Friday, July 31, 2009

Highway 71 Revisited


Couple from Oklahoma, Texas State Fair, Dallas, TX, 10.11.2008

Grave Site, (Rose), Assumption Cemetery, Highway 71, Austin, TX, 10.23.2008

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Author Photos of Roland Barthes


Arthur W. Wang

(L to R) Camera Lucida Reflections on Photography, Image-Music-Text

Image Search: Thomas Pynchon


The first 5 images Google Search found.

William T. Vollman's Imperial in Pictures


NYT, Monica Almeida

To accompany Vollman's 1200 page tussle,entitled Imperial, with all things Imperial County, CA, the southernmost county in the state, Powerhouse has released a 200 page book of his photographs he took took during his 12 years of research.

Great slide show of Vollman via NYT.

Funny review of the 1200 page tussle via Kottke.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

From the Archives: Family Portrait


Family Portrait, San Diego, California

Beaver Trilogy



I was reminded about this film in a conversation with Jill, who is officially no longer an "Austin Artist."

It seems the only way to see the film nowadays is to get a copy directly from the director, Trent Harris, which is what I did from his website. Much has been written about the film, an excellent detailed synopsis of the film is available here, and a pretty thoughtful review is given here. The movies were the subject of a popular episode of This American Life, spoiler alert, Starlee Kine pretty much describes the events of every frame in graphic detail.

The Beaver Trilogy consists of three films and in order of appearance they are The Beaver Kid, The Beaver Kid #2, and The Orkly Kid. The Beaver Kid is a kind of documentary. While the director, Trent Harris, was testing a new color video camera, he happened upon Richard Griffith, whose CB handle is “Groovin Gary,” taking pictures of the Channel 2 helicopter in the parking lot where Harris worked. After this initial meeting, Harris sets out to create a piece for PM, a show like Real People, centered on a talent show Griffith has organized in Beaver. The second and third installments are fictionalized accounts of the same story, where a very young Sean Penn plays Gary in a black and white short made for $100, and Crispin Glover portrays him in the third and most flushed out version of the tale.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Stratosphere

Monday, July 27, 2009

Wyoming


Wyoming, Burnet Road, Austin, TX, 7.24.2009

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Weekly Picture 159


Goal, Zilker Park, Austin, TX 7.23.2009

The Poet's Art


from the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Edition of Emily Dickinson.

Persian Wars, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers




Sure, I don't get out much anymore to see the rock, but I was so pleased with my outing to witness Jon Faber's new band, Persian Wars, and Paul Strekfus' (formerly of Glorium) new project, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers at Club de Ville. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of Persian Wars. This is a picture of Paul rocking and a tree sighted on the way to get a hotdog post show.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Boris Savelev


1999

BrokenSlide 1982 Moscow

Bridge 1985 Sarattoff

1986

1991

1987

Photographs from Russian Photographer, Boris Savelev. These images were culled from two separate shows one in Madrid in 2007 at Betty Guereta Gallery and the other at Michael Hoppen Gallery in London in 2009. Savelev has been photographing for over thirty years. In each show, one picture is displayed from each year beginning in 1976.

Thanks, Ian.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Lace Equals Leather


Robert Walser posits in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, that boys dressing as girls in glammy metal bands like the New York Dolls and early Motley Crue is a really a form of intense rebellion and rebellion is the stuff of masculinity so it follows that the guy up there on stage strutting in a lacy thong is actually displaying a sort of hyper-masculinity.Deena Weinstein in the same film equates freedom and masculinity, uncuffing yourself from gender norms and expectation is therefore the ultimate masculine expression, like rebel peacocks.

Black Cloud and Bottle Form


Black Cloud, Austin, TX 6.22.2009

Aluminum Foil Bottle Form, Austin, TX, 7.14.2009

The Matri Mandir



The centerpiece building designed by Richard Anger in Auroville, an international yogic city located in Pondicherry, India. Founded in 1968 by Sri Aurobindo Ghose and later administered by French emigré, Mira Richards (aka The Mother). Initially planned to serve 50,000 enlightenment seekers, Auroville is currently host to approximately 2000 residents today.

The Charter of the City:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Simon Critchley


(from Wikipedia) Critchley argues that philosophy begins in disappointment, either religious or political. In many ways, these two axes of disappointment organize his published work. Religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to deal with the problem of nihilism. Political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for an ethics.

In this video, he talks about is book, On Humor, which equates the Philosopher to the Stand Up Comedian.

He also just completed a 7 part blog for the Guardian on Heidegger, which is great, but doesn't really explain why "the greatest philosopher in the 20th century" was also a Nazi, which he promised to do in the first installment.

