implicit art

OK, so I generally try not to write about the things other bloggers are writing about, unless it’s a list re-blog multi-recap “the world today” type thinger, rather than the standard collective conscious “I have not written about X yet, and I have to” stuff (but wait, dude, have you seen all the sh!t on this guy? Do a search and see even more! GuckertGate! Had to link it. Just had to.)…

…but it seems that only digital art geeks in NYC, and rhizome regulars, have picked up on artstar. I am yet to hear anything about it in SA.

Basically, it’s the apprentice, but for artists: a reality TV show where you get to meet great critics on a group exhibition, and maybe land a solo show in Chelsea, NYC, if you win.

Other than the fact that they are totally booked out for auditions, the general “in-the-know” vibe is that it’s totally commercialized bullsh!t that will make fun of artists, and mostly pay attention to them and their neuroses, rather than their art.

The other side is, you bet your ASS there’d be a lineup of just about every artist - famous already or not - in Joburg to get on this show; we just don’t have the resources to make art happen here in the same ways, and “selling out” is the only way to “buy in.” And remember, this here is coming from a privileged whitey. How many artists do you know that manage to actually make all the work they dream up? A portion of it? Get to even SHOW the work they’ve already made, in the way they want? the kebbles are the only way - and many more south africans love the work he is doing (myself included), than are reminding us that he was not at the top of our lists too long ago.

I also wouldn’t mind a bigger audience for my work. Art is a public service, after all, no? Man, what a real opportunity.

But I digress.

Then again, I could care less about the musicians who have been on the real world, so maybe I’m just talking out of my ass…

I just wish I had the chance for something like that, that artists in jozi had chances like that. I yearn for a space that allows me to say I don’t want that, on principle, rather than making me feel jealous of the possibilities that can come out of it.

Of course I’d rather ask viewers to perform my work into existence, and look at themselves in the process, than make a spectacle of trying to get a gig (not that it isn’t already a spectacle, but that’s not the important part of what I do.).

Unfortunately, my world is not as simple as Bush’s. Situations like this are always already a both/and and not an either/or. I wish the world were that easy, but you are not either “with us or against us”…. (ask guckert)

I’ll watch, and see where it takes us….

Just got back from seeing this guy and his band over here. Really hot, looping experimental bass with jazz vocals, and experimental/jazz/big band sax, trombone, drums, etc. Check them out if and when you can.

Am I a jerk if I say that up until now, Frances Goodman has not impressed me that much? This is not meant as a backhanded compliment on any level - quite the contrary. I usually say nice things just cuz I have BLOGGING POWER, so saying that her current show at the goodman (no relation, as far as I know) is a real treat - whether you liked her stuff before it or not - really means something, then.

The show intertwines installation, sculpture and “wall-hangings” that are inter-texted so as to invite us to write its characters into existence. Said personages are woven into beads, dripping from tables, and whispering amongst each other. Goodman’s influences include Woolf and the Brontes - and this is completely transparent, in the most wonderful ways.

Goodman begs us to build characters with the letters between, and asks us to look at ourselves amongst the pages.

stuttering 1.5 is completely compatible with wordpress 2.0! the new version (stuttering 2.0, dec 24, 2005) merely includes a thumbnail image for the new presentation area in wordpress

lots of bug fixes on latest version, updated 6 april 2005!

So, I’ve taken some advice and calls for help with the last theme I developed (for this blog), and went ahead and designed another one, loosely based on it. (procrastination….) Free as in beer! Hope you like it. Installation is super easy (standard drop-in theme), and I even put in instructions for graphic changes (top) and blog title size changes (or even how to make the whole top graphic a link, if you want to use a non web-safe font in your image).

The top is an include, so if savvy, you can go in and do as you see fit (menu, perhaps?). Any questions? Comment or contact.

click for larger image

Be sure your ftp application is set to “text” or “ascii” or “automatic” when you upload! Otherwise, it gets all weird looking in the admin panel….

stuttering zip file

Say you like me. Go on. Say it.

