Video for the weekend, from Object Index via.A machine in the roof rotates with a speed of one revolution per hour. Every minute it let one gram of hot glue drop down on the floor. During time a sculpture takes form. Kazuo Kadonaga does something similar in glass. … [Read more...]

Alexander Calder never goes out of style, but he's never quite in it either. Before children are old enough to respond to Edvard Munch, they (given the chance) love Calder. By adulthood, delight fades to affection.Like Roethke, Calder mines the transformational mysticism of play.When I stand, I'm almost a tree. Leaves, do you like me any?Bougainvillier (Bougainvillea), 1947, Sheet metal, wire, rod, lead, and paint. Collection of Jon and Mary Shirley.© 2009 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: … [Read more...]

In 2007, Jack Daws fabricated 10 pennies, each copper-plated, 18-Karat gold, heavier than the usual and slightly smaller. His gallery offered nine for sale for $1,000 each. The 10th Daws dropped into circulation at the Los Angeles International Airport. What are the chances he'd ever hear from that 10th penny again?Daws' counterfeit, fresh from his gallery:This week, a woman in NYC named Jessica Reed called him to say she'd found it, noticed its difference and tracked back to the original stories about the piece. The penny lost and found has … [Read more...]

Mike Leavitt … [Read more...]

Magritte (Still crazy after all these years. Not safe for work.)Alfred Gescheidt … [Read more...]

Judith Supine (image via) … [Read more...]

There's something about a... an unfinished piece of work, a... a thing like this where... do you see? Where perfection is still possible. William Gaddis, The Recognitions (via) … [Read more...]

Here's one more reason to wish to be in Paris.From Kader Attia:I am very happy to announce that the work Untitled (Al Aqsa) will be shown in the big octagonal pond of the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris until the 27th of November. This installation is made of hundreds of cymbals, that produce music when it's raining and windy. The unexpected but very much appreciated thing that happens with this installation, is that people throw small stones on them in order to create musical sounds as well... … [Read more...]

While Louise Bourgeois celebrates the maternal embrace of the most famous weaver in the insect world...(image via) other artists focus on the web. Mona Hatoum (image via) Jim Hodges (image via)Victoria Haven (image via)Mandy GreerVija CelminsEric Yahnker (Gap Shirt)Donald MorganKaren GanzEvan Blackwell … [Read more...]

Rachel Maxi carved this year's pumpkins in tribute to her friend Harold Hollingsworth.Her pumpkins:His  painting: … [Read more...]

As he slammed himself into a wall, Gary Hill stuttered through his discourse on being and nothingness. After finishing Wall Piece in 2000, he was covered in bruises and could barely walk. His interest in theory he roots in sensation. Central for him is the idea of rupture. His focus is the seams and dislocations between sound, image, time and motion, between the real and the surreal. Many aspire to their fusion, but Hill succeeds in giving thought a physical form. Consciousness comes from skin, eyes, mouths, brains and hands; what sounds, … [Read more...]

Columbia opens at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery Nov. 7, celebrating the publication of PIM & FRANCIE. … [Read more...]

Born in Mexico City to painters Elizabeth Sandvig and Michael Spafford, Seattle photographer Spike Mafford has spent two decades documenting Dia de los Muertos in the country of his orgin.What distinguishes these photos is not just his innate elegance but his intimacy. He knows the people in the costumes and some in the graves, has stayed up all night with them to drink, scatter marigolds and dance.We dress up:The church outside: The bounty from the living earth: So the blind might see: The morning after: Mafford's Day of the Dead opens Oct. … [Read more...]

There are no facts to transcend in the tale of Leda and the Swan. There is only a sea of sliding signifiers. They touch without landing on power, sexual hunger, fertility, violation and cunning. With such a range of meanings in play, why did artists so long lean on the soft porn angle? Beginning in the 20th century, they were less inclined to do so. Frank V. Hoffman in Chicago envisioned a dance, both parties flaunting their power, image undated but probably from the 1930s. … [Read more...]

Last year's holiday tree at the White House had a ringer ornament. Amid the usual patterned swirls was a call to impeach Bush. Its reverse side was a salute to Jim McDermott, the Seattle congressman who'd signed a House resolution asking for the same thing.Deborah Lawrence didn't sneak her orb onto the tree by cover of darkness. In order to showcase the congressional districts, Laura Bush asked members of Congress to pick artists to decorate an ornament for free. Of 435 districts, 370 participated, which means 65 congresspeople couldn't … [Read more...]

Michael WilliamsMatthew Offenbacher. At Howard House through Saturday. (Exhibit review here.) … [Read more...]

