August 30, 2008
August 28, 2008
Chris Burden – Medusa’s Head
Chris Burden. (American, born 1946). Medusa’s Head. 1990. Plywood, steel, cement, rock, model railroad trains and tracks, 14′ (426.7 cm) in diameter. Gift of Sid and Mercedes Bass
Update on Kippenberger Hunger Strike
According to the Guardian The Pope has condemed the Martin Kippenberger sculpture which inspired a very stupid Italian public official to go on hunger strike. The Pope has called the work “blasphemous” and the museum are seriously considering removing it!
Franz Pahl, the president of the regional government, was so enraged by the sculpture he went on hunger strike to demand its removal and consequently ended up in hospital during the summer.
Update: The museum’s board has thankfully voted not to remove the sculpture.
August 23, 2008
August 16, 2008
August 11, 2008
Sunday Times Review of Bookish: When Books Become Art
There was a review of Bookish: When Books Become Art by Gerry McCarthy in the Sunday Times. He was lukewarm on the show in general and I didn’t agree with some of his criticisms but he was positive about my piece. Here are the paragraphs where he dicusses my work.
There is humour in Bookish, notably in a piece by Niall de Buitléar. He spent time in the Boole Library in University College Cork, meticulously trawling the volumes for found objects. The result is the Found Bookmark Project, a collection of things which people have used as bookmarks and have little in common aside from being flat.
After so much sombre reworking of meaningful cover images and miscellaneous pieces of careful conceptualism, De Buitlear’s piece is a reminder of the real life of books. It points us back to readers, without whom they are just lifeless assemblies of ink and paper. It offers us an intriguing glance into the lives of these anonymous people, with their shopping lists, holy pictures and letters of complaint.
By embracing the human aspect, De Buitlear enlarges interface between books and art. The rest of the show maps the territory with careful attention to detail but the Found Bookmark Project offers us a new port of entry into it.
August 10, 2008
August 7, 2008
Eusebio Sempere Sculpture
Eusebio Sempere, a respected minimalist 20th century Spanish artist, created a sculpture composed of a three-dimensional array of polished stainless-steel tubes that rotates at its base.
In addition to its provocative visual effect as the moving surfaces reflect in the sunlight, it was also a sonic filter that blocked transmission of particular frequencies. A listener on one side heard a tonal modification of those sound sources located on the other side, the visual equivalent of colored glass prisms. This sculpture is an aural embellishment because it changes sounds that propagate through it.
