Blank Canvas

Silk

2009-09-15T13:19:00.001-07:00

BATS

2009-07-30T06:27:00.001-07:00

I drew some bats:

Malick Sidibe

2009-05-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

I just recently discovered this Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, and am particularly inspired by his photographs of people and their bikes. I thought some of his work looked familiar and I realized that he recently did this photoshoot for the New York Times. I adore the styling in the shoot. You can see more of his work here.

Icecream

2009-04-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

James Turrell at PS1

2009-03-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

James Turrell at PS1 from Elizabeth Fodde on Vimeo.

Every single time that I have been to PS1 I either go too early or too late to see the Turrell room. Last month I was finally fortunate to be there at the right time and the right season to view the room. I realize that art historians are not supposed to talk about how the art makes them feel, instead we talk about metaphors, analysis, contextualization, formalism, theories. Even when art historians try to talk about emotions, it's hidden behind theories of the sublime. We're supposed to remain objective so that you can take what we say with seriousness. Well you know what? I'm not an art historian with a PhD, so I'm just going to come out and say it: The Turrell room moved me.

The work consists of a square room with benches around the perimeter, and a square opening in the ceiling. The light that day made the work feel at once two dimensional and also very real. The video that I took does not really capture it very well. His works have to do with illusionism, light, and opticality. It is simultaneously about the beauty of nature and controlling and manipulating nature. The installations make you aware of the act of looking, and aware of spatial manipulation. People around me were chatting, but at one point things became subdued and hushed.

If you are interested, read this interview with Turrell, where he talks about his views on light, art, and also, his way of life.

David Bowie Mugshot

2009-03-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this is a true story or not but this was taken in Rochester, New York 1976 after an arrest for possession of marijuana. I think he was arrested with Iggy Pop too. Love that photo.

Hole-On Ex Pin Hole Camera Review

2009-03-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

My sister got me this pin hole camera kit as a belated birthday gift because she knows how much I love putting things together. Plus it looks cute! It's a pinhole shaped like a camera! It came in all these separate parts and you had to glue it together. The instructions said it would take two hours to put it together--it took me four. The instructions sucked so I had to use common sense to fit it together. In fact, they were so bad that one piece was not even in the instructions! WHERE DOES IT GO? I don't know so I left it out.

Aside from the missing piece, there was one fatal flaw to this product. Pinholes don't have mechanical shutters that open and close, hence the need for a cap to control the exposure time. There was no cap. No cap at all. What the hell!!!!! So I made one, ghetto style.

The final thing that happened is that the "lens" popped off when I put it into my bag, and so did the viewfinder, primarily because the paper they used is not glue friendly because it has a slick surface. So, I made it even MORE ghetto by making a cardboard cap/flap thing. I had no clue how much to wind the film because they don't tell you. Nor did they devise a way to rewind the film so I ended up doing it by hand in the closet. Overall, there were many many problems with this product which could have been simply fixed if they had actually tested the thing before sending it out in the world.

I'll get the film developed and see if anything even came out.

Underwater

2009-02-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

images via ffffound.com

As I was looking through my image folder, I noticed that I saved many photographs shot underwater. Whenever I swim I always love to dive deep underwater and look up at the light coming through the water. This reminded me of the piece "Swimming Pool" by Leandro Erlich, currently on view at PS1. If you check out his site you can see his other works. I particularly like "Batiment" and "The Staircase." To me, the work is in this class of art that I like to call "cool" art--art that plays with optical illusions or technological feats, works that are enjoyable and yet, are missing a certain depth of meaning. There is definitely nothing wrong with art of this caliber, but I personally feel as though it is lacking something.

images from ps1.org and my own photo.

Vik Muniz's Rebus at Moma

2009-02-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

In the exhibition “Artist’s Choice + Vik Muniz = Rebus,” Muniz scoured the vast collections of the MoMa to bring together diverse media into a visual thesis that activates the viewer. The show actually felt like it had a point of view, a strong point of view, unlike some other shows that the MoMa puts together that feel extremely corporate and sanitized. The premise of the show is a rebus, which playfully uses images to represent words. This acts as an interesting parallel to the way that we decipher art images—by translating them into corresponding representational words in our minds. However, Muniz constantly brings us precariously close to words, and then pulls us back into the purely visual.

