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Brendan McCumstie’s “Me, My, Myth” : Beijing - April 7 - May 10, 2015

Beijing-based Australian artist Brendan McCumstie opens his solo exhibition of mind bending paintings – Me, My, Myth – in Beijing, China on April 7 at the EscapeSpace Gallery.

The paintings are other-worldly and rveolve around lunar landscapes, angelic children seemingly caught and in a time-space continuum.  Me, My, Myth will be view until May 10th.

Me, My, Myth features more than a dozen new paintings and sculptures produced this year by McCumstie. The exhibition also includes a shadow installation and will be supported by archival material and collage works from the artist’s studio, highlighting his continued ability to invent works at the border between reality and the world of dreams.

“Brendan McCumstie invites us to take an exploratory journey," says Gallery director, Steven Sampliner.  "It is a journey we are all oddly familiar with. We are presented with art works that allows us to view separation and union simultaneously. They are wonderfully strange, and endlessly intriguing.”

Born in 1973 in Australia, Brendan McCumstie spent the past three years living and working in both Paris and Beijing, enabling him to research the history of art from both sides of the globe, and place his own work within this expansive geo-political-social art-historical frame.

The results of McCumstie's on-going aesthetic research and practice chronicles the origin, meaning and ultimate changing of some unknown entity over time, be it a person, an idea, a country or a philosophy.



Brendan McCumstie : On Me, My, Myth

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time, while Entomology is a unique process in which you can preserve the original look of the bug species of your choosing.

The paintings bring to mind the ouroboros – the tail-eating snake of history and mythology. Like the symbol of eternity given by the encircled serpent these works can be seen as a cyclical narrative of the origin, form, meaning and ultimate changing of some unknown entity – be it a person, an idea, a country or a philosophy. Which unique entity the viewer decides to choose and preserve in his or her own thoughts is up to the individual.

These are artworks that attempt to formalize dreams of plenty, fears of loss and reflections on a life; an idea of what it is like to collect, order and enshrine the chaos of memory and imagination into something that resembles verisimilitude.

Indecipherable Peace, 120 x 80 cm, 2015; oil on linen.

Intentionally attempting to undermine the alleged inability of a painted two-dimensional surface to portray movement, these strict compositions endeavor to control the imaginary world and entrap it within the visual physical world.

Gertrude Stein quipped that things are either worthless or priceless - I do not desire these works to be pinned up like a dead butterfly to be admired but not investigated. I wish them to be a doorway to another realm; a space where the question posed leads the viewer to areas that they might not have gone alone.
                                                                                                                   
Brendan McCumstie Interviewed by Steven Sampliner 

When are you most productive?

The most productive period for me is night, when the streets go quiet, the moon rises and the darkness enshrines. I see that internalizing essence coming out within the paintings and works I produce.

Why China? Why Beijing?

I had been living in Paris previously, and whilst I love that city there were a number of considerations that brought me to Beijing.

Firstly the fact that Paris requires artists to be extremely well established before giving them an opportunity, and secondly the fact that to be truly rounded as an artist I believed it was necessary to investigate and appreciate the “eastern” aspects of fine art as much as the “western” canon.
I think “East” and “west” are merely atrophied vestigial labels in the contemporary art sphere, but it still exists as a division within the history of art, and that is what I am interested in just as much.
So, with the available options in front of me, Beijing was the obvious choice in terms of accessing a grand history and tradition stretching back millennia. To be a part of its current productive base is an amazing opportunity.

You often wear a tailored 3-piece suit, is it a necessity or a choice?

If you are going to do good work, then you must look and feel good. I enjoy dressing the part – even when creating a piece of work. There is something reinforcing about wearing a quality garment when producing a painting or sculpture. I find it a solemnizing act.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Daily life. The intentionally restricted colour palette in this series of paintings is derived from what I see each and every day in Beijing. I am bringing my eye to what surrounds me.

I feel sometimes that I am some extraterrestrial within a vast alien landscape, nevertheless, sometimes it is easier to see the earth from an alien perspective and, seen from the moon, we are all just artists and audience.

 A Reinvention of Greek Tragedy, 2015, oil on linen, 100 x 80 cm.

It seems that a lot of your works have a mysterious element, like an unsolved puzzle left for the viewer to solve – both the viewers within the paintings and also the viewers in front of the paintings.

My constant battle is to open enough of a window in the artwork, to allow anyone to universally understand the possibilities inherent within the work as it relates to them   on an individual basis.

