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Folk art: la pintura de granjeros

Me encantan los "farmer paintings" que son todos aquellos trabajos realizados por artistas amateres que son granjeros, pescaderos, carniceros... y representan la vida rural con vivos colores.
Una de las zonas mas famosas por este tipo de pinturas es Jinshan, en concreto el pueblo de Fengjing que resulta estar bastante cerca de Shanghai, asi que voy a intentar escaparme un dia a hacerles una visita, aqui. Aqui.

Mayumi Oda

Una amiga me dejo un libro de esta artista japonesa a la que se conoce como la "Matisse" del país del sol naciente. De trazo sencillo y realizadas con serigrafia, me gustan estos coloridos homenajes a la feminidad. Su pagina personal aqui.

Liu Ye 刘烨

Aunque sus cuadros parecen naives y femeninos, los cuadros de este beijines tienen siempre algo mas. Hijo de un ilustrador de cuentos ha mantenido ese estilo inocente para mostrar la vulnerabilidad y soledad que sienten los artistas ante los enormes cambios que estan ocurriendo en todo el mundo, pero en particular en China.
Esta era su pieza en la Biennale.

Los Colores del Folk Art Chino

El otro dia me quede enganchada con estos trajes. Muestras de la ropa de las minorias etnicas que habitan en China y extranas coincidencias con los colores de Peru o Guatemala. Si una peruana y una tibetana se conocieran probablemente se sorprenderian de su parecido.
La idea de los color stripes, de aqui, www.color-stripes.blogspot.com Gracias Kris.

Visita a la Shanghai Biennale

La 7a Biennale tiene por tema "Translocalmotion", cuenta con unos 61 artistas de 21 nacionalidades y estara abierta hasta noviembre en el Museo de Arte de Shanghai. "Translocalmotion" examina el espacio dinamico urbano y a sus habitantes reflejando asuntos como las migraciones y las implicaciones sociales, economicas y culturales de la urbanizacion, la exposicion explora como los cambios urbanos afectan a nuestra vida.
Ir a un museo de arte en China se parece un poco a ir al Ikea o al Decathlon donde todo lo prueban, lo tocan, lo fotografian posando ellos delante, al lado, interactuando con la pieza, lo comentan. Estaba bastante lleno (he contado 5 extranjeros) y el precio (medio euro, entrar al MoMa de NYC cuesta 20$) es lo mas cercano que he visto a la idea de democratizar el arte. Gran presencia de arte Chino y me ha encantado comprobar que hay mucha vida mas alla de los posters con referencias comunistas, pero que la estetica y la logica es indiscutiblemente otra. Una visita final a la libreria ha reafirmado la sensacion de que es un mundo aparte, el 95% de los libros pese al titulo en ingles, sonar super interesantes y tener precios razonables, son en chino!

Yue Minjun 岳敏君

Probablemente el rostro mas conocido del panorama artistico chino contemporaneo, Yue Minjun se rie de todo. Su obra se compone principalmente de autoretratos en el que aparece una o mil veces, partiendose de risa.
"Siempre he encontrado la risa totalmente irresistible. Pinto a gente riendose, de cualquier cosa. La risa es un momento cuando la mente deja de razonar, porque estamos confundidos ante ciertas cosas y nuestra mente no quiere pensar o no sabe como o simplemente quiere olvidar. En los 90 todo el mundo deberia haberse reido mucho."
Su web aqui.

Shanghai Biennale

From the 9th Sept to 16th Nov the Shanghai Biennale will take place. Here, the official website. http://en.shanghaibiennale.org/index.php

Cai Guo-Qiang

Bueno y supongo que no se puede empezar a hablar de China sin mencionar que quedan 4 dias para los Juegos Olimpicos y dedicándole el post a un artista al que se lo debo hace tiempo, que será el director artistico de la ceremonia de inaguración:
Cai Guo-Qiang con reciente retrospectiva en el Guggenheim de NY que ahora viaja al National Art Museum of China, en Beijing del 19 de agosto al 2 de sept.
Conocido por sus ruidosos experimentos con la polvora, Black rainbows (arcoiris negros) como los llama el, sobre Valencia o Edimburgo, pero tambien sobre papel. El otro dia en una entrevista, enseñaba como los hace. Dibuja con polvora, los hace explotar y en el papel queda el eco de las explosiones para recrear lo invisible. Tambien se le atribuye un potente contenido político a este trabajo, ya que dice ilustrar el motto de Mao "destroy nothing, create nothing".
Pero además de la pólvora el artista usa una amplia variedad de símbolos, narrativas y materiales como el fengshui, la medicina China, dragones, ordenadores, y personajes de las minorias etnicas de China.
En la entrevista me sorprendio como un tipo muy sonriente y extremadamente tranquilo que confesaba humildemente que pese a llevar viviendo en NY desde mediados de los 90, no habla ingles.
Y voy a seguir leyendo y viendo... que hay mucho que ver. Aquí más cosas.