The show begins with a video of an interconnected series of chain reactions by Peter Fischli and David Weiss called “The Way Things Go” (1987). This prepares the viewer to the possibility that there are physical connections between objects, and that all of the arts feeds off each other to the extent that boundaries no longer exist. That is exactly one of the points of Muniz’s show, for he combines mechanically produced design objects with artistic objects of a similar aesthetic (A very interesting parallel is Duchamp’s In Advance of the Broken Arm and Gino Colombini’s design for a pail). The absence of wall labels helps the visitor concentrate on visual and theoretical connections as it becomes confusing as to which objects are Art and which are mass produced objects. On a basic level the show asks the question what is art, and answers it by interspersing manufactured objects such as post-its, pencils, scissors, buckets, and other utilitarian objects within the dialogue of the show. Muniz connects visual culture with the common culture, as art is inspired by the everyday and visa versa.

While this may seem to be an obvious, even rudimentary thesis for a show, I found the exhibition to be a huge breath of fresh air. It actually activated the viewer to think of his or her own connections instead of handing things over to you prepackaged and predetermined institutionalized art. And it was a great way to see things from the museum’s collection that normally never surface. Go see it for yourself and make your own visual connections. More of this please!

images from nytimes.com

Bruce Lee

2009-01-19T06:57:00.000-08:00

Two things occurred that finally made me watch Enter the Dragon (1973):

1. I watched Ong-Bak The Thai Warrior, which rekindled my interest in kung fu/muay thai that sort of thing.
2. I've finally been listening to the Wu Tang Clan.

And what can I say but wow. He has muscles I didn't even know existed.

Reading his "physical feats" in wikipedia made me even more impressed. Case in point:
Lee's combat movements were at times too fast to be captured on film at 24 frames per second, so many scenes were shot in 32fps to put Lee in slow motion. Normally martial arts films are sped up

In a speed demonstration, Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind.

Lee would hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer.

Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.

The movie itself was riddled with stereotypes but seemed to be aware of it--in one line Williams tells the bad guy, "You're like a cartoon character!" Indeed Williams, indeed.

Regardless of the campy nature of the film, I took some screenshots because Lee's facial expressions were just amazing. You must imagine him making YIIIIIAAAAAA sounds!
This is his face right after he kills the man who killed his sister.

This is the scene where he is fighting body guards, look at the reaction of that guy!!

And this is my favorite part of all.

Lacroix Skeleton

2009-01-17T18:45:00.001-08:00

I still really, really love this. Christian Lacroix, 2009.

Ideeen

2009-01-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite stores, oak is having a crazy sale, the jacket of my dreams included! I got all excited, only to find out that it had already sold out.

So I did some research on the company that makes said perfect jacket: Ideeen. As I started to write about the collection, I realized that I have no idea how to write about fashion. For me it's purely a personal, completely biased aesthetic judgment, unlike the way that I see art as part of history, artist statements, and other documents. So here is my personal analysis: I only like some of the pieces in the collections. Some of the pieces look a little overworked for my taste, and some of it is just plain ugly. However, ideeen uses asymmetry, contrasting fabrics, and cut outs that really work in some pieces. I like the Autumn/Winter 08 collection the best. Here are some of the ones I liked, but go to the website and see for yourself.

Click on it for a larger size!

Light on the Wall

2009-01-12T17:27:00.000-08:00

Light on the Wall from Elizabeth Fodde on Vimeo

The song is Brian Eno's Sombre Reptiles.

Another Ed Ruscha Fact

2009-01-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

So, I'm kind of obsessed with Ed Ruscha right now. Bear with me. Ruscha is famous for his paintings, but also for his books, most notably Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). In one of the many interviews I read this past semester, Ruscha spoke about the process of bookmaking as a way for him to enter into three dimensionality. He then described the way that he extended this into his two dimensional paintings by painting the title of the works on the sides of the canvas as you can see in this image. By adding the title on the side, he made the canvas parallel a book cover and the sides act like the spine of the book. (He didn't do this for all his paintings). I always wonder how the use of different mediums interact for artists, and this is a very interesting example.

Ed Ruscha Business Card

2009-01-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

As someone with a very difficult name to pronounce, I think this business card is brilliant. It leaves no room for error, and is also pleasing in its simplicity.

Thousand

2008-12-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

In my attempt to win this book, I've decided to write about one of my favorite books, Philip Lorca diCorcia's Thousand. My old boss gave it to me when I quit, and I ended up having to drag it around with me the rest of the evening. It was well worth it. The paper is tissue thin and still smells like its protective plastic. There are no words in this book--it doesn't need any.

A Regular Encounter, Art History Cartoon

2008-12-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

Rosalind Krauss Cartoon

2008-11-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

I have become increasingly frustrated with trying to use Rosalind Krauss' ideas in my paper. What resulted is this cartoon. Click on it for a larger image!

