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Repository 226: Mixed Reality | The Debilitating Forces of Moral Outrage & Conspiracy Theories in a Time of Pandemics
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” – A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Charles Dickens As an artist in this pandemic, I feel at a great…
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Repository 215: When the Private Must be Public | Interrogating the Home in Art
One had to build shelters. One had to make pockets and live inside them. -Lorrie Moore, Like Life. Vintage, 1990 If home is sweet home, then why is the domestic sound terrifying? Horror stories are rooted around a home, or collection of homes we call a town. Countless artists have avoided direct representation of the home unless it’s a subversive attempt to expose the dark, inner sanctum of the familiar. Naturally artists remove sweetness from the domestic. Sweetness is heavy,…
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Repository 214: The Business of Beds and Banks | Slow Thinking on the Immigration Investment
On the top of my to do list every day I write “kind, honest, necessary, urgent” – if it’s not any of those things, it’s not on my list and I’m not doing it. I’ve been writing a lot privately about art (more to come publicly), and I have been slow to the draw on my blog. Some urgent matters are occurring in the media, so much so that I’m finally feeling pushed to dissect. For me it’s urgent because…
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Repository 212: Richard Kurtz | Wrestlers and Golden Books
Below is an essay I wrote after interviewing artist Richard Kurtz last month, and diving deep into insider/outsider/whatchamacallit art which I have been interested in for some time. His work will be featured at the New York Outsider Art Fair in New York this month (January 18 – 21). Please visit Booth 19 should you find yourself there. Meanwhile – let’s dissect the idea of outside art. Peace – c “Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more…
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Repository 210: Peter de Cupere’s 20—Year Scent Art Survey Book and the Quest to Manifest
Peter de Cupere’s career is full, diverse and now blossoming. Prior to his diving into art full stop he had a career that included the Sturm und Drang of 9-5 business. Luckily he embraced art fully, and quickly incorporated scent into his oeuvre. For over 20 years de Cupere has taken a devil may care, smell me roar attitude to incorporating scent in his art installations and projects. Thankfully there is now a giant, almost 500-page monograph, including scented pages,…
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Repository 208: An Art Game Inspired by Tolerance and the Five Senses | Interview with Sally Taylor
Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. – Elizabeth Cady Stanton Before diving in and presenting you with a project by and conversation with the visionary artist and musician Sally Taylor, it’s important to be precise and set the tone about the current nature of art whether in schools or our culture. Basically let’s widen our idea of art. The Western world currently associates art with status, high culture,…
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Repository 207: Bon Mot | Book Review “The Amateur”
Do not be fooled by the title of this book “The Amateur” and its sweet cover with arty paint splotches. This is nothing short of a revolutionary manifesto of independent thinking. Much like the book “Skinny Bitch” was titled as such to lure the innocent, naive and possibly desperate diet-trodden reader to pick up/buy or borrow the book: it was a blood-filled vegan manifesto designed to convert people to stop supporting the meat industry and eat plants and plant products…
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Repository 206: Reader’s Digest Review of the Venice Biennale, Skulptur Projekte and Documenta
“Art forces people to respond, and if people were no longer discussing art and found themselves in complete agreement, then it ceases to have any relevance.” – Susanne Pfizer It’s taken me almost three weeks to digest what I consumed over the course of two weeks of art exploring, and will take the course of years to fully appreciate the line of inquiry proposed by the artists, curators and organizers of documenta 14, Skulptur Projekte Münster and the 57th Venice…
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Repository 202: DaDa and MeMe | The Internet Gives Back
A little over a month ago, a student of art history and psychology at Vanderbilt University found my work online. She is writing a paper on Dada, feminism and the influence of Duchamp on female artists. I’m honored to be a part of the dialog, and I’ll share with you the work she was particularly interested in, and my initial responses to her questions. For those of you unfamiliar with Dada, please know that it was a fierce and fun…
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Repository 200: Le Painting | Mark Making
Dear Matthew Collings, Recently a friend sent a link to a discussion forum where you and her exchanged thoughts about whether painting is dead – you are in the camp of yes, it’s dead, and she in the camp of no it’s not. Simply speaking. Before responding I made sure to see more of your writing and thoughts on the matter. I very much enjoyed your series on the BBC “Rules of Abstraction” – it was a fair and benign…
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