Net art with meaning

The internet often seems like an art playground. Works designed specifically for the net tend to be light, playful, entertaining... But I rarely feel that the artist thought much about the meaning of the work. Nice and fun and sometimes surprizing are the usual adjectives...

Store your digital art, anti-art and I-think-it's-a-nice-shot-art - for free

Ourmedia.org is an encouraging idea for promoting grassroots creativity:Ourmedia is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. We'll host your media forever — for free. Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary...

The secret of creativity

There are all of these theories about how maybe Shakespeare did not exist and these fifteen women wrote the plays...there's something doubtful about property and the invention. The essence of Romanticism and the Renaissance is that you're building a new world on the ruins of the old one, and that's...

Embarrassing art that sells

"You do turn round after a few years and look at your stuff and you think it's embarrassing." "Some of my spin paintings I think are a bit silly." Not all his bad ideas have come to fruition. "I was toying with the idea of putting vibrators all over a pig and I was going...

Sculpture according to Richard Serra

There are a lot of people around still making objects, but I'm interested in a situation where what we call the sculpture is a catalyst for walking and looking and thinking about what you're looking at. If this work can do that, if it can just inform and change how you see, even minutely, that's a reason...

Dream

Last night, after publishing the Rebecca Horn review, I had a dream in which someone contacted me (by e-mail? phone? directly?) and said he was from the Association for Positive Input. He then challenged me to propose and encourage, and not reject.

Rebecca Horn in Lisbon

At last! I've finally managed to see the Rebecca Horn retrospective at the Centro Cultural de Belem (Lisbon, Portugal).The experience has been strange.Rebecca Horn was an important figure of the so-called 60's avant-garde. She was what one could call a fashion designer...

And Now On a Positive Note

Be a Movie Star - instantly!

During the Expo 2005, spectators queueing to see a movie at Toshiba’s digital cinema are submitted to a futurecast, they place their faces into a hole in the wall for a few seconds. High-resolution digital cameras perform a quick scan from several angles, and everyone takes...

Art for the General Public

On art.blogging.la there is a text about how to make art more accessible to the general public. I specifically like the great discussion below the post. One issue is being sort of left out - and it shouldn't. The psychology of the art world. I think it could go as far back as the impressionists (so,...

TV art

Tired of TV? Think it's boring, and lacks imagination? Turn it into a work of art - use the Shine Box! It can display the image in a standard, or distorted mode:(found at popgadget)It was created by Aristarkh Chernyshev and a group of collaborators.It reminds me of a song...

Beyond Banksy

This is a painting by Malevich, the Russian futurist/avant-garde painter from the beginning of the 20th century (author of the famous Black Square). It represents a white cross on a white background. The graffiti on it is a graffiti (and not part of the original painting!),...

Between the eye and the hand

A few nice quotes from an interview with Christopher Doyle, the cinematographer behind such films as Chunking Express and In The Mood For Love (and its sequel 2046) (...) in Chinese, they say, "Your eye is high but your hand is low," which means you can't achieve what you...

Anti-war art activism gone smart (another Banksy)

This is too gorgeous to be left out:(the above image has been hanging at the Museum of Natural History, curtesy of Banksy, your mad rebel con-art-artist, who simply went in and glued the frame to a wall)Is this art? It most definitely is. Is it new? Not quite - we've seen...

Digital Graffiti

I found this info on the Ars Electronica Futurelab project page:In the future, cell phone users will be able to leave messages anywhere in the form of what might be termed electronic post-its. They will be able to post virtual messages referring to a specific location wherever...

(then again) go see art

Then again, what others didn't do is really their misfortune (?).And you people don't like long posts anyway, right?So here's one for you: a nice Polish fine arts site, Artnew.pl. (in Polish, but nice pictures!)(The picture above: "Adam & Eve" by Viola Tycz, 70 x 100...

The (digitally) forgotten art form

Where is performance art on the net? There are tens of blogs about the fine arts, and not a single blog about performance art, or even performing arts (a much broader term) for that matter! Here is my hypothesis: I suppose that translates into one conclusion: nobody cares....