Brenda Walsh

2008-11-22T14:46:00.001-08:00

A strange impulse overtook me the other evening, and I decided to watch the first two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 on hulu. I was struck by something. Look at the outfit Brenda has on! Look very carefully! How contemporary does she look? She is wearing two super trendy items right now, plaid and the destroyed 'boyfriend' jeans. They're even in that gross light wash that has come back into style! Does this mean the 90's are back? Have they been back and I just didn't know it? I mean, we are hitting that twenty year mark when things get back in style...Think about it.

Space!

2008-11-19T16:30:00.000-08:00

I enjoy seeing how other people live, their homes, their spaces. The things they have on display and wondering about what they hide away. Ever since I was a child I collected things, not regular things like stamps or petrified bugs but just...stuff. Like corks, bandaids, pressed flowers, stones and shells, bits of paper, boxes and bottles. I cut out each letter of newspapers with my bunny-eared scissors and separated them by letter into different plastic bags. After seeing one of my new (but somewhat old) friend's apartment, I was struck by how few possessions he has. It made me feel weighed down by all the detritus I carry around with me. My sister always is asking me, "do you really need this box?" or, "why are you keeping this? it's a piece of paper!" It's so hard for me to throw things away because I'm always thinking that I will need said thing one day for some unforeseen reason, or that I will forget some memory tied to the object.

This is why I love this site: theselby.com. Todd Selby finds all these artistic people and photographs their homes. It's a wonderful way to get to see rich people's apartments, and appeals to my spying nature. I tried to find a favorite, but I love them all. My one complaint is that I wish that he would identify who the artists are for some of the art gracing the walls. The only comparable experience I have had was visiting one of my father's friends apartment in Brooklyn. I didn't notice it at first, but the home is very monochromatic. I love the table with the wheels and of course, the kitchen. This is only one floor of their entire house, they also have a beautiful make me green with envy bathroom.

Sheer Fabrics

2008-10-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

While the use of sheer fabrics in fashion is most definitely not a new thing, there was a recent article from the New York Times that made me think about nudity and the runway. Is it simply a matter of the context of the runway versus that of the everyday? It seems a bit ironic because in a way, models are supposedly the most good looking people and are therefore the most sexualized and coveted women, and yet when they walk the runway it's not sexual for them to wear sheer tops, or no tops at all? Is it a matter of small breasts vs larger ones?

I haven't quite made up my mind, but it brought to mind Adel Abdessemed's "Real Time," a thirty second video on a loop of a performance he made asking people from Craigslist to come to the gallery and have sex with each other while visitors watched. It's the same situation of context: sex in a gallery versus sex in a porn. Granted there is a more overt message of voyeurism in the artwork, but I think fashion is also voyeuristic in the way it makes makes it alright to see half nude women.

Oral History

2008-10-11T07:44:00.001-07:00

In my research about American printmaking during the 60s and 70s, there is one anecdote that is repeated many many times. It is the story of Robert Rauschenberg's famous lithograph "Accident" (1963) printed by Bob Blackburn at U.L.A.E. The literature says that in the middle of printing, the stone broke. Rauschenberg turned to Blackburn and said something to the effect of, "I like the effect of this broken stone, let's keep printing and see what happens." This event has been hailed by many scholars to show the experimental nature of Rauschenberg in many different mediums, and also that he did something unprecedented in the history of printmaking. As the printing continued the two stones moved farther and farther apart from each other so that no two prints are the same. (No two prints are ever the same anyway, but in this case the difference is more obvious.)

However, in a video from 1976 called "The Print World of Tatyana Grosman," Rauschenberg recounts the story differently. He said that the stone broke the first time, and he re-made the stone because he was unhappy that it broke. Then, it broke a second time. He said, "Once I can take, twice I can't...I said [to Blackburn] you broke it twice you print it that way...I won't let anything be wasted." This is very different from the idealized artist-as-innovator that the literature depicts. The way that Rauschenberg tells the story makes it seem as though he was very upset that the stone broke, and of course, blamed the printer who was simply doing his best to make the stone level as it went through the press. I find this interesting because I think it shows the relationship and attitude between artist and printer as one of the "creative genius" vs the artisan, the craftsman. Further, this discrepancy shows how things get mangled and changed over time.

