Jon Sasaki, ‘Flyguy triggering his own motion sensor’ (2010)

A flyguy (one of the familiar dancing inflatables that wave people into carwashes and fast food restaurants) has been moved into the gallery and hooked up to a motion sensor.

Click here to view a videoclip

‘Toronto’s Official Y2K Mascot, Autumn’ (2008)

With “2000″ emblazoned on his CN Tower-shaped body, an obsolete Y2K mascot sits contemplating his few, if any, prospects.

Click here to view a videoclip

‘Fireworks’ (2006)

Sputtering fireworks are thrust into a gallery display case, which, while containing the danger and violence, also highlights and reveals.

Click here to view a videoclip

‘Black Light Thrift Store’ (2007)

Intervention in a second hand store.

‘Jon Sasaki’s Best Friendship’ (2006 – ongoing)

The artist is offering his lifelong best-friendship.
Purchasers of a pendant are asked to break it in two, select either the “BE-FRI” half or the ”ST-END” half for themselves, and leave the other half with a gallery representative. The artist will then collect and wear his component as an official symbol of the newly formalized friendship.

Oskar Dawicki, ‘I’m sorry’ (2010)

Live in front of the audience Dawicki reads a text explaining he’s sorry for the failed performance he’s giving. Finally, to make up for wasting the audience’s time and the curator’s chance of putting on a good show, he hands out sweets while a taperecorder plays the sound of him crying and once more apologizing.

A performance seen in Rotterdam during Witte de With’s performance cycle ‘Let us compare mythologies’. Pictures by Peter Rakossy.

More fine work by Dawicki downstairs….

‘Vanitas’ (2005)

‘Vanitas’ (detail)

A collection of groceries whose before dates expire during the exhibition. The timers placed by each of the products display the time left to their “death” – each day of the exhibition another product expires, as the exhibition ends all products are inedible.

‘Advertising project’ (2002)

‘Advertising project’ (detail of one of the hidden portraits)

Working for over two years as a graphic artist in one of Cracow’s advertising agencies, Dawicki had placed his microscopic self-portrait on posters, leaflets and folders commissioned by producers of heating equipment, medical and health products or heavy industry raw materials suppliers. All prints have been reproduced in thousands of copies and distributed according to their function, while the hidden miniature artist’s face remained largely unnoticed.

Tue Greenfort, ‘Bio-Wurstwolke – After Dieter Roth 1969′ (2007)

‘Daimlerstraße 38′ (2001)

The animals were allured by a sausage. When the fox bit in the bait, it activated the camera connected by a cord with the sausage. One week later the animals had learned to eat the sausage without being photographed.

More more more

‘Chaudfontaine Condensation Cube – after Hans Haacke’ (2006)

‘Closed Biosphere’ (2003)

While inside a darkened room filled with the sound of waves breaking on climbs, dehumidification equipment imperceptibly extracted moisture from unsuspecting visitors. The condensate body water was refilled on used PET water bottles as the ones sold during the art fair. The refilled bottles were exhibited in a showcase next to the sound chamber entrance.

‘1,5l PET water bottle transformed to a 0,5l bottle and filled with local tap water from Berlin’ (2005)

Shrunken PET bottle.

‘Langsamkeit’ (2006)

Photograph.

Untitled (Bins) (2008)

Modified trash bins for Frieze projects.

‘Water cooler’ (2006)

‘Water cooler’ uses frozen fruit juice to cool water brought up from the point in Witte de With’s cellar where it enters the building.

The other highlight for me was the video ‘Annotated Plans for an Evacuation ‘ (2009) by Alex Hubbard.

In the video, Hubbard continuously alters the look of an old, used Ford Tempo. He does this with styrofoam, plaster and spraypaint in a way that makes it seem like he has a very clear plan for the make-over. However, over the course of the video, the purpose for his alterations becomes increasingly unclear, while their pointlessness becomes ever more clear.

The video, as installed at the Whitney.

I saw Sexy Neighbors play live at The Charleston, NY, last Monday.
Below are three songs from their album ‘Dream Out’, which is currently growing on me…

Check them out!

Seen last Friday at Gregor Podnar in Berlin; Ariel Schlesinger’s solo show called ‘Reverse engineering’. Although not many works and not all of them as good; a nice show, with quite some energy!

From the gallery’s exhibition text:

“In the sculptures shown here, Ariel Schlesinger applies techniques inspired by the reverse engineering process – by tapping into the process of their creation, he investigates hidden possibilities trapped in devices.”

‘A car full of gas’ (2009)

In the first work, two large gastanks sitting side by side in a brand new Mini Cooper breathe gas into the car. A small flame comes out of a hole drilled in the car’s passenger window.

‘A car full of gas’ (detail) (2009)

I’d never thought burning a flame from its window was one of the Cooper’s hidden possibilities, but I think the work’s best part is that it’s subtle, but also quite dangerous-looking. Ofcourse it’s quite a muscle work, but the humour and the energy that comes from it make up for this fact.

‘The sound two empty spaces make when they meet’ (2009)

‘The sound two empty spaces make when they meet’ (detail) (2009)

Untitled (pair) (2010)

A glass mug filled with water cramped into a paper cup makes for one of the two best works in the show.

Untitled (pair) (2010)

‘Oil lamp’ (2010)

The flame coming from the handmade lighter in ‘Oil lamp’ becomes a bit of a boring example of one of the many ways in which the idea can be given a form. You can see flames coming from a lot of Schlesinger’s works…

Untitled (socks holder) #3, #5, #9 and #10 (2009)

And the socks-turned-neckties are actually a bit too corny to become more than a little joke.

Untitled (socks holder) #5 (2009)

The exit.

Goshka Macuga, ‘The nature of the beast’ (2009)

Macuga was commisioned to make new work by the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ had once been exhibited. Inspired by this historic fact, Macuga made a replica of the Guernica tapestry that Nelson Rockefeller commisioned in 1955.  Some thirty years later this was lent to the United Nations Headquarters in New York where it has hung ever since outside the Security Council. Offered as a deterrent to war, in 2003 the tapestry was covered by a blue curtain in front of which Colin Powell delivered his fateful speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Macuga’s installation ‘The nature of the beast’ in the Whitechapel Gallery consisted of the Guernica’s replica, as well as a round meeting table (a symbol of democracy) in front of it. The room had been designed to accommodate meetings, discussions and debates around the central table, with Guernica once again as a backdrop. Groups were invited to organise these events free of charge during opening hours.

To be seen at Witte de With is the ‘remainder’ of this installation; the work ‘On the nature of the beast’. This work consists of a large tapestry on which we see the installation Macuga made, crowded with people. The image consists of several pictures of meetings held in Macuga’s ‘The nature of the beast’ photoshopped together.

Such as…

Prince William holding a speech.

Escaping the crowd, almost like the little girl in white in Rembrandt’s ‘Nightwatch’, there’s Macuga herself.

And there’s the strangely photoshopped incident where one man pushes his finger into another man’s hands.

Some more pictures:

Jack Goldstein, ‘Shane’ (1975)

‘The knife’ (1975)

‘MGM’ (1975)

‘The jump’ (1978)

Kenneth Anger, ‘Invocation of my demon brother’ (1969)

In 1967, the footage for Anger’s Lucifer Rising was allegedly stolen by Anger’s “Lucifer”, Bobby Beausoleil, who was later convicted for his participation in the Manson murders (Beausoleil denies stealing the footage to this day). Anger went into a deep depression and publicly renounced filmmaking via a full-page “In Memoriam” in The Village Voice. He later moved to London and met up with Mick Jagger and the Stones.   By this time, Anger had begun editing two other versions of what was to be Lucifer Rising, although by the final edit it had taken on a very different form, which led to the incarnation of Invocation, a mind-bending collage of sonic terror and subversion and fast paced ritual ambiance which found the union of the circle and the swastika, a swirling power source of solar energy. Mick Jagger contributed a suitably eerie soundtrack with a newly acquired synthesizer.

It is Anger’s most metaphysical film: here he eschews literal connections, makes the images jar against one another, and does not create a center of gravity though which the collage is to be interpreted, as the images of Christ could be interpreted through the actions of the motorcyclists in Scorpio or as the images of Crowley could be interpreted through the ritual of Inauguration. Thus deprived of a center of gravity,the very image has equal weight in the film,  and more than ever before in an Anger film, the burden of synthesis falls upon the viewer. The most demonic of Anger’s films, as well as the most fast  moving.

Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer February 3, 1927) is an American underground avant-garde film-maker and author. His short films, which he has been producing since 1937, have variously merged surrealism with homoerotica and the occult. Whilst he has produced almost forty short films in his lifetime, only six of these have received distribution, and have come to be referred to as the “Magick Lantern Cycle”. He has been described as “one of America’s first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner”, and some of his homoerotic works, such as Fireworks (1947) and Scorpio Rising (1964), were produced prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in the United States.

‘Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome’ (1954-’56)

The title of the film comes from the poem “Kublai Khan” by the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge claimed that the poem came to him during an opium dream. The poem tells the story of the Mongol general and statesman who built a pleasure dome. The film, subtitled “Lord Shiva’s Dream” is a complex meditation of ideas that Anger absorbed from his interest in the occultist Aleister Crowley.

