Blue Tower Arts Foundation

Brother and Sister, 2000-2001, oil on linen, 44×32”.

Images of a Floating World # 23, 2001-2003, oil on linen, 26×22”.

There is a great interview with painter Bill Jensen over at Bomb. Over the years his painting style has constantly been shifting and the article deals with some of that.

From the article on the Jensen’s changing styles:

Bill Jensen: Change is good for art but hard on the artist. I feel that serious artists go into the studio day after day and let the art slowly take them, sometimes kicking and screaming, into new territories. They let the making of things have its own life, and this living force brings them into areas of creating they could never have imagined. Solutions come from this working process. Sometimes you have the feeling that you are being pulled by a team of wild dogs. Looking back over 20 or 30 years, I could never have dreamt where these images came from and where the art has taken me. To make something truly amazing is to make something you could never have dreamt of.

“Art’s peculiar power as a form of address arises through its mediation between sublime silence and the din of everyday sight and sound.”

Homi Bhabha in “Aura and Agora: On Negotiating Rapture and Speaking Between” (From Negotiating Rapture edited by Richard Francis)

An interesting video sent by Dave Merwin. The music uses the voice of Stephen Hawking and you can find a downloadable mp3, stills and contact info at barzart.net. No other info is given except that it was “shot on a phantom camera at a high frame per second rate”.

Unless you’ve been living under Pop Rocks lately you’ve heard of the zeitgeist that is Lady Gaga. Part dance club diva, part performance art and all walking spectacle, Lady Gaga the artist requires more than the dismissive glance pop celebrities usually deserve. She buries her mediocre lyrics under piles of loaded imagery, costuming and symbolism. Her latest video with Beyonce is a 10 minute short-film for her song “Telephone“.

Friend of BTAF and poet Kate Durbin and co-editor Meagan Vicks have recently started a new blog entitled “Gaga Stigmata: Critical Writings and Art about Lady Gaga”. Currently they have an open call for submissions to be included there:

Gaga Stigmata: Critical Writings and Art About Lady Gaga is a new technological breed of journal that intends to take seriously the brazenly unserious shock pop phenomenon and fame monster known as Lady Gaga.

Our goal is to eventually create a book of the best works on this site, both in technological and physical form.

A good intro into the subject is Vick’s essay “The Icon and the Monster: Lady Gaga is a Trickster of American Pop Culture“. Vicks also has a really good discussion happening on the subject of the video “Telephone” at her blog. Below is an excerpt of an exchange between her and one of her readers:

2.  Cyborg
onlywordstoplaywith: It seems that the telephone functions as an extension of the human body.  Gaga wears the telephone as a helmet at one point, and her hair forms the receiver at another.  Telephone technology is not only ubiquitous, but also has become an organic part of the contemporary body.  When it’s not a part of Gaga’s costuming or hair, it’s beckoning, interrupting, dictating.  And the humans are moved by its ring.  At one point Beyonce starts moving like a malfunctioning robot.  They’re moved to violence, and/or moved as automata.

Harq: As well as trapped by it.  When it stutters and freezes, so do the people using it.  Though I think we should avoid moralizing many of GaGa’s messages.  Other than her feminist play, I think that most of her uses of technology, commercialism, fame, and so on aren’t meant to be critiques but problematizations, she’s calling attention to how these things work and change, and that means celebrating as well as condemning.  After all, the telephone is important in her release from prison.  And, in contrast to the lyrics of the song, which present it as the tool someone is using to harass Lady GaGa and Beyonce, in the video it functions as a tool used between friends and comrades.

onlywordstoplaywith: That’s an excellent point.  It’s both restricting and freeing (or a creative power).

Zimoun : Sound Sculptures & Installations | Compilation Video V1.7 from ZIMOUN VIDEO ARCHIVE on Vimeo.