What kills me a little is that as a child I would go to Bob Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop on Seventeenth Street with my father. I would sit at the side and work on a small plate while my father printed, and then we would go downstairs to have lunch at the tiny hole in the wall restaurant where they served rice with butter and french fries. I met Blackburn many times but he died before I became truly interested in printmaking.

A Gift

2008-09-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

Leggings

2008-08-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Under normal circumstances, I hate everything about leggings. The fact that they don't cover your feet. Those horrible awkward length ones that hit mid calf. The way that most people wear them as a substitute for pants. The fact that it has forced me to see the horribly shaped asses and legs of strangers. However, there are a few people that wear leggings well. Most noticeably for me, M.I.A. (look here! amazing!) Her style has made me highly intrigued by leggings with patterns on them, and not the ridiculous American Apparel "Afrika" patterned leggings (which is mildly offensive and a very unoriginal ripoff of this past seasons "ethnic" obsession), but rather these just4fun. I'm picturing them paired with other insane patterned clothing, short skirts, or the classic all black contrast. This one is my favorite:

I think the following people pull off the leggings situation really well. I think it has to do with the proportions created. It's never tight top + leggings, it usually looser longer tops + leggings or looser tops + short skirts or shorts + leggings that make it look good.

From Face Hunter:

From style bubble:

Jesus in the Sand

2008-08-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

My friend S. made this sand man with his girlfriend. I think it looks like Jesus.

Easy Rider

2008-07-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to go on a trip across America. Easy Rider simultaneously made me want to do it more because of the beautiful landscape and cowboy aspect of being on the road alone, but also made me want to do it less, for obvious reasons if you've seen the movie. Someone I was talking to recently said he remembered the movie feeling dated, and I was thinking about that aspect last night. I think it's dated in the sense that the characters go to a hippie commune, and also in some of the language used (there are two moments in the film where this is evident: one character asking what L.A. is, and the other one asking what 'dude' means. He defines 'dude' as 'a regular guy'). Further, I think the film captures what it was like in 1969, the transitional period when Pop art already happened, rock and roll already happened, the summer of love was over, and drug usage was shifting from weed towards harder drugs and was becoming more of a business venture. There are moments in the film where you recognize a general sadness, a desperation, that occurs when people are disillusioned, both with the end of the 60s but also in a way with the cowboy ideal. They are like modern cowboys. Cowboys who do drugs. The bikes act as their companions like horses, the open roads, the enemies, the tense diner scene which parallel the tense saloon scenes in most cowboy movies (except here the cowboys leave instead of fighting), and the solitude of the landscape. Cowboys embody a certain American prototype ideal, but in Easy Rider it's almost as though that ideal has become jaded just like some of the later cowboy movies that were made and just like they became jaded with the sixties. Aside from that, I think the movie is still surprisingly relevant today, especially in terms of the hatred that is expressed, which is something I tend to forget because I live in NYC. That, and just how huge America is.

Also, on the about the movie part of the DVD they said that there is no time in the film where you see someone smoking weed and they are not actually smoking weed.

These were stolen from the internet:

Now I want to see more motorcycle movies!

An Outfit

2008-04-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

Shirt: Barneys Co-op
Jacket: DKNY
Skirt: American Apparel (cut)
Boots: Frye
Cuff links, tie, and tights: Mother's closet

This outfit was inspired by a trend that I noticed: men's suit jackets. I particularly like the over sized exaggerated jackets out of less structured materials. I was reading an interview in i-D with the Comme des Garcons designer Junya Watanabe about his menswear line, and the author mentioned in passing that Ann Hollander said the reason why menswear "does not move on from the suit, because the suit is the most perfect garment ever created for either men or women." Interesting.

The New Museum

2008-02-10T11:01:00.000-08:00

I was super excited to see the inside of the New Museum the other day, and was sorely dissapointed. The only interesting architectural feature was a really narrow staircase, which also happened to be the most awkward part to walk through, especially since they put artwork in these tiny alcoves along the staircase and gave people no room to manouver. The building had difficulties because of the narrow plot of land it had to work with, which made the elevators open up directly into the galleries causing backups of crowds. There was just too much art and too many people, the atmosphere of the building made people think they could just have really loud conversations about politics in the middle of the open galleries. It was not very conducive to contemplating the art, it was more like the art was the background and people were more interested in staring at each other.

There was a great view from the top though.

Artforum: Then and Now

2008-01-26T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of the last issue of Artforum compared with one from 1968 (Artforum started in 1962). I can't wait for the day when Artforum is the size of a phonebook and will cause the death of many mailmen.