Would you produce different art if you weren’t in China?

Anyone who is not influenced by his or her surroundings is possibly ignorant, immune or insulated. All three are, I believe, sad options to be avoided at all cost. As both an artist and viewer/observer it is impossible for me to prevent the tendrils extending from what exists around me to attach them selves to me. So of course my art would be developing in a different manner if I existed outside China, but the works I am producing, I believe still have a universality to them that works across cultures.

Have you ever done any portraits?

No, but I would like to try some commissions, and I have a very dear friend whom I intend to do a portrait of this year - an amazing indigenous Australian woman, who is so strong and doing fanastic things for her people and country. I admire anyone who has that drive.

Is art the creator of social change or merely a reaction to it?

I think art has the opportunity and obligation to be both. These current works also act as an observation of social change too.

Do you believe art to be a subject or an object?

I think that the object is the subject, irrespective of what that object is.


For information, catalog, contact: Steven Sampliner... Web:  http://gallery.artron.net/3204  
Tel: +86 15901537357  Email: steven.sampliner@gmail.com   Brendan McCumstie web site

Mother & Child : Joseph Nechvatal's Art Tee Shirt

madOnna cOl bambinO

Joseph Nechvatal

65,00 €

inkl. MwSt. zzgl. Versand

Organic Round Neck T-Shirt
Fitted

Single Jersey
100% Organic ring-spun Combed
Cotton 155 gsm

Organic certified by CU819434

http://www.12by15.com/joseph-nechvatal-madonna-col-bambino.html

Joseph Nechvatal, geb. 1951 in Chicago, ist ein postkonzeptueller Künstler der digitalen Kunst – einer der wichtigsten Pioniere der sogenannten Neuen Medien-Kunst.
Gleichzeitig greift er aber auch auf die "alten Medien" (Malerei, Zeichnung und Grafik) zurück. Das phänomenale und unserer Meinung nach zeitgenössische ist, dass seine "Gemälde" durch Computer-Robotik und Software Animation entstehen.

"The basis of the viractual conception is that virtual producing computer technology has be-come a noteworthy means for making and understanding contemporary art. This brings art to a place where one finds the emerging of the computed (the virtual) with the uncomputed corporeal (the actual)."
Website: http://www.nechvatal.net

POP UP / FUCK OFF : MASSIVE GROUP SHOW @ BROADWAY STUDIOS LONDON, UK SATURDAY 28 MARCH 2015

Pop Up Fuck Off, organized by India Roper-Evans and Samuel Brzeksi at Broadway Studios 28 Tooting High Street SW17 ORG in LONDON runs for one day only: 28 March 2015.

The exhibition opens at 3 PM and will run quite late with musical performances and other art works taking us into the evening.

All the details on FaceBook are here: Pop Up Fuck Off.

Artists include:

Elod Beregszaszi, Richard Leppard, Matthew Rose, India Roper-Evans, Flora Deborah, Sophia Simensky, Mita Solanky, Samuel Brzeski, Cecily Bates, Rodrigo Souto, Eden Lazaness, Helena Mae Brzeski, Miriam Gould, Mary Jones, Amelia Prett, Thomas Wells, Millie Easton, Tom Estes, Cheryl Simmons, Sarah Peace, Sarah Miah, Be Inma Berrocal, Carmen Viñuela, Ele de Luis, Simone Strifele, Sean Worrall, Kathryn Madge, Soundboxed Collective, Daniel P Cunningham, Jamie Misselbrook, Elaine Johnson Lauren Cooper Hayley Don Hill, Xiaoqiao Li, Minami Wrigley, Bob Brown, Luke Sebastian Wilde, Robert Marney Arts, Rob Jones, Phillip Hawkey, Nalini Thapen, Sisters From Another Mister, Milda Lembertaite, Emma Barford, Graham Martin, Andrew Stys, Timothy Holt, Aerial Sparks, Julia Maddison, Glenn Fitzy Fitzpatrick, Alejandro Tamagno, Sedicente Feccia, Minesweeper Collective, Desdemona Varon, Gzillion Artist, Vanya Balogh, Susana Sanroman, Silvia Cruz Del Alamo, Vanja Karas, Yumi Yoshinaga,  Sinéid Codd, Russell Hill, Caroline Derveaux-Berté and many more...

My text work, Tuscany, 2005, will be included (God willing the Postal Service delivers them)... The pieces, a triptych, are essentially Bird, Cloud, Sky (in Italian).  Each canvas is 21.0 x 29.7cm, and is gouache on canvas. If you are interested in these works, please contact here: TUSCANY.

