June 16, 2009
This is a view of Manhattan from Chelsea (looking North). I cut a piece of Ilford Multigrade IV Fiber Paper to fit my pinhole camera and make the exposure. After developing the negative image, I scanned it and reversed it to positive in Photoshop. There is some blur due to a slight unsteadiness of the camera during the 1 min. exposure. I had taken my Parsons photo students to Print Space (a black and white darkroom). The view is from the fire escape of the lab.
May 4, 2009
1/4 Plate Alumitype (3.25" x 4.25).
I made this 1/4 plate image of a metronome in motion @ adagio under 5500K compact fluorescent bulbs in a cardboard box. Process used was wet plate collodion. Lens: f8 Dallmeyer Rapid Rectilinear (c. 1891). Exposure time was 1 min. 45 sec.
April 29, 2009
1/4 Plate Alumitype (3.25" x 4.25")
This 1/4 plate alumitype of flowers on a Shaker chair was shot in the late afternoon with an f8 Dallmeyer rapid rectilinear lens. The process I used was wet plate collodion. Exposure time was five seconds.
April 19, 2009
Founded in 1998 and based in Asheville, NC, Kleiworks is an international, grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching natural building methods. Assisting individuals and local communities, the organization helps to create sustainable living spaces, while ensuring that the work is passed on.
April 19, 2009
This cartoon manages to cover conflicting issues of artistic vision, patronage, studio “assistants” and provenance.
April 11, 2009
by Jerry Saltz
New York Magazine
In the last years of the boom, numerous artists came to the fore who have their aesthetic heads up the aesthetic asses of Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Cady Noland, and Christopher Wool. They make punkish black-and-white art and ad hoc arrangements of disheveled stuff, architectural fragments, and Xeroxed photos. This art deals in received ideas about appropriation, conceptualism, and institutional critique. It’s a cool school, admired by jargon-wielding academics who write barely readable rhetoric explaining why looking at next to nothing is good for you. Many of these artists have sold a lot of work, and most will be part of a lost generation. They thought they were playing the system; it turned out that they were themselves being played.
April 8, 2009
If you want to get into medium format photography, there isn’t a more fun or inexpensive way than to buy a Holga. There are many ways to modify the Holga for specific purposes, including shooting with 35mm film and using a pinhole lens. You can find more about those topics at Holga Mods.
April 3, 2009
I’ve been listening to some archived episodes of the terrific weekly music podcast Coverville with Brian Ibbott. As the name suggests, Coverville focuses on new renditions of previously recorded songs; but there is also a recurrent segment called Uncovered Gem of the Week dedicated to original recordings. On episode 171 (January 2006), Ibbott’s Uncovered Gem was Tunnel Into Summer by Kimberly Rew from the solo album of the same title released in 2000.
Click Here for mp3 of Tunnel Into Summer by Kimberly Rew
Review of Tunnel Into Summer from MTVASIA.com
You may not know who Kimberley Rew is but you certainly know his most well known song. Yes, I’m talking about”Walking On Sunshine.”That song was a huge hit for Katrina And The Waves in 1983 and Kimberley was the primary songwriter and guitarist of the group. (The”Rolling Stone Album Guide”describes the first Waves’ LP as”a masterpiece of guitar pop.”)In 1997 Katrina And The Waves won the Eurovision Song Contest for the U.K. with Kimberley’s composition”Love Shine A Light,”a European Top 10 hit. But he first came to notice in the late 1970s as a member of Robyn Hitchcock’s cult heroes The Soft Boys (notable as an influence on R.E.M., The Replacements, and Uncle Tupelo).Well, finally after almost three decades as the quintessential sides-man, Kimberley releases his very first solo album with”Tunnel Into Summer”and it is a refreshing blast of effortlessly pleasing guitar pop-rock.Whilst there has never been a doubt about Kimberley’s songwriting prowess, it is indeed a welcome surprise to discover that he has a formidable singing voice. Highly reminiscent of erstwhile partner Robyn in inflection and tone, Kimberley’s vocals (and music) recalls the same influences — Syd Barrett, Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, and John Lennon.With notable assistance from Robyn, Dave (Fairport Convention) Mattacks, Glenn (Squeeze) Tillbrook, and co-producer Andy (Soft Boys, Egyptians) Metcalfe, Kimberley has assembled a collection of quality tunes primarily informed by a preference for”psychedelic folk-rock blues.”From the bright and sparkling”Simple Pleasures”to the introspective”If There’s An Answer,”the breezy title track to the jazzy and stomping”Little Ray Of Sunshine,”the wistful”Honey Is That Love”to the genuinely countrified”The Radio Played Good Vibrations,”"Tunnel Into Summer”is indispensable listening for fans of organic, sincere pop.
