In the studio today

Dead Hare Radio Hour: Show #40 - Crystal Bridges

Another episode of the Dead Hare Radio Hour is out. The subject this time is the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ar.

Frank and Gloria in front of Crystal Bridges.

Roxy Paine's shimmering tree welcomes visitors to the museum.

Carolina Miranda is back on the Dead Hare Radio Hour (she was the program's very first guest) and she and I compare notes from our visits to the museum.  I recorded our conversation at Carolina's apartment in Brooklyn last May (she and her husband, El Celso, have since moved to L.A.)

Crystal Bridges opened in November of 2011.  I made the first of my first visit to the museum - a week after it opened - with my grandparents who live very close by.  You can see them in the photo at the top of this post.  (By chance, I'm releasing this podcast just two days after my grandpa broke his shoulder in two places from in a fall, so I'm a bit concerned for him.)

 Devorah Sperber's take on the Last Supper.

Below are some links relevant to the show.
Carolina's Crystal Bridges photo diary on her blog, c-monster.net includes images of several of the works discussed.
Carolina's most recent radio piece for NPR on the artist Llyn Foulkes.


A recent update on the Walmart bribery scandal in Mexico.

NPR's series on art destinations.

Martin Johnson Heade's exquisite paintings of rain forest orchids, butterflies and humming birds.

Vik Muniz responds to Heade's orchid paintings.

This Washington Examiner story states that the 600,000 Crystal Bridges visitors in the museum's first year is double the expected number.

A Wall Street Journal story on the Mark Rothko painting, No. 234/ No. 234, recently acquired by Crystal Bridges

Inside the Precious Moments Chapel.

More images from my visit to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, MO. can be found in this photo album.  This is one crazy joint. A real spectacle that is at once impressive, and a wee creepy.

Finally, this episode  wraps up with a short anecdote from Peter Acheson (Show #30 & #36 ) about an encounter he and his buddy Chris Martin had while hiking in Colorado.

Personal Best

Nighttime Painting 1, 2009, acrylic, gravel, glass beads on canvas 11"x14"

The second of the tangents in my previous post brought to mind an exercise I maintained periodically when I lived alone.  It's very possible that I mentioned it previously on the blog, but who's going to go back and check?
This exercise was a mental one in which I tried to calculate, given my current social circumstances, minus any telltale effects of odor, how long it would take for my body to be discovered after dying.  At one point, I figured that I could be dead about a month before anyone would consider my lack of contact a cause for alarm.  Although, my competitive nature yearned to strive for an ever longer period of time, I felt I should do my best to prevent that eventuality from growing past a month.  I think that I unconsciously omitted the odor factor from the calculation.
Now it could be that I'm simply forgetting this, but it was only after thinking about yesterday's post and the story of my dead invisible neighbor that I connected the progressive experience of tracking a dead man's progress through smell and this mental exercise.  I can't believe that a correlation between the two events would have escaped me, but the sensation of making the connection yesterday was so fresh, so revelatory, it felt like a true discovery. 
Although now, I'm feeling like what I've discovered may be the beginning of the dismemberment of my memories as I get further on in my own years.

Geneve Journal: Dec 14-15,2012, Paris and back

I was a little conflicted about going to Paris.  My objective in going was to meet up with and record a conversation with Magali Aubert who, by the fact that she was assigned to staying at my parents' house while on her month long Summer residency in Colorado in 1991, was the real kickstarter to this entire Geneva-facing part in my life. 
It's almost embarrassing to say I had never been before.  It's an embarrassing embarrassment to harbor, too. Talk about a problem born of privilege.  I really only in Paris to see Magali for the sake of the project, and I didn't want my attention to get diverted from the matter at hand, (never mind that I was spending a lot of time trying to scheme a way to travel from Geneva to Paris to Berlin to Milan to visit friends.) I was afraid of taking away time from being in Geneva, so I decided to make a precision incursion into Paris - arrive Friday afternoon, see a sight (I chose the Palais de Tokyo) or two, then meet up with "turtle girl" then out on the morning train.

Taking the 11:40 train out of Geneve gave me time to work on postcards and a few drawings in the morning. 

