Stopping and Starting Animation

I was recently introduced to the animated street art work Muto, by graffiti artist Blu. I couldn't help but notice the similarity to the works by the South African artist, Robin Rhode. We ran across Rhode's photos in a private collection in Miami last year and were taken by them. Often in a series, they appear to be individual cells of an animation, partially drawn on urban walls and other surfaces. It is as if Muto added the animation to Rhode's images.

DIY

With frugalism becoming fashionable, consider participating in the trend (as painful as it is) by making your own art. For $30 and the cost of a box of crayons, you can have 72 works by Richard Prince with his recently produced coloring book, 3rd Place. If you want a more diversified collection, you could get another coloring book, Between the Lines: A Coloring Book of Drawings by Contemporary Artists (2007). Between the Lines contains drawings by Julian Opie, Sol Lewitt, Vito Acconci, Rita Ackermann, John Baldessari, Jeremy Blake, Will Cotton, R. Crumb, Keith Haring, Robert Longo, John Lurie, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jason Middlebrook, Laura Owens, Alexis Rockman, Kenny Scharf, William Wegman and John Wesley, among others.
If you don't want to invest in crayons and are more interested in three-dimensional works, you should get The Paper Sculpture Book (2003). Originally a show at the Sculpture Center in NYC, this book is essentially the exhibit. 29 artists created sculptures that could be created from sheets of paper and provided detailed instructions on how to recreate them yourself. Sarah Sze, Fred Tomaselli, David Shrigley, and Glen Ligon are some of the artists. I received that book as a Christmas present in 2003 (thanks, S!) and love it.
All of these books are available on Amazon.

Surprise

The latest issue of Visionaire (#55, Surprise), the limited-edition art and fashion luxury publication, is a set of pop-up books by artists including Sophie Calle (one of my favorite artists), Andreas Gursky, Cai Guo-Qiang (who, in 2008, did the fireworks for the Olympics and a Gap t-shirt), Steven Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Alasdair McLellan, Steven Meisel, Guido Mocafico, Nicola Formichetti/Gareth Pugh, Sølve Sundsbø, and Mario Testino. You can watch a movie of all of the pop-ups here. The movie may not be available to watch when the next issue is released (most likely, 4 months from now). The books are contained in a cloth-covered case with a metal plaque engraved with the number of the edition. You can order this issue for $250, or subscribe to Visionaire for a year at $675 (plus shipping).

They're Copying!

Another trend I noticed at the fairs in Miami was Xeroxing. There were a few works by Ari Marcopoulos, including one of a machine gun and one of his son, Cairo (shown here). Marcopoulos' use of the Xerox technique creates soft, velvety images that seem like they would stain your fingers if you touched them. He also recently had a show in NYC where he presented large-scale Xeroxed images.

White Columns, NYC's oldest alternative art space, has been producing a benefit print portfolio for the last couple years. This year, it doesn't look like there is a 2008 portfolio. Instead, there are a number of limited edition prints, all printed by Xeroxing. You can view them here. I am not sure yet what I think about Xeroxing as a printing technique. Initially, I thought it was ridiculous- that you could just take a print to your own copy machine and expand the edition size by 10, 50, or even 100. However, Xeroxed prints would still need to be signed and numbered, increasing the importance of that act in identifying the "original" prints from the "copies." Xeroxing does have some visual similarities to silkscreens, though, and could be considered, in some ways, as a technological advancement. Xeroxed copies each have some subtle variations and I can image Warhol creating a suite of Jackies using a copying machine. The use of the Xerox machine also further blurs the line between art and everyday life, elevating a banal clerical task to art production. It makes you think more about pressing that green button...

Contemporary Art in Boston

Last night, WGBH's "Greater Boston" focused on contemporary art in Boston. Russell Lamontagne of the cutting edge Lamontagne Gallery in South Boston and Andrew Witkin, ICA Foster Prize nominee and director of Barbara Krakow Gallery (but represented as an artist by Lamontagne Gallery) were interviewed.
You can watch it (the 12/17 episode) by clicking here.

Holiday Cards

I have always been envious of the people on the Peter Norton Christmas card list who get the annual limited edition multiple made specifically for that Christmas. Kara Walker and Vik Muniz have done editions. I've thought about sending Mr. Norton a card one year to see if, in the spirit of holiday reciprocality, he'd feel obligated to put me on the list. I've also thought about creating my own tradition of sending out Christmas multiples instead of holiday cards. Because I don't have the funds to commission an established artist to create a special edition, here are some possibilities for limted-edition "holiday cards."

Crown Point Press is selling sets of playing cards by Jockum Nordstrum in an edition of 500 for $14.95 (shown here above left). Nordstrum, represented by David Zwirner in NYC, has works in the collection of MOMA, SFMOMA, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim. How about adding him to yours?

For something edgier (and more expensive), there is David Shrigley's small letterpress playing card, "Fucking Ace," in an edition of 250 at $50 at Printer Matter. Shrigley is known for his witty doodle-like drawings, some of which, by the way, are owned by MOMA. He is also represented by Yvon-Lambert in Paris (the same dealer as Jonathan Monk). I had trouble linking the page from Printed Matter to show the image on the blog, so you have to go to their website to see it (search "shrigley").

A final option is Christian Marclay's "Shuffle," a deck of 75 cards that are music-related images. Marclay's work has focused on images of sound and music. His recent large photograms of unravelled audiotape, which were at IFPDA and at the Miami fairs this year, are amazing. Although I haven't been able to confirm that "Shuffle" was printed as a limited edition (some info says yes, some info doesn't say anything), it would still make a great gift. You can check out the press release from Aperture here. Marclay is represented by Paula Cooper in NYC.

Jehad Nga

Another photographer under 40 to follow is Jehad Nga. The Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the MFA, Boston purchased one of his photos last year. He has done series of arresting photos of Somalia and Darfur. Originally from Kansas (!), he trained to become an EMT (emergency medical technician) while he interned for Magnum Photos. Although that may seem to be an odd combination, his medical training may have helped him gain access to some of his sites. He was also an embedded photojournalist for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He is represented by M+B Gallery in LA and Bonnie Benrubi Gallery in NYC.

More of his work can be seen on his webiste:

http://www.jehadnga.com/