Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

The dreary weather gave me a chance to see a film I've wanted to catch for a long time: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist who has been pretty outspoken about the human rights abuses in China, one notable example being his work to uncover the shoddy school construction that led to many deaths from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.  He also worked on the famous Bird's Nest stadium for the Olympics (which he later boycotted) and installed an exhibit at the Tate using one hundred million hand-painted sunflower seeds (yes, thats One Hundred.  Million.)

Not surprisingly, he was detained by the Chinese government for three months on charges of 'tax evasion'.  I've depicted him in a couple of my works: both 'The Others' in the E Pluibus Unum show and as part of an installation highlighting imprisoned artists.

The trailer from YouTube:

It you're on the east coast, you can see his work in person at the Hirshorn.

Radio West recently interviewed the filmmmaker as well.

http://www.hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/home/#collection=ai-weiwei-according-to-what

http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/ai-weiweis-art-dissent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/11/tate-modern-sunflower-seeds-review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_schools_corruption_scandal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dtfeh6a01c
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1845773/

How to Steal Ideas and be OK With It: Art Magazines

One of the aspects I enjoy most about being an artist is trying to steal ideas from others.  To quote T.S. Eliot:

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."

Here are some of the places, specifically periodicals, I've found really fruitful for ideas:

Juxtapoz
Available in both digital and meatspace forms, Juxtapoz presents a snapshot of contemporary (urban?) culture through art, most of it unsettlingly awesome.  The Nov '12 issue was dedicated to politics and included interviews with Shepard Fairey ('Obey' and 'Hope' motifs), an ad for "Bad Dads: an art show tribute to the films of Wes Anderson', and a Barbie doll in a blender.
http://www.juxtapoz.com/

High Fructose
HF is a quarterly mag that doesn't yet have a digital version, although many of the articles can be found on their website.  It is the slightly more cerebral but still edgy-contemporary big brother of Juxtapoz.  Looks sweet casually thrown on your stainless steel ottoman before that hipster wine and cheese party.
http://hifructose.com/

Sculpture
If you really want to buckle down and get your head into some art, Sculpture provides great interviews with mostly established (read: famous) artists.  I don't find the visuals as stunning as the two above but it makes up for it with a simple clean layout and world-wide coverage.
http://www.sculpture.org/documents/sm-arch.shtml

Iron & Air
This isn't an Art magazine but a publication with art: specifically, custom, garage-built motorcycles.  It's about dudes (and dudettes) who find a 1972 something-or-other behind grandpa's hay barn and turn it into a fire-breathing 140mph+ bit of steel and spinning rubber.  This is about craft, not plunking down a credit card at the Harley dealership.  If you don't have (or even like) motorcycles the photography is fantastic anyway.
http://ironandair.com/magazine/

MAKE
MAKE is what happens when all those kids who got beat up for winning the science fair in 5th grade get to publish their own magazine.  If you like Mythbusters, MacGyver, or have a holster on your belt for your multi-tool, MAKE is for you.  There's a lot of cross-pollination with Instructables as well.
http://makezine.com/
http://www.instructables.com/

What unites us?

 . . . This is a question that has been on my mind over the last few months.  I'm part of a show going up this October with the theme 'E Pluribus Unum' (literally, 'Out of Many, One').  The exhibit is designed, in the words of curator Namon Bills:

"[The show] will be a response to the ultra-partisan nature of our country's current political climate. The concept is based on the United States' paradoxic situation as a unified whole composed of varying voices — the very embodiment of e pluribus unum: from many, one. America has always been an amalgamation of divided visions, dreams and opinions — even going back to the earliest days of our country's founding. America's success comes not from all of our citizens looking and thinking alike, but from our rich diversity of experience, background and opinion, combined with a willingness to talk to, listen to, and work with those that we disagree with. This country was founded on a willingness to set aside individual differences and compromise for the good of the whole."

It is not-so-coincedentally timed right at the elections.

