From Alon Levin's Things Contemporary:Leviathan is the title of Thomas Hobbes' 1651 work on social order and the creation of an idea state. The cover art illustrates a giant made of individuals in the form of a monarch. In the book, Hobbes argues for a social contract and absolute sovereignty. What a difference 350 years makes. So-Ho Suh tackles the same theme as a tragedy; the many sacrificed to prop up the one. Some/One, 2001 Stainless steel military dog tags, nickel plated copper sheets, glass fiber reinforced resin, stainless steel … [Read more...]

Has a place for her stuff. (Made by journalist and occasional purse-maker Linda Thomas.) … [Read more...]

From Jason Kottke:Steven Levy on how Google's search algorithm has changed over the years.Take, for instance, the way Google's engine learns which words are synonyms. "We discovered a nifty thing very early on," Singhal says. "People change words in their queries. So someone would say, 'pictures of dogs,' and then they'd say, 'pictures of puppies.' So that told us that maybe 'dogs' and 'puppies' were interchangeable. We also learned that when you boil water, it's hot water. We were relearning semantics from humans, and that was a great … [Read more...]

My instincts are wrong for this. Watching artists draw in a bar seems a little like watching animals in a zoo. Paul Simon thinks they love it if you do, but there's room for doubt. From an impeccable source I once heard of a monkey in Sacramento who'd hold a mouthful of water while doing a little dance. After a crowd had gathered around his cage, he'd soak as many as he could reach with his soggy calling card. Seattle painter Robert Hardgrave created Drum of the Draw to be a bridge between artists and audiences. Participants tonight at Grey … [Read more...]

Can collect different shades of ice queen.(Matt Sheridan Smith) … [Read more...]

Stop me if you've heard this one. An artist walks into a bar. You live in the Northwest, you've heard it, but not, apparently, if you hail from New York. That's why Northwest context is the only thing lacking from Charles McGrath's elegant essay on Theo Sim's conceptual Irish bar in Vancouver, with real alcohol served inside by two real Irish bartenders. VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- This city is not just temporary home to the Olympics, it's a hotbed of conceptual art and conceptual artists. There are also a lot of bars here, some so crowded … [Read more...]

In the distant past, the wide sweep of desert and dark sky enfolded travelers in what is now part of Western New Mexico. Little has changed in that small corner of the world, except the 400 stainless steel poles inserted into the ground in a mile-wide grid: Walter De Maria's Lightning Field. Indoors at Lawrimore Project, Tivon Rice's installation, A Macrocosmic Zero, offers a claustrophobic version of De Maria's exhilarating vista. Instead of poles sunk into the ground, there are tubes hanging from the ceiling in a circular maze. Inside it, … [Read more...]

When giving a gift that can keep on giving, why leave anything to chance? (image via) … [Read more...]

Some art objects arrive in public with elaborate titles and some with none at all (untitled), their makers fearing titles will be held against the work or unnecessarily narrow the frame of its references. For every title that makes the piece and sends it like a surface to air missile into the stratosphere, there are plenty that limp along, poisoning the goods. The non sequitur is an infrequently used but fertile stratagem. I thought of it while reading about Bookseller magazine's prize for the oddest title of the year, via Diane Mapes.Calling … [Read more...]

By turning their slurs into art.Jane Hammond:Patrick Lakey:SuttonBeresCuller: They sandblasted every word of a patronizing, crap review onto Mexican beach pebbles.Ries Niemi uses a phrase from a withering essay as a tag to his signature: Bad Ideas, Bad Imagination, and Bad MotivesThe three bads also appear on Niemi's Web site under the headline, the critics are raving about Niemi. Other samples:"Dad is a Fool." -Torque Niemi "Lounge Lizard gone Country Boy..." -Regina Hackett"You're not that funny." -Sheila Klein … [Read more...]

The oldest goal of sculpture is to be soul-catcher, not to mirror a surface but to find a pulse and praise it. Dan Webb finds that pulse on the surface. To the detritus of the world he brings his monumental ambition. A weed, a fly, a party favor; a prepackaged meal on a dinner tray, a person climbing the corporate ladder, a kid sharing a secret under a blanket, an anonymous set of armor banished to storage: What we no longer value or never valued, he redeems in the powerful mirror of his material abilities.The depth of his work comes from its … [Read more...]

In response to a post about Dale and Leslie Chihuly giving Artist Trust $150,000 for two $25,000 grants to Washington State artists in any discipline annually for three years, Juan Alonso observed: I know whenever I say anything regarding auctions I get a lot of folks who misunderstand my point. To be clear, I am a huge fan of Artist Trust, in fact, I am currently trying to create a scholarship fund for one of their programs, so do don't get your undies in a bunch about this. It's just an opinion. So here goes: When I was on the PONCHO art … [Read more...]

More Gardiner: (Thurberesque image from facebook)It's the male version of Louise Bourgeois' femme masion, from 1947, who "shows herself at the very moment she thinks she's hiding." (via)There's also the far more elaborate piece by Janine Antoni, One Another, from 2008. … [Read more...]

From his Seattle Subtext:She remembers the exact moment she figured out subtraction, sitting on the small ledge dividing the backyard into lawn and concrete, staring at the paper in her hand and the numbers on it, thinking of subtraction as another kind of addition and both as ways of counting.Berger, Mathematics #57, 1976 … [Read more...]