Got on the train - past the couple with mega stroller and baggage blocking the main corridor to find that It appeared that I'd be riding solo in a bank of four facing seats.  Awesome.  My buzz was killed by an aging Brit and his husky voiced wife of apparently Eastern Euro origin took who note of my largess and planted themselves in the two seats facing me from across the table.  A bit of a downer, but no biggie.  I retracted my legs and settled in for a more expected density.

Annoyingly, worldliness and self-awareness of this Limey's seemingly sophisticated accent belied the lack of vocal attenuation one might expect from a less couth-sounding voice.  This guys's voice carried.  Loudly.  I noticed it when I first took my seat than the couple was still seated behind me and across the aisle.  Now I was directly facing him.  I braced myself with provisions of seething which might sustain me through the voyage.
He was reading the paper, choosing to recite capsulizations to his wife who muskily replied in sighs and affirmative groans.  His first bit of sharing related to Allen Turing.  His wife seemed uninterested.  I learned quickly that her disinterest was, to him, a cue to continue.

Limey:  "Switzerland replaced Norway as the most expensive county in Europe."
Wifey:  "Hmm."

Next, he informed the car about NASA making a preemptive "told you so" video about the impending end of the world five days hence.

Half an hour later the couple were sent back to their own seats by proper ticket holders boarding the train at Bellegarde, France, regardless, the car was still kept abreast of the results of the Limey's reading.

Limey: "The Italians have no word for leadership.  The Germans have no word for small talk and the Eskimos have no word for war."

Limey:  " There's a costume drama on Sunday night back in England called 'Making of a Woman.'"

Limey:  "It's raining."

Limey:  "I thought we'd go for a walk outside" - this after hearing an announcement about our unplanned stop and accompanying request that no one disembark.



Limey:  "I'll shall return."  On his way to the cafe car. 

After returning from the cafe car he began playing a driving game on his ipad.
Limey:  "I had a chafe."
            "I want to break 400.  My best score is 394."
            "I'm now in the lead."
            "A nosty accident."
            "I've got 50 to beat."
            "I'm ahead."
            "Did you see those 2 police cars ganging up on me?"
            "Getting a hundred on the train is tough."
            "Must be able to do better than that."

Eventually, we arrived in Paris.


I was struck by two things upon arriving in Paris:  #1.  All the black people.   This sudden awareness is more descriptive of the extreme paleness of Geneva than anything else, but after spending almost 3 weeks in that bowl of mild Swiss milk, my eyes needed to adjust to the multi-colored metropolis of Paris.  #2.  The complete dirtiness of the train interior.  This joint was dirty; the archetypical depiction of urban dirt in a movie kind of dirty.   The state of the car I in which I was riding brought to mind something that has dumfounded me before, which is that the seats of several public transportation systems in several European cities are covered in cloth.  This astounds me, and seems like that modicum of urbane comfort represented by cloth upholstered seats must come at dear price.  Coming from the one city (Geneva)to the other (Paris) is a study in contrasts.  The fabric seats on the buses of Geneva seem perfectly natural in that near prisine environment, but I can not imagine an NYC subway that can't be hosed down and dissinfected regularly .....

Tangent #1
On a recent stint @ MOMA, I spent a night with friends in Brooklyn, as I do occasionally.  On my commute to Manhattan the next morning I was presented with an extremely crowded subway, which had one relatively open car.  With my commuting savvy being dulled through inactivity, I readily jumped on this car - and was confronted by a STENCH soooo strong, sooo pervasive and shocking that I was struck dumb.  I was paralyzed for a fraction of a moment, which was long enough to prevent me from exiting the train before the doors closed.   
Alone on one bench near the center of the car was a female figure, bent over.  My mind is dressing her in wintery layers of dingy, dirty pink.  I don't know if I'm imagining the rings of evaporated liquid that marked the floor around her presence, but I see them now.  The two ends of the car were packed by commuters trying to get as far away as possible.  Unbelievably, 3 or 4 people were sitting on the bench opposite from this being, and were still conscious.  Occasionally, pity and empathy for the poor soul/source of offense poked a toe under the thick velvet curtain of disgust that pressed on my field of thoughts, but then I had to take another breath.  It was an odor, thick and granular, the equivalent of walking through a cloud of glitter or a chest high field of thistles and burred grasses, not only are you besieged while in the midst, you must contend with attempts to shake off the material effects of your exposure long after the terrain has cleared.  On the subway that morning, my fear of my being being suffused with the smell for the rest of the day was great and I wasn't going to risk it.  I couldn't (but yet I can) believe my fellow commuters could tolerate this for the 10-30 minute ride that was their immediate future.  I jumped off at the next stop.  This was no mere unpleasant smell.  This was a death rattle of olfactory putridness which brought to boil a sensory memory from ten years previous.

