the scowl » Art

Talking art at Vol.1

Tobias — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:30:22 +0000

O’er at Vol.1, I talk about a pair of art shows I saw over the weekend, one on the Lower East Side and one in Brooklyn.

Art + Artifacts

Tobias — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:30:24 +0000

Two links; both dealing with artistic legacies and work coming from New York City.

1. Whitney Pastorek announces the shutdown of Pindeldyboz, with some nicely bleak humor thrown in.

And then hopefully, someday, I’ll stop paying the web hosting fees, and the site will be gone. In my dreams I see it hosting an exciting array of porn and/or travel deals.

2. John Freeman Gill discusses the fate of century-old stonework, for The Atlantic.

Griffins and sea monsters, gods and kings, most of the inmates of this forlorn encampment spend their days and nights with their weathered faces turned to the heavens. When it rains, water pools in the vulnerable sandstone eye sockets of some and nourishes the green biological growth that clings to others. In winter, water freezes in the bowl-like terra-cotta medallions, imprisoning in yokes of ice the heads of women and animals that protrude from them.

Density.

Tobias — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:30:51 +0000

Yesterday, I went to the Guggenheim. While there, I took in “Grey Area, an exhibit of Julie Mehretu artwork. Taking in her large-scale, informationally-dense works, I thought about the recent New Yorker piece on the artist. In turn, that prompted thoughts of another piece from the same publication – Sasha Frere-Jones’s essay on noise-rock. Specifically, this bit about Yellow Swans:

Yellow Swans broke up in 2008, leaving a last album, â€œGoing Places,â€� released only this year, whose tracks have titles but certainly donâ€™t resemble songs. One called â€œSovereignâ€� is several slowly undulating waves of grainy, high-mid-range noise whose source is unclear. The result is simultaneously organic and mechanical. Freed from songs, the sounds draw attention to how odd machines can feel, and how powerful. Abstract noise sends the mind searching for concrete comparisons: clunking hard drives, breaking wires, muffled phones, turnstiles.

Many of these phrases would serve as equally apt descriptors for Mehretu’s art, I’d argue. And while the immersive qualities of the overwhelming scale on which she works aren’t unique, her process, and its incorporation of technological processes and layered construction, seems to oddly mirror some of the artists referenced in Frere-Jones’s piece. I don’t know that the analogy holds up under greater scrutiny, but thought it was worth mentioning.

Reading on Reading: 19 October 2009

Tobias — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:30:26 +0000

One: The culture site Big Other — including many a writer affiliated with The Chapbook Review — has launched. Good stuff, with topics ranging from text separated from the page (which put me in mind of this) to authors’ final wishes concerning their work.

Two: Given that the readings given by both in Chicago are still fresh in my brain: interviews at Keyhole with Blake Butler and Amelia Gray. Also from Mr. Butler: a current reading list, located at Deckfight.

The Thursday Agitation: Chrissy Piper

Tobias — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:00:27 +0000

My first significant introduction to the work of photographer Chrissy Piper came via her 1998 collection The Unheard Music, a visually distinctive collection of live and portrait photos of bands making their way in the indie/punk/hardcore world of the 1990s. It includes bands whose names still inspire devotion today (Fugazi, Rocket From the Crypt), and others less well known (Railhed, John Henry West). But the selection of photos went beyond visceral live-show imagery (though that’s there in abundance) and includes a greater sense of the surrounding community: musicians are seen offstage, relaxed; fanzine publishers captured in repose. In the decade since then, Piper has continued to work as a photographer (a list of her clients can be seen here and, more recently, had debuted a zine called Three Records. Three Records matches photographs of numerous people — some musicians, some not — with lists or essays they’ve written on their three favorite records; the result is both illuminating and, in a subtle way, inspiring.

[Previous interviews in this series can be found here.]

In your introduction to the second issue, you mention that there will be at least one more issue — what is your overall goal for the project?
My ultimate goal for this project is to have all the issues made in to a book. That’s pretty much the plan for now though it seems never ending so I need to set a deadline and go for it!

