"We're Safe As Long As Eveything's Moving", Fundacío "la Caixa", Barcelona, 2004
Doug Aitken's video series "Electric Earth" caught my eye... and while our library doesn't have any video or DVDs, there were a few books. While it's difficult to convey the feeling of video through a series of stills in a book, the lush texture, composition and subject are still conveyed. One thing that attracts me to Aitken's work is his use of sound and music, something i'd love to give myself the liberty to attempt. perhaps next semester?
"I'd like to make a work wich brings you into the actual moment you're living in, real time."
Doug Aitken
"If you really want to know the whole truth, if you 're not satisfied with the large print of communication, then you have to be alert to the glimmerings of the sub-gestures that lie behind the gesture, just as cosmic dust trails behind the comet, because the sub-gestures are the small print of the contract. They are difficult to decipher but are nevertheless there."
José Saramago
1 artist monograph of a painter: "Ash" & "Microbo"
"Mural Art: Murals on huge public surfaces around the world", Publikat, Germany, 2008
"This is the way Ash works. His works are immediate but will stay with you for a while to make you think, or annoy you, or to make you wonder about the nature of humanity. Mostly in the street, the works of Ash are in your face and visible to everyone. In this sense his owrk is democratic and unavoidable."
Miriam Nielson, about Ash
"Like any musical form rises from a suggestive merging of only 7 notes, so my pieces develop through a combination of basic elements which i like to play with."
Microbo
1 artist monograph of a photographer: Zhang Huan
"Zhang Huan", Dziewior, Goldberg, Storr, Phaidon, New York 2009
"In fact, music was an essential part of my daily life. I could skip meals, but i couldn't stop listening to music. I had a daily ritual. I had to listen to different types of music at various times of the day; the Buddhist type of music kept me quiet, kept me calm, and then Cui Jan or Kurt Cobain's music got me going and made me very wild."
Zhang Huan
"The distance provided a clarity."
Zhang Huan
1 artist monograph of a sculpture: Ai Weiwei
"So Sorry", Ai Weiwei & Mark Siemons, Prestel, 2009
I looked into Weiwei first because he's figured largely in the news... he's been vocally critical of the Chinese government, which in turn has just arrested him. Here's the story from WIkipedia:
On 3 April, Ai was arrested just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched.[63] A police contingent of approximately 50 officers came to his studio, threw a cordon around it and searched the premises. They took away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer; they detained Ai, eight staff members and Ai's wife, Lu Qing. Police also visited the mother of Ai's two year-old son.[64] While state media originally reported on 6 April that Ai was arrested at the airport because "his departure procedures were incomplete,"[65] the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes.[66] Then, on 8 April, police returned to Ai's workshop to examine his financial affairs.[67] On 9 April, Ai's accountant, as well as studio partner Liu Zhenggang and driver Zhang Jingsong, disappeared[68], while Ai's assistant Wen Tao has remained missing since Ai's arrest on 3 April.[69] Ai's wife said was summoned by Beijing Chaoyang district tax bureau, where she was interrogated about his studio's tax on 12 April.[58] Chinese police announced that Ai was under arrest for tax evasion, bigamy and spreading indecent images on the internet.[70]
Response to Ai's arrest
Analysts and other activists said Ai had been widely thought to be untouchable, but Nicholas Bequelin from Human Rights Watch suggested that his arrest, calculated to send the message that no one would be immune, must have had the approval of someone in the top leadership.[71] International governments, human rights groups and art institutions, among others, have called for Ai's release, while Chinese officials have yet to notify Ai's family of his whereabouts.[72]
So as I looked into the artist, i realized that I had seen his Sunflower piece before, and been attracted to it. Although his work is most famous for opposing the CHinese one-party government... his work comes from a very straightforward and basic premise that life is sacred and should be honored.
"Silence please. No clamor. Let the dust settle, let the dead rest.
Extending a hand to those caught in toruble, rescuing the dying and helping the injured is a form of humanitarianism, unrelated to love of country or people. Do not belittle the value of life; it commands a broader, more equal dignity."
Ai Weiwei
"I try not to guide myself. I try, day to day, to accpet all the opportunities and to make a mark."
Ai Weiwei
1 non-art related book (non fiction): "Can't Stop, Won't Stop; a history of the hip-hop generation"
Jeff Chang, St. Martin's Press, 2005
"You know how a thing and the shadow of that thing could be in almost the smae place together? You know the way a shadow is a dark version of the real thing, the dub side?"
Nalo Hopkinson
"Pop artists made art out of pop culture. These tough kids are reversing the process, making pop culture out of art."
Kim Levin
"Our interviews were better than most people's shows."
Chuck D
1 non-art related book (fiction): "Kafka on the Shore"
Haruki Murakami, Vintage International, New York, 2005
"Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart."
"The world is a huge space, but the space that will take you in- and it doesn't have to be very big- is nowhere to be found."
Haruki Murakami
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