File Under: Great Dance Moves
So…this has been on heavy rotation in the studio earphones. Canceling out all the noise except for this. Thanks headphones! Sorry, everything else.
A+
A Thing! In New York!
There is no better follow up to the turkey-stravaganza that is Thanksgiving than a good art fair. Thusly, I was happy today to come across the Brooklyn Night Bazaar. Art fair and food market! Music! Nighttime design fest with space designed by JDS… (Please, PLEASE let this mean that there will be a miniature ski jump. I’m thinking something inflatable that involves harnesses and inebriated hipsters gaily flopping about.)
Should be a hoot in my post-studio-final haze where one beer = the effect of ten beers.
I’m in – are you?
Learning to Fly (New Life Goal: Pilot’s License)
Last week I visited the town of Marfa in the high desert of West Texas and had the incredible good fortune to fly over the town and surrounding countryside in a tiny, four-seater Cessna. Without much ado – I want to share some of my photos with you. Thank to Marcos, the pilot! I hope that I’ll be learning to fly soon! (He did say that I could be the next Amelia Earhart…)
The Chinati Foundation from the air. You can see Donald Judd's works in concrete in line at center right.
Illusory effects of scale in the distant mountains.
Wrinkly arroyos and dry streams trickle down from the mountains.
Scars on the land and a strip of burned zone in the background.
Strange depressions...
Water!
Something special about lines in the desert.
This black strip is a result of wildfires that scorched much of the area this summer.
What good are artists? Henry Ford knows.
“We seemingly limit the creative functions to productions that may be hung on walls, or heard in concert halls, or otherwise displayed where idle and fastidious people gather to admire each other’s culture. But if a man wants a field for vital creative work, let him come where he is dealing with higher laws than those of sound, or line, or colour; let him come where he may deal with the laws of personality. We need artists who master industrial relationships. We need masters of industrial methods. We need those who can mould the shapeless mass in political, social, industrial, and moral respects into a sound and shapely whole. We have limited the creative faculty much too much and have misused it for too trivial ends. We need men who can create the working design for all that is right and good and desirable.”
Henry Ford (1863-1947): Mein Leben und Werk (Leipzig” Paul List, 1923), 113 ff.
Clip Art is Fun
I present to you, dear public, my favorite thing that I have found this week. It is the funniest picture I have seen ever. No. Not ever. But it’s pretty good, right?
Anyone care to caption this puppy?
The Most Eloquent Man Alive: Werner Herzog
The following is a short clip from the 1982 documentary The Burden of Dreams, which follows Werner Herzog and his team through the process of filming the movie Fitzcarraldo in the Amazonian rainforest. The narratives of Fitzcarraldo and The Burden of Dreams revolve around tasks that appear to be impossible; in both cases dragging a riverboat over a small mountain that separates two rivers and, in the case of The Burden of Dreams, doing all the other things that contribute to and complicate film production in a remote forest area, to boot.
Here we observe a clearly frustrated Herzog holding on by the skin of his teeth to his composure, sanity and film project. He practically vibrates with the force of his awful admiration of the jungle that constantly endeavors to put an end to the film and, in some cases, the lives of those involved.
What really gets me, though, is Herzog’s profound awareness of his own presence in relation to and with the jungle and all of its millions and billions of creeping, sliming, moist and fecund inhabitants.
“We, in comparison to the articulate vileness, and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle … we in comparison to that enormous articulation, we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid, suburban novel, a cheap novel.”
His expression of impotence in the face of the forest juggernaut and exasperation at laboriously scraping through this environment in an effort to realize a creative dream is eloquently humble and represents an attitude that ought to be more widespread. Not only should we all develop such a willingness to doggedly pursue the apparently impossible but also become as sensitive and open to being humbled by what bears down upon us when we are brave enough to commit to that path.
End of Semester Tenterhooks.
I just want everyone to know that tenterhooks was the word of the day from my Word of the Day email today. I love hooks of all kinds (shout out to Meathooks the cat – R.I.P. you little mustachioed snugglety poo). This word is particularly apt as graduation and the gaping maw of THE NEXT THING loom nearby and in the general area of every part of my life.
Also, I’ve had my first whack at creating a professional website. That is, a website for work with no swearing, very few hyphens and probably only one shout-out to my late cat.
In conclusion, here is my current cat-friend Tubby basking in the spotlight. What a jerk.
Note: This blog post lacks professionalism and coherence. Meow.
So-and-so.
Beverly? Beverly!
Goodness gracious! It’s your chance to see Christopher T. Wood in action! Well, not as much action as the fantastic and completely wonderful Mar(t)ch Madness show hosted by Lion vs. Gorilla a few weeks ago but, while Mr. Wood himself will refrain from athleticism, his work will do a thousand pushups on your brain!
The Beverly Arts Center will host a group show called Immaculate Conglomeration, opening this Friday, that features the work of Christopher Cannon, Ann Blaas, Joseph LoPresti and, you guessed it, Christopher T. Wood. If you weren’t already convinced by all the exclamation points in the first paragraph (above), I urge you to carefully consider the following statement: I heartily endorse this art show.
Hi guys, first let me apologize for all the exclamation points in my post titles recently. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Secondly, let me apologize for talking about punctuation so much. I mean, what is this – first grade English class??!!
In any case – LOOK HERE! It’s an event that I bet will be sooooooo much fun in Chicago. Cheerleaders! Shady bookies! Dance party! Oh, and art.
Vote early and often for Chris Wood (AKA Christopher T. Wood) in a basketball-style bracket setting!
It’s ALIVE!!! (Part V: Film)
Without much ado, here’s Part V of my exploration of the work of Fischli & Weiss. This is the last emulation of the artists’ work before beginning a recognizable architectural project in earnest and also probably the least connected to architecture or, for that matter, the work of Fischli & Weiss. In any case, the artists made movies and now we have also made a movie.
Note: Developed, directed, constructed, shot, and edited in under a week by a team of five. Music is copyright Electric Light Orchestra and is used for a non-commercial project.
Maiden Voyage
