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We Fight Dirty

reBlogged via Visual Resistance:

Brilliant Adbust in California

Posted April 21st, 2006 by eliot

Via the invaluable Eyeteeth comes word of a great billboard liberation in California:

This was done by the California Department of Corrections.  Although the CDC is unaffiliated with the original Billboard Liberation Front, the BLF has given this one the thumbs-up.

The Combustive Motor Corporation Launches U.F.O.

powerHouse Books is pleased to announce the September 2006 release of:

U.F.O.
GRAFFITI / EXTRATERRESTRIAL PHENOMENA / URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
PB, 8 x 9.5 inches, 164 pages with 4 multipage gatefold and 32-page field guide insert. A product of The Combustive Motor Corporation

"Beneath the dark highway overpasses of Brooklyn, within the forbidden railyards of Queens and along the rooftops and stairwells of Manhattan, four urban explorers record and decode the work of one of New York City’s most vilified and elusive graffiti artists. Using historical and scientific documentation, government records, personal narratives and photographic evidence, the Combustive Motor Corporation thoroughly documents their relentless pursuit of meaning within the markings of a figurehead of underground art who appears only in the form of his spray-painted avatars..." -- Jerry Saltz, The Village Voice

The Combustive Motor Corporation is a collaboration of New York City based artists Alex Wright, a music and culture photographer whose work has appeared in music, art and fashion periodicals as well as in national advertising campaigns; Caleb Scott, a writer and actor, who has produced and exhibited over twenty plays, short films and performance pieces; producer and filmmaker Chris Noble, whose most recent work includes a number of documentary films for Wieden + Kennedy; and Jack Warren, a painter and multimedia artist, who has recently been exhibited in solo shows in Geneva and New York.

Books will be available in August2006.
To preview the book please visit http://www.powerhousebooks.com/ufo.pdf

'Between Artists' Book Launch @ Printed Matter

A.R.T. Press' Between Artists Series Liam Gillick / Lawrence Weiner Paul Chan / Martha Rosler Book Launch Saturday, May 27, 2006, from 5-7 PM

Printed Matter presents a book launch for the first titles in A.R.T. Press' Between Artists series Liam Gillick / Lawrence Weiner and Paul Chan / Martha Rosler on Saturday, May 27 from 5-7 PM.  Each book features a conversation between two artists who discuss their practice and issues informing their work.  Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street.

The Between Artists series pairs established artists with developing artists whose work shares similar formal and conceptual concerns.  The resulting conversations comprise books that offer straightforward, intimate investigations of artwork and related sources of interest. Liam Gillick / Lawrence Weiner offers a conversation between the two textual installation artists that focuses on continuing critical hot button issues.  Unhindered in addressing thorny topics, Gillick and Weiner talk about the social function of art, artworld egos, viewer responsibilities, and art education.  Paul Chan / Martha Rosler documents the inter-generational thoughts of two politically active artists whose paths have crisscrossed major currents in the artworld and the political sphere.  The duo expand their conversation beyond the intersection of art making and socio-political involvement to share thoughts on boredom, bodily suffering, Bertolt Brecht, Chris Marker, and The Passion of The Christ.

As part of their mission, A.R.T. Press seeks to provide insightful and relevant publications at an affordable price.  Liam Gillick / Lawrence Weiner is a pocket-sized 48-page paperback with no illustrations and is priced at $10.95.  Paul Chan / Martha Rosler is a pocket-sized 72-page paperback with 14 color reproductions and is priced at $13.95.

A.R.T. Press serves as the publishing component of Art Resources Transfer, a dual-faceted nonprofit organization that exists to increase egalitarian access to contemporary art and its surrounding dialogues. Through the other half of their organization, the D.U.C. Program, Art Resources Transfer provides free books on contemporary art to rural and urban libraries and schools with limited resources. The Between Artists series reflects a dedication by A.R.T. Press towards documenting the voices of artists.  Previous artists that have participated in A.R.T. Press publications include Chuck Close, Laurie Simmons, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Allan McCollum and Vija Celmins.