Kites

2007-12-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

In 1987 the Goethe Institute organized an exhibition called 'Art Kites'. They invited internationally famous artists to make a kite and it would then be flown at a later date in Japan. Some of the kites are so large they take an entire team just to get them in the air. The artists were helped by Japanese kite experts to make sure their creations would fly.

Here are some pictures from the catalogue:

Rauschenberg

Daniel Buren

Tom Wesslemann

There are so many things in this world that are dying artforms. What happens when the last master kitemaker dies? I'd like to go around the world and learn all the dying knowledge, make schools for them, keep things going.

window

2007-11-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

I miss having light like this come into my room. Now all I get is glare from the neighboring building, and about an hour of direct sunlight. I miss having nice curtains to filter the light.

Advertisements for Architecture?

2007-11-11T17:09:00.001-08:00

In my research for my architecture class, I came across these gems.

The architect Bernard Tschumi said that the way most of us experience architecture is through photographs in books, in other words, through our imagination of what the space would look like in real life. He then makes a comparison of the way that advertisements show you the same image over and over to create a desire for something that exists beyond the two dimensional page. So, "as there are advertisements for architectural products, why not for the production (and reproduction) of architecture?" Tschumi wants to see if the language of advertisements can create the desire to see or to be inside the building. These two ads are from Le Corbusier's famous Villa Savoy of 1965 which was in a state of decay at that point, and was soon to be restored. Tschumi would then go on to create plans for building identical iconic buildings all over the world, repudiating the singularity of architecture.

Uklanski

2007-08-15T18:46:00.001-07:00

Piotr Uklański, Untitled (Dance Floor), 1996

This work is now at the Guggenheim's show called the Shapes of Space. When I was an intern I got to watch them installing the dance floor and the artist was there to supervise it. He was wearing a grey suit, pink shirt unbuttoned, and pointy shoes. He had an entire team of Polish helpers installing the work while he fiddled with the computer program that runs the floor.

The piece is a dance floor that has been transposed into the architecture of the museum. It is meant to fit differently into each new space. There's pop music playing, and the music is adapted for each location to be whatever songs are popular at the moment. The floor lights up and people are supposed to dance.

No one danced (except for children).

The purpose of the work is to show us the difference between the social and interactive space of a dance floor and the subdued institutional space of a museum. The work creates a space that is not quite completely dance club because you still remember you are in a museum. The aura of the museum overpowers any attempt at a complete transposition of a dance hall.

It reminded me of the Saturday Night Fever dance floor, and then made me think about how much art and entertainment is being blurred now a days. Is a museum supposed to entertain? And further, just what kind of a space is the museum? It's social in the sense that you go with friends, but you don't really meet other people like you could potentially do in a bar or club. It's educational, but not a concrete education like a class, because ultimately if you like something or not is a matter of taste. It could also be a private experience with an artwork. It's like a library in that people don't really speak loudly and they tread carefully. But there also is a certain level of entertainment, even if it is on the basic level that people just like to look at things. It's a strange mixture one that is unique to a museum. (But even within museums there are subtly differences in the spaces, the Guggenheim building seems to invite more interaction just because of the ramp, while the Metropolitan Museum is more conducive to wandering around and finding rooms with no other visitors in it. I'll leave it at that.)

Yves

2007-08-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yves Klein, Leap Into The Void, 1960

This is one of my favorite photographs. When I saw it for the first time, I must have stared at it for two full minutes, which is a long time to stare at a photograph. He was a follower of an obscure Christian sect that believed that spirits would be liberated from their bodies and people would exist without form, and objects would levitate. He thought he could exist as a pure color which for him represented infinity. Klein thought that he could fly, and wanted to prove it to the non-believers by documenting his flight.

I later found out that the photograph is in fact, faked. He had some friends hold out a sheet to catch his fall. He then edited the friends out of the photograph in the darkroom. Nevertheless, the photograph represents Klein's acceptance of the void, and his desire to become immaterial. Unfortunately another artist in Japan tried to imitate Klein and leaped to his death.

For me, I had a total Barthes 'punctum' moment. Something about the insanity of jumping from a building to prove your point, to show that you aren't afraid of the void has really stuck with me.

His monochromatic Pure Color ultramarine blue paintings are ironically being appropriated as a new color in fashion, sans spirituality. Maybe he would have liked it. Maybe it would have been for him as if you're becoming the color. But somehow I doubt it. I think people sometimes forget that all the arts are connected to each other.

Jil Sander & Givenchy

An Introduction

2007-08-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to do this for a while now. Check back for updates.