March 27, 2009
International Visitors on www.bryanhiott.com (March 2009).
Traffic on my website has been increasing steadily every month for the past year. During the month of March 2009, my website has had visitors from 49 countries including:
North & South America: US (42 states), Canada, Argentina, Brazil
Europe: England, France, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweeden, Finland, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Ukraine, Russia
Africa & Middle East: South Africa, Algeria, Benin, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Iran
Asia: India, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, North Korea, South Korea, Japan
Pacific: Australia, New Zealand
March 25, 2009
Abandoned House Near Piedmont, SC. Image: Bryan Hiott.
I’ve been scanning many of my color 4 x 5 negatives shot during the last year mainly along back roads from New York to South Carolina. One of my favorites is this image of an abandoned house near Piedmont, SC. The house was built in the 30s and for as long as I can remember it has been vacant. The advantage of shooting in the 4 x 5 film format is that the images can be printed to a large scale without loss of image sharpness.
March 23, 2009
I just read the press release for Swimming Pool, an installation by Leandro Erlich currently on view at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City. I’m going to see Erlich’s work as well as the Kenneth Anger retrospective also at P.S. 1. All photographs below are by Matthew Septimus. Text of the press release follows:
On view October 19, 2008 – October 5, 2009
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presentsLeandro Erlich: Swimming Pool, an extraordinary and visually confounding installation by the Argentine artist Leandro Erlich. Leandro Erlich: Swimming Poolwill be on view in P.S.1’s unique, double-height Duplex gallery from October 19, 2008 through April 13, 2009.
Leandro Erlich is known for installations that seem to defy the basic laws of physics and befuddle the viewer, who is introduced into jarring environments that momentarily threaten a sense of balance or space. For this exhibition, Erlich presents one of his most well-known and critically acclaimed pieces, Swimming Pool. Speaking about the project, Erlich says: “When I first visited P.S.1, I remember thinking how perfect the Duplex space would be for the installation ofSwimming Pool. This space divided the experience of seeing the work perfectly, and in the correct order. Almost ten years since its creation, Swimming Pool is finally in the exhibition space for which I have always felt is so perfectly suited.”
Erlich has constructed a full-size pool, complete with all its trappings, including a deck and a ladder. When approached from the first floor, visitors are confronted with a surreal scene: people, fully clothed, can be seen standing, walking, and breathing beneath the surface of the water. It is only when visitors enter the Duplex gallery from the basement that they recognize that the pool is empty, its construction a visual trick fashioned by the artist. A large, continuous piece of acrylic spans the pool and suspends water above it, creating the illusion of a standard swimming pool that is both disorienting and humorous.
Leandro Erlich (b. 1973, Buenos Aires) has been exhibiting his work internationally for over ten years. He has had solo shows at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2003); MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (2006), and Le Grand Café, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Saint-Nazaire (2005). He represented Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), where he showed Swimming Pool, and was also featured in the Singapore Biennale (2008), the Liverpool Biennial (2008), 7th Havana Biennale (2001), the 7th Istanbul Biennial (2001), the 3rd Shanghai Biennale (2002), the 1st Busan Biennale (2002), and the 26th Bienal de São Paulo (2004). His work will be shown in the upcoming Prospect.1 New Orleans Biennial in 2008. He lives and works in Buenos Aires.
Organized by P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss.
The exhibition is made possible by David Teiger, Estrellita B. Brodsky and Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
March 20, 2009
I missed the opening of Myoung Ho Lee’s exhibition of large format color photographs at Yossi Milo last night. But I hope to see the work this weekend. The press release and images below are from the gallery website.
Tree #5, Archival Inkjet Print by Myoung Ho Lee (2007)
Tree
March 19 – April 18, 2009
Yossi Milo Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of color photographs by Myoung Ho Lee, entitled Tree. The exhibition will open on Thursday, March 19 and close on Saturday, April 18. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States.
Myoung Ho Lee photographs solitary trees framed against white canvas backdrops in the middle of natural landscapes. To install the large canvases, which span approximately 60 by 45 feet, the artist enlists a production crew and heavy cranes. Minor components of the canvas support system, such as ropes or bars, are later removed from the photograph through minimal digital retouching, creating the illusion that the backdrop is floating behind the tree.
