sleep schedule, sleeping for 15 minutes every 2 hours. He wanted to improve human efficiency.. but broad-sweepin' societal change ain't easy, honey. So it seems like he was always a bit under the radar. Plus he's a little weird. Read wikipedia if you want to know more. We're all passengers on Spaceship Earth.
They had an awesome diagram of deconstructed parts of geodesics overlayed on black & white mountains, but I figured nerds everywhere would be vying for those sweet, sweet polygons on their wall, so I went with this equivalently cool piece. It's called Save Our Planet. I didn't get this one, though.
3) Cup Kid - Yoshitomo Nara
I found out about this artist via some post in Emily's livejournal. I liked it! They had a bunch of pieces by her. I liked one a lot, called "Fuck 'bout everything!", with one of her signature girls brandishing a sparkling knife under rainclouds and fabulous. Again, though, I figured a lot of people would go for that one since it's cursing and cute. So I picked my other favorite, something that I thought probably appealed more to me than it did to most others. It's called Cup Kid. And it's hanging on my wall! Bad to the bone.
And that's the news! Live at five. Have a good day. Feed your pets.
The List Visual Arts Center here does an art lottery every fall. You go into the gallery, pick out your three favorite pieces, and if you win one, you get to hang the piece your room for the year. Hooray for culture.
They had a lot of rockin' art. I had to narrow it down to three. A few that I liked but didn't make the cut.. a series of phrases in some typeface on canvas(?) called The Man Who Would Be King (my memory's a little foggy, but I think this is right):
The Man Who Would
Be King
The Man Who Would
Be B.B. King
The Man Who Would
Be Aunt Bea
The Man Who Would
Be Bea Arthur
The Man Who Would
Be King Arthur
The Man Who Would
Be King
Another, print of simple white egg shapes arranged in a pyramid, with EGGYPT written below.
My three choices, in order, were:
1) Wall Drawing #869C - Sol Lewitt
I can't remember the explanation on the wall, so here's an excerpt from some internet explaining it. You should read it, it's interesting.
"For LeWitt and his colleagues, Abstract Expressionism had become an entrenched style that offered few new creative possibilities. LeWitt began to create works that utilized simple and impersonal geometric forms, exploring repetition and variations of a basic form or line as a way to achieve complex works. Perhaps most importantly, he evolved a working method for creating artworks based on simple directions, works that could be executed by others rather than the artist. The fertility of this approach is demonstrated by the aesthetic richness and variety of the wall drawings, none of which were drawn by him. LeWitt rejects the notion of art as a unique and precious object. Formulated from an initial idea outlined in a diagrammatic sketch accompanied by a set of instructions, his works are installed on the wall of the gallery or museum by a team of assistants, who rigorously follow the artist's directives. Some instructions are simple and straightforward, and some are long and complex. By placing his drawings directly on the wall of the gallery or museum, LeWitt merges his drawing with the architecture, while also calling into questions ideas about permanence, value, and conservation."
So this selection was the opportunity to follow a set of directions given to you from Mr. Lewitt on a chunk of my wallspace. Damn, that would have been cool. Here's an example of some directions of his directions.
2) Save Our Planet - Buckminster Fuller
I need to shut up about Buckminster Fuller. He comes up too much in my life. It's okay though, because everyone should know about him. He's the most documented human life, and oh what a human. Eccentric to a ridiculous level, most famous for the discovery of geodesics (the only structure that gets stronger as it gets larger.. houses made from them are earthquake and hurricane-proof... don't mess with Texas), also made the first world map displaying all the continents without size distortion (think top-down, appropriately unfolded geodesic with a group of land islands surrounded by one ocean) and loads of other equally interesting things.
He was on the verge of suicide in his early thirties and as he was about to jump into the churning Great Lakes, he instead he decided to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity." He from then on kept track of his life and thoughts in what he called the Dymaxion Chronofile.. every 15 minutes for the rest of his life. He was on a polyphasic sleep schedule, sleeping for 15 minutes every 2 hours. He wanted to improve human efficiency.. but broad-sweepin' societal change ain't easy, honey. So it seems like he was always a bit under the radar. Plus he's a little weird. Read wikipedia if you want to know more. We're all passengers on Spaceship Earth.
They had an awesome diagram of deconstructed parts of geodesics overlayed on black & white mountains, but I figured nerds everywhere would be vying for those sweet, sweet polygons on their wall, so I went with this equivalently cool piece. It's called Save Our Planet. I didn't get this one, though.
3) Cup Kid - Yoshitomo Nara
I found out about this artist via some post in Emily's livejournal. I liked it! They had a bunch of pieces by her. I liked one a lot, called "Fuck 'bout everything!", with one of her signature girls brandishing a sparkling knife under rainclouds and fabulous. Again, though, I figured a lot of people would go for that one since it's cursing and cute. So I picked my other favorite, something that I thought probably appealed more to me than it did to most others. It's called Cup Kid. And it's hanging on my wall! Bad to the bone.
And that's the news! Live at five. Have a good day. Feed your pets.