In preparation I read and watched the John Adams book and miniseries as well as Naomi Wolf's 'The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot".  Nice bookends on the American experience.

One of the things that struck me about the history of our country is the repeated emergence of 'The Other'; a common foe or challenge that unites us (the British, the French, the Loyalists, terrorism, etc).  Although I'm no historian, it seems as though when we don't have an external foe we turn on a facet of our selves (Republicans, Democrats, the Tea Party, snowboarders . . .).

I'm all for keeping each other accountable, but what happened to recognizing The Other as a concept that pushes us to our better selves, rather than an enemy to be defeated?  I think tennis is a good metaphor: neither opponent can play by themselves, and the best athletes recognize that their success depends on their competitors.  Although I'm no fan of Lance Armstrong, his battles with Jan Ullrich during the Tours of the early 2000's exemplified this spirit.  Of course politics and armed conflicts have much higher consequences than Wimbledon and the Tour de France, and sometimes the Enemy/Other must be dealt with accordingly.

I think it is the compressing of the spectrum of The Other to a single concept that is particularly dangerous.  It is becoming harder and harder to distinguish who is our metaphorical tennis opponents and who should be under surveilance or on the Predator drone short list.  

Specifically I wanted to depict artists who questioned their context and were imprisoned for it.  I also wanted to try my hand at stencils by using them to create layers of patina on metal plates (rather than the 'traditional' spray paint masking a la Banksy):

The following images are spray paint and rust tests that will inform the final plates:

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer born around WWI who was sentenced to 8 years in a labor camp for his criticisms of Stalin.  

Rust patina test on mild steel sheet

spray paint test on cardboard

patina test on mild steel

Ai Weiwei is a contemporary Chinese artist who has been particularly outspoken about the human rights abuses and 'democracy' of China.  He was arrested and his studio demolished.  He is also the subject of a recent documentary Never Sorry.

spray paint test

Henry David Thoreau was an American writer in the 1800's who was arrested for refusing to pay taxes that would support slavery.

spray paint test on cardboard

Tim DeChristopher is an activist who I categorize as a 'performance artist' (although he may not) who intentionally disrupted illegal federal land lease auctions in Utah by posing as a legitimate bidder.  He is currently serving a prison sentence.

spray paint test on scrap cardboard (I like how the bar code ended up on his forehead -- unintentional Warhol-esque commentary on the commodification of protest?)

Geeking out with Arduino

Recently I've maxed out my geek-o-meter and have been trying my hand at building & coding a microprocessor to use in dynamic/interactive sculptures.  I've started with the Arduino, a pretty straightforward but powerful bit of open-source electronics that has a large support network on the interwebs.


An overview from MAKE magazine, one of the greatest publication of all time:

http://blog.makezine.com/arduino/


A hub with lots of information/tutorials for the Arduino crowd:

http://www.arduino.cc/

Here's a TED talk about the Arduinio 'open-sourcing the imagination':

http://www.ted.com/talks/massimo_banzi_how_arduino_is_open_sourcing_imagination.html

And a few projects that give an idea of what you can do with this crazy little thing:

Giant flame-throwing scorpion, with come videos:

http://mantisentertainment.com/gallery/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8HSnIEE20&feature=autoplay&list=UUZLshGezpuu_c-_7GxlFwTA&playnext=1

Mind-controlled flame thrower (there are other things it can do besides control flame effects, these are just some of the coolest):

http://blog.makezine.com/2012/07/28/detroit-hackerspaces-1-i3-detroits-mind-flame-contest/

Prepping wood from trees

This is a log from a cottonwood cut several years ago.  I did nothing to it except let it sit, and you can see the cracks that resulted.  For some pieces it may be desirable to let it crack deliberately and use this pattern, but structurally it is compromised and would have to have a supporting base or framework so it doesn't fall apart.

Until recently I've used wood that's been milled (or more commonly, already used) before I got to it.  I've been waiting for a chance to try starting with the tree rather than the pre-cut planks at a wood supply house.  When a neighbor told me he was going to remove a giant apricot tree from his property, I jumped at the chance to try it.