This stuff is pretty amazing. I particularly like the rational presentation of everything. It made the random chaos of the sounds all the more apparent. The work is by Swiss artist Zimoun whose bio simply reads “Zimoun (CH), born 1977 in Bern/Switzerland, autodidact.”

The video is almost 10 minutes but it definitely is worth it. Pay attention to the sound of the woodworms at 4:52.

via +kn

Found this Artist Statement Generator that operates just like the childhood word game Mad Libs. Pretty and points out the ridiculous and pretentious nature of a lot artist statements out there. If you have a show coming up and you need something vague sounding to keep people from understanding your work you might want to start with this. The generator was made by Artists Nick Fortunato and Erin Seymour- a pair of video/electronic/web artists. They have quite the collection of very interesting work at 10gallon.com so spend some time going through it.

The results of my entries are below:

Malcom McClaren’s Artist Statement
Through my work I attempt to examine the phenomenon of Bugs Bunny as a methaphorical interpretation of both Duchamp and Killing.
What began as a personal journey of Damnationism has translated into images of popcorn and elbow that resonate with Chinese people to question their own blueness.
My mixed media ash trays embody an idiosyncratic view of Jim Jones, yet the familiar imagery allows for a connection between Lawrence Welk, Faustian Villains and Cabbages.
My work is in the private collection of Don Knotts who said ‘Zanzabar!!, that’s some real Swollen Art.’
I am a recipient of a grant from Folsom Prison where I served time for stealing mugs and tie clips from the gift shop of The MOMA. I have exhibited in group shows at Whitecastle and Thomas Kinkade Gallery, though not at the same time. I currently spend my time between my laundry room and Berlin.

Great references to famous paintings by French group Hold Your Horses. Look like it was a blast to make. The song is 70 Million and you can download their EP on iTunes.

via Jason

I found this footage rather moving.

“Apology to roadkill” by Shaun Gladwell (1–6) (2007–2009) pictures a black-helmeted motorcycle rider stopping to tenderly examine and cradle the carcasses of grey kangaroos. the video is joined by significant sculptural interventions into the pavilion itself: the motorbike from apology to roadkill (1–6) embedded into the outside wall of the pavilion to create a protrusion in the inner skin of the space.

From the Biennale website:

Artist Shaun Gladwell presents his work, MADDESTMAXIMVS: Planet & Stars Sequence, 2009, in the Australian Pavilion in the Giardini. Influenced by his experiences in Australia’s landscape of the outback, and Mad Max movies, the work is a suite of videos accompanied by sound, photographic and sculptural works. Gladwell’s work critically engages personal history, memory and contemporary cultural phenomena through performance, video, painting and sculpture. He has exhibited in major national and international exhibitions; including The Mind is a Horse, Bloomberg Space, London (2001) and the Yokohama 2005 Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan. Gladwell’s work was also represented in the 2006 Biennale in Busan (South Korea) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). In 2008 he exhibited in Sydney and Taipei Biennales.

Shaun Gladwell was one of three Australian artists selected by Director Robert Storr to participate in the 52nd International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2007. Gladwell’s Storm Sequence generated positive reviews from a range of international newspapers and journals including Art in America and Frieze magazine. His installation for the Australian pavilion will build upon the foundation of interest and support created by his participation in the 2007 Venice Biennale.

Read more about Gladwell’s other pieces and see images of of the artist’s replica Mad Max Interceptor at Design Boom.

‘apology to roadkill’ by shaun gladwell, 2007–2009, production still
cinematography: gotaro uematsu
photography: josh raymond
courtesy the artist & anna schwartz gallery

Alberto Seveso is an Italian graphic artist and illustrator. His portolio on Behance includes these stunning photographs he took of varnish being poured into water. Click on an image to see the rest of each series. They are titled “Sequence verdastra/bluastra/bastarda arpeggio” and “Medicina Rossa” respectively.

We’ve moved our blog over to our site host. This explains the lack of posts as of late. We are also currently working on the homepage of our site, updating it a bit, making it a bit more dynamic and engaging. Stay tuned