Tangent #2:
Back in late '93 and '94, when I was "surviving" in NY, I took up residence for a time in a flop hotel in Hell's Kitchen, just off 50th St and 8th Ave, I think ( I always forget which Ave, but in any case the joint sat back from the corner that was kitty corner from the Winter Garden Theatre where CATS! was having its eternal run.)  I think I spent 5 weeks in this place and I think I paid $125 a week for my 1st floor room just off the lobby.  For sure this place was a scuzzy joint.  I wonder what the me of now would think if I were to visit the place today (I don't think it exists any longer.)  My room had a window onto a cavernous interior air shaft.  There was a bare bulb for a light on the ceiling.  There was a bed, a side table, a bureau, possibly a small table...but maybe it was just a chair.  I think there was a mini fridge in there.  There was a tv that had sound but no picture.  What my room didn't have for a fair share of my January/February stay was heat.  Those were some miserable nights.  Fully dressed, and then some, under the veil of a sheet called blanket, I left the light and the tv on for what heat they could produce.
Using the bathroom around the corner and down the hall wasn't exactly a picnic.  Except, it was like a picnic if you include the wildlife you'd likely encounter emerging from the room's crevices.  The ultimate memory from the time of my residence here was when one of my invisible neighbors kicked off, alone and unknown in his room.  Coming in late from a night with friends on a Wednesday, I ventured down to the bathroom and took note of the faint but pervasive odor of spoiled milk.  That odor evolved and strengthened in the proceeding days until on Sunday morning when, hearing a commotion in the hall, I peeked through the hole in my door to see a blur of dark blue uniforms passing by.  It was the NYPD.  The manager had discovered the body that morning.  When I left room for work that morning, I was pummeled by the malodorous emanations that flooded the hall after the cops had opened that door 20 feet and a corner from mine.  Among the weakest of the regrets I hold on to is that I didn't ask to view the body.  I think I was aware and fearful that the sticky stink would cling to me and my gear if I lingered too long.  The whole seen got disturbing in the next several days when, even though my neighbor had left the building, esScents had stayed on.  It was this lingering that proved to much for me.
 

So for that, I can not imagine NYC's subways clad in cloth as they are in Paris, and even Berlin.  Our Metro North commuter trains have vinyl upholstery - and those can trip alarms occasionally.  I'm getting the skeeves just thinking of the possibility.  But yes, I did actually take a seat on my journey on the RER A.

While on the RER A I saw a thin young man wearing a red beret.  If it's possible to embody a look which is both dorkie and douchy at the same time, this skinny dude did it.

My destination was the Palais de Tokyo to check out some contemporary art offerings before my meeting with Magali. 

Jerome Hentsch had told me about an exhibit of aboriginal painting that was on view at a museum of anthropology or sociology.  I wish I had taken his suggestion.  My visit to the Palais de tokyo ranks as one of the most disappointing museum experiences I've had.  Individually, there were some worthwhile pieces, like Ryan Gander's Esperlutte and William E Jones' film Is It Really So Strange?, but the overall installation and combination of works was uninspiring, dry, and lifeless.  There was one large installation by Fabrice Hybe amounted to a lot of effort made in creating the sprawling piece with subdivisions of environments through which one passed, including a small structure made entirely of refrigerators with the doors open, and a sort of clothes line gauntlet and some sort of lifesize bio-dump/ compost diorama.  It was a cross between an obstacle course and a Chuck E Cheese playland, but I found it largely devoid of charm.

It really sucked.  The very best part of the whole museum was a series of interventions in the stairwell, not all of which were visible, I think due to work being done.  There was more soulful spirit in the actions in that stairwell than in much of anything else on display.    Major bummer.

The sky was spitting rain and the wind was brutal.  Use of an umbrella was ineffective and hazardous.

I hopped on the metro in the direction of Magali's office in the 3rd Arrondissement and grabbed a beer while waiting for our meeting time.  She hasn't changed in twenty years. 