“A convocation of magicians assume the identity of gods in a Dionysian revel. Lord Shiva, the magician, awakes. The Scarlet Woman, whore of heaven, smokes a big, fat joint; Astarte of the moon brings the wing of snow; Pan bestows the grapes of Bacchus; Hecate offers the sacred mushroom, yage, wormwood brew… The orgy ensues – a magick masquerade at which Pan is the prize. Lady Kali blesses the rites of the children of light as Lord Shiva invokes the godhead with the formula Force and Fire.” – Kenneth Anger

‘The man we want to hang’ (2001)

Comprised of images of Aleister Crowley’s paintings that had been exhibited at a temporary exhibition in Bloomsbury, London.

Also: In the next weeks pietmondriaan.com will have an irregular connection with China.

Space: Expo ‘Also Space’ (1-16 may) at C-Space in Beijing, organised by Reinaart Vanhoe.

Also Space Blog

Centennial Society (Packard Jennings), ‘Walgreens coupons’

This coupon is made to be inserted in the Walgreens EasySaver Catalog available every month at Walgreens, a chain of superstores comparable to Walmart.

‘W.T.F.?’ (2008)

Sign to be used in combination with existing commercial sign and sandwich-signs.

‘Lottery tickets’

These lottery tickets were given out for free with other Lottery purchases or upon request from few of the culturally engaged stores in Oakland’s Lake Merritt and Temescal districts, and San Francisco’s Mission and Western Addition districts. Each district has its own ticket design and eight unique “prizes.” The intention is to transform an instant of personal focus into a moment of contemplation about the local environment, community, and culture. The tickets come in perforated strips of five tickets. Twelve thousand tickets are being given away through January.

Momus, ‘Boring books’ (2008)

A selection of book titles and covers so boring they’re interesting.

Via vvork

Lenka Clayton, ‘Repairing Lebanon’ (2007)

A series of five digitally repaired images of buildings in Lebanon damaged by the 2006 conflict with Israel

‘Accidental Haiku’ (2008)

A found, anonymous, completed diary from 1975. Entries that accidentally adhere to the rules of the Japanese poetic form Haiku are flagged.

‘Intact’ (2008)

A recreation of the contents of a museum case from a dissipated University Museum, based on a found document.

Wesley Willis, view on Chicago

Wesley Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was a busker, musician, comedian and artist from Chicago. A diagnosed chronic schizophrenic, he gained a sizable cult following in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of simple but unique music, with emphasis on his humorous, bizarre, and frequently obscene lyrics. In addition to his large body of solo musical work, Willis fronted the punk rock band the Wesley Willis Fiasco. He also produced hundreds of unusual colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of the Chicago skyline and CTA buses.

On August 21, 2003, Willis died due to complications from chronic myelogenous leukemia in Skokie, Illinois. He was 40 years old. A memorial service for him was held on August 27, in Chicago.

‘Cut the Mullet’

And here are some of Wesley Willis’s songs on famous people:

‘Alanis Morisette’

‘Kurt Cobain’

‘Jesus Christ’

‘Oprah Winfrey’

Nedko Solakov, ‘Destroyed public sculpture’ (2001) Video here

Destroyed replica of a part from a public sculpture called Citizens (created by Ubo Scheffer, 1970), situated in front of the Police Headquarters, Arnhem

Via VVORK

Baptiste Debombourg, ‘Codes Article’ (2004)

The furniture has been destroyed with an axe and reconstructed after that. It was brand new, standard, cheap, and impersonal before being destroyed. Afterwards it reflects the frustration, guilt and possible repentance of the individual in relation to serially produced culture.

Detail shots.

‘Chez Marcel’ (2007)

2100 Marcel Duchamp Price

‘Triumphal Arch’ (2001)

‘Turbo’ (2008)

Nikki Koole, ‘Neukmannetjes’ (2005)

An application that generates a simplified version of  the game of seduction..
It starts with two babies, one male, one female. Once adults, they wander around the screen until they bump into eachother. They then have intercourse, after which the male leaves and the woman gives birth. Her baby will grow up, and enter the game.. This is repeated until the screen is fully filled with inhabitants, when everything collapses and the process starts over.

Nikki Koole will be presenting new works at Galerie Gallery tomorrow, Saturday the 3rd of April. You are welcome to join our festivities from 18.30hrs.

FRONT

BACK

‘Generative flat’ (2009-2010)

‘Primary school’ (2009)

I visited the Cacaofabriek in Helmond yesterday. One day earlier the road right next to the cacaofabriek collapsed under the weight of a huge construction machine, that happened to pass by. The machine hit a water pipe which caused the basement of the Cacaofabriek to be flooded with 200.000 liters of water. In that basement a work was installed by artist Hans van der Ham, that was partly made out of many liters of crude oil. The result was an amazing miniature oil disaster!

The work ‘Gate’ as it was originally.

‘The Chocolate Bar’ (2005-6) by Bethan Huws (filmstill).

Bethan Huws’ work ‘Word vitrine’ (2006) is the starting point for the exhibition
WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOU ANY MORE ARTWORKS?