Feel free to use the buttons for Twitter and FB and other stuff to send this around.  Thank you. 

SOFT FIX, 2015 - AMERICAN PEEP SHOW CRUCIFIX / PRESSURE WASHING : CONVERGE GALLERY - THRU 25 APRIL

SOFT FIX, 2015 is a soft core porn assemblage work in the American Peep Show booth that is part of the Pressure Washing exhibition at Converge Gallery.  The crucifix, by American artist Matthew Rose, is made from prostitutes' calling cards, and arranged in a grid to form a crucifix.

Reactions to the work thus far have ranged from horrified to mystified to gorgeous to outrageous, John Yogodzinksi, Converge Gallery director told me.  "The idea here is to literally cross up the male gaze with paid liberation," says Matthew Rose, "and examine the contradictions of desire, belief, consumer life and private spiritual life."

For more information: Converge Gallery.

Pressure Washing: An Indiscreet But Satisfying Rapture Exhibition By Matthew Rose : 6 March - 25 April 2015

Matthew Rose Pressure Washing Poster Download (PDF).  Yes, it's Free.

WILLIAMSPORT, PA – Converge Gallery is pleased to present Matthew Rose’s small and intimate exhibition of sometimes erotic, sometimes obscene, indecent, titillating, arousing, risqué, adult works of art rife with bawdy double-entendres and soft-core innuendo. This is the Paris-based American artist’s third solo exhibition at Converge Gallery.

These 100 hand-cut and painted collage works on board and canvas skew towards the suggestive with splashes of surrealist and pop sensibilities.  Along with additional pieces in sealed plastic arranged triple-x magazine-style in a private “American Peep Show” viewing booth, “Pressure Washing” provides a kind of lexica pornographica, a modest pictorial thesaurus of contemporary pleasure. 

Curated by Converge Gallery director, John Yogodzinski, these works target “almost every manner of sexual adventure with a sophistication and deep sense of humor that takes no prisoners,” says Yogodzinski.  “These works offer rewards that will leave viewers and collectors of art and erotica in stitches and possibly chains. Matthew Rose proves again he is one of our leading collage workers, taking the aesthetic of cut and paste, and pushing past the gates armed with fleshy poetry.” 

Kristen Hill, Converge Gallery, assistant director, agrees: “No philistine, Rose produces x-rated koan-like gems with a knowing virtuosity,” she says. “He’s a two-fisted culture warrior outfitted with sharp scissors, hot glue and a quick pair of hands to rifle through the Zeitgeist.”

Matthew’s last exhibition at Converge (2013), The Letters, comprised 333 works each mailed to the gallery.  Some pieces were missives, others fragments from various alphabets, faux books and his award-winning floor-to-ceiling lexicon the “SPECIAL K WORDS.”

Matthew Rose’s collages, text works, prints, drawings and altered books and objects are widely collected both privately and publicly throughout Europe and the US. Currently Matthew Rose’s “Self Improvement Alphabet,” a 26-piece collage installation, is on view at The Cornell Museum, Delray Beach, Florida.  He also conceived and launched the global project A Book About Death. His works have been featured in Axis of Evil (Qualicatica 2004); Masters of Collage (Lark, 2009); Cutting Edges (Gestaten, 2010); and the artist is currently involved in producing two books : Weekend Plans (Burning Boy 2015) and As Is, (Burning Boy 2015) a collection of written and photographic essays about Rose’s 30 years making and exhibiting art. 

“Pressure Washing” will be on view at Converge Gallery March 6 through April 25, 2015, with an opening on Friday 6 March, beginning at 6 pm.  

For all press inquiries, photo requests and a PDF catalog/checklist of the exhibition, please contact John Yogodzinski, director, Converge Gallery : john@convergegallery.com. Web: convergegallery.com. Tel: 1.570.435.7080 Earth: Converge Gallery 140 West 4th Street, Williamsport, PA 17701, USA. 

Download the large format poster of the exhibition (PDF).  Print it at home, office, factory : Pressure Washing : Matthew Rose 2015

Matthew Rose Web site.

We Are All Homeless : Exhibition Curated by Artist Willie Baronet

Willie Baronet, a Dallas artist and Stan Richards Professor of Creative Advertising at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, has been buying and collecting signs made by homeless people for more than 20 years.

We are All Homeless brings together nearly 300 signs produced by homeless people at New York University's Kimmel Center for University Life  in New York through 24 January 2015. We are all homeless is a project by Baronet: We Are All Homeless website.

