Posts archive: September 2004

Among the twenty-three people honored this year with MacArthur Foundation “genius” awards are three visual artists: Judy Pfaff, Aminah Robinson, and James Carpenter.

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, September 28th, 2004]

when MOMA opens again in November, admission will run you twenty dollars.

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, September 28th, 2004]

Dean Smith’s first solo show in New York is on view at the Marvelli Gallery through October 9. Those who appreciate the obsessive, beautiful work created by this Bay Area artist will not be disappointed by the six large-scale drawings and video featured in the exhibition. His works on paper offer a tranquil yet dynamic visual experience, and his most recent video, thought forms, is a mesmerizing display of shifting symmetrical patterns.

—Susan Magnus

- Meredith Tromble [Friday, September 24th, 2004]

The new Stag’s Leap Artist-in-Residence program, which offers visual, performing, and literary artists and scholars extended visits at the Stags Leap Winery in the Napa Valley, promises to become one of the Bay Area’s more coveted residencies.  Not only is the program hosted in a 19th century stone manor house in a secluded natural setting, it offers quiet and privacy (the winery is not normally open to the public). Tomorrow there will be a rare opportunity to visit when New York sculptor Robert Lobe, the second Stags Leap artist-in-residence (Paul Kos was the first) presents his work in an afternoon salon beginning at 1:00. Admission is free but reservations are required—you’ll need to get directions, anyway. (707) 299-3030 is the number to call. Visitors must be 21 years old and are asked to wear comfortable walking shoes.  The Manor House at Stags’ Leap Winery is located at 6150 Silverado Trail, Napa CA 94558.

- Meredith Tromble [Friday, September 24th, 2004]

If you’ve been following Stretcher’s coverage of copyright issues, you may be interested to know that filmmaker Robert Greenwald is making much of his footage available under the same kind of Creative Commons license that Stretcher uses. Wired reports.

- Meredith Tromble [Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004]

opines Jerry Saltz in his Village Voice column. Maybe so, but the buzz on the street is that the art world to watch now is in China. With U.S. immigration officials making entry into the States a chancy and often humiliating business for people from around the world, artists from Asia, Australia, Europe and the Southern Americas are beginning to say, “Who needs it?” Will we be living with a “supine paradigm” in five years? The crystal ball is murky, but there is that old saying about pride and what it goes before…

- Meredith Tromble [Wednesday, September 15th, 2004]

at the Venice Biennale has been thrown into the air by the withdrawal of funding by two major foundations and the refusal of the U.S. government to adopt the project. Most likely, power will default to the Guggenheim Museum, says Jason Kaufman in this article from The Art Newspaper.

- Meredith Tromble [Wednesday, September 8th, 2004]

Kabbalah/ Kabul: Sending Emanations to the Aliens on her Web site (http://www.sonyarapoport.net). As Rapoport describes it, “In this interactive webwork emanations from Kabbalah’s Tree of Life are encoded with scientific procedures that provide the technology for creating altruistic DNA to send to extraterrestrials. Hybrid imagery includes Afghan news photos that describe preparations for the Interstellar flight.”

- Meredith Tromble [Sunday, September 5th, 2004]

“Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.—“Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.”—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

- Cheryl Meeker [Saturday, September 4th, 2004]

The ISEA festival and conference in Helsinki provided a wide survey of contemporary media practice, this year’s edition concerned mostly with wireless networks in all their forms. While the information overflow of the festival provided a feast of ideas, its density shortchanged the exhibitions and performances, as many pieces could have benefited from more space or time around them. While there was plenty of interesting work on view, the show that had the most impact for me wasn’t part of the festival at all, but was on view a stone’s throw away at the Tennis Palace Art Museum. There a survey of Osmo Rauhala’s videos and paintings allowed plenty of space and time to absorb a rich body of work made over the last 20 years. While the videos were sometimes accompanied by a simplistic reading of the natural world they depicted, the highlight was a two-channel projection of ice skaters circling endlessly in Central Park, the images shown through slowly moving plates of glass that sent the images spinning around the room.

- Ed Osborn [Thursday, September 2nd, 2004]

and this year is the 25th anniversary of the influential festival of art and technology in Linz, Austria. With maturity comes reflection—the gathering, which starts tomorrow, features a series of talks and events designed to “make the past a participant in our show about the future,” says Wolfgang Bednarzek, the festival’s press officer. Young hackers will interview digital pioneers, the Futurelab symposium will provide a platform for the presentation of and reflection upon R&D projects, and a whole lot of electronic art will be shown. Check into the Web site to see streaming video of presentations and participate online.

- Jeannine McDonald [Wednesday, September 1st, 2004]

From the editors