Standard started out more as a small pamphlet several years ago and has grown into a weighty glossy mag with an eclectic mix of art, culture and fashion, and if you ask Magali, she's guided this development without really knowing how to produce a magazine. She may not know how it's done.  She just does it.  I find it immensely impressive.  Standard is released on a quarterly basis.  The model on the current Spring issue's cover is wearing some wild tin can high heels.  

We drank and ate and drank and recorded a conversation until Magali's English gave out.  She told me the story of the death of her last cat during celebrations immediately after France's World Cup victory in 2000.  I'm haunted by that poor kitten's demise.

A bizarre portrait I made of Magali in 1992.

I picked up on a surrealist nature of Paris.  First of all, there's that sense of visiting a place for the first time, but sensing that you've been there before.  It's an odd familiarity wrought by exposure to place through film and tv, no doubt.  Perhaps its the same with first time visitors to NYC.   While all new, the experience has a lot of "old hat" about it.  Additionally, the scale of the streets in areas  feels wholly unreal, as if everything is slightly a smaller than life size model of itself.  As we walked to her apartment, I felt like I was walking on a back lot in some studio in LA.  

I don't know where we went that night, we passed the site of the Bastille, I know that, but I passed through the warren of Paris city streets in the dark, blind - pre-internet blind - an odd and refreshing geographical blindness that I don't experience much in this age of Google maps.

The next morning Magali walked me to the Gare de Lyon, and I was on my way back to Geneve.  

Mid afternoon I returned to my Genevois home base with the sense of comfort and satisfaction of a homecoming.

Crossing over to l'isle, an Archigraphy.

I worked on a few things then went out to a book launch/ signing for the publisher of an upcoming monograph on Hadrien Dussoix's work.  The vernissage was held at Librairie Archigraphy.  There, I met Hadrien's girlfriend Yoko and occupied much of my time with perusing the artbooks.  After the event the three of us made our way to Livresse, a small lesbian bar/bookstore which serves up Belgian beers.  On the way, I discovered Hadrien's fondness for Root beer, a proclivity we share.

We started to drink.  I drank a lot that night, and had a grandly fun time.  

Some of Hadrien's works at Livresse.

What I can remember of our conversation: some debate on the suitability of artists as parents ( I feel like I had been inserted into a private debate)....and hours worth of other topics I can't recall.  But out of the evening came the seed of a yearlong project for Hadrien and myself, one which is underway (and I trust he is doing his on a daily basis as I am here)  

It's a diaristic, ritualistic project.  we are each creating a "work" every day this year born of an utterance during a smoke break.  More on this later.  Here are a couple pieces I've made in realizing this project:

January 7, 2013

February 1, 2013

There's a wonderful sense of pride of accomplishment one feels when one can find one's drunken way home in a foreign city utilizing long buried sensory memories of the place and gut instinct as the primary navigation tools.

A Genevan street turned Xmas tree lot.

It was a good night, and with it a project of mutual accountability ...

TV tray to the stars.

One of the things that I might have set out as a goal for myself for this project/trip was to lay the groundwork for future works, not just making a retrospective endeavor.  The real gift and uplifting feeling from the trip came from realizing that indeed my interactions and experiences were spawning new works and new possibilities.  That was a thrill that pervaded the drunken night and which has outlasted the hangover.

In the studio today

Geneve Journal: Diary Dec 10-13, 2012

Monday, December 10 was the one day I stayed in for the whole day, save for a quick trip to the grocery store,  Having the entire day for working on watercolors and drawings.  A great long productive day.

Tuesday started with an early morning, long awaited, rendezvous with the good Sister Juliana van Thulden.  I'll get into that experience in a future post.
My next appointment for the day was lunch with Jérôme Hentsch.  We met in the Place des Eaux Vives.  He then walked me over to his favorite restaurant in Geneva; small sushi place nearby which features the work of the best sushi chef in town, a man who has spent many years in Geneva, but has managed to not grasp much of a hold on neither French nor English.   Over the course of this lunch I ate lots of sushi....copious amounts of sushi.  Perhaps more sushi in this one sitting that the combined consumption of nearly all the sushi eating sessions in my life, and probably the most sating encounter I've had with the cuisine to this point.