Keyes … [Read more...]

Via His lover's weight in candy.Jim HodgesEric Yahnker, Cream Corner, detailSean Johnson, BrothersFred Muram, RugHarvest Henderson … [Read more...]

Via Mark MumfordJeffry Mitchell, Angel of MercyElizabeth Sandvig, Peaceable Kingdom With Clouds … [Read more...]

Christopher Martin Hoff (detail) … [Read more...]

The problem with Michelangelo Public and Private: Drawings for the Sistine Chapel and Other Treasures from the Casa Buonarroti  isn't the core of the exhibit itself. Had the Seattle Art Museum stripped it of lard and presented it with the modesty it deserves, it would have been a fine thing to see in a small gallery on a rainy afternoon. Instead, Michelangelo comes with the trappings of a major moment: a wall-sized time-line of the artist's life, extensive text, copious illustrations and an attempt to create titillating controversy. … [Read more...]

Painter Fred Einaudi opted for inclusion. If you click on biography on his Web site, you'll get:And nothing else. What else is there? … [Read more...]

When cornered, Mary Ann Peters comes out drawing. Even when her resources are depleted and her imagination drained, she can count on the marks her hand makes. They're beautiful, no question, but they're also flaccid imitations of her work when it's focused and intense. Allusions to remembered landscapes become allusions to upscale wine bars. I can imagine sitting beside one doing double duty as wallpaper as a waiter glides up to take my order. and the edge becomes the center, 2009, Watercolor and gouache on clayboard, 96" x 120"Besides the … [Read more...]

In the middle of the 19th century, painters thought of Victor Hugo as a writer, and writers called him a painter.Now that few who are not forced read his famous novels (thick in every sense), his 1998 exhibit at the Drawing Center was decisive. Writers don't claim him, but painters need to, as his connection in the visual realm is decisive. His semi-abstractions freely range from the specific to the general, zeroing in and fading out, suggesting vast amounts of time crawling by and smoke hanging amid ruins. The link between him and certain … [Read more...]

In response to this post, The Meat Dance, after Amiri Baraka, Sue Danielson suggested the addition of Pinar Yolacan. Excellent choice. From Boing Boing: Turkish-born artist Pinar Yolacan, who is based in Brooklyn, is best known for her portraits of ladies wearing clothes fashioned from meat parts (tripe, guts, assorted offal). (more)Herb Levy and Robert Zverina suggested Carolee Schneemann's Meat Joy from 1964, which I should have included in the first post. Zverina noted that documents from the original performance are included in Mind … [Read more...]

Like Thomas Demand,  Oliver Boberg, James Casebere and Lori Nix, Ross Sawyer Sawyers constructs models that he photographs as full-scale environments. Demand's are meticulous and devoid of oxygen. Boberg's explore the homey banality of the ordinary. Casebere's focuses on the ornate, often after a flood, and Nix's are fantastical. Each manages to make worlds from doll-house stage sets.Sawyers' are constructed to look as if they are still under construction, and photographed as if they are melodies orchestrated with light. Wrote Andrew … [Read more...]

Clemens KrausMark Takamichi Miller … [Read more...]

From Michael Buitron of Leap Into The Void:In my mid-residency review for my master's at CalArts, I told Sam Durant that the things I was being evaluated on and expected to do for my mid-res show--make objects, install them in an aesthetically appropriate fashion, light the work, advertise it, talk about it, write about it, invite faculty, cater an opening reception--all amounted to CalArts being a finishing school to the social graces and conventions of the art world. "I would hope so," was his response, "We don't want you to leave here … [Read more...]

Erwin WurmSpike Mafford Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison, 1947 Janine Antoni (At Luhring Augustine through Saturday)Alex Schweder, A Sac of Rooms Three Times a Day, currently in Sensate at the San Francisco Museum of Art, through Nov. 8.Barbara Noah, Earth As Bowling Ball … [Read more...]

David Hammons made sculptures from elephant dung in 1978.Chris Ofili followed in 1996, getting all the ink.For sheer invention, David Hammons is the equal of Bruce Nauman, although Nauman is the bigger name. Why? I don't think it's racism alone, although racism can't be counted out. Nauman will talk to people. He's willing to participate in the gallery and museum system. Hammons is not. Hammons:THE ART AUDIENCE IS THE WORST AUDIENCE IN THE WORLD. IT'S OVERLY EDUCATED, IT'S CONSERVATIVE, IT'S OUT TO CRITICIZE NOT TO UNDERSTAND, AND IT NEVER HAS … [Read more...]