Tallest Skyscraper by a Woman

Aqua by Jeanne Gang

Friend / blogger Jenn Mowery Marsh brought this New Yorker article and gorgeous piece of architecture by Jeanne Gang to my attention. Favorite bits from article in case you are in a rush...

- A lot of attention—in Chicago, at least—has been given to the fact that Aqua is the tallest building in the world designed by a woman. That’s nice for Gang, but beside the point, and dwelling on it leads too easily to predictable interpretations of skyscrapers as symbols of male identity...
- balconies on every floor, all the way up. Usually, condominiums sixty or seventy floors above the street don’t have balconies, because it’s just too windy up there to go outside...
- you might think it’s a gigantic version of one of those “blob” buildings of the past few year
- In an age in which so much architectural form—even, sometimes, the best architectural form—has no real rationale beyond the fact that it is what the architect felt like doing, there is something admirable about the tower’s lack of arbitrariness. It reclaims the notion that thrilling and beautiful form can still emerge out of the realm of the practical.

Read more at...

I see my revisitation of practically placed, undulating forms in my artwork's future.

Hans Bellmer + Hysteria

Today I’m reading about Hans Bellmer and seeing parallels between his photographs and my recent paintings bulging with balls of figures and objects in domestic spaces. Therese Lichtenstein’s writing about Bellmer in a chapter called “The Hysterical Body” in her book Behind Closed Doors easily links Peter Kilborn’s Relos and expatriates’ nomadic tendencies. These commonly reward lifestyles appear normal but are often only seem slightly less frenetic and prone to emotional, animal-like behaviors. From page 108:

Once again, as in so many of Bellmer’s photographs, this body is riven by inner conflict...both trapped and out of control in the claustrophobic space. And once again, this headless hybrid creature (like octopus and a human combined) suggests the condition of hysteria. By portraying the doll as headless and flailing, Bellmer seems to collude with class nineteenth-century stereotypes of hysterics as woman who have lost their minds, who are emotional and animal-like in nature, and who are literally out of control.

Although the interpretations of hysteria and many of its symptoms have changed in various ways from Greek times to the present, and it has affected both men and women, hysteria has been consistently characterized as a female malady. What we call hysteria today is a psychosexual abnormality that manifests itself through an assortment of physical symptoms. The word hysteria derives from the Greek hyster (womb) and was used in ancient Greece to designate a pathology presumed to result from a displaced or “wandering” womb. The Greeks believed that in cases involving an insufficient amount of sexual intercourse or even sexual abstinence, the womb would become uprooted and wanter around the woman’s body, producing negative behavioral side effects. Women who did not conform to the conventional roles assigned in patriarchal culture—namely, wife and fertile mother—were pathologized...

In most Western cultures in the nineteenth century...according to diagnostic science of the period, the female hysteria registered her symptoms across her body through a nonverbal language f gestures that expressed her unconscious anger and rebellion. These passionate physical tremors, like the pent-up energy of an earthquake rocked her otherwise contained and controlled body.

Such antisocial characteristics were first “documented” in photographs taken under the direction of the famous French psychologist Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpetriere clinic between 1875 and 1880...hysterical fits were induced by electrical shock, loud noises, pressure on the ovaries, the use of ether, tying women down, or placing their heads in a brace in order to hold a pose for the long exposure time. The cultural historian Sigrid Schade points out that it is not a coincidence that many nineteenth-century hysterical poses resembled epileptic fits, because after 1870 Charcot place epileptic patients and hysterics in the same ward. Many gestures, especially the “hysterical” arched back, resembled depictions of women possessed by demons or images of exorcism found in earlier medieval and Renaissance paintings. Charcot, who was married to a wealthy widow and wa sa patron of the arts, closely connected to Parisian art circles, collected these works and hung them on the walls of the Salpetriere clinic, where patients had visual access to them.

