Twan Janssen - An Index of Cloudless Skies

Atelier Carvalho Bernau, on the creation of the book:

What can we say, initially we had the hardest time with it. While the collages themselves looked great, we couldn't translate them into a book. Until we listened to that conversation of John Cage with Morton Feldman again, where he reminds us:

“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four, after four try it for eight, et cetera, you eventually find it isn’t boring. People are constantly complaining, almost every day… Things aren’t boring.”

Thomas Mailaender

Works by Thomas Mailaender.

[via pietmondriaan]

I Can't Find My Phone

I Can't Find My Phone: exactly what you'd expect it to be.

Definitely had to use this one today.

Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter's painterly photographs, cerca 1950.

Leiter on publicity:

“I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learnt to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.”

Leiter on turning down Edward Steichen's invitation to participate in the now-famous Family of Man exhibition: "It seemed to me that that exhibition was less about photography, and more about things that I wasn't sure of."

[source: Lens Culture]

[via Where The Lovely Things Are]

Helmut Smits

Two Beams Saying HI

A Plastic Plant Acting Like a Real One by Losing Its Leaves

Two Dead Trees Supporting a Living Tree

Sculptures by Helmut Smits.

(Also nice: the "Ideas" section on his website).

News Flash: Flavin and Viola works are "not art"

Dec 15, 2010:

In an astonishing move, the European Com­mis­sion (EC) has reversed a decision made in a UK tax tribunal, and refused to classify works by Dan Flavin and Bill Viola as “art”. This means that UK galleries and auction houses will have to pay full VAT (value added tax, which goes up to 20% next year) and customs dues on video and light works, when they are imported from outside the EU. The decision is binding on all member states.

The new classification goes against a victory won in a UK tribunal in 2008 (The Art Newspaper, February 2009, p47). A legal battle began after the Haunch of Venison gallery imported six disassembled video installations by Viola into the UK from the US in 2006, and sought to import a light sculpture by Flavin. Declared as “sculpture”, they would only have been liable for 5% VAT.

But customs rejected this, and charged Haunch of Venison £36,000 duty. In 2008 Haunch appealed, and won: the VAT and Duties Tribunal ruled that such works were indeed “art” and only liable to 5% VAT.

Now the EC has overturned this decision. In its ruling a Flavin work is described as having “the characteristics of lighting fittings…and is therefore to be classified…as wall lighting fittings”. As for Viola, the video-sound installation, says the document, cannot be classified as a sculpture “as it is not the installation that constitutes a ‘work of art’ but the result of the operations (the light effect) carried out by it”.

[via The Art Newspaper]

Oy vey. See also: slippery slope.

Commentary on Hide/Seek from the Washington Post:

"The museum has become a quasi-sacred space, with rules as complicated and inviolate as any church liturgy. People who don't find the meaning of their existence in churches are often passionate about museums, where a set of fundamental values - openness, fearlessness, truthfulness - are celebrated with all the historical trappings."

[via The Washington Post]

Randy P Martin

Holy smokes!

See more on his Flickr.

[via rubymag]

The Future

Miranda July's new movie, The Future, sounds like it will be real good.

Synopsis:

Sophie and Jason are strange the way all couples are strange when they're alone. They live in a small LA apartment, have jobs they hate, and in one month they'll adopt a stray cat named Paw Paw. Like a newborn baby, he'll need around-the-clock care - he may die in six months, or it may take five years. Despite their good intentions, Sophie and Jason are terrified of their looming loss of freedom. So with just one month left, they quit their jobs, and the internet, to pursue their dreams - Sophie wants to create a dance, Jason wants simply to be guided by fate. But as the month slips away, Sophie becomes increasingly, humiliatingly paralyzed. In a moment of desperation, she calls a stranger, Marshall - a square, fifty-year-old man who lives in the Valley. In his suburban world she doesn't have to be herself; as long she stays there, she'll never have to try (and fail) again. Living in two terrifyingly vacant and different realities, Sophie and Jason must reunite with time, space and their own souls in order to come home.

Added bonus: Jon Brion is composing the score! (Think: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I Heart Huckabees, Magnolia). Yesssss.

Also; if you are in a position to see it at Sundance, you will also score this sweet bookmark:

Sold!