 From Yahoo News: "It's an art installation sure to evoke a spectrum of emotions: from sorrow and surprise to humor and hope. Whatever the feeling, Willie Baronet wants his exhibit at New York University to bring "the issue of homelessness to light in a unique manner to hopefully change people’s hearts and minds on how they view the homeless." Baronet, a Texas artist and advertising professor, drove across the U.S. last July purchasing signs from panhandlers in 24 cities. His "We Are All Homeless" exhibit features 260 signs he acquired as he met with homeless people from Seattle to New York City. The NYU exhibit – his first from the coast-to-coast project – is hosted by HELP USA and will be on display through Jan. 24 in the Kimmel Center for University Life Stovall Family Gallery.

Charlie Hebdo Office : Paris Memorial 12 January 2015

People visit a makeshift memorial near the headquarters of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 12, 2015 in Paris (AFP Photo/Bertrand Guay)

Danielle Voirin's DesCollages : In From The Street @ The Brklyn In Paris

For the past year and a half, Danielle Voirin has been pasting up her photos in the streets of Paris, and often re-photographing them as they deteriorate.  In Le Brykln show, she has included some of those posters (which will be pasted in the street at the end of the show) as well as prints of those posters after other people and the weather has altered them.  Along with that is a selection of her recent cyanotypes, an extension of the same series.    

Opening: Saturday January 10, 2015 at 6 PM
The Brooklyn 58 Rue Quincampoix, 75004 Paris
Connect with Danielle Voirin: http://www.daniellevoirin.com/

Not Afraid: Paris - 7 January 2015

 What a photo: "@sturdyAlex: Paris, tonight. (Photo: Thibault Camus/AP) pic.twitter.com/mOxcQzbP8r"

#JeSuisCharlie

Raw Story on Muslim Community condemnation of the attack.

Je Suis Charlie - 7 January 2015 - Paris

 

A woman held up a placard that translates to "I am Charlie" as she and others gathered at the Place de la Republique in Paris.  Credit Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse / Getty Images.  Image Courtesy: The New York Times. 

#JeSuisCharlie

Charlie Hebdo : Download Je Suis Charlie.  

Please share. Please be kind to each other.

Victoria's New Secret? Not exactly, Vicky: Zion's Unisex Lingerie!

Born in Chicago, raised in Texas, living and working in Paris, Zion Ama Dio is starting 2015 with underwear.  Specifically lingerie, and not specifically lingerie for men or women.  It's not yet a Victoria's Secret category, but it might be.  Lingerie for all might be a traffic stopping winner.

"Why create lingerie?" recalls Zion. "Well, I can remember a time when I was working as a beauty consultant in the States. Every morning I helped my clients look fabulous that day; we were close and shared birthdays.  So I wanted to not just give them a gift, but make them one.  And so I designed and created these lace lingerie boy shorts!"

The designer then asked his women friends and other male friends what they thought about unisex lingerie – and taking it to the world.  The response was strong enough for Zion to launch a site and a business.  While still developing the business and expanding the lines for both men and women and the all purpose unisex modesl, Zion is out to change the way people dress and underdress, even if you can't see it : Zion's FaceBook Page.

Zion Ama Dio in Paris, France.                  

To get on the list for all sorts of Zion's creations, go here: http://www.zadluxury.com/

Malekeh Nayiny's Traveling Demons at Taymour Grahne Gallery

Malekeh Nayiny, All in Pink, 2007, color photograph mounted to aluminum, 36 1/4h x 23 5/8w in / 92h x 60w cm

Taymour Grahne Gallery is pleased to present Traveling Demons, a solo exhibition by Tehran-born, Paris-based artist Malekeh Nayiny.  Both unnerving and playful, Nayiny creates devilish, sinister creatures reflecting our inner demons we never escape from.  Through one’s transformation from childhood to adulthood, Nayiny’s surprisingly kind and innocuous ‘demons’ accompany us, internally and externally, in a world dominated by superficiality, disillusionment and fear. 

The exhibition opens 10 January 2015 and runs through 20 February 2015. Taymour Grahne Gallery: 157 Hudson Street New York, NY 10013.


Check all out all the demons (slide show) :  Malekey Nayiny.

Look, in the phone booth, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's NYC WiFi!