Joaquin Gonzalez

Y mirando dibujitos he llegado a estos, fantasticos cuadernos de viaje.

What happened to us?

Esta es una muestra de la ultima pieza de Dan Perjovschi en el MOMA que ocupa la pared central. No esperaba algo asi en un museo de arte y quizas fue el tamanyo, o la sorpresa, pero... Boom. Como unos dibujillos tan simples pueden tener tanta fuerza? Y me replantee lo de siempre. No sé que es el Arte pero la reaccion fisica y mental que me han producido esos garabatos en la pared tiene que tener algo que ver con esa palabra que siempre se escribe en mayúsculas. Y esa sensacion de piel de gallina y de estar delante de algo honesto me produjeron un hormigueo, unas ganas de ver, de hacer, de sentirme viva! Fue probablemente la mejor despedida de un museo que ha sido un rincon maravilloso al que me escapaba miles de veces cuando la ciudad era muy fria o muy gris o muy materialista o muy pesada. Consegui hace tiempo una tarjeta con la que puedo entrar gratis y parece que nadie se ha quejado de que la siga usando (no os chiveis) Ayer, persegui a una chica que me impresiono porque lloraba cada vez que un cuadro le gustaba. Y alli iba, sala por sala con su pañuelo en la mano sin reprimir lo que sentia y me parecio precioso. Supongo que yo iba mucho porque buscaba algo parecido que nunca supe cómo describir. Y boom, era eso. Sentir. Sentir. Sentir.

Psychedelia at the Whitney

Hippies, love, flowers, beat poets,... Fun exhibit, always good to see some funky record covers and posters. Lots borrowed from Eastern philosophy and India. Why do I see India everywhere I look? Interesting furniture/sculptured spaces of Verner Panton (on the pic) titled "Phantasy Landscape Visiona II", a book by Huxley I would like to read "The doors of percepcion" and a light show I would like to know more about "The Joshua Light Show".
But the best was probably one floor up Rudolf Stingel, I came across one of his amazing self-portraits at the Bienal in this same museum 2 years ago and it was one of the few pieces I can still remember. A retrospective, covering the last 20 years of the italian painter since he got to the States is quite interesting, different and ends up with 3 mind-blowing super realistic portraits.

New Math

Craig's book is finally out. Good luck! See more here.

Jesse Reno

Cool illustrations here .

Travis Millard

Cool illustrations here.

Upsidedownit

Sometimes you meet people that disappoint you. And you get all down, because you don't understand, because they hurt, because....
But sometimes you meet wonderful amazing people. People that insipire you, that make you wanna be a better person, that remind you we can actually change the world, that don't let you give up. We should focus on those and not miss one more second on the first kind. It's a matter of priorities, it's a matter of upsidedown things.
I was lucky enough this year to meet Lucy. She totally upsidedowned my life, to not comprise, to dream higher, to believe in myself. I am sooo gonna miss her. (but i am coming back soon, promise!)

Here, her amazing work. Hire her, write her, love her. She is unique and pretty magical. And today it happens to be her bday.

Gary Hume at MOMA

Some interesting prints part of the silkscreening exhibit. Read more about this British artist here.

Kara Walker at the MET

The pictures are not that great because of the reflections, but the combination of old drawings and the silhouttes superimposed was great.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, contemporary American artist Kara Walker (b. 1969)—widely recognized for her exploration of issues of race, gender, and sexuality through the 18th-century medium of cut-paper silhouettes—juxtaposes a variety of objects from the Museum's collection with her own work in order to explore "the transformative effect and psychological meaning of the sea" and the role assigned to black figures represented in art.

If I could design ...

... my perfect job, it would be to do what I love to do for things I would love to change. Peace, social causes, charity, environmental change. The AIGA in NY has an exhibit right now about some great posters: the graphic imperative.

Laura Varsky

Cool argentinian illustrator, her new site is under construction, but you can still see her old site here.

Sleepy cow

Girly doodles here.