Art gone curious

Another discovery brought to you by Fallon and Rosof's artblog: James Leonard and his art. At his webpage, you can discover little marvels of contemporary art: Dutch apple pies, lost phone conversations, comments on Iraq, water balloons and artificial hearts.The works are...

Jump (possibly lighter than Rauschenberg)

Make the world a better place. Jump.
I tend to believe this is perfectly qualified to be considered a (potential) performance art piece.

Rauschenberg - too nice to be good?

By some considered an absolute genius, a "postmodern phenomenon", by others, nothing more than a skilled technician, Rauschenberg is one of the world's 10 most expensive living artists in the world. He first became famous in the 50's for his "combines", or works combining...

Art too extreme?

On the excellent, though very textful art blog by Libby Rosof, a surprizing review of the art of Hermann Nitsch (second part of the review actually, though the first one is interesting as well). The artist was the most (in)famous member of the Viennese Actionists in the...

Charles Bukowski the rumble-poet

you’re a beast, she said your big white belly and those hairy feet. you never cut your nails. . . .You might not know Charles Bukowski. Or not like him. But listen to him - he's funny, intelligent, subtly aggressive(and he's just so... American, I guess).I know, I know what I was thinking (I think):He's...

Rebecca Horn

I'm going to see Rebecca Horn's new exhibition this weekend... guess where it is? I'll keep you informed on impressions. Right now, you can enjoy this short description by artforum: This Rebecca Horn exhibition promises to prove that it is not mere...

The feminist/feminine art of Joana Vasconcelos

If you click on the image above, you will discover that this is not your average chandelier: it is made of tampons. Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos loves to play with the idea of femininity, of the "womanly knowledge", and to put it on its head.As the French newspaper...

Art Away

Once upon a time, in a place art, art away...The quotes from Lauwers are supposed to encourage my Portuguese and Canadian friends/readers. It isn't easy to create art, namely theatre, in a country with limited background in the area. It seems like working on the desert, with scarce resources, feedback,...

Two Quotes

With so much reality being produced and filling our heads, it is ridiculous to try to create naturalistic theatre. Theatre must be a counterweight to the mass media and create its own reality. - Flemish theater director Jan LauwersUnlike Britain, France or Germany, we don't...

Video Contest

I still haven't forgotten the promised posts (not that anyone asked...). I hope I'll have some time this week to sit down and write them. But if you're impatient, do something of your own - send that art video you've kept in the drawer for so long to a famous gallery!The wonderful South London Gallery,...

For all you rebels out there

Elizabeth McGrath's work reminds me of the darker side of Tim Burton, pushed way darker... The site is nice, too.

Prix Ars Electronica digital art awards

Don’t miss the final opportunity to submit your innovative cyberarts project to the Prix Ars Electronica. The entry deadline has been extended to March 18, 2005!

Performers as activists

First, go to this old site by great performance artists who want to change the world.Think about the site, what it says, it is, and the like.Look at the date. Why does it seem as if nothing later happened? There is a strange feeling I associate with a lot of performance art - it is often strong, seems...

Russian (?) dolls

(Found the link at we-make-money-not-art.com) The Wurst Gallery (Portland, Oregon, US) had an original idea - they sent a set of (blank) Russian dolls to several artists (mainly local) and asked them to treat the dolls as canvas. Many of the results are surprizing and...

Pure Digital Art

I know Apartment by Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg is an old work (2001). But how come art on the net is supposed to be new to be good? Shouldn't it stand up against time? I think this work does - and has become more fascinating since its creation: a world living a...

Digital Art? Google Art.

As I searched for solutions and opinions about Google's ads on the internet (is it worth keeping something which makes me look like a passionate conservative politician?), I found the pretty project Google Adwords Happening by French artist Christophe Bruno. I would call...

Online vs. Offline Art: two cases

This was supposed to be only about Bruce Nauman's latest work, Raw Materials, at the Tate Modern (London) until the end of March. The work consists of speakers spread around the huge Turbine Hall. Or rather, it consists of sounds. Words coming out of the speakers. A...