Two of the greatest woodworkers of all time, George Nakashima's and Sam Maloof were experts at this.  Take a look at Nakashima's use of the live edge and butterfly insets in his work.

The original tree, marked with sections that I have sculpture ideas for.  I was inspired partly by a visit to James Surles'  studio in Carbondale (www.jamessurles.com)

Newly cut wood ('green' wood) is heavy because of all the water weight.  Slow, consistent drying is key to reducing the number of cracks and structural abnormalities.  Many sculptors either use a large kiln to dry wood or keep a rotating stock ready for use.  For air-drying, a good rule of thumb is 1 year per inch of thickness . . . so for large pieces the planning process can start a decade or more before the sculpting even starts.

Cookies chainsawed and ready for sealant

Drying cookies prepped with different sealants as an experiment

Cracks that showed up on an untreated log a day after cutting

Sealant added to the ends of cuts to slow the moisture loss.  Eventually I'll cut strips out of the bark to allow for more even drying (and fewer cracks).

CSU MFA exhibit

Got the chance to see CSU's Master of Fine Arts Thesis exhibit a few days ago. If you're in the N Colorado/ Ft Collins area, I recommend checking it out.

There was one artist in particular I especially liked: Eli Marco Hall, who did a video series that depicted his use of typography on various public spaces. He use shadows on walls, rocks, even firearm pock marks in concrete to illustrate several personally relevant phrases ('you're not me', 'cancer consumed her', etc). The best part wasn't the design of the typeface or the sayings themselves, but the theater of their production and disintegration caught on time-lapse film. Seeing the film in the gallery gave me a perspective that I wouldn't have gotten if I saw the work in person, or even it's construction real-time.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take photos in the gallery so you'll have to see it in person.

Great Basin Table installed

Great Basin Table, 17" x 41" x 21", 2012.  Steel and plywood.

I had a great trip out the Great Basin National Park to install a piece, give a couple presentations on my work, and help out with the filming of a new documentary on the Park being done by North Shore Productions.

The table was inspired by several of my experiences during my residency there; most notably the idea that there are several visual geometries acting in the Park, sometimes in cohesion and sometimes conflicting with one another.  There are human-made as well as natural and organic shapes and the interplay between them is fascinating.  This of course, is no new revelation (William Fox describes it as 'one of the oldest dichotomies in history, the tension between the organic shape of the natural world and the mathematical grid').

Great Basin Table  at the lower Park visitor center in Baker, NV

I was specifically interested in the shapes we make on the land that are unintended yet beautiful anyway, and the relationship between mathematical forms that at first glance appear as human constructs but show up outside of our influence.

The base of the table is inspired by a specific Bristlecone Pine found high on a ridge of Mt. Washington in the southern end of the Park, and the right-angled forms are placed using the Golden Ratio, a mathematical relationship that describes natural geometries ranging from the curve of the human ear to the spiral of galaxies.  The top is a rough map of Baker, NV, showing dirt roads and the irrigation pivots as seen from satellite imagery.  Baker is the closest town to Great Basin National Park and home to many of the Park employees and caretakers of the Great Basin and its travelers.

table top detail showing satellite imagery-inspired carving

Satellite image of Baker, NV

Golden Ratio

Bristlecone Pine that inspired the table base

Film crew in the sculpture studio

Filming in the Park

Hiking camera equipment up to the Bristlecone grove

Table prepped for filming

Bones

Bone II, 10" x 7" x 35"

I just completed two pieces that had been germinating since my time in the Great Basin and delivered to the 3rd Street Art Center's "Feel Free to Touch 2" exhibit in Carbondale.  They'll be on display throughout the month of June.

Bone III, 5" x 17" x 20"

Each of these was inspired by bone fragments I found while traveling the basin and range of Utah/Nevada.  To make them I used wood scraps that I also found in the area; I thought it was an important symmetry to depict the forms with materials that were also cast aside and weathering in the same context.

