From a Land, from a Faraway Place
I have always found writing about Orientalism in illustration hard. It's hard, because every picture becomes its own Arabian Nights; threatening to whisk you off into a different realm. Self-contained themes lead you away into another ideaaand another, and another. Before you know it, you have leapt so far into a single image, clambering after ethereal motifs, that you cannot see your original starting point andalike a magic carpet that flies only so long as you believe in itayou start to sink.
The perils of this journey are manifold. You are, after all, talking about big ideas in small pictures. And they can be vague ideas, ideas that mean different things to different people; contradictory, mellifluous, beguiling.
In the context of illustration, there is an additional challenge. Orientalist picturesaespecially the ones that accompany fairy talesaare ostensibly fiction. And yet, they represent non-fictional ideas and attitudes also. In one sense, these are drawings without a line. The "real pictures" awash in fiction; the fictive pictures no less real. Love them too much, and you're no better than the racist Victorians; reducing complex cultures to one-dimensional caricatures. Refuse to love them, and not only do you ignore some terrific art, but a major part of history, too.
Posted: September 4th, 2010
at 3:56pm by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: art theory
Comments: No comments
Aldo Castillo Interview
The Windy City Times recently talked with Aldo Castillo, Associate Director of the Miami International Art Fair, which happens January 13-17, 2011, about closing the award-winning gallery bearing his nameAand now identifying with a larger world. Below is an excerpt from the interview:
The art fair you’re becoming director of takes place in January?
Yes, Jan. 13-17. That’s the one I’m directing, but I’m helping, shaping the fair so it becomes competitive. Because the gallery behavior has totally changed-you don’t see that many customers walking by into galleries anymore. Galleries are facing new challenges and they have nothing to do with the economy, they have to do with technology. Galleries now depend on their websites for people to know where they are or what they do. Many people who like art like to go to art fairs because it’s like a little museum coming to you for three days or four days. When it comes to the business of people looking at art, art fairs are the prime today the main venue for selling art.
Why did you decide to keep your gallery here online?
Because I am considered one of the main voices for Latin American art. I have studied the movements in Latin American art, what sells, what doesn’t sell, the prices, the authenticity of the work, so I am a key person that is knowledgeable about that. When I decided to close the gallery, all these people advised me not to do it-to keep the name alive. It’s better to keep what I have done open.
Posted: September 3rd, 2010
at 5:00pm by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: art,contemporary,events
Comments: No comments
Jason Krugman : Electric Zoo Art Installation
Living Objects in Brooklyn's McCarren Park - December 2009
Jason Krugman is displaying his Living Objects series this weekend in NYC at the Electric Zoo Festival, stop by!
RANDALL'S ISLAND, NY September 4th and 5th, 2010 - Jason Krugman will present a large-scale illuminated sculptural installation as the art centerpiece at this year's Electric Zoo music festival. Currently in its second year, the 2-day festival is expected to draw upwards of 40,000 fans with its 70+ musical acts, including headliners The Chemical Brothers and Armin Van Buuren.
Krugman's installation will be the most recent incarnation of his ongoing "Living Objects" series, based around the creation and placement of illuminated humanoid sculptures. The sculptures are made largely from recycled shrink-wrap, wire and LED strands. With his Living Objects, Krugman strikes a balance between authentic human beings, and artificial forms, comprised of industrial plastic and refuse. In a combination of Parks-Department-approved and guerilla installations, Krugman has placed his sculptures in trees, on top of buildings, and in public parks.
"‘Living Objects’ [are] simultaneously impressive and scrappy: they're the kind of pieces you appreciate and engage with almost immediately, due to their human- like form as well as their construction." JAMES YEH - GREENPOINT GAZETTE
: For more information go to jasonkrugman.com :
Living Objects in McCarren Park was commissioned by the North Brooklyn Public Arts Coalition and the Open Space Alliance. Photos by Sarah Pirozek
Posted: September 3rd, 2010
at 9:56am by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: music,design,contemporary,events
Comments: No comments
How Black People Use Twitter
In April, Edison Media Research released a survey which found that nearly one-quarter of people on Twitter are African-American; the firm noted this was "approximately double the percentage of African-Americans in the current U.S. population." -Slate
Slate’s How Black People Use Twitter article created a minor trending and dying uproar among the internet’s (supposed) black community.A This article maybe be a vaportrend, seeing as the stats are most definitely wrong in the first place.A Why would we assume that people with black avatars on twitter are black
I was a little taken aback by the #browntwitterbird, but Imani J. Walker let me know I wasn’t alone.A Both are interesting reads.
Posted: September 2nd, 2010
at 10:30am by Black Ock
Categories: #twitterisfothebirds
Comments: 1 comment
Nanoscale Matterhorn
Using a novel nanotip-based patterning technique, IBM scientists have created a 25 nanometer-high replica of the Matterhorn peak, a famous Swiss mountain that soars 4,478 m (14,692 ft) high on a piece of molecular glass, representing a scale of 1:5 billion (1 nanometer corresponds to 57 altitude meters). To create the 3D replica 120 individual layers of materials were removed.
Published in Science and Advanced Materials, IBM scientists have demonstrated a new technique that uses a nanoscale tip with a sharp apex - 1 million times smaller than an ant - to create 2D and 3D patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometers at greatly reduced cost and complexity. This patterning technique opens new prospects for fabricating nanosized electronics and objects in fields ranging from future chip technology to opto-electronics to medicine and life sciences.
NINJAPAN BLOG vol.6
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