For those of you who I haven't told, AK and I will be having a girl! With that in mind, I came across a Flickr photoset that includes 140 napkins a dad drew on for his daughter when she was in school. They aren't cutesy little drawings, most are quote, some are just a little weird.

Tom Friedman is one of those artists, that if you are an artist, you love to hate. His use of simple materials in complex ways always has be asking "why didn't I think of that". He gets his art supplies from drugstores, candy stores, the human body, and the supermarket. Friedman relentlessly invents intricate objects out of a range of household materials, such as styrofoam, masking tape, pencils, toilet paper, spaghetti, toothpicks and bubble gum. His work is obsessively and painstakingly crafted and is both beautiful and playful. Friedman's ability to transform common objects into something new, his devotion to material perfection, the way he
conceptualizes the action of the artisan, enables him to elevate the ordinary to the status of art.

(© Images are the property of Tom Friedman, text from http://www.designboom.com/portrait/friedman.html)

Wooster on Spring, the exhibition with Elias Cummings, the new owner of 11 Spring Street, will open in Lower Manhattan in less then one week.

The exhibition, a three celebration of 30 years of ephemeral art, will take place for three days only, and then all of the artwork will be destroyed.

The artists who's work will be showcased include Shepard Fairey, WK, Jace, Swoon, David Ellis, FAILE, Cycle, Lady Pink, London Police, Prune, JR, Speto, D*Face, JMR, Blek Le Rat, John Fekner, Bo and Microbo, Above, BAST, Momo, Howard Goldkrand, Borf, Gaetane Michaux, Skewville, Michael DeFeo, Will Barras, Kelly Burns, Abe Lincoln, Jr, Thubdercut, Judith Supine, Rekal, Maya Hayuk, Anthony Lister, Stikman, You Are Beautiful, Gore-B, Elboe-Toe, MCA, Jasmine Zimmerman, Plasma Slugs, Diego, RIPO, The Graffiti Research Lab, Txtual Healing, Mark Jenkins, Dan Witz, Iminendisaster, Rene Gagnon, and many other surprise guests.

So here are the days and times for the three day open house:

Friday, December 15th: From 11am to 5pm
Saturday, December 16th: From 11am to 5pm
Sunday, December 17th: From 11am to 5pm

On Sunday, December 17th at 3pm there will be a panel discussion with many of the artists attending.

The location is 11 Spring Street (Spring and Elizabeth). For the first time in perhaps more than 25 years, the doors of 11 Spring will be open to the public.

Bronze Pigs by Chen Wenling at the Robischon Gallery in Denver, Colorado






© 2006 Robischon Gallery

Force of Nature is a collaborative project co-curated by Mark Sloan and Brad Thomas of the College of Charleston and Davidson College. 7 institutions have come together to support and host 10 Japanese artists who primarily work in ephemeral, nature based materials. The gallery I curate, the Sumter County Gallery of Art, will host the capstone exhibition in May of 2007, bringing together drawings, models, photographs, and some work from all 10 artists. The work pictured above, by Motoi Yamamoto, will be recreated at the Sumter Gallery location. For more info visit the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art The Flickr photoset can be viewed here.

Sergio Prego typically examines our set notions of space and of time's linear development. For his first exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, Sergio Prego will present two films and large sculptures where time is suspended and space is manipulated.

The new film Black Monday depicts a small explosion and plume of smoke captured from several viewpoints in the artist's studio. This single moment is fixed in time then manipulated with a computer to upset the usual relationship between space and time, creating what appears to be a three-dimensional sculpture in video.

Solarys, Prego's most recent film, also explores the conventional notion of linear time and attempts to cause friction between the simple documentation of an action and the narration that results from these related elements. The film directly references acclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 cult classic of the same name. Filmed through the tunnels and streets of Tokyo, Prego utilized four cameras to capture the “futuristic” landscape. In the original film, the future was represented as a contemporary highway scene. Here the notion of the future has been updated. With several cameras recording simultaneously inside and outside of the car as Prego travels through the cityscape, he is able to give different perspectives on the same view.

In homage to Bruce Nauman, Prego constructed Sunoise, a large sculpture comprised of two fluorescent tubes joined by mechanical arms. Each light moves independently of the other, folding and rotating as though dancing in the gallery. In another part of the gallery, Prego presents his newest sculpture made of large sheets of damaged metal in an attempt to alter our perceptions of space.

Spanish artist Sergio Prego was born in San Sebastian in 1969. Prego works in many different fields of media including video, photography, performance art, installation, and sound. Prego has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad, most recently at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Spain, Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, and P.S. 1 MoMA in New York. Prego also created a special installation at the Palazzo delle Papesse-Centro Arte Contemporanea in Siena in 2005.

© http://artnews.info/gallery.php?i=1314&exi=4413

I find new artists, exhibitions, media, art almost everyday, and thought this would be a good place to post what I find interesting. I am also working on getting together a one-stop shop for any and all exhibitions, competitions, calls for artists, proposals, etc and hope to have that integrated into a calendar format. Eventually I would like this blog to take on a form similar to a social or Web2.0 site (like www.digg.com), where users determine whats the most interesting and can post whatever they like. If you have suggestions, ideas, or might be willing to guide me in the right direction, please drop me an email through my contact page.