When assembling Three Records, how did you resolve the tradeoff between preserving the quality of your photographs and the more DIY nature of a zine?
I knew that to do a true zine, with xerox machines and all, that the quality of the photos would be lost. That’s one of the bonuses to turning it in to a book– the photo quality will be sooo much better. I also want to give everyone a chance to really write about their records (if they want to). Doing a book would give them that opportunity.

I’ve noticed that in some of the portraits, the people photographed are wearing band t-shirts, while others are not — do you think there’s more of an interaction between people’s lists and their images depending on how they’re presented?
A lot of the times the photos used were taken before the zine was out so I don’t think it’s really relevant. Though, I will say, for the third issue, I made a photo of someone specifically for the zine and the woman wore a band shirt of one of the bands she wrote about. She really loves Jawbreaker. HA.

You maintain a blog, a portfolio site, and a gallery on Flickr — how do you go about deciding what the best location is for a specific image?
My Flickr page is where I put photos that I like but wouldn’t necessarily put them on my website. It’s just a good way to show photos of what’s going on in my life, what I’ve been up to. As for photos on the website, that’s more for potential clients that may be looking for a photographer for a specific job. I guess you could say it’s like a portfolio. Of course there is crossover between the Flickr page and my website. Everything on the site is on Flickr just not vice versa. As for my blog, that’s more what I’ve been up to work or project wise or links to things or people I find inspiring.

Something that strikes me about Three Records is how it shows — for lack of a better word — the maturation of people coming from the punk/hardcore/metal scene. Was this element of it something you had in mind when you began the project?
Honestly, when I started the zine, I didn’t know what was going to come out of it. The entire project came out of a conversation with a friend who isn’t involved in the punk scene. I spent a long time explaining to her what the records/lyrics meant to me, especially while growing up. Like what it was like to first hear Minor Threat and that feeling of belonging and knowing there were others out there that thought like me. So, really, the zine was more just wanting to see what records did that for people and their stories about it.

Artlinks: 5 May 2009

Tobias — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:02:14 +0000

One: Tracy Wilson on Jeremy Enigk. It should be also be mentioned here that Wilson, a onetime Thursday Agitation interviewee, has taken her Ringfinger project on the road, and will be playing throughout the east coast in the next week or so, including Hoboken and New York City.

Two: Nell Boeschenstein on art, privacy, and online dating.

Three: At Pitchfork, Mia Clarke discusses the excellent Comet Gain singles collection Broken Record Prayers.

Saturday Night Art-Blogging

Tobias — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:35:31 +0000

Very quick tip of the hat to my friend Jeremy Olson, whose work will be part of NYU’s 2009 MFA Thesis exhibition opening on Tuesday. Highly recommended, if you’re in NYC; otherwise, some of his art can be viewed online.

vision of art

Tobias — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:01:22 +0000

A quick note to direct y’all to the newly constructed website of Eilish Cullen, who is currently involved in myriad aspects of art on the coast opposite this one. Definitely worth paying a visit (or visits).

arts + periodicals

Tobias — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:55:20 +0000

The debate over the loss of arts criticism in newspapers nationwide has led to a heated debate between critics Glenn Kenny and Michael Atkinson over Atkinson’s comments in this Brooklyn Rail article. (Links for both come via The House Next Door.) Kenny weighs in on his blog Some Came Running with some harsh words regarding Atkinson’s argument that full-time arts criticism isn’t, well, actually full-time at all.

(For the record, I’m with Kenny on this.)

***

Same issue, slightly different facet: over at The Atlantic, Matthew Yglesias argues that consolidation of critical positions within newspaper chains is “a way to cut costs without compromising quality”. This does not go over well with many of his readers (except those who find themselves unable to get past his reference to You Don’t Mess With the Zohan), who head into the comments section with some vitriol or, in other cases, post links to his piece within the larger context of expressing their disapproval with his opinion.

(For the record, I also find myself asking the same questions as this guy.)

three art links on a thursday night

Tobias — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:21:13 +0000

One: In which the mothers of numerous indie rockers talk indie rock. Specifically, their children’s.

Two: New York on The Night Marchers.

Three: Souvenirs + installation art = kinda genius.