(PS Technorati Wordpress and Theme)

If you go to web design directory you can find lots of good information on web design and if you decide to hire someone then a web design directory is a good place to find a good company.

If my blog looks weird, it’s cuz I’m developing a brand new theme, just for all y’all wordpress fans out there. Can you say, “procrastination”? I can. Coming soon!

Sjoe.

Between these, Dumile Feni at JAG, and the current show at Siebrits (titled and pictured), Joburgers and South Africans at large are being inundated with amazing, contemporary work by South Africans of color, as of late. It’s great. Perhaps it’s a way to (finally) speak back to some critics (cough cough) who label any thing a black artist makes as “craft.”

Although there is beautiful craftsmanship involved, there’s no questioning the experimental nature of all the works at Siebrits - paintings and drawings influenced by impressionism, realism, even cubism, make for an extraordinary showing of work created well before the current incarnation of the craft/art dichotomy. (Most work seems to be mid-1900s.)

Stick it to the man, baby. And check out both JAG and Siebrits shows. Word.

I apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who have already downloaded and/or made changes to my theme - note that these changes are only to the index.php file, so you may use your updated CSS files - and graphic.php and graphic.jpg files - as you see fit. It seems there was a minor bug in the index.php file, where it needed “next page” and “previous page” links in its categories and heavy months. I’ve also added this to the main index page, for the people who pop in and just want to keep reading back in time. While I was at it, I added a little feature that now lists the number of posts to any category next to its link in the menu. And finally, I added in support for if you use wordpress’ new feature to make pages! These should get listed just above the search bar in the menu.

Thanks to wordpress support for the help!

As always, download the theme from this post.

OK. I have a lot of work to do. So I am naturally surfing. Admittedly, I could also blog about the great shows currently up at the Goodman Gallery and Warren Siebrits, but I thought, well, I’ll get to those eventually. Probably this weekend. Instead, I’m gonna blog about blogs. Here are a couple of tasty ones I have added to my blogroll, courtesy of the SA blog awards (scroll to the bottom to vote - for me).

Here we go…

• gabbahead
• yummy wakame
• a view from the other side
• southern images (photoblog)
• onanymous

Maybe more to come. We’ll see how much reading time I have….

I really am a text geek. I mean, I know I’m supposed to be a visual artist and all, but it makes such a huge difference to talk about art; to hear others talk about what it does for them; to hear artists say what they were trying to evoke or explore; hell, most of the time, I don’t even know what I am doing as an artist until I’m forced to say it out loud, or write it down.

So, I’m at this show, chatting to Clive and some lady that curated it, and I say, without thinking, “this work looks really sad and, I think, nostalgic, on some level.” It was just a gut reaction - and not one that you’d necessarily expect to hear about a bunch of photos attached to clothing patterns. But that’s how I felt, and I just blabbed (gotten me into trouble more than once, I tell you).

As it turns out, Ms Grant had a huge battle with cancer. The photographs she had taken were of her close family and friends, and she made the prints look old - treating them, always already, as fleeting (lost?) memories.

I know on one level it sounds sad, and on another too personal for many contemporary trends of the day. I, on another level, like to think of it as a kind of sentimental deconstruction, myself. Her current life is sacred, treasured; more importantly, the work also changes how we think of memory, construction of memory, stories.

I mean, I’m sure she knew what she was doing when she placed these images on clothing patterns, possibly re-membering something she did when younger, possibly referencing that the pieces fit together differently, depending on how we see them, how we construct them ourselves. (you always manage to be PoMo without saying it, don’t you nathaniel?)

I’d like to see where Sue Pam Grant goes next. I think this stuff is already working conceptually and aesthetically, but would be much more effective if she played with things like scale and texture even more. Really large, like how things around me felt when I was a child. Really small, b/c we often feel smaller ourselves in the scheme of things, as we learn more. And maybe art that pokes, memories that weep, patterns that stick out in all the wrong ways….