Tree #2, Archival Inkjet Print by Myoung Ho Lee (2006)
The series includes diverse species of trees photographed with a 4×5 camera in a variety of seasons and at different times of day. Mr. Lee allows the tree’s natural surroundings to fill the frame around the canvas, transforming the backdrop into an integral part of the subject. Centered in the graphic compositions, the canvas defines the form of the tree and separates it from the environment. By creating a partial, temporary outdoor studio for each tree, Mr. Lee’s “portraits” of trees play with ideas of scale and perception while referencing traditional painting and the history of photography.
Myoung Ho Lee is the recipient of awards including the first Young Photographer’s Award from the Photo Artist’s Society of Korea in 2005, Korea’s Photography Critics Award in 2006 and a grant from the Culture and Art Fund from the Arts Council of Korea in 2007. Mr. Lee was born in Daejon, South Korea in 1975 and currently lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.
Gallery Information
Hours:
Tuesday–Saturday 10 am–6 pm
Location:
525 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001
phone: 212-414-0370 fax: 212-414-0371
March 18, 2009
In this lecture hosted by Aperture and presented by Parsons The New School,Geoffrey Batchen will discuss the topic Perplexity and Embarrassment: Photography as Work. Batchen is a professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he specializes in the history of photography. He is currently working on an exhibition about the careers of Richard Beard and Antoine Claudet, due to open at the Yale Center for British Art in October 2011. Batchen’s books include Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography (The MIT Press, 1997); Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History (The MIT Press, 2001); Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance (Van Gogh Museum & Princeton Architectural Press, 2004); and William Henry Fox Talbot (Phaidon, 2008).
FREE
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
6:30 pm
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555
March 16, 2009
Metronome: 1/4 Plate Alumitype by Bryan Hiott
This 1/4 plate alumitype was my first attempt at using UV lighting indoors with the wet plate collodion process. Thanks to Quinn Jacobson and Jason Miguel of the Collodion.com Forum for their advice on a basic set up: three 100 watt compact fluroescent bulbs (5500 K for approximating daylight). I used a reproduction 19th century E. & H.T. Anthony tailboard camera with bellows and shot with a brass barrel Dallmeyer rapid rectilinear lens (c. 1891).
Exposure time on the plate was long (3 min. 20 sec.). Two factors contributed: 1) the f 7 Dallmeyer lens was not ideal for shooting indoors and 2) the dated collodion was not as light sensitive as it once was. I need to mix a new batch. Overall, the results of the plate are encouraging and have given me ideas about future set up and how to improve lighting. As you can see, the top of the plate goes darker because the light is falling off. What I needed was perhaps another compact fluorescent overhead. I was using only one bulb overhead plus one on each side. Using reflectors would have helped.
For this shot, I had the camera positioned about 3 1/2 feet from the metronome, which was the close as I could get and still focus the image; and that distance may have added to the light fall off. Quinn Jacoson also suggested that the dark areas at top of the plate might be from the collodion beginning to dry during the exposure. Cutting the exposure time is key, which I could half by using 6 bulbs (1 min. 40 sec.). I have also heard of some people using a bank of twelve 6500K UV bulbs and getting the exposure down to seconds. Of course, having a little faster lens is another way to go at it.
March 10, 2009
Note: I said in an MFA seminar at Parsons that art – as it exists in the market now – is not a necessity for living, but a cultural luxury that presumes a certain high standard of living. Given a choice between eating or buying art, I’d just as soon eat and wonder what place in my life art might have filled. Most of the people in the room dissented. With the economy in tatters, I wonder if they might be revising their thoughts.
_____________________________
Art As We Know It Is Dead
By Jonathan Jones
The Guardian
The economic collapse has destroyed the flashy art of the last two decades. In its place, we need something new.
The economic collapse is hitting the art world in some surreal ways. Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles has just had to postpone a planned exhibition, by the maverick performance and conceptual artist Chris Burden, that involves the use of 100kg of gold bricks. Gagosian purchased these – wow! How much does 100kg of gold bricks even cost? – from a company called Stanford Coins and Bullion. This company is a subsidiary of Stanford Financial Group, that is, it’s part of the empire of Texas financier Allen Stanford who is now at the centre of a massive fraud investigation. Now, announces Gagosian, “the gallery’s gold has been frozen while the SEC investigates Stanford.”
So the stories are spinning as the marriage of art and money unravels.
