Action

One of my categories was "verb", like, "action": things taking place, focus on the taking place. It was difficult to find an artist whose work focused on action, but eventually I came upon Li Wei. A surrealist photographer from China, his recent work has featured shots of himself in seemingly impossible moments of action, to the point of appearing extremely dangerous to himself. 

Simulated through complex assemblies of wires and cranes and the POV of the camera, yet capturing reality and connecting with the viewer, these are less like pictures snapped in the moment and more like the work of a medium artist, "staging" a show as opposed to "capturing" it. 

Li Wei says that his work carries a message about the security of the human state as we progress. Quoted here, he says: 

“There is a feeling of losing a grip on things, an uncertainty about the morrow. It’s a feeling of hanging in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet. And even if the family is my priority and thus a key part of my performances, I wonder: How much are we able to put up with?”

Although not in painting or sculpture, Wei uses the same concepts that I would like to use in my work exploring action.

My favorite piece that I've created is probably my faces, crowd piece. It's hard to decide, and maybe it's more out of fondness than actual taste, but I guess I'd have to choose that one. 

Here is one of my favorite art pieces:

Created by Damien Hirst, it is a shark preserved and suspended in turquoise formaldehyde. It is entitled, "the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living." It is probably one of the most hated pieces of contemporary art, and it often comes up in the debate of the validity of conceptual art. Personally, I love it. Perhaps I don't respect it so much, or aspire to it, but I certainly love that it exists, and I most of all love the fight to understand it. I can long sit thinking about its implications. 

And there is a connection between my "people piece" and this. They both are the product of intention, and they both happily fail to convey that intention. However, despite, or maybe because of this casual failure, the intention becomes much more. The stronger I think about this piece, the deeper it slices into my consciousness. I feel like it has wormed its way in, tunneling a cold, wandering path through my frosty apple mind. It imbeds itself in a fresh core of now. It rears, taps on a frozen hard seed of my existence. 

I'd like to think that my pieces could do that. But of course, those who fear being seen as pretentious, who wouldn't dare "pretend" that anything they think or feel is exceptional—word worthy, metaphor worthy, art worthy—those people will say, "This is worthless. Anyone can do this."

Birth Month Artist

This was incredibly frustrating, as apparently, artists born in May do not far well. Finally, I decided that the most well known artist I could find was a french woman named Orlan. Like many eccentrics before her, she has chosen to refer to herself by one short name. However, unlike people like Prince or Moby, finding her last name is nearly impossible. She was born on May 30th, 1947. I'm going to make a very friendly suggestion to you right now, and warn you not research Orlan any further, for the fame she has was won through three primary means: one, actually being a thought provoking artist, two, being obsessed with sexuality and including it, deliberately grotesque, in her pieces, and three, subjecting herself to numerous plastic surgeries in order to turn herself into her own ultimate work of art. She calls this process "self hybridization". 

Becoming interested? Well, stop. Or at least, don't point fingers at me when you take a peak at her work. To finalize my point, here is a delightful quote for you:

"I can observe my own body cut open, without suffering!... I see myself all the way down to my entrails; a new mirror stage. "I can see to the heart of my lover; his splendid design has nothing to do with sickly sentimentalities"- Darling, I love your spleen; I love your liver; I adore your pancreas, and the line of your femur excites me." (Orlan from Carnal Art Manifesto)

Honestly, I find it all very interesting—but you won't catch me admitting to being excited by stuff like this, oh no, you won't! Disgusting. Horrible, horrible. Don't look at it. 

At Portfolio Day, Part I.

The Hynes convention center has wifi, a wonderful thing for everyone here who has had to stick it out without it, like me. 

On the way to boston, two things happened that helped me finalize my decision. I bought a portfolio. It cost $30. This purchase gives me piece of mind. I'm not going to have bought this portfolio to never use it again. I also got sick: and I was sick half the way down, and I decide that, considering how miserable this trip has been, I have to end up going to art school. 

And now I'm here, and I'm still a little sick, but not so much as before... Knocking on wood... (Boston still has wood, this is good news.) And there are many people, mostly high schoolers and their parents, and they're all here with their art, and their $30 portfolios, and their very nice shoes. Normally I don't notice things like shoes, but I'm sitting on the floor, like everyone else, in a huge line of people. The people in my area all came here about an hour and a half early and are lucky to be a quarter mile from the door. It's not that bad at all, really. I was expecting to be outside right now, and in my pessimistic imagination it would have been pouring, and there would be homeless men asking me for spare change, and other men taking my change without asking me, a real urban dystopia. I'm only slightly disappointed that I'm in the merge of shopping and historical districts instead, looking out on a Trader Joe's and an Apple store... Not very gritty at all, but who am I kidding, I'm not here to take poignant photographs.

