Oye readers! I’m taking a bit of a break from Art of the Day (and SnailCrow.com posts in general) for the time being. Hope to resume posting very soon, so do check back now and again… & thanks for your support & readership!
-Snailcrow
Chakaia Booker
Foci, 2010, Rubber Tire, Stainless Steel
Source for 1st picture: flickr user alexdanielletravelling
Source for 2nd picture: flickr user researchgirl
Hans Hokanson
Helixikos Number 3, 1969, Bronze
Source for 1st picture: flickr user dabvembarb
and 2nd picture: huntersandgatherersathome.blogspot.com
Alice Aycock
Three-fold Manifestation II, 1987, steel
Source for 1st picture: picasa user muriel
and 2nd picture: flickr user janejai1000
Ursula Von Rydingsvard
LUBA, 2010, cedar, graphite, bronze
Two new things for Art of the Day. First, my longest break since I began this whole daily (hah!) art-writing project. Sorreee. (But, as you’ll see, I’m trying to come out of the deep freeze tonight with a big proper ice-crackin’ thaw). & Second, instead of posting stuff I’ve never seen before and may never see in the flesh, today I bring you pieces I’ve actually beheld/beloved & basked in the presence of & belingered about & around. Namely, artworks I just saw last weekend at the gorgeous, sprawling Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York (about 1-1.5 hrs outside of Manhattan depending how you get there). The wealth of artworks (115ish or so) were integrated throughout the landscape in all manner of ways: nestled meekly in and among woody rambles, installed upon & boldly yawping from knolls & prospects, tucked behind cricket-strewn tall grasses, spanning burbly creeks, shooting up & out of the flatlands stark and mystical, serenely wave-carved into the earth itself. Even if the Storm King tract were art-less it still would’ve been a lovely Saturday full of upstate New York early summer breezy beauty. The addition of well-curated, occasionally breathtaking sculpture harmonizing (or playfully contrasting, and in fact creating a whole range of concords & even discords) with the surroundings made the whole day even more memorable.
Some words about one the pieces shown above: Chakaia Booker’s “Foci”, the piece I looked forward to most. What a beauty. It dominated its surroundings with equal parts menace & firm earth-deity stewardship; sturdy & tall like a Zulu warrior shield, creepy like some ominous fire-blackened signpost, proud & awesome & low-voiced like some ancient spirit of the forest. I circled it carefully, watching how at all angles it revealed itself, its parabolas & barbs & scales & rubber sharkteeth, feeling that special humming joy you get in your gut & chest when you’re in the presence of art that moves you fully: in form and content, structure & spirit, architecture & emotion, texture & movement.
I want to let the work of the stellar photographers cited above speak for itself, but I’ll just say two more things about the pieces I chose: 1) they were my favorites of the small portion of total Storm King artworks we managed to see (definitely looking forward to returning in the fall), and 2) as terrific as the above photos are, it goes without saying that there’s nothing like experiencing these pieces in the flesh (esp. in good weather), so make the trip, pay the $12, picnic at the cafe, get a little tipsy, & go enjoy the hell out of the treasure that is Storm King.
Check out more of Alice Aycock’s work at aaycock.com.
Check out more of Hokanson’s work at Utexas.edu.
Check out more of Rydingsvard’s work at ursulavonrydingsvard.net.
Check out more of Chakaia Booker’s art at chakaiabooker.com.
And please be sure to check out the photography of all the talented folks mentioned above under each artwork, especially if you want more Storm King related stuff.
Lucien Clergue
Toro, ca. 1960, Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
Kazuma Koike
Bull / Roots, 2006, Watercolor, ink on paper
Paul Emsley
Bull, 1994, chalk on paper
A bit caught up in life things, sorry for the delayed posts y’all. Here are some bulls, three different takes. The first by great photographer Lucien Clergue, of whom Picasso was an admirer apparently. I like this sentence from Wikipedia: “He also worked on a series whose subject was carrion.” Tells you a bit about the guy, and puts his bull photo in context: What a savage piece. Conveys the pitch of fury bulls are brought to by toreadors. In that furious set of its teeth. Absence of eyes too: the creature’s become all angry teeth-gnash. Even in (apparent) death, the poor beast’s rage consumes it.
The Koike presents a different bull: bull as tree, stout and proud and strong, no toreador spears out of this one’s back. Broad and implacable with a support structure anchored in the earth. Beast of the earth, not of burden; not yoked to plow, but tied in a different way, & to nothing that mankind has built.
Finally there’s the Emsley. Bull here as apparition, emerging from the void with blurred & eerie luminescence. Sleepy eyed and with a seeming plume of cold air spouting from its nostrils. This is the bull to fear. Neither earth watcher nor outraged victim. Spirit of vengeance, rebuking the harness & the twirling red cape. No, no, that’s wrong: this bull is beyond those instruments of its kind’s oppression. It’s not even a bull anymore. It’s been transformed to pure, unthinking, dispassionate retribution. No valuation, just simple action. The inevitable justice of avalanches, anthrax.
Check out more of Clergue’s photography at Monroe Gallery.
Check out more of Emsley’s work at paulemsley.co.uk.
Check out more of Koike’s art at kazumakoike.com.
Here’s a new one of mine, wanted to share it with the S.Crow readers. Flamenco guitar, voice, tambourine, along with various digital percussive sounds and digi Cello. Hope you enjoy!:
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Download my music on iTunes
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More music to sample here
Julie Soefer
Fish, 2011, pigment print
John Greer
Cosmic Fish, 2007, engraving on paper
John Alexander
Fish Head, 2010, charcoal and watercolor on paper
Check out more of Soefer’s photography at juliesoefer.com.
Check out more of Greer’s work at johngreer.ca.
Check out more of John Alexander’s art at johnalexanderstudio.com.
Nacho Carbonell
from the “Luciferase” collection (detail), 2011
Nacho Carbonell
from the “Luciferase” collection, 2011
Nacho Carbonell
One man chair from the “Evolution” collection, 2008
Nacho Carbonell
from the “Diversity” collection, 2009
Love Carbonell’s vision & textures, and his artworks’ spirit of playfulness mixed with an alien, knobby, biomorphic 60s Star-Trek prop vibe: A band of hot green radioactive rock candy arcing reptilian, a mutant crocodile’s tail. A lamp like a doughy leg cuff, lined thick with wet moss, looking less like a light-source and more like a disintegrator gun manned by some mid-60s arch-foe of the Fantastic Four. A woolly-bearded TV stand (I think) and seat, both Rip Van Winkled in a sly play on the timehole we can fall into while propped in front of our moving-picture device of choice. And a bench being coughed out of the maw of a spider’s bulbous abdomen. Pieces you want to climb into, walk among+interact with but also keep your distance from. Outstanding work in concept and execution.
Check out more of Carbonell’s work here.
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