More than adequately filled with lunch, we proceeded to Jérôme's studio which rests adjacent to the Plaine de Plainpalais.  This is the first time I was able to glimpse a bit of his work - and it was just a glimpse as much of what was there was well packed, having just returned from an exhibit.  While in the studio I recorded a conversation about his work, with the screeching wheels of the trams audible through the windows. I wish I had recorded our conversation in the restaurant as well as that was also packed full of interesting morsels.

Among the things we talked about were his belief in the sacredness of the studio and his utter abhorrence of the "open studio" event, and his interest in Lewis Carroll as a figure important to contemporary art.

Some time back I started a list enumerating those occurrences of serendipity or synchronicity that that give me a start, and make me stop.  Perhaps it's a word or image, or person I'm exposed to, seemingly for the first time, or at least for the first time that I notice. Then in short order, hours or just a few days later, I encounter that same word, image, or person again...and perhaps repeatedly.

In discussing a body of his most recent work; large "human scale" minimal geometric paintings evoking a door or window, Jérôme showed me in image in a book which is the conceptual center of this body of work.  The image, which can be seen below is one of the extremely few photographic images to come out of Auschwitz prior to it's liberation by the Allies.  It's a famous photo, taken surreptisiously through a window, of a scene in which the bodies of prisoners are being burned.

It's a famous photo, but I had never seen it.  I wasn't familiar with it.  Two weeks later, back at home,  I was watching the film Gerhard Richter Painting.  This same photo is pinned to the wall of Richter's office.  In talking about the photo he remarks on how "normal" the scene looks, as if these people were gathered for some really banal purpose.  He points out the figure in the center of the image with his arms to balance himself, as if he was walking along a log and not amidst a mound of corpses.

A screen capture still from Gerhard Richter Painting.

This photo, and my two encounters with it have been added to my list.

Brass key chain depicting the original, austere grave marker of Jean Calvin, produced, along newsprint publication, by Jérôme for the Post Tenebras Luxe exhibit at the Musee Rath in 2009.

From Jérôme's studio, I ventured to meet Mathias at the studio of Madgalena Cenolli where we partook in some Escalade Marzipan marmite, vodka and I learned a bit about Magdalena's work.

Magdalena's plastic holga outfitted with a Fuji back which produces mini Polaroid-like pics

Issues of the mirror and reflection had been bouncing around in the fore of my thoughts for a few days and the topic arose in my conversation with Jerome and it was reinforced in speaking with Magdalena as her work at times utilizes the mirror.  Many of her photographic images suggests the sense of a mirrored reflection even when they are not reflected images.  But Magdalena is more  involved and interested in the relationship and division between the body (both literal and metaphorical) and the image - a different flavor of the object/reflection palate. 
Her works have both photographic and sculptural elements.  The cult of Poloroid plays strongly in her work as she employs a range of techniques that embody the type of distortions one would expect when those floppy wafers would get fucked up.  In one branch of her work, Magdalena is printing images on clay and creating an extremely realistic ceramic sculpture of that familiar Poloroid wafer, giving the body back to the image in these super delicate objects.

 Two views of one of Magdalena's ceramic "polaroids". From her online portfolio.

After our visit we went out for fondue in the little seasonal huts I filmed on my first night in town.  Fondue is one of those cuisines that while so entirely appealing and novel in it's cultural cache, for me walks a fine line between delectable and disgusting.  I like it, but there is something in what I sense as a sour sweetness that brings to mind other people's mucous.  This sensory image is more strongly evoked the more I eat fondue.  We ate a lot of fondue that night.  I was encouraged to take the burnt remainder of the cheese in our pot home and have it for breakfast the next morning.  That was the last thing I wanted to think about at that moment.

The fondue huts.

I'll just interject here another wintertime treat that sounds and seems much greater than it is, for my taste, anyway: any variety of Gluwien, vin chaud, mulled wine etc.  The concept of this warmth giving nector seems as appealing as a mid Winter's hot tub soak.  In practice, however, the odor of these concoctions is shrill and acidic....and reminds me of other people's urine.  I at once salivate and want to hurl when I smell it.  Also, upon smelling it, my face embarks on the start of a sour grimace which can finds its true completion only in the tasting of the stuff.  The many food and beverage stalls set up throughout the old city of Geneva for the Escalade observance reeked of the stuff.  The image of all the folks partaking at the Christmas Market in Bern, with their little ceramic mugs was so appealing and inviting, except for my knowledge of what swilled inside those little blue mugs.  For me, nothing beats a straight hot cider.

