"…the folks back home were fed carefully selected, electronically captured, sometimes digitally processed images of distant and impersonal destruction. Slaughter became a video game: death imitated art."
— W J Mitchell
(Source: gmunk)
Friends!
Please let me invite you to an exhibition of new art. August 4th to 31st, the Higgins Gallery space at Pacific Northwest College of Art will host the presentation of an animation. How We See incorporates and exploits the ubiquitous aesthetic of digital image compression to create visually complex and beautiful experiences.
If in Portland, Oregon, for first Thursday, please take a second to look at the PNCA art galleries. The people showing are usually of a rather high caliber.
The piece will also be available to view on the website BrightLikeLight.com, where it can be downloaded for free in its native High-definition format.
August 4 - 31
Higgins Gallery
Pacific Northwest College of Art
Visual Art from JOSEPH WEBB at
I cannot help but share the funniest thing I have seen since I first found Art Thoughtz.
Just in case you feel that these modern times are making art too weird, here is a document from a 1982 Vito Acconci piece. The “Viewer Activated Sculpture” was premiered at PCVA in Portland, Oregon. Although the Portland Center for the Visual Arts is defunct, it is making a sincere attempt to rise from the dead as YU Contemporary.
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So, get out and see some crazy art! At the least, it will get you to think. And if you are in the Portland area, visit YU to view the PCVA archives that are on display until July 30th.
"Images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the stories we tell ourselves about our own evolution from creatures ‘made in the image’ of our creator to creatures who make themselves and their world in their own image."
— W. J. T. Mitchell
"The soul never thinks without an image."
— Aristotle
Milton Glaser,a personal hero of mine, muses on the act of drawing and its importance in life. “If I wasn’t drawing I have a sense that I would not be seeing,” Glaser says, while sketching a portrait of Shakespeare. He goes on to express his dissatisfaction with the status of drawing in everyday life and its falling status in art education. Being fortunate enough to have been taught by a wonderful drawing instructor, I can sincerely empathize with Glaser’s own feelings about the act of drawing being a “fundamental tool” for understanding the world. In a slightly more abstract sense, practicing drawing establishes a habit of investigating any subject more closely, to see how well its impression or appearance compares to a more thorough investigation of its characteristics.
Please, everyone, draw more; it will enrich your life.
“How important are activities like painting, band, choir or dance in Oregon’s cash-strapped schools? Advocates say that the arts help students think creatively and prepare for the job world. But making time for the arts is a controversial issue. This half-hour Oregon Art Beat special visits schools in Milwaukie, Prineville and Portland, and makes some interesting discoveries.”
-OPB
Though focused on schools in Oregon, this program fits into a wider discussion about the importance of performing and visual arts in shaping how humans gain a richer experience from learning and life. To think that a person should grow up being told that proofreading and crunching numbers are the most important skills one can learn is a true tragedy. Humans are not machines made for analytics and computation. We are a race of beings with an extremely advanced social and emotional intelligence. How, if not through the arts, can we expect to attain a truly whole experience as human beings?
SASCHA BRAUNIG
SASCHA BRAUNIG is a studio painter well on her way to becoming an extremely influential portrait artist. Braunig’s control over perspectival and textural rendering combined with a looseness of gesture creates small areas of trompe l’oeil—right around the eyes in Chameleon. The use of projected patterns in some of her paintings has the effect of collapsing the figure into the background, creating an interesting conflation between subject and scene. The palette Braunig creates is exquisitely creepy, making me feel as though every one of these portraits was painted in Dorthy Vallens’ apartment from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.
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Aside from rendering and color, Braunig appears to work from both real sitters and busts. This along with the makeup and effects Braunig uses on the models makes it very difficult to discern whether or not there is a sense of animation or aliveness. The total effect is rather surreal and uncanny.
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Braunig’s first solo exhibition is open until April 30th at Foxy Production in New York City.
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An Indicator of Problems in Art
In the library of my school, Pacific Northwest College of Art, I was studying some key terms for my contemporary art theory class. I had a very short conversation that went thusly:
“Are those for your critique?”
A classmate from my thesis courses says, pointing to a box of Cetaphil (daily facial moisturizer, SPF 15) and a box of Raid Ant Baits (I have ants in my kitchen right now).
I look around at my spread of posessions and pick up what I think she pointed to.
“These? Oh… No, these are just my groceries.”
"Cameras on, big lights, action
Welcome to the show
I am the main attraction
Money in the mattress
Money in the attic
Money on my mind
Money is my habit
Stay on the grind until money’s automatic
Bitch I love money I’m a fucking fanatic"
Welcome to the show
I am the main attraction
Money in the mattress
Money in the attic
Money on my mind
Money is my habit
Stay on the grind until money’s automatic
Bitch I love money I’m a fucking fanatic"
— Wheezy