Coming soon

• Of Goldfish and Men - using (and abusing) live animals in art
  
• What is right about pain? - personal tactics in Body Art
  
• Humiliation as Art? - Santiago Sierra
  

Recommended

Arnaud Jarsaillon's site has great, modern (don't you love the word?) design: it's original, suave, and comfortable. His excellent graphic works help, of course.

Think forward

I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it. - Steven Wright

Interactive art

On Martin Rieser's Mobile Audience Blog, there are two articles about different installations allowing visitors/passers-by to create/manipulate images on the screen through movement. The basic idea is the same: the body of the on-looker (obviously, the term is here out-of-date)...

Self-portrait without me

Obviously, no sociological work is ever about us. It might be about those who surround us, but we ourselves are different, unique.The idea of the automatedbeacon.net is simple: The beacon continuously relays selected live web searches as they are being made around the world, presenting them back in...

I really liked this

Art-in-nature

Land art has great future. There is more and more money being spent on public spaces, parks, squares, ambiguous-nobody-knows-whats - and progressively the idea of the exterior being "adaptable" to our imaginations is spreading and developing. That is not to say - forget the landscape! But realize what...

Esoteric Art

This was a very big post about today's art, and how it's dangerously close to something esoteric, how we are given little freedom from the "art professionals" to not like a work they appreciate (while at the same time admitting they don't know how to even describe it or...

Ugly and GOOD

(This post is copied from my older blog, by popular demand)1. As this blog is about art, aesthetic concerns should be important.2. I believe Plato has had a bad influence on the development of human thought. He is to blame for many things, but one of his worst ideas was associating Beauty with Goodness...

Generation Tarnation

Tarnation "is thirty-one year old director Jonathan Caouette’s inspiring documentary self-portrait, chronicling his chaotic upbringing in a dysfunctional Texas family and the unexpected relationship that develops with his mentally-ill mother Renee."It is far from being...

Our Secrets

Do you have a secret? Want to share it, but remain anonymous? Want to turn your secret into art? Here is how.There is something very appealing about this project. The incredible level of intimacy, the frankness. Although some commentators treat it more like an "interesting...

Favourite toy

Found on a Public Computer My Fovoite Toy Robote M y favoite toy is a robote becuos it can shout misels and it can jump and it can shuot at the same time and it can run and it can tock and punch and it can kick and it can jump and shout at the same time and it can do a...

"Art is for people who...

...want to use it." - Laurie Anderson. An interesting case (not the only one) of a performance artist that goes "unplugged". Laurie Anderson gained fame making huge solo multi-media shows. She often played the electric violin, but also sang, but also projected images, mixed...

Art for people, WITH people

One thing fascinates me both in Althamer's work Bródno 2000 and in Alys's When Faith Moves Mountains. They manage to convince "normal" people to do "artistic" things, and "artistic" in the most contemporary sense, that is, one that may escape easy aesthetic judgement. There are some other good examples...

Althamer

Paweł Althamer, a Polish, "international" artist, has his first retrospective exhibition in Warsaw, at the prestigious Zachęta (national) gallery. His works are so diverse, it is difficult to sum them up. He is perhaps best known for his ingenious installations/performances,...

Avantgarde

"Today's current theatre avant-garde includes reruns of the historical avant-garde as well as the practices of formerly experimental artists whose work is by now 'classical' in terms of its predictability, solidity, and acceptance. (...) The current avant-garde offers no surprises in terms of theatrical...

Who cares about theatre?

"I've never really been interested in theatre as such." - Robert Lepage (theatre director, of course) (other info about Lepage here and here)

Another Christo alternative!

Now this is really strange... By some total coincidence, I discovered yet another take on The Gates (read previous post for explanation...):From The Boston Globe:"Geoff Hargadon -- Hargo, now that he's a star -- is the creator of The Somerville Gates, a micro sendup of...

Christo - alternative

I'm sure you know about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's latest work, The Gates:
.

Well, this is an amazing alternative artwork, The Crackers:


You can find more about this masterpiece right over here. Enjoy :)