In Seattle, it's a problem. First, they write about art in their own publication, refusing to let critics interested in participating do so. Second, they're curating their own shows. What do they think critics and curators are, chopped liver? (Prince Charles is also beset by upstarts, story here. When will it all end?)Latest outrage: Parallel Universe, curated by artists Francisco Guerrero and Joseph Park at Grey Gallery. It's the best group show in the city. The idea came from a deep familiarity with artists' studios. Guerrero and Park started … [Read more...]

In 1969, when the National Guard occupied Berkeley, California, I was living in an apartment just north of campus. Every 20 minutes helicopters would pass overhead, like heavy-metal clockwork. Looking at Zack Schrock's photo brought that time back.Living under helicopter rotation is not good for the nervous system. I moved. What about those who can't move, who grow up in American neighborhoods that are under regular overhead  surveillance? The anti-war movement in the 1960s gave participants (and bystanders, trying to get out of the way) … [Read more...]

This post is dedicated to everybody who participated in this performance at Western Bridge.Cry for help 2009 pencil, colored pencil, acrylic, blood (Via) … [Read more...]

Jen T. MillsAnne Hirondelle … [Read more...]

 Via … [Read more...]

A container is not the thing contained. It's a prop instead of an essential, except in the work of Brooklyn's Jennie C. Jones. Jones: My practice is both a comment on and a continuum of the conceptual ideology of jazz, an honoring of the deep radical legacy of its experimentation, of hybrid modernist forms, of wit, of riff -- the turning of a phrase onto itself. Her sculptures and drawings are improvisations on the cassette tape, transistor radio, boom box, Walkman, from intimate long play to the impersonal present. In her hands, old style … [Read more...]

Previous, much commented upon, post: Ryan Henry Ward gives Seattle a bad case of the cutes.What made this post so objectionable to many appears to be my distaste for whimsy. Who could be against whimsy? I must be a monster. Possibly I needed more context. I associate the word, which comes from whim, with the kind of art that's deliberately impersonating the drawings of children. It's a step backwards to achieve an innocence not possible for adults. No matter how technically inept, drawings from real children have a purity and grace. Fake … [Read more...]

From The Crying Game:Do you want to pick up your teeth with broken fingers?Jim Melchert, Flip, graphite on broken porcelain, via Moon River … [Read more...]

Art (put-down-your-mice) Chantry has many objects he has chosen to accompany him through his life on earth. Some of them he's showing off on facebook. First up is a 78 rpm of Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon". Back in the early 1950's , when 45 rpm records were first entering the market, those little 7" plastic disks with the big holes were way cool. You wanted to impress your pals with your latest technology (sorta like the i-pad, ya know?) This person decided to crudely grind out the center of the 78 rpm (10") record and then pop in a 45 adapter. … [Read more...]

The new Dale Chihuly grant is a hefty chunk of change: $25,000 for two Washington State artists in any discipline annually for three years, administered by Artist Trust. Chihuly and his wife Leslie gave $150,000, and Artist Trust turned it into a recession gap-grant with bells on.Three years from now, we'll all be coming up roses, right? Better a sizable check in tight times than the same amount extended over a longer period. I'll drink to that.The Chihulys could have limited the award to glass artists. I'm glad they didn't. They could have … [Read more...]

I'd love to see an exhibit of New York street photography from Helen Levitt to Marsha Burns, in color and out loud, with lone figures unfolding themselves into that quintessentially urban landscape.Levitt, image viaBurns: … [Read more...]

With a banana.Mapplethorpe image here. The update, by David B. Smith, below. (The Velvet Polyester, 2008) … [Read more...]

They are illustrators. Hear them roar in numbers too big to ignore.Illustrator militancy is relatively new. Formerly, the breed took its second-class status for granted. If illustrators were discussed, they were the ones talking. In the art context, nobody  gave them much thought. Illustrators were around (some good, some clever, most bland or annoying), illustrating things - advertisements, company announcements, greeting cards, t-shirts, comic strips.Cartoonists proved the most unruly. Between R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, they battered … [Read more...]

How do animals see? Depends on whether they're predators with eyes front and center, or prey, with eyes on the sides of their heads for an inclusive span.Paul Berger became interested in the visual world of prey animals after reading Temple Grandin, who redesigns slaughterhouses to take away the terror. According to Grandin, prey animals do not feel anxiety or regret, but they have a fast trigger on fear. When nothing is wrong, they are calm as Buddha, even when seconds from their death.McDonald's hired her not because the company is swell in … [Read more...]

Contrary to this post and possibly contrary to reality, unless she has a trust fund or a sugar daddy,a friend of Laura Castellanos (bunny artist) has a message of good cheer taped to her refrigerator: … [Read more...]

Volume, volume volume. I feel for YouTube. Its empire is massive and hard to police. Should it take an anything-goes attitude, the government will step in. On the other hand, over-control incites outrage from the suppressed.Cast in point. Fabulous video artist Amy Greenfield was kicked off the site for "violating community standards." Whoa. Protest letter from the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Electronic Frontier Foundation here. Money quote:For all of their pronouncements in favor of free speech, Google and other Internet … [Read more...]