 It was a dynamic and an indulgent gustatorial day, Two major gorgings intermingled throughout with beers, multiple shots of vodka and multiple glasses of wine gave rise to an envisioned image of a cheesy mound of fish and bread working it's way through my system...an image I actually would have liked to see.

Contrary to my expectations, I was feeling fairly fine the next morning.  The food and misc. alcohol must have balanced each other out to subvert any possible hangover effects from taking hold.
Recurring often in the trip through the many mentions of fondue was the emergence of a fond memory of a fondue set we had when I was a child.  I don't remember ever seeing it in use, but I remember vividly that the wooden handle of each fondue fork was capped with a different boldly hued plastic hemisphere..  I know it was the color that was intriguing to me, but it must also have been the shape and interaction of the wood and plastic that made these things so magical; jewel-like, even.

A peek inside the windshield of a sketchy bus that seemed permanently parked below the art museum.

The first part of Wednesday was given to more work in the apartment, - and trying to secure a last minute ticket for my mom to see the Andy Williams Christmas show, complete with a memorial tribute to Andy Williams at the singer's Moon River Theater in Branson, MO.  Then it was a quick trip to the art museum, then another trip to chez Dussoix to record another conversation - this time with Xavier - about how his pursuits in film, studying that medium in Paris, evolved into creating light and projection based installations and then pure plastic sculpture.

Xavier explaining to me the points of one of  his sculptural projection "screens"

I don't think it's a stretch to view this progression in the sculptures and installations he's creating now.

An example of Hadrien's notetaking/mental mapping taped to the wall of his apartment.

Thursday was much the same as Wednesday, another visit to chez Dussoix to record a chat with Hadrien which touched on his experience of being a sort of a gestural pop aesthetic outlier in the predominantly hard edged geometric/ conceptual painting milieu of Geneva.

"You May Find Yourself In A Beautiful House" was Hadrien's contribution to the Post Tenebras Luxe exhibit at the Musee Rath in 2009.

On my way back home from my meeting with Hadrien, I stopped by the train station to pick up my train ticket to Paris for my journey there the following day. 

Oh Christmas (no)Thing 2012: B-E-A-S-T-(IE), Find out what it means to me

For the first time in five years, the KAMP MAYKR household was not outfitted with its customary  Christmas Thing.  With my return from Geneva coming so close to the holiday, and my attention drawn to reflecting on that experience,  I simply couldn't get the job done.
However, to make up for the lack of a xmas assemblage, I want to share a discovery I made which I think may have an impact on current Christmas scholarship.

In the days leading up to - or immediately following Christmas this year, I was at the gym, working up a sweat on the stair step-py machine while watching a 2009 rerun of SNL.  During the Weekend Update segment, a photo of a fur-wrapped Aretha Franklin was shown, accompanied by a punchline about her being eaten by a bear. 

I recognized the image immediately as being directly related to the mural restauration-gone-awry that has come to be known as Beast Jesus.  Last Summer in Zaragosa, Spain, Cecilia Gimenez, in an effort which would bring the issue of art restoration and conservation to the consciousness of much of the world, sought to "repair" the damaged mural of Christ entitled Ecco Homo painted by Elias Garcia Martinez in around 1930.
There must be something mysterious and magical afoot.  The uncanny likeness between the two images, the relation to the sacred in both (the mural's depiction of Christ in a church, Aretha's appearance occurring at that most sacred of Christmas observations; the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, in 2009).  Aside from the conscious internet memes, might we inadvertently see more images of this nature?  It all makes me think that something greater was at work when Mrs Gimenez put brush to mural last year.
Perhaps the one of the greatest painterly fuck ups in history might really be the primitive stirrings (channeled through an 80 yr old Spanish woman) of a more profound vision/message of the divine. 

A cursory search online makes me believe that this connection has gone unnoticed until now, and that's why I've decided to publish my finding now.  I don't know what it means, but I leave it to those so inclined to pursue the trail which may well advance the quest for the elusive true meaning of Christmas.  

Mark your calendars: Upcoming art/culture lectures at Vassar College.