Model/prototype in progress with original bone inspiration

Detail of  Bone II,  with bondo-colored epoxy accents

As a side note, there are many other fantastic sculptures in the exhibit, including those of James Surls and John Doyle.

John Doyle's  Walnut Hand

Architectural Details: Windows & lights . . .

Just finished a few projects that have more of an architectural flavor to them.

A couple of window coverings, influenced by the Kanagawa Wave, surfing, and the sweet skiing out here in the Wasatch:

And a light using steel remnant cuttings from a crampon manufacturer.  After working with New Balance's fabric cuttings, I have been exploring some ideas using manufacturing remnants and was excited to try these out.  See if you can figure out what part of the crampon they're from . . .

The remnants before I started on them . . .

Art Film

Usually when I hear someone say "Oh, you should see this, its an ART FILM" I turn and run in the other direction -- I only have so many heartbeats in this life and I really don't like spending any of them confused or frightened, which usually happens to me at things like Sundance showings.

The following are films ABOUT art that I've found really inspiring in the last year or so, and thought you might too.


Herb & Dorothy

This is a documentary about this couple who collects art in New York, and not just any art.  They've found incredibly influential artists like Sol LeWitt, Chuck Close, and Roy Lichtenstein before they were 'discovered' by the mainstream.  Since then they've donated 2,500 of their collected works to museums in all 50 states.  Oh, and they collected all of this work on a postman and librarian's salary.


Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Tonybee Tiles

This is another documentary about these guys who find mysterious tile-like graffiti around their city and decide to investigate its message and author, Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine style.  It's a fun look into how folks can be joyous and rewarded in the midst of their freakish obsessions.


It Might Get Loud

Ok, so this film is also a documentary, and its not exactly about visual art but music (if that concerns you, having navigated here to hear about purely visual art, then go finish re-organizing your dictionary collection and leave the rest of us be).  Jack White, Jimmy Page, and the Edge are all featured and examined in light of their different approaches to the same instrument: the guitar.  The part that sold me was the opening scene where Jack White (rapscallion that he is) makes one out of a coke bottle and nails and stuff.  Upcycling/found art at its best:

(also check out the great film on A Tribe Called Quest if you like this kind of thing)

Barbie

I just finished 'Barbie', a shell of welded bicycle chain inspired both by the book "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" and an inane talking Barbie head found at the local thrift store.

Remnant II completed

Remnant II  is the sculpture I just completed for New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc-- it was constructed during the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake at their booth in the convention center ('booth is a relative term -- NB had a two story space with in the convention center that spanned 50' x 60', and it wasn't even the largest there.  The OR show is nuts.)

In the beginning . . . 

Remnants

The challenge was to use remnants from the shoe manufacturing process (ie, the swiss-cheese-like leftovers of fabric and leather after the shoe parts were cut out) to make a sculpture that could be assembled during the convention as a visual and performance art piece. The visual language of the sculpture needed to reflect several values that drive their process: simplicity, craftsmanship, and performance.  The remnants were from the New Balance domestic manufacturing plant in Maine, and I used steel and fixtures that were milled and distributed in US.

Fixture detail

I welded together a structure that would support the remnants as they were stretched across it; primarily I was interested in how much material and in what configurations a surface would form.  Usually we think of surfaces and planes as solid spans of material like a sheet of plywood or concrete sidewalk, but I was curious to see how little material could be used to imply a continuous surface.  Many of these planes were three-dimensional as well; not a single piece of the welded metal beams was straight and as a result the spans of fabric were twisted and bent from two dimensions into three.  It was interesting to find out through talking with several shoe designers that the same process applies when they are fabricating footwear -- it begins with a planar, flat piece of material that is then stretched and coaxed into the decidedly three-dimensional form of a foot-like object.

The remnants needed to be guarded from over zealous garbage collectors . . .