June 10, 2008
Tom Sachs vs. Tom Sachs
Although I have not seen Tom Sachs's massive bronzes at Lever House, I did walk through the Animals exhibition at Sperone Westwater. The title of the exhibition might as easily have been Sounds, rather than Animals: the sounds of an absent cat, of tools on their racks, or deadened (or amplified) pianos, and especially of animals becoming extinct -- all these sounds played an important role in the pieces. The Waffle Bicycle broadcast the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, from loudspeakers mounted to a massive modified bicycle. The bicycle has all of the necessary ingredients for making waffles, from the live chickens for producing the eggs to the refrigerated whipped cream for topping the end product. I first encountered Tom Sachs's work in the infamous Barney's Nativity display, and more recently on the cover of Dana Thomas's Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster. I am still uncertain about my grasp on the intersection of consumer culture and art as Tom represents it, but I enjoy the very visceral presentation of his work in the gallery setting. Tom brings a lot of surprisingly frank and violent ideas to his outwardly-calm pieces, such as the wood block with King Heroin burned onto gold leaf.... Read more
June 8, 2008
In which the web is our foley
Instant Rimshot vs Sad Trombone. If only the iPhone supported Flash ... well, that can be fixed: I recorded these into .mp3 files and made them easily accessible for my own nefarious purposes.... Read more
May 7, 2008
In which I found that essence rare(r)
Aram pointed out, via the excellent Brooklyn Vegan, that stalwart Gang of Four rockers Dave Allen and Hugo Burnham are leaving the band (again). Did I write stalwart? I meant totally awesome. I could hope to fit all of that cool and kickass into my whole lifetime — they stuck it into each of their records. I got a copy of their first record from a girl at my high school who was moving to California (to attend Berkeley, if I remember correctly); I was a couple of years younger than she, and received a stack of her hand-me-down records (Psychic TV amongst them) when she cleaned house. I was not prepared for what came over the speakers when I first put the needle down: the rhythm! the energy! the anger! Give me punk rock! Give me funk! The first video is from The Old Grey Whistle Test television programme twenty-five years ago, the second from the Electric Picnic festival recently.... Read more
April 19, 2008
Crazy
Since seeing Bryan Louie's video for Gnarls Barkley's Crazy in an exhibition about innovative electronic media, I cannot get the song ("Best Song of 2006!") out of my head (where have I been?). The band's televised performance of this same song is equally hypnotic. Why do large insects and bug-spray invariably call to mind my friend Wm. S. Burroughs?... Read more
April 14, 2008
Is it not art? We are artists!
Consider Levi van Veluw; consider The Enigma. Art? performance? photograph? Does a specific application of technology equal art? Does art require the skillful and expressive match of technique to technology? Pete Goldlust's carved crayon series may be the result of advanced industrial automation, but the skill, vision, and execution are artistic. Finally, keeping it old-school: this morning's New York Times reported on Leonardo's having illustrated a chess book: The book, “De Ludo Scachorum,” or “The Game of Chess,” is by Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and Renaissance mathematician who was a friend and collaborator of Leonardo. One of the earliest chess books, it contains 114 diagrams of chess problems drawn in red and black. Long thought to be lost or destroyed, it was discovered in 2006 in a 22,000-volume library in northeastern Italy that belonged to Count Guglielmo Coronini, who died in 1990. The last part amuses me greatly: the book was long thought lost. With the instantaneous (well, hundredths-of-a-second) speed of information retrieval, the thought of something being lost in a library charms me.... Read more
April 3, 2008
vs (This is a public-service announcement, with guitar)
vs The former has amazing footage of a breathtaking band at its best; the latter is delightfully perverted. Neither is artful, but both make a point.... Read more
April 1, 2008
vs (slack and tight)
vs shout out to Aden and to Mark Athitakis, and to the Hillel House concert where the former played this song with the name of the latter cleverly substituted into the chorus. I never especially enjoyed Superchunk, but the familiar name made the melody so much more appealing. Now, these fifteen years later, I find myself humming the refrain at all sorts of odd places (killing time on trains, for one).... Read more