And, just back from checking out how the line is doing, I see that I am, in fact, lucky. The line is spreading down the three floors, getting closer, rapidly, to leaving some people outside.

Of course, I won't really have anything interesting to blog about until I've been in there... It's kind of terrifying, but less when I take a look at how many other people are about to go for it. I guess we can't all be terrified simultaneously. 

This should at least be interesting.

My tired post.

One time I came up with this language. A fake language. I did that a lot. And I drew this picture of a motor bike. I guess because I wanted to look all cool and red neck like. I proclaimed to like muscle cars then too, and even pretended I understood football, which still isn't true of me. And on it, in my fake foreign script, I wrote something pretty rude. And Miss Art Preacher asked me, "Sam, does that say something rude?" and I was probably like "Naaaaw waaay mishush." And she didn't believe me, but let it go anyways.

Since it was a language only I understood, it didn't really matter anyways. But I think it was the first time that I realized how an intent, held in my artwork, could reach an audience. The first "meaning" I ever buried in my art translated to an "Eff you".

I think when I was about 5 this kid, who's name was something like "Billy", took my penny during nap time. I put it on the floor next to my mat, and "Billy" just reaches over and takes my penny. The stealing aspect of it really didn't bother me, but I was out a penny, and it really was the day-care's responsibility. There is nothing you can buy for a penny these days, but back then a penny would buy you anything you needed. You could feed your family with a penny. I had a pretend family who I seriously needed that penny for, and besides that, having currency of any kind buys you respect, as long as it's impressive in relativity to the holdings of your peers, which is why someday I'm going to move to a very poor country, and pretend I'm rich.

Years later, I was looking at the inside of my house, which is something I never do, and I see this big plastic kangaroo thing, who I call "Elizabeth", named after Elizabeth Taylor. I understand that naming anything after Elizabeth Taylor sounds really weird, like I must spend all my nights watching old movies in my tiny attic apartment, listening to operas on wax cylinders, but you need to understand why I named her (the kangaroo) after Elizabeth Taylor. Firstly, like Elizabeth Taylor, this kangaroo is old, but, also like Elizabeth Taylor, I have evidence that she was once very pretty and not as discolored as she is now. Next of all, this kangaroo is rich, but more on that later. Lastly, this kangaroo looks EXACTLY LIKE Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth has been in our home since as far back as I can remember, and at this same time, I can't remember, because honestly I never noticed her until recently. Except I knew that she was there, just never actually understood it, as in I never thought "oh, and here is my foot high plastic kangaroo with joey-in-pouch". The joey must be one of Elisabeth Taylor's children. Since it seems male I have decided it is either Michael or Christopher. He is attached to his mother by a spring. He has been there... for almost 18 years! Pathetic. 

I take time out of my busy, busy day of alphabetizing all my meticulously preserved cylinders of Haydn—my attic apartment is low rent, necessary in order to afford the costly humidity control system I have installed for my children, my life's work: humidity is the most important factor in taking care of my priceless wax cylinders—to ask about the origins of Elizabeth. It turns out I had a fondness for Elizabeth as a child, and the day-care people gave her to me. And no one cared! All the kids were just OK with me taking an ICON of Hollywood's Golden Years HOME with me... And everyone includes "Billy". 

Examining Elizabeth closer, I see that she bears markings, clues as to her factory origin. I quickly find my sleuthing glass, which is never far by. With this elegant magnifying glass I can make it appear to anyone looking right at me, that I have enlarged the size of whichever eye I choose, to nearly three times what an eye should be, and this "quirky gaff" really helps me to investigate, and deduce things. Searching the sites of other devoted Elizabeth Taylor fans, I find out that this plastic kangaroo is REALLY OLD, and good friends with Michael Jackson, who she supported during his trial in 2005. She is SO OLD in fact, and SO POPULAR, that she can now, despite being broken in the hips and unable to walk (she has these pivoting legs with a spring in them, now out of place, that just sort of "boings" sadly whenever you try to make her hop), she is now living the rest of her life out as a very rich thing. She is expensive, in fact, "abductable and recruitable to your liberation army" expensive. 

And now, of course, I remember. I remember playing with Elizabeth, and being given Elizabeth, and increasingly neglecting Elizabeth...

But I also remember, "Billy" didn't raise a finger to any of this. He let me have Elizabeth... But he stole my penny. Look who is worth more now... The penny... Or Elizabeth Taylor?