Kelly Mark's magazine-style art website, samplesize.ca is well worth a few visits (and participation! send in the writing, folks). On a recent browse, I really enjoyed Micah Lexier's Group Show 1. Minimalism that includes scary Ulay and Marina Abramovich but leaves out boring ol' Donald Judd. Conceptual art that includes the wonky Daniel Buren and omits the often pompous Joseph Kosuth. Now that's my kind of curation! This simple series of images resonates deep, giving background warmth to a kind of contemporary art that sometimes feels cold and bleak. While Daniel Olson is not on Lexier's list, I'd say that Olson, Lexier and Kelly Mark are three Candian artists with a particularly keen eye for understatement. They all take their minimalism seriously but they don't leave out the fun stuff. Lexier is the driest of the three, and the sense of quiet resignation I sometimes get from his art has turned me away in the past. His curation on samplesize, however, gives me some new thoughts about locating his work as a fine-tuned practice that is gentle yet precise. I was particularly happy to see a work by Eric Cameron: that sad-eyed, Quentin Crisp-like art history prof with a shaky hand, and an art practice that makes your skin crawl as he delicately and persistently coats objects with layer upon layer of white acrylic, nudging them into monstrous shapes that slowly grow ever larger as their true forms morph into obliteration.
Eric Cameron
Can you imagine the Ulay/Abramawicz piece being done today? No American museum would, er, touch it. I think I'd put it in the "best viewed on a website, as part of the history of conceptualism" category.
Also, for some reason the Lexier piece made me think of friend from high school. He had no interest in going to college, and the fall after we graduated he went back to the school and applied for a job as a custodian. And not as performance art! (They turned him down.)
I just _love_ that Eric Cameron stuff. Pearls are made the same way (and onions, I guess). Lots of stuff works that way: long-held grudges get nobblier, and warped, and end up being unrecognizeable (he didn't hold the car door for me, so now I'm gonna divorce him, e.g.); arteries getting fuller and fuller of crap until they kill you.
(this nice post above from an anonymous reader was put in another thread - I'm sticking a copy here where it belongs. )
Two projects related to the Cameron piece: the Art Guys' (from Houston) One Thousand Coats of Paint (everyday objects like shoes, telephones etc made unrecognizable by daily paint coats with a chart showing the history of colors applied) and Roxy Paine's (NY) Painting Machine, a robotic contraption that keeps dipping a canvas into white paint until the bottom of it is a giant accreted blob with stalactite formations. There are no contemporary art historians, so we have to do this work on a volunteer basis.
you are so right , someday in the future when they excavate the internet and find this thread they'll thank us. one unique and creepy thing I forgot to mention about Eric Cameron is that part of his agenda is to keep painting each piece until A: he dies or B: he sells it.
"Here, I'll buy this from you if you'll just STOP!"
OK, I'll confess. I'm that unstrung anonymous. No, not string, thread! I feel pretty chuffed to be on (in?) a string.
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Micah Lexier
Kelly Mark
Daniel Olson
Kelly Mark's magazine-style art website, samplesize.ca is well worth a few visits (and participation! send in the writing, folks). On a recent browse, I really enjoyed Micah Lexier's Group Show 1. Minimalism that includes scary Ulay and Marina Abramovich but leaves out boring ol' Donald Judd. Conceptual art that includes the wonky Daniel Buren and omits the often pompous Joseph Kosuth. Now that's my kind of curation! This simple series of images resonates deep, giving background warmth to a kind of contemporary art that sometimes feels cold and bleak. While Daniel Olson is not on Lexier's list, I'd say that Olson, Lexier and Kelly Mark are three Candian artists with a particularly keen eye for understatement. They all take their minimalism seriously but they don't leave out the fun stuff. Lexier is the driest of the three, and the sense of quiet resignation I sometimes get from his art has turned me away in the past. His curation on samplesize, however, gives me some new thoughts about locating his work as a fine-tuned practice that is gentle yet precise. I was particularly happy to see a work by Eric Cameron: that sad-eyed, Quentin Crisp-like art history prof with a shaky hand, and an art practice that makes your skin crawl as he delicately and persistently coats objects with layer upon layer of white acrylic, nudging them into monstrous shapes that slowly grow ever larger as their true forms morph into obliteration.
Eric Cameron
- sally mckay 11-18-2003 11:40 pm
Can you imagine the Ulay/Abramawicz piece being done today? No American museum would, er, touch it. I think I'd put it in the "best viewed on a website, as part of the history of conceptualism" category.
Also, for some reason the Lexier piece made me think of friend from high school. He had no interest in going to college, and the fall after we graduated he went back to the school and applied for a job as a custodian. And not as performance art! (They turned him down.)
- tom moody 11-19-2003 8:52 pm
I just _love_ that Eric Cameron stuff. Pearls are made the same way (and onions, I guess). Lots of stuff works that way: long-held grudges get nobblier, and warped, and end up being unrecognizeable (he didn't hold the car door for me, so now I'm gonna divorce him, e.g.); arteries getting fuller and fuller of crap until they kill you.
(this nice post above from an anonymous reader was put in another thread - I'm sticking a copy here where it belongs. )
- sally mckay 11-20-2003 7:53 pm
Two projects related to the Cameron piece: the Art Guys' (from Houston) One Thousand Coats of Paint (everyday objects like shoes, telephones etc made unrecognizable by daily paint coats with a chart showing the history of colors applied) and Roxy Paine's (NY) Painting Machine, a robotic contraption that keeps dipping a canvas into white paint until the bottom of it is a giant accreted blob with stalactite formations.
There are no contemporary art historians, so we have to do this work on a volunteer basis.
- tom moody 11-20-2003 8:02 pm
you are so right , someday in the future when they excavate the internet and find this thread they'll thank us. one unique and creepy thing I forgot to mention about Eric Cameron is that part of his agenda is to keep painting each piece until A: he dies or B: he sells it.
- sally mckay 11-20-2003 9:55 pm
"Here, I'll buy this from you if you'll just STOP!"
- tom moody 11-20-2003 10:03 pm
OK, I'll confess. I'm that unstrung anonymous. No, not string, thread! I feel pretty chuffed to be on (in?) a string.
- Jean (guest) 11-20-2003 11:30 pm