Vassar College hosts a number of fascinating lectures and events throughout the year which are open to the general public, but historically, they've done a lousy job of making information about such events available.  The college's online calendar has gotten better in recent years, and there is an RSS feed that one can subscribe to which will tell you what's coming up "tomorrow", which doesn't give much of a heads up.  That said, in the interest of my own entertainment and as a service to any readers out there, I've perused Vassar's Spring schedule of lectures and pulled out those that I think would be interesting.  Most of these are visual/media art and art history related - I think.  Most of the calendar listings don't actually give details as to the subjects of the lectures.  In some instances, I've pasted information about the speaker that may indicate the nature of the talk.


On Feb 5th at 8pm, Mo Rocca will appear at Vassar under the auspices of the Krieger Lectures Series which each year invites a humorist or author or humorist author to speak. 

Feb 7, 5pm (Taylor 203), Nick Monfort "Creative Computing and Literary Code."  - Not exactly sure what this talk will entail, but I'm very interested.  It's sponsored by the Media Studies Dept.  Unfortunately, I don't think I can attend.

Feb 19, 6:30pm (Taylor 102), Millicent Marcus.   Prof. Marcus "specializes in Italian Culture from the interdisciplinary perspectives of literature, history and film."  There's no notation as to what this talk will cover.

March 26, 5pm (Taylor 203), Egyptologist Kara Cooney will be speaking - probably on subjects Egyptian. This lecture is part of the Claflin series which focuses on art and art history related subjects. 

April 1, 5pm (Taylor 203), Marcel O'Gorman.  From his website:

His written work is reflected in his art projects, which often seek to materialize specific critical theories about the impact of technology on the human condition. O'Gorman's art draws primarily on sensor-based computing, video, and the creation of sculptural environments designed to challenge the disembodiment of conventional screen-based media.

April 8, 5pm (College Center Villard Room), Judith Butler. This lecture is sponsored by the Religion Dept.

April 9, 6pm (Taylor 203), Lukasz Stanek will be giving a talk on Henri Lefebvre.  From grahamfoundation.org:
The book Henri Lefebvre on Space is the first comprehensive account of Henri Lefebvre's theory of the production of space published in English. It confronts a broad conceptual overview of Lefebvre's theory with two largely forgotten sources of his thinking about space: his engagements into empirical research about everyday practices of dwelling in post-war France, and his exchanges with architects and planners in the course of the 1960s and 1970s

April 17, 6pm (Taylor 102), Amy Sillman

April  25, 6pm (Taylor 102), Mirka Beneš. I'm guessing the topic of this lecture will revolve around landscape architecture of Italy or France or both.

Meet yer Maykr: Mark DeLura

On his blog, Form In The Fire, Peter Acheson recounts his recent visit to the studio of painter Mark DeLura.

Peter's posting prompted me to post images I took during a visit he and I made to Mark's studio back in November of 2010.

At that point, Mark had just embarked on his explorations of clusters of drip-tethered "splatters" (at this point, smaller scaled works done in oil on paper) which can be seen as the forebears of the paintings described in Peter's post.

On our 2010 visit Mark also showed us the large stripe paintings the pre-dated his (I'll just refer to them as "cluster") paintings.

What these works all share is the source of their chromatic character.  The colors here are not random "imaginary hues" but appropriated ones which have been found by the artist in the natural landscape and collected into a library through excursions in which they were mixed from nature.  

In Sept 2011 Mark's exhibit at the voluminous Re Institute in Millerton, NY paired his exploration of form and gesture with a new use of industrial paints (mostly silver and barn red).

It's interesting to me that, as with the earlier works, the colors Mark has chosen for the recent ones are not invented but appropriated and are readymade hues that are "naturally" found in the man-mediated landscape.


Peter will be speaking about his own work this coming Saturday, January 19 at 4pm as part of This Red Door's offering of events at the Kunsthalle Galapagos in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

Kunsthalle Galapagos is locate upstairs from the Galapagos Art Space.

I was able to check out both the Kunsthalle Galapagos and the TRD set up on Sunday when I went down to do a little recording for Dead Hare Radio, and to take in a reading of selections from Christopher Stackhouse's newly published volume of poetry, Plural.

The visual evidence of TRD's series of talks and presentations on the gallery walls.

Various readers shared selections of Christopher Stachkhouse's poetry.