More about Lichtenstein's book at http://ucpress.edu/books/pages/8186.php
A 2006 New York Times article with a painting of Charcot talking about the "disappearance" of hysteria, a fashionable syndrome of the Victorian era...or the changing of its name. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/science/26hysteria.html

Exact Coordinates of Home

"As far as one journey, as much as a man sees, from the turrets of the Taj Mahal to the Siberian wilds, he may eventually come to an unfortunate conclusion—usually while he's lying in bed, starting at the thatched ceiling of some substandard accommodations in Indochina," writes Swithin in his last book, the posthumously published Whereabouts, 1917 (1918). "It is impossible to rid himself of the relentless, cloying fever commonly known as Home. After seventy-three years of anguish I have found a cure, however. You must go home again, grit your teeth and however arduous the exercise, determine, without embellishment, your exact coordinates at Home, your longitudes and latitudes. Only then, will you stop looking back and see the spectacular view in front of you."

From Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. I'm having trouble finding the original source, but worthy of a post.

The Rotating Kitchen by Zeger Reyers

Also my inclination for making artwork right now. Spot on.

See documentation of Reyer's The Rotating Kitchen on vimeo.

Janine Antoni

Listening to some podcasts while I'm working at the artist residency in Austria. These comments from Janine Antoni from MOMA Reconsidering Feminism, buried somewhere in their iTunes Think Modern series, rang true today.

Gender is not something that I manufacture from a historical or theoretical perspective. It's actually something that surprises me in the work. It doesn't come from some sort of pre-conceived notion. It's is only the unconscious imagination that would wake up to find their mother dressed up as their father and vice versa. It’s only from this place that I can imagine doing the laborious task of mopping the floor with my hair or making lipstick out of six hundred pounds of chewed chocolate. It's sort of this confusion...this misunderstanding that I find illuminating... I'm not talking about a kind of non-thinking or idiot savant attitude, but I'm talking about...the unconscious as a kind of a product of the conscious mind...and the conscious mind that's done a lot of work on this issue that is very aware of the way that I'm treated in the world as a woman. A conscious mind that sort of watches how gender plays itself out in the world. It's my belief that in liberating the imagination is the only way that I can envision some other possibility.

Plant Passport

Much of the landscape where I've lived for the past three years, can look like this:


[Image: Kudzu-infested forest; photo courtesy John D. Byrd, Mississippi State University].

Even waterways, now becoming choked with Pondweed, make you wonder who has the upper hand. Occasionally plants appear to be winning, especially when the current economy yields little money to maintain infrastructure. Even during my first month in the region, plants started working their way into my paintings. Now they are really coming into themselves, like the plants barreling through Munich's Haupbahnhof in this recent painting:


Swarm Separating Self: Haupbahnhof Pondweed, Ink on vellum, 10x45 in, 2009


Swarm Separating Self: Haupbahnhof Pondweed, Ink on vellum, 10x45 in, 2009 (detail)

The dense, defiant roots of these plants stood in perfect contrast to the rootless female figures of my imagined worlds. But then this morning, to stumble upon on a fantastic conversation on Bldgbldg blog with Plant Health and Quarantine Officer for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew about Plant Passports...all this while reading Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. I couldn't be more pleased.

New Books on Painting

Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2004, acrylic on wall, floor, and various objects, approx. 110 × 177 × 158 in (280 × 450 × 400 cm)

New books on painting:
Painting Today
Painting Abstraction

Both from Phaidon.

Off to Austria to work on my paintings. Hurrah!

Also from Painting Today

Matthias Weischer, Oberlicht, 2006, oil and egg tempera on canvas, 120 x 150 cm (47¼ x 59 in)

Molly Springfield's Translation

My favorite exhibition during my recent trip to Chicago was Molly Springfield at Thomas Robertello Gallery. The artist painstakingly render the first chapter of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Working page by page, rendering even the type in graphite, the task took her two years and took my breath away. The space was bizarrely comforting, especially having just left my own labor-intensive recent artwork, pictured below. I'm happy with my new paintings, but still, go Molly...what a clear-headed, powerful gesture.

twocoatsofpaint.com

Mark Bradford, "Giant," 2007, mixed media collage on canvas, 102 x 144." Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins.

I'm enjoying this blog, http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/

Go Mark Bradford with your genius grant.

Part Bicycle?