Not so long ago the British painter Leon Kossoff held an exhibition at the National Gallery. His drawings after the Old Masters got almost no press attention that I can recall – yet Kossoff is a veteran artist with great achievements to his name. He has painted the life of London’s East End with a sombre honesty and compassion. Artists such as Kossoff, or Frank Auerbach, or Paula Rego are a lot less fashionable today than artists who do things with gold bricks.
Why is that? No, it is not because they are “figurative”. Marc Quinn is figurative; Antony Gormley is figurative. What makes artists such as Kossoff seem out of date? It is their melancholia. The contemporary art world can cope with melancholy as style, but taste revolts at the reality of sad, severe, serious life in these painters’ work. The problem is, you can’t parlay it. You can’t fantasise on it. The authenticity of these artists annoys us because it tells us there are realities that rule us, The world, since the 1980s, has stopped believing in such a thing as reality. Money was unleashed from facts of any kind. Art became its delusive mirror.
Art is fun, it’s a laugh, it’s entertainment, it’s spectacular, it’s cool … art now aspires to be all the things fashion is. And so it cannot accomodate the awkwardness of a Kossoff: cannot be a bone in anyone’s throat. Its success is totally bound up with the same fiction that anything is possible that has inspired banks to lead us all into a looking-glass world.
I’ve tried to resist this fact for a few months, but I’m done with illusion. Art as we know it is finished. It is about to be exposed as nothing more than the decor of an age of mercantile madness. On what bedrock might a new art arise?
Anyone for Kossoff?
February 1, 2009
My friend, comedian Jeff Kreisler, just posted a funny video on the recent round of corporate mass layoffs. He has an interesting take on severance pay in the recession. This video is also posted to The Huffington Post.
January 25, 2009
Gen. Custer at Little Big Horn McDonald’s (by Bryan Hiott)
Gen. George Armstrong Custer descends in to an existential crisis, contemplating whether he would like fries with his Quarter Pounder. He was surprised by McDonald’s aggressive trans fat marketing and unsure whether he should use his military training to resolve the issue. His indecisiveness would prove costly.
January 24, 2009
Pablo Helguera: Committed Explanations in Geography
Press Release: Committed Explanations in Geography, a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Pablo Helguera, is an upcoming show at the School of Art at The Cooper Union that showcases his recent artworks highlighting cultural and linguistic gaps specific to the Americas (January 27-February 21, 2009), curated by Sara Reisman.
Helguera’s four-week, multi-disciplinary exhibition brings together a number of works produced between 2003 and 2009 around the subject of geography, cultural memory and social and political change in the American landscape. The subjects of the works range from works about an enclave of Veneto speakers (an italian dialect) in Puebla, Mexico, the history of the first Shaker settlement in America, the 1916 expedition by General John Pershing through the Sonora desert to kill Pancho Villa, the last speaker of the Eyak language in Alaska, and the life story of Wallace Nutting, the inventor of Americana. Helguera’s artistic practice incorporates pedagogical mechanisms, performance, musical composition, multi-linear narrative techniques and minimalist display strategies. The opening will include the performance of “Manifest Destiny”.
The Cooper Union School of Art
7 E. 7th Street
Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Gallery, 2nd floor
Free and open to the general public
Tuesday, January 27, 6pm (opening reception)
PERFORMANCE: MANIFEST DESTINY, 7 PM
On View: Jan. 27 – Feb. 21; gallery hours: Tues.- Sat., 11am-6pm
January 23, 2009
Pipilotti Rist: "Pour Your Body Out"
I was at The Museum of Modern Art today and finally got to see Pipilotti Rist’s massive – and much talked about – video installation, “Pour Your Body Out.” Sculptural seating in the center of the atrium encourages the public to linger and, in fact, produces an informal, relaxed environment. Rist’s 25 ft. high projections on three walls are visually stunning and function as surreal dreamscapes of gorgeous color. I’ll have more to say about the work in another post. The third wall of the installation is not visible in my cell phone photos.
From the MoMA Website
Pipilotti Rist’s lush multimedia installations playfully and provocatively merge fantasy and reality. MoMA commissioned the Swiss artist to create a monumental site-specific installation that immerses the Museum’s Marron Atrium in twenty-five-foot-high moving images. Visitors will be able to experience the work while walking through the space or sitting upon a sculptural seating island designed by the artist.
January 7, 2009
This clip is from the introduction to William Eggleston: Photographer, a documentary film by German director Reiner Holzemer, which was released last year. In this 30 minute film, Eggleston is more forthcoming about his artistic process and his reaction to critics than ever before. Seeing this reminded me that I need to get myself over to The Whitney Museum for the Eggleston retrospective before it closes on Jan. 25th.
