Aguacate metaléptico

I am a literature graduate student and this is my work-related blog. Here I post thoughts, images and ideas related to my academic and intellectual interests.

[oxane]

His ‘n Hers Market Stroll Set by Dolan Geiman

[simply-too-complicated]

Horses made from plastic silverware

[diversionsatwork]

Claire Healy :: Sean Cordeiro :: Found Objects :: Artworks

[slowartday-blog]

Marjan Teeuwen

[filthcakes]

Baba Yaga Window

Detroit, MI

(www.danielleardenomalley.net)

[shinyslingback-blog]

TOM DEININGER.

http://www.tomdeiningerart.com/works.html

[thinktankgallery]

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST GREGORY EUCLIDE PART I

I recently had the chance to interview artist Gregory Euclide, whose works often blur the line between painting and sculpture, installation and relief, representational and ethereal. Much differently than other artists with whom we have spoken, some amount of Euclide’s work is lost when viewed from a computer monitor or on one of the pages of the major magazines that have printed his art. This transition from impact to accessibility is one that he has given much thought, and his overwhelmingly interesting process has been affected by it. Euclide comments on this and more in Part I of our interview, below.

Does the modern method of online consumption ever affect your method or do you just deal with the inevitable consequence that comes with the perks of massive sharing through the internet?

 I have been taking more process shots and movies to give an indication of how the objects are made. I think that quite a bit is missed when you look at my work in a flat image, But for me that is kind of the point – that is why I started making relief work. I was aware of what the internet afforded the viewer… the ability to see the world from a central location. The problem is that we make sacrifices for convenience. We did the same thing with music, we accepted the inferior mp3 format because it allowed us to take it with us, to store more, to download easier. 

  Speaking of method, how do you start one of your relief-type works? Is it responsive to materials you collect or do your wide, tonal slashes ever dictate direction?

I often start a work with an abstract gesture… something more like dance or something that mimics the movements of the natural world I am dealing with. I have drawers and drawers full of organic materials and inorganic materials. After I start making some imagery I determine what materials are going to go with what I have developed. It’s a collaging of materials and color, texture, history and meaning all come into play at that point.  

    But you seem to accomplish just as much with just one large surface in monochrome, which is more challenging? 

As you might guess, they are just different. The relief works are labor intensive and I need to make sure everything is built correctly. The sumi ink works are much more direct. I am simply painting. I don’t need to stop for three days to build a bridge or cut out shapes in paper. Although recently the sumi works are looking more and more like the relief works… and I suppose they will continue to do so until they are full on reliefs. 

    Catch Part II of this interview here.

Visit gregoryeuclide.com for more information.

[thingsfittingperfectlyintothings]

found objects + public spaces

(installations by Michael Johansson)

[metalepsis]

Last night, my cousin Leonardo Baltonado made that horrifying leap from living and breathing human being to another statistic.

Father of two, husband, son, brother, uncle, cousin, security guard, taxi driver, resident of Caracas, Venezuelan. Now he is also another victim of gun violence in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

[venezuelablog]

Venezuelan Protests from the View of Western Caracas

Rebecca Hanson

Images of burning tires, masked youth, and clashes between citizens and state security forces have accompanied almost all news coverage of Venezuela for the past few weeks.  And these well-documented protests and the government response to them have, as blogger Francisco Toro wrote, changed the political game in Venezuela for the foreseeable future.  

To fully appreciate these changes, however, we need to also appreciate the geographical limits of the opposition protests. Taking into account where protests are not occurring, and why, is important in understanding what they represent for residents who do not live in the zones where protests have erupted.

These protests have not engulfed the entire country or even the entire capital, despite coverage and photographs that might suggest otherwise. Recent articles in Ultimas Noticias have declared the western side of the city, which normally grabs headlines for its high homicide rates, as tranquil and quiet in comparison to the east.

I live and conduct research in Catia, a massive grouping of working and lower-class barrios in the western section of the city that have long been considered a Chavista stronghold. Though I had heard about the violence that erupted on Youth Day, when clashes first came to a head in Caracas, I had to go into the city center to find evidence of protests: A grouping of National Guard and National Police officers blocking the Avenue Francisco de Miranda in Chacaito, looking bored and tired by 8 o’clock at night. 

Read More

[metalepsis]

Thus, while it is fashionable to blame U.S. inaction on climate change on political ignorance--politicians who refer to it as a hoax and, as of 2011, 53% of Americans who do not believe in its anthropogenic roots--far more disturbing are the more entrenched and everyday forms of living, thinking, and feeling that make cheap energy a "commonsense" necessity of survival.

Matthew T. Huber, "Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom, and the Forces of Capital"

[metalepsis]

[metalepsis]

[metalepsis]

[metalepsis]

[metalepsis]

The flares of Shell are flames of hell We bake beneath their light Nought for us save the blight Of cursed neglect and cursèd Shell.

Ken Saro-Wiwa

[metalepsis]