Anticipating our upcoming trip to Ireland packed with biking trips, our friend Sean Miller sent us this fantastic quote from Flann O'Brian's novel The Third Policeman, in which Sergeant Pluck addresses atomic theory in relation to bicycles:

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles. They go on to discuss percentages: apparently the postman, due to the nature of his job which involves much bicycle-riding, is a full 71% bicycle. This also means that his bicycle is 71% human. When it gets to this stage, the bicycle will start sneaking inside to sit by the fire, and food will start disappearing. "If you let it go too far it will be the end of everything," says the Sergeant. "You would have bicycles wanting votes and they would get seats on the County Council."

Must look into whether expatriates exchange atoms with planes. Surely they do with each subsequent location.

Eva Hesse, Immortal Longings

Immortal longings ... an untitled piece of Eva Hesse's Studiowork (1968). Photograph: Abby Robinson/Courtesy of Fruitmarket gallery, Edinburgh

Important to bookmark for later reference. I had never seen this Eva Hesse piece. Exhibition in Edinburgh. Article in The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/aug/05/artist-eva-hesse

Reloville

After taking a brief break from books on transnationalism, I just ordered the following two books:

Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class by New York Times writer Peter Kilborn

Interview with Kilborn on To the Best of Our Knowledge http://www.wpr.org/book/090712a.cfm

Leaving America: The New Expatriate Generation by John Wennersten

We'll see how they go...I also found this US News article updating numbers on American's abroad (4 to 7 million). They keep moving around so they are hard to count! http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/07/28/a-growing-trend-of-leaving-america.htm

Anderson Ranch with Josh Davis

I've spent this week at Anderson Ranch studying with Josh Davis. Check out his work at joshuadavis.com. More soon on my website, but here's a still of my work here.

Many thanks to Anderson Ranch for helping me to study here. Nestled in the Rockies, it's an ideal artist oasis where everyone is kind and thrilled to be making art.

Ram Katzir and Pico Iyer

Ram Katzir, Tracing Future, 2005, floor engraving, 120 m2, Collection Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art

Two days ago, I emailed artist Ram Katzir (http://www.ramkatzir.com) to find out more about Aomori Contemporary Art Center residencies (http://www.acac-aomori.jp/en/index.html). He highly recommended the program, noting the fierce competition to get in, and after looking at my work, suggested the literature of Pico Iyer. I thought I'd share both tips.

Original In Your Work

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Flaubert (French writer, 1821-1880)

bldgblog

[Image: The Cable City of Takis Zenetos].


Another recommendation is my new favorite blog at http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/ Many thanks to FSU Geography Professor Phil Steinberg for this recommendation. Scroll down to read about Takis Zenetos. I see a cable city in my artmaking future.

Many thanks to Elisabeth Condon for her lecture last night at FSU. Check out her work at http://www.elisabethcondon.com. It's extraordinary and especially impressive after her move to Florida. Who knew warm weather could increase a flurry of creative activity? I thought that we all assumed the reverse. My favorite new phrase from her talk—rolodex space.

Her Parasol House series reminds me of my favorite show seen over the winter break—Al Held at Casey Kaplan. Those paintings were ahead of their time.

Manny Farber

Had to mention this quote from Manny Farber in his book Negative Space..."Good work usually arises when the creators... seem to have no ambitions towards gilt culture but are involved in a kind of squandering-beaverish endeavor that isn't anywhere or anything... It goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."

bldgblog

Florida State University Phil Stenberg recently suggested that I look Los Angeles-based writer Geoff Manaugh 's blog about architecture and unusual ideas about space at http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/.

I think I'm addicted.

Creative Output While Overseas

So I finally lived overseas again (2 months in London, the picture above is of my class in an East London Gallery, taken by Owen Mundy) and found it difficult to post. It's no wonder many of you have trouble contributing to my calls for participation. It's so easy to be distracted by your new environs. I miss the luxury of knowing that you'll be in your new host country for two years more and can explore at a more human pace. Next time. I'm looking into artist residencies for my next overseas experience. The following sites have been most helpful:

http://www.transartists.nl/
http://www.resartis.org/
http://www.mesart.com/art/Resources:Artist-in-Residency_Programs

Happy hunting!