Sarah Sze's Corner Plot

I came across Sze's fab piece quite by accident myself one day while stumbling around.... reBlogged via Off Center:

Sarah Sze's Corner Plot
by Paul Schmelzer at 8:51 am 2006-05-22      

Grow or Die is something you stumble upon, like a pottery shard you find when digging in your backyard. Installed in 2002 in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden's Cowles Conservatory, the work by Sarah Sze is an underground tableau made of an odd assortment of Q-tips, pencils, circuitry wire, and styrofoam. If you notice it, you’ll see a plexiglass window breaking the red pattern of bricks in the Conservatory's floor; peering down, you'll see a strange miniature world.

Sze's newest piece, Corner Plot, adds a new dimension to this notion: instead of a flat window looking down into the ground, she's constructed a brick corner jutting out of the cobblestones, as if a building has tipped and sunk, on the corner of 60th Street and Fifth Avenue, right near Central Park. A window in the building (which is an exact replica of the apartment hi-rise across the street) offers a puzzling view of the contents of a life: books, a large leaf from a plant, an iPod, a microscope. Like our piece, Corner Plot is about discovery–stumbling upon a surprising find and wondering what it all means.

New York magazine has a nice slideshow of the creation of the piece. Via Gothamist.

Interior view of Corner Plot in Sze's studio

Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video

via Artnet News, May 23, 2006: 

"ECOTOPIA" FOR ICP TRIENNIAL
The International Center of Photography in New York has set the lineup for its big fall show, "Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video," Sept. 14-Nov. 26, 2006. Organized by ICP curatorial staffers Brian Wallis, Christopher Phillips, Edward Earle and Carol Squiers, with assistant curator Joanna Lehan, "Ecotopia" features works by 39 artists that reflect a growing concern about natural disasters and global environmental change. "We found very few artists relating to the theme in an overtly political way," said Wallis. "Rather, the sense was of something ominous looming on the horizon."

Artists in the show -- many of them contributing new works or installations -- include Robert Adams, Doug Aitken, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Wout Berger, Patrick Brown, Catherine Chalmers, Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg, Stéphane Couturier, Lou Dematteis and Kayana Szymczak, Yannick Demmerle, Goran Devic, Mark Dion, Sam Easterson, Mitch Epstein, Joan Fontcuberta, Noriko Furunishi, Marine Hugonnier, Francesco Jodice, Harri Kallio, Vincent Laforet, Christopher LaMarca, An-My Lê, David Maisel, Mary Mattingly, Gilles Mingasson, Simon Norfolk, Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar, Kadwo Eshun, Richard Couzins), Sophie Ristelhueber, Clifford Ross, Thomas Ruff, Carlos and Jason Sanchez, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Diana Thater and Qingsong Wang.

The ICP’s first photo triennial, mounted in 2003, took up the theme "Strangers," and focused on people -- often with the same sense of anxiety. "Ecotopia" is sponsored by United Technologies Corporation.

from the ICP site:

September 8–November 26, 2006

Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video

Fact Sheet [PDF]

List of Artists [PDF]

In a time of rampant natural disasters and urgent concerns about global environmental change, this exhibition demonstrates the ways in which the most interesting and engaging contemporary artists view the natural world. Shattering the stereotypes of landscape and nature photography, the thirty-nine international artists included in this survey boldly examine new concepts of the natural sphere occasioned by twenty-first-century technologies; images of destructive ecological engagement; and visions of our future interactions with the environment. Considering nature in the broadest sense, this exhibition reflects new perspectives on the planet that sustains, enchants, and—increasingly—frightens us.

Ecotopia is being organized by ICP curators Brian Wallis, Christopher Phillips, Edward Earle, and Carol Squiers, and assistant curator Joanna Lehan, and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Above: Mary Mattingly, The New Mobility of Home, 2005, © Mary Mattingly, Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery