so today i thought about art...

Mark Dion

2005-07-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass., I discovered how amazed I am by the artist Mark Dion. His piece there,"Library for the Birds of Massachusetts," (part of the Becoming Animal show) totally captivated me. It's basically a huge aviary filled with finches. Dion has filled the space with a giant tree, on which he provided various bird-related artifacts for the finches to interact with, including books, food and water, hunting paraphenalia and various rope-hung ledges. The viewers can actually enter the huge cage, allowing for closer examination and also possible birdshit-related accidents.

I couldn't find a great picture but this one is ok. Imagine a giant free-standing mesh cage surrounding the tree.

I wasn't very familiar with Dion's work before seeing Library, but now I'm obsessed. He makes these amazing assemblages using found artifacts and catalogues them in very scientific (well, maybe psuedo-scientific) ways. Basically, this guy is a one-man Mutter Museum. I have a major obsession with both process-based art and obsessive collecting and Dion utilizes both in his work.

Dion is grew up in New Bedford, MA, which plays a large role in his work. This is the press release from one recent project,called New England Dig:

"Over the course of five weeks in the spring of 2001, Mark Dion, along with photographer Bob Braine and nearly 90 volunteers, took to the shores, vacant lots, and farmland of New England. The result of these surveys is New England Digs, a multi-process exhibition that involved finding sites in Brockton, Providence, and New Bedford, collecting materials, cleaning them, and re-contextualizing the objects into a final exhibition."

Here are a couple pix:

New Bedford Cabinet (2001)

detail from Brockton Cabinet (2001)

2005-07-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Nudes remind me of summer and freedom. It's too hot to wear any clothes right now anyway.

Saul Leiter
Young Singer
Archival Iris Print

John Whorf
Nude at Water’s Edge

Watercolor & gouache on paper

Edward Weston
Nude (1936)
gelatin silver print

Aristide Maillol
La Vague (1895)
woodcut

Tom Wesselmann
Reclining Woman (2002)

Oil on Aluminium

works on paper

2005-07-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about works on paper (and how much I love them). Maybe it's because there's this studied casualness to them. They don't take themselves too seriously; afterall, it's not like they're done on hardy canvas. Paper is delicate and easily lost. Here are 4 of my favorites, each of them a different approach.

George Luks

Child Study
charcoal on paper

Sanford Ballad Dole Low
The Cliffs at Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard
Watercolor on paper

Ellsworth Kelly

Wild Grape Leaves I
Lithograph

Martin Lewis
Glow of the City (1929)
Drypoint