Smith "The Weight" from Easy Rider OST
(1969, Dunhill Records)
Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Images of the Day
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Bill Owens, from his Suburbia series (1972).
[click to enlarge]
Happy Memorial Day weekend, America!
Bill Owens, from his Suburbia series (1972).[click to enlarge]
Happy Memorial Day weekend, America!
New Warmth
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I know it's almost summer and so I shouldn't be thinking about sweaters – but we live in Seattle, where knitwear is always appropriate.
I know it's almost summer and so I shouldn't be thinking about sweaters – but we live in Seattle, where knitwear is always appropriate.
S/S 2010:
Of Another Kind
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Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969
Hot on the heels of minimalism in the late 1950s and early 60s, with its emphasis on the "object-ness" of art, came the post-minimalists: artists who called attention to the physicality of their materials, focused on process rather than end product, and welcomed the chance effects of environmental forces on their work. Eva Hesse, who escaped to the U.S. from Nazi Germany with her family at the age of two, embraced the de-objectification of art in her sculptures by favoring malleable materials (latex, cheesecloth, twine) that would deteriorate over time. Hesse died of a brain tumor in 1970 at the young age of 34, but her use of "female" techniques that included spinning, sewing, and knitting, along with the physically suggestive nature of much of her work, helped turn her into a feminist icon.
Vertiginous Detour, 1966
Contingent, 1969
On the occasion of a 2006 show of Hesse's work at the Jewish Museum in NYC, Grace Glueck of the New York Times wrote:
On June 2, Derrick Cartwright, the Seattle Art Museum's director, will present a lecture exploring work made by the 28-year old Hesse in 1964, during a one-year sabbatical in Germany. Hesse had returned to Germany at a point when she reportedly perceived her career to be at a dead end. For much of her time there she worked in an empty textile factory in Kettwig-am-Ruhr, where she produced small-scale paintings and drawings as well as her first sculptures.
Untitled, 1964
If you're not a SAM member it might just be worth joining for this – or you can tag along with someone who is. (Members $5, guests $9; more info here.)
Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969Hot on the heels of minimalism in the late 1950s and early 60s, with its emphasis on the "object-ness" of art, came the post-minimalists: artists who called attention to the physicality of their materials, focused on process rather than end product, and welcomed the chance effects of environmental forces on their work. Eva Hesse, who escaped to the U.S. from Nazi Germany with her family at the age of two, embraced the de-objectification of art in her sculptures by favoring malleable materials (latex, cheesecloth, twine) that would deteriorate over time. Hesse died of a brain tumor in 1970 at the young age of 34, but her use of "female" techniques that included spinning, sewing, and knitting, along with the physically suggestive nature of much of her work, helped turn her into a feminist icon.
Vertiginous Detour, 1966
Contingent, 1969On the occasion of a 2006 show of Hesse's work at the Jewish Museum in NYC, Grace Glueck of the New York Times wrote:
Not many contemporary artists have approached the uncertainties and contradictions of making art as resolutely as Eva Hesse. Her challenges to Mimimalism, the reigning movement of her day, while using some of its vocabulary and serialist aesthetic, helped create a genre that went beyond Minimalism's anti-Expressionism and rigidity of form.
Using materials then new to sculpture, like latex and fiberglass, she made work that hung, draped, dangled, looped, drooped, slumped, webbed, protruded breast- and penislike, imitated skin, suggested bodily orifices, spilled or just lay on the floor.
Art that wasn't "art" was her aim. "I wanted to get to nonart, nonconnotive, nonanthropomorphic, nongeometric, non, nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort, from a total other reference point," she wrote in an exhibition statement in 1968.
Tomorrow's Apples (5 in White), 1965
Repetition 19 III, 1968
On June 2, Derrick Cartwright, the Seattle Art Museum's director, will present a lecture exploring work made by the 28-year old Hesse in 1964, during a one-year sabbatical in Germany. Hesse had returned to Germany at a point when she reportedly perceived her career to be at a dead end. For much of her time there she worked in an empty textile factory in Kettwig-am-Ruhr, where she produced small-scale paintings and drawings as well as her first sculptures.
Untitled, 1964If you're not a SAM member it might just be worth joining for this – or you can tag along with someone who is. (Members $5, guests $9; more info here.)
Eva Hesse in an exhibition image from Hauser & Wirth's 2004 show
Transformations – The Sojurn in Germany 1964/65
Transformations – The Sojurn in Germany 1964/65
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Image of the Day
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Graphic designer Lester Beall with a Cheviot sheep, 1960's. Via Eric Baker/Design Observer and AIGA.
Graphic designer Lester Beall with a Cheviot sheep, 1960's. Via Eric Baker/Design Observer and AIGA.
Happy Birthday, Bill
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Today is Wild Bill Hickok's birthday. Hickok, born in 1837 in Troy Grove, Illinois, was at various times throughout his 39 years a gunfighter, stagecoach driver, scout for General Custer, lawman, and professional gambler.
The Action-Packed Story of Wild Bill Hickok,
Cowboy Western Comics #31 (1951)
A few other random facts, while we're at it:
1. While Hickok was growing up, his father's farm was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Hickok learned his skills as a marksman defending the farm against slave catchers.
2. Five months before his death, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a circus proprietor in Cheyenne, who was 11 years his senior. (Meow.)
On August 2, 1876, Hickok was shot in the back of the head by "Broken Nose Jack" McCall, while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota (then the Dakota Territory). He died instantly. At the time he was shot, Hickok was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black (a combination now known as the "Dead Man's Hand").
Today is Wild Bill Hickok's birthday. Hickok, born in 1837 in Troy Grove, Illinois, was at various times throughout his 39 years a gunfighter, stagecoach driver, scout for General Custer, lawman, and professional gambler.
The Action-Packed Story of Wild Bill Hickok,Cowboy Western Comics #31 (1951)
A few other random facts, while we're at it:
2. Five months before his death, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a circus proprietor in Cheyenne, who was 11 years his senior. (Meow.)
3. Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
On August 2, 1876, Hickok was shot in the back of the head by "Broken Nose Jack" McCall, while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota (then the Dakota Territory). He died instantly. At the time he was shot, Hickok was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black (a combination now known as the "Dead Man's Hand").
Keith Carradine as Wild Bill in Deadwood.
Happy Birthday, Wild Bill. You were a true American badass.
Wild Bill's headstone in the Deadwood cemetary
(photo by Strath)
Wild Bill's headstone in the Deadwood cemetary(photo by Strath)
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