P.S.1 MOMA

Una de las cosas chulas del verano son los Warm Up saturdays en el P.S.1 MOMA en Queens. (apuntaroslo visitantes varios). Fuimos el sábado, nos paseamos por la escatológica expo de la primera planta... y lo que más me gustó fue la última cena de Vik Muniz en la cafeteria. Fuera, bailar al solete.
Necesito un fin de semana para recuperarme del fin de semana. Uff.
Mas info aqui.

Andrew Rae

Nice little drawings. His personal site here.

David Shrigley

Love it. Tons of this stuff here.

Nedko Solakov

Me gustan los personajes imaginarios que viven entre sus dedos y se cuentan cosas. Me gustan las paredes que hablan, aunque no puedo leer lo que dicen (está muy pequeñito...) Es búlgaro, se ve que es uno de los artistas más famosos de esa parte del mundo, y yo sólo lo descubrí ayer. Hmm.

Food sculptures

So Lucy took me to the Japanese market on St. Mark's place. An elevator from street level takes you up to one of the most fun supermarkets I have been in for a while. (I used to have an obsession with supermarkets, it's better now, since American supermarkets scare me so bad that i avoid them, but this was great. I want to go back.) Anyway, we went crazy and bought stuff based on shape and color and ended up making fun food sculptures. All of them to come in the next something in my eye, but on the meantime, check out this one. Isn't it cool?

Ryan McGuiness

The MOMA has an interesting printmaking exhibit with work of McGuiness, Paul Chan, Beatriz Milhares, Swoon and William Kentridge.
To see more of McGuiness work, visit his personal site.

Heide Trepanier

I liked her work. She lives and works in Richmond (such and small world!). I like her titles. The second painting is called "Potential Problems With Future Relationships #1".

Richard Dupont

Este es difícil de explicar pero molaba mucho. Porque estaban como en círculo y a simple vista parece el mismo exacto señor, pero te empiezas a fijar y están como distorsionados. Como aplastados por un efecto óptico. No sé. Mola. Marea pero me gusta.

Gianluca Ciufoli

Found this site. I like how simple and sweet it is. See here.

Carlo

A vegades algu en uns pocs dies ens pot ensenyar mes de la vida i com s'ha de viure, que molts en molts molts anys. Potser per aixo va venir, per recordar-nos a tots la sort que tenim d'estar aqui.

- by Vik Muniz

" I think it was Julian Schnabel who once said that he started painting at the age of five. I wonder who didn't. The factors that contribute to a person becoming an artist have nothing to do with when he starts- they have more to do with when everyone else stops."

Russian graphics

In case you like them as much as i do, cool site here.

Marcel Dzama

I like his stuff. I have seen it in the newyorker and nytimes. Nice and and simple. See more here.

Edward Gorey

I discovered his stuff pretty late.. but as a kid I would have loved it. Dark but sweet. He is now one of my favorites, I cannot believe it's taken me this long to post him here. See more here.

Lies, lies, lies...

The new I have something in my eye is out, here.

El nuevo tengo algo en el ojo, está listo aquí.

2 RED / 2 ROJO !!

Here the new i have something in my eye.
Not sure how but.. we did it! again! pretty impressive... yey
So thanks to everyone that sent stuff in, thought about it or is thinking about the next one. And thanks to all the readers...
And next month... LIES. Let's see how that one goes.

* * * *

Aquí está recién sacado del horno.. el nuevo tengo algo en el ojo.
Gracias gracias gracias a todos. A los que habéis participado, a los que lo habéis intentado, a los que queriáis pero no pudisteis, a los que participareis en el próximo.
Lo hemos vuelto a hacer. Estoy muy orgullosa de todos.
Y ahora.. a pensar en el próximo. Sugerente y suigeneris tema... MENTIRAS. Hmmm. Besitos mil.

Tengo algo en el ojo/ Something in my eye

So we did it. The first issue of something in my eye is ready!
www.somethinginmyeye.com
What do you think?

* * * *

El primer número de tengo algo en el ojo, ya está aquí.
www.tengoalgoenelojo.com
Qué os parece?

Odilon Redon

The MOMA has an amazing exhibit of the drawings of Odilon Redon. Worth spending some time checking them out and discovering the dark mind of an artist that draw lots of monsters.
"My originality consists in bringing to life, in human way, improbable beings and making them live according to the laws of probability, by putting-as far as possible- the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible."
If you cannot get to 53rd street, you can visit the exhibit online here. Not the same, but pretty close.

Colostrology

What's your pantone color? Check it out here.
Mine is pompeian red.

Mattew Ritchie

Mental mapping.
I have been looking for different ways to map minds lately. I ran across Ritchie's work the other day at Moma and was fascinated.