I think it is out of displeasure that most artists make things.
One is not satisfied with the order that the world presents itself in, so you reorder that world, a pattern is formed, recognized and thus communicated.(thx, Adam)

Art Palace: I Am Not So Different: 3 Views


Three takes on this photography exhibition in Austin curated by Rachel Cook of Art Lies at Art Palace. Sean Ripple's review on Might Be Good, a rather long comment by yours truly posted at the bottom there in response, and Kate Watson's lyrical take on Glasstire.

Blood and Thunder


Not so much for the ridiculous metal clowns, but for the riffs.

Monday, July 20, 2009

MoMA Sequence


L to R: The Wall from the Jeff Wall Retrospective, MoMA, NY,NY, 3.28.2007
Colorado, 21st Street Ely Station, Long Island City,Queens,4.11.2007
Morning News Anchor, Nassau Street Station, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 3.26.2007

Blackboards


Blackboard Sentence Construction, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, 2.20.2007

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Weekly Picture 158


Two Floats, Krause Springs, Spicewood, TX, 7.17.2009

Inspired Inspirations: Eeew That's MASSty!


L: DETAIL from Lou Diamond Phillips and Edward James Olmos were my Spirit Animals Last Nite, Again, 2009. by Carlos Rosales-Silva
M: Boy and Borrowed Dog attending the reception
R: DETAIL from: Between the individual bones of the geometry, and between bones and skin, 2009. by Andrea Bonin & Xochi Solis

Super show at MASS Gallery up through August 8, 2009.

Buzz Aldrin Pulls a Punch

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Quite Possibly the World's Longest Post on Apollo 11

Via Kottke. You can read it here.

Ross McElwee's Sherman's March: Meet Claudia



This has to got to be my favorite film. Its subtitle is
A Meditation on the Possibilty of Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Proliferation.
It is beautifully filmed, quixotic, and funny.

Stars and Stripes


New Bet, Off Track Betting, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Uncle Sam, Austin, TX, 7.4.2009

Couple with Popsicles, Kansas City, MO

Rudie and Bill Take a Nap, Fire Island, NY

Friday, July 17, 2009

Point and Shoot: How the Abu Ghraib Images Redefine Photography (2005)



I remember seeing this image for the first time in the New Yorker. At the time, I got most of my news from the radio and hadn't seen any of the images reported to be coming from soldiers at Abu Ghraib. I just opened the magazine to this image, and I remembered being utterly astounded. I had no language to describe what I was seeing. It was as Barthes famously noted, a truly "traumatic" image. I thought it was some bizarre kind of art image, but too far outside artistic convention. I only realized what it was when I finally read the caption.

Andy Grunberg in 2005 wrote an excellent analysis of these images and I was reminded of it while visiting Doug Rickard's intriguing site, American Suburb X.

Read the article here.

You can also see the slide show from the New Yorker where I copied accompanying image.

Julius Shulman Dies at 98


Julius Shulman’s 1960 picture of Pierre Koenig’s Los Angeles design, Case Study House No. 22.

From NYT.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Light on Surfaces


L: AS14-66-9281HR, Apollo Mission 14 Panorama
R:Specular Reflection, Long Center, Austin, TX, 3.28.2009

Dave Woody's Journal


Erik, 2007
Dave Woody is a finalist for the National Portrait Gallery's 2009 Outwind Boochever Portrait Competition.
As a part of the competition, he has kept a compelling online journal where he meditates on his practice of photography.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Disney Princess Kabal


We bought these at the Party Store yesterday. Mae was so excited she had the cashier cut them open so she could wear them right away. The shoes only come in one size (3+) which the packaging claims to "fit most children." These were tragically too small. Only Flat Stanley could squeeze his toes into these. The cashier could not take them back and commented that always happened to her when she was a kid.

Nutty Lunar Panoramas with Audio


Hasselblad El 500 used to take photographs on Apollo missions
At Panoramas.dk

Two Kinds of Light


L: Fluorescent Wall, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY 1.31.07
R: Fire from Kiss Alive, 7.6.2009

Borderland Youth Documentary Arts Project


photo by Ali.
Day 1 of the Newcomers documentary arts program in San Antonio.
They are working with 50 young refugees from Iraq, Somalia, Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya, Thailand, Burma, and Nepal.

The project's mission is to use creative mediums such as photography and creative writing as a means to add the personal, familial and cultural stories and perspectives of these young students to the collective archive of American life.
This is an initiative started by Jason Reed in association with Texas State and Artpace.
See their blog.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Weekly Picture 157


Water Shoes, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 7.10.2009

Texas State Field Notes


Ryan Keahey and Rebecca Whelan inspect Ryan's print, our first with the new 7880.

Dash Snow, RIP


He is survived by his wife, Agathe Snow, and a daughter, Secret Magic Nico Snow, who he had with the fashion model Jade Berreau.
The Independent. Photo: Rachel Chandler

Snapshots from Apollo 11


nyt.

Monday, July 13, 2009

From the Archives


Lookout Ferry, Washington State, 2004

From the Archives


Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden, Las Vegas, NV 2001