  A “Superman” phone booth, one of three that will remain on West End Avenue in Manhattan. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times    

That's right, Jimmy, telephone booths to become free wifi hotspots all over New York City.  Thanks Bill de Blasio.  Great idea!  Read all about it, Lois:

Pay Phones in New York City Will Become Free Wi-Fi Hot Spots

 

 

Casey Gleghorn : Art Man

Casey Gleghorn

Pot Hole Flower Project : Chicago Artist's Glorious Road Work

 FLOWERS IN THE STREET: ART BY JIM BACHOR/CHICAGO

From THIS IS COLOSSAL : Artist Jim Bachor (previously) continued his guerilla effort to remedy Chicago’s pothole problem by creating a number of flower mosaics in streets around the city. Bachor installed four mosaics through this fall while the weather cooperated, but as things get wet and cooler we’ll probably see a bit less of his, uhm, street art. I’m not sure if any of these are still around, but he keeps a list of photos and addresses where each piece was installed. Bachor opens a new exhibition of mosiac art at Packer Schopf Gallery titled “Jentaculum” early next month.

MORE PHOTOS FROM JIM BACHOR AT THIS IS COLOSSAL. 

Trainwrecks: Stand By Me in Paris

The Trainwrecks : Stand By Me, playing in Paris at the Johanna Halford exhibition...

Tonight's Movie : Dancing of the Guards At Buckingham Palace

Video: Andy Richards.

Post Card From Paris: Lost For Words - Nuit Blanche, Oct 4, 2014

Download a high resolution PDF of this poster to print at home, office, art museum, or somewhere in the world: LOST FOR WORDS.

If you would like to see a catalog/price list: LOST FOR WORDS CATALOG.

Have a Twitter, FB or something else - Please share....

The Cairo Dish Painting Initiative

PHOTO: LESLIE MCALLISTER, creator of the Lost Art Project. 

The Cairo Dish Painting Initiative is a project by writer/artist Jason Stoneking : https://www.facebook.com/CairoDishes/

From Jason Stoneking's Facebook page on the project: 

About

The Cairo Dish-Painting Initiative is a collaborative art project launched by Jason Stoneking for the purpose of helping to beautify the Cairo skyline.

(Arabic below)
The Cairo Dish-Painting Initiative is a project launched by Jason Stoneking, in cooperation with the Artellewa Art Space, as part of his residency there in the fall of 2014. It was inspired by a conversation with Egyptian artist Hany Hommos on his balcony in Cairo, when he said that the endless sea of dirty brown satellite dishes made the skyline depressing to look at. Jason suggested that maybe something could be done about this that would be fun and empowering for the people in the community. So along with the help and support of the entire Artellewa team, Jason and Hany made their way first to the roof of the Artellewa building in the Ard-El-Lewa neighborhood of Cairo, and painted the satellite dishes in bright, day-glow colors. The plan in the coming weeks is to approach several other buildings in the area about painting the dishes on their rooftops. And in time, the hope is that this idea would catch on and spread across Cairo. That the citizens of this vibrant city would help brighten their skyline, and announce to the world that the signals of hope, happiness, and free expression are the ones that they want to receive.

مبادرة تلوين أطباق القاهرة
مشروع أطلقه جيسون ستون كينج بالتعاون مع مساحة فن آرت اللوا على هامش مشاركته في برنامج الاقامة الفنية بآرت اللوا في خريف 2014
استوحى جيسون المشروع عبر محادثة دارت بينه وبين الفنان المصري هاني حمص في شرفة منزله، عبر هاني خلالها عن ضيقه من هذا البحر الممتد من أطباق الاستقبال الصدئة والذي يجعل الأفق يبدو كئيبا، فاقترح جيسون هذه المبادرة التي تجمع ما بين المتعة وتدعيم المجتمع، وبمساعدة فريق عمل آرت اللوا أنطلق جيسون وهاني إلى سطح مبنى آرت اللوا في منطقة أرض اللواء كخطوة أولى، وقاما بتلوين أطباق الاستقبال بألوان ساطعة وبراقة، وتتركز خطة جيسون خلال الأسابيع المقبلة على إعادة التجربة عبر عرض الفكرة على الجيران من قاطني المباني المجاورة في منطقة أرض اللواء، ويأمل أن تنتشر الفكرة والمبادرة عبر أرجاء القاهرة، فبهذه الطريقة يمكن لسكان هذه المدينة النابضة بالحياة أن يضيفوا بريقا إلى أفق مدينتهم ويعلنوا للعالم أن إشارات الأمل والسعادة وحرية التعبير هي الإشارات التي يرغبوا في