Joshua Davis

Jimmy is taking a class from him and he was showing me today his amazing flash-code generated art. Pretty amazing. You can check it out at his personal website or at Once upon a forest. Enjoy.

Ragna Robersdóttir

Esta es de Jordi. (gracias!):
"En Laugavegur, el "mainstreet" de reyckjavik, hay una galería de arte llamada SAFN que junto con i8 són las más conocidas de la capital islandesa.
Esta obra me parece un buen ejemplo del arte abstracto islandés.
Ragna Robersdóttir combina, en esta ocasión, la sobriedad de las formas cuadradas con la calidez terrenal de pequeñas piedrecillas del volcán Hekla, generando esta tant agradable textura."

Gregory Barsamian

Bringing the flip-book technique to sculpture.
I saw his exhibit 5 years ago in Richmond, Virginia. Going through papers today I found the catalogue. Although it's hard to imagine without being there (the website doesn't do it justice) it's enough to get an idea.

Subliminal Project

Really cool artwork from a couple of designers.
I got the link through April. Thanks!

Chuck Close

We went to see "Chuck Close Prints: Process and Colaboration" at the MET, yesterday. It was a really cool exhibit because you got to see the process behind his mind-blowing huge portraits.

"The exhibition demonstrates how the artist—in collaboration with his master printers—has consistently challenged the traditional boundaries of such diverse printing techniques as aquatint, etching, lithography, silkscreen, linoleum cut, and Japanese and European woodcut. Visitors also have an opportunity to visualize the artist's creative processes through the display of progressive and state proofs for a number of his prints, as well as actual woodblocks, etching plates, and other print matrices."

Worth checking out. More info here.

Expressionism

This website has been around for a while. It's one of my all-time favorites. Take a look. It's a thorough approach to the Brücke movement, its political ramifications, artistic connotations, and the majority of the Brücke artists' visual work.

What is Print?

Revisité esta página hace poco, cuando me dio por la serigrafía, y me sigue pareciendo una pasada. Diseñada por el MOMA es una manera muy entretenida y gráfica de entender la diferencia entre estos sistemas de impresión.

Vik Muniz

I had seen his clouds project before, but I didn't know much more about the work of this Brazilian artist. He seems fascinating.
"I draw with sugar. I draw with wire, thread, things that are very bad to make representations... I don't want people to simply see representations fo someting. I want them to feel how it happens. The moment of that embodiment is what I consider a spiritual experience."
The Times published an article on his chocolate syrup drawings back in 98. And since then he hasn't stopped. You can see all his work in his personal site.. He is co-founder of Blind Spot. And he lives in Brooklyn too. How weird is when the Internet brings you back to your neighbourhood. I may ask him if he wants to be in my documentary.

Acabo de descubrir que el pintor de las nubes y del chocolate es brasileño y vive en mi barrio. Para los que tengais curiosidad desde alli, estará exponiendo en Santiago de Compostela a partir del 12 de diciembre en la CGAC..

Zachary Scott

I got his promo today and I certainly love his work.
He has that clean, simple style that Lars Tunbjork or Martin Timmermann have, but he uses those flat color backgrounds that that make his work more fun and colorful. Reminds me a little of Christian Stoll. That "Northern European-look" with simple lines and bold contrasts seem to be a trend right now. I really like it. Bransch is always a good reference for this style.

Thomas Struth

I saw some of his work at the Met last March. I had seen photographs in books before, but they don't do much justice. You need to see them real size.
I was particularly fascinated by his "Museum" series: monumental pictures of people visiting museums, churches, and other cultural destinations around the world, where the viewer find itself being part of the equation. We are no longer simply a beholder viewing a world outside ourselves, we have become in fact protagonists in the aesthetic game.
Thomas Struth (Germany, b.1954) is considered to be part of the "Becher School", together with Candida Hofer, Thomas Ruff, Axel Hutte and Andreas Gursky.

Lauren Greenfield

I looked at her portfolio this morning. I had seen her work before. I specially remember Fast Forward. Four years shooting the youth of L.A. where she grew up. I found it provocative and thoughtful. These photographs illustrate how "You grow up really fast when you grow up in L.A. It seems like everyone is in a rush to be an adult. It's not cool to be a kid."