Josué Rauscher, ‘Remue-ménage‘ (2008)

Rauscher is an artist living and working in Avignon, France.

‘I would gladly make second hand sculptures’ (2009)

‘L’Avion de jardin #2 (fac-similé)’ (2009)

‘Lutrin-vitrine (de camping) #1′ (2009)

‘Socles trompeurs’ (2010)

Untitled (2009)

Three examples from the series ‘Minarets’ (2010)

Tercerunquinto, ‘Escultura publica en la periferia urbana de Monterrey’ (2006)

Tercerunquinto (meaning in English something like ‘a third of a fifth’) is the collective project of Mexican artists Julio Castro Carreón, Gabriel Cázares Salas and Rolando Flores Tovar. Formed in 1996, the collective is responsible for dozens of actions designed, in their words, ‘to question the boundaries between private and public space, examining the organized frontiers around the constitution of such definitions’.

‘Escultura publica en la periferia urbana de Monterrey’ is a public sculpture on the periphery of the city of Monterrey. It consisted of a concrete foundation that was free to use by the people of Monterrey. Apart from being used as a platform for a political rally, it was transformed among others into a marketplace, a hangout, until eventually becoming claimed by a man who built his house on it. The house remains there to this day.

Seen a while ago in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, as part of the exhibition ‘Mexico: Expected/Unexpected. Collection Isabel and Agustín Coppel’.

Finally some photo’s of the opening of WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOU ANY MORE ARTWORKS?

More photo’s of opening and works will follow…

Willem, Roel and Julian

decomment / fromhow

Greylight projects was there…

Pierre

Carlo looking at Pierre’s work

Maarten

admiring work of Wolfgang Plöger

machine

Idfx seemed happy

michiel, michiel, yasser, ellen, koos,

sven, paul, david, andre

Olivier

Mieke, Roel, Anke, David, Nikki

Koen and his dad

Pierre Ardouvin, ‘Les Quatre Saisons’ (2010)

Pierre Ardouvin is participating in WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOU ANY MORE ARTWORKS?

‘Soleil d’hiver’

‘La fin du monde’

Frederik van Simaey, excerpts from ‘Together we are one’.

Van Simaey’s work is on view from Friday 20hrs on until the 18th of April, during the exhibition ‘WHAT’S THE POINT OF GIVING YOU ANY MORE ARTWORKS?’

‘It’s about time’

‘Rainbow’

‘The sky is the limit’

Daniel Bejar, ‘The visual topography of a generation gap’ (2006 – now)

A copy was made from Bejar’s original apartment key, then a copy was made from that copy. This process was repeated until the original keys information was destroyed, resulting in the topography of a generation.

Ferdinand ‘Postman’ Cheval’s ‘ideal castle’.

Cheval began the building in April 1879. He claimed that he had tripped on a stone and was inspired by its shape. He returned to the same spot the next day and started collecting stones.

For the next 33 years, during his daily mail route, Cheval carried stones from his delivery rounds and at home used them to build his Palais idéal, the Ideal Palace. First he carried the stones in his pockets, then a basket and eventually a wheelbarrow. He often worked at night, by the light of an oil lamp.

Cheval spent the first two decades building the outer walls. The Palace is a mix of different styles with inspirations from the Bible to Hindu mythology. Cheval bound the stones together with lime, mortar and cement.

More after the jump.

Just prior to his death, Cheval began to receive some recognition from luminaries like André Breton and Pablo Picasso. His work is commemorated in an essay by Anaïs Nin.

In 1969 André Malraux, the Minister of Culture, declared the Palace as a cultural landmark and had it officially protected. Cheval’s palace is open every day except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Cheval may have been the inspiration for the character of Denny in Chuck Palahniuk’s 2001 novel Choke, who gathers a collection of stones which are eventually used, in similar fashion, to build his ‘dream home’.

Cheval also wanted to be buried in his palace. However, since that is illegal in France, he proceeded to spend eight more years building a mausoleum for himself in the cemetery of Hauterives. Cheval died on August 19, 1924, around a year after he had finished building it, and is buried there.

Antoine Stemerding, ‘Wat wil je doen?’  (2006)

An installation/intervention at Stichting KOP, Breda.

‘A perfect place to hide’ (2004)

A tree is stuck between the floor and the ceiling. In this tree is a wooden space, conceiled with screen doors. If you look into the space through a crack, you see pornographic imagery and sketches of the installation on the walls inside. In the transparent space above it are six plants and lights.

‘Onder andere omstandigheden’ (2008)

Sculpture.

‘Stacked Lego bricks’ by Camille Laurelli.

Here are some more random images taken from his blogspot, which is like a look into his studio…

So do I.

200 euro.

Pain.

Rainbow.

Hasta la pasta.

‘Broken Arm Chair’ by George Dubinsky

Hihi.