Her last work, Girl Culture is her personal journey as a photographer, as an observer of culture, as part of the media, as a media critic, as a woman, as a girl. "In this work, I have been drawn to the pathological in the everyday. I am interested in the tyranny of the popular and thin girls over the ones who don’t fit that mold. I am interested in the competition suffered by the popular girls, and their sense that being popular is not as satisfying as it appears. I am interested in the costly and time-consuming beauty rituals that are an integral part of daily life. I am interested in the fact that to fall outside the ideal body type is to be a modern-day pariah. I am interested in how girls’ feelings of frustration, anger, and sadness are expressed in physical and self-destructive ways: controlling their food intake, cutting their bodies, being sexually promiscuous. Most of all, I am interested in the element of performance and exhibitionism that seems to define the contemporary experience of being a girl."

Worth checking out if you haven't done so already.

Janine Antoni

"If I could walk along the rope and as it dipped that—just for a moment—I would touch the horizon, which would really talk about the incredible struggle to get to that place of the imagination.
I call the piece "Touch" because it is about that moment or that desire to walk on the horizon, which is obviously an impossibility and only an illusion that can be accomplished through the video camera. And you can see I’m hardly balancing there in that place of my desire. Thinking
about what the horizon means to us, it’s sort of a place of contemplation... But for me, I’m interested in it as a place that doesn’t really exist. That if we were to try to go to that place, the horizon would just recede further."
Watch video

Margaret Kilgallen

I have been wanting to put this up for the past couple of days, but the food poisoning kept me pretty busy.
I saw her work for the first time in the article that print magazine dedicated her a year after her early death. I loved the work. Her inspiration came from the handmade signs in the neighbourhood of La Misión in San Francisco, one of my favorite places in this country. So this is my little, modest homage to this great artist.

Kara Walker

I saw her work at the Guggenheim a while ago, and it has stayed with me. She decorates big spaces with life-size cut-out silhoutted figures that recount the brutal and often repressed history of American race relations. She simplifies the racial struggle into easily readable, caricatured forms that embody scenes of bestiality, castration murder and cannibalism.
But appart from the figures, in her latest work she includes projected backgrounds and colored lights. That way, when viewers walk in front of these projections, their shadows are introduced into the scene denying them the comfortable position of spectator and implicating them in the events.
"I knew that if I was going to make work that had to deal with race issues, they were going to be full of contradictions. Because I always felt that it's really a love affair that we've got going in this country, a love affair with the idea of it [race issues], with the notion of major conflict that needs to be overcome and maybe a fear of what happens when that thing is overcome-- And, of course, these issues also translate into [the] very personal: Who am I beyond this skin I'm in?"

Josua Krause

Check out this really cool illustrator. Thanks April.
www.krauseart.com

The American Effect

I went to see the exhibit at the Whitney last Friday and it surprised me. The brochure explained how we were about to see how 47 artists from all over the world see America and promised a varied range of views. However, I felt like most of the pieces where pretty critical and negative. In times of a pretty contrived perspective from the American media, it felt to me like a breath of fresh air; but I actually wonder if it surprised or bother other people, or if the excess of negativity made some lose interest completely. Have you seen it? Do you want to share your opinions?

El efecto de América

El Whitney tiene una exposición muy interesante. 47 artistas de todo el mundo presentan su visión de America y pese a lo que era de esperar, en tiempos de patriotismo y monólogo mediático, la mayoría son bastante negativas, incómodas y críticas. El canadiense Mark Lewis en su documental "Jay's Garden Malibu" compara el país con un placentero jardín californiano por el que pasean actores porno y entre los cuales la tensión puede saltar en cualquier momento. Miguel Angel Rojas crea collages con diminutas redondas de hojas de coca y billetes de dólar que denuncian la presión que rige las relaciones de USA con Colombia. Y otro de mis favoritos fue Gilles Barbier, que en un tono más humorístico presenta a los héroes de cómic: Wonderwoman, Capitán America, etc... como figuras de cera en un geriátrico. Para más inri, la figura de Supermán se derritió hace un par de semanas en el apagón.

Will Barras

Paul R. recommended me to check out the illustration series SCRAWL 1 & 2, where he found Will. (Thanks !) You can see more of his art here or in the last issue of the Spanish magazine Rojo where he has some spreads. Enjoy!

Ron Mueck

It's been a couple of months since we saw his work at the Smithsonian, but I wanted to share it.

Ron Mueck (b.1958) Australian and now based in London, worked in advertising, children's television, making models for photographers and film makers before achieving critical acclaim for his art. His figurative sculptures are usually cast in silicone and acrylic, but the interesting part is how he manipulates the scale so the figures are much larger or smaller than life-size. His 4.5 meters crouching Boy was acclaimed at the Venice Biennale in 2001.

Michelle Thompson

I found her in an old CA and felt in love with her work. Check it out at http://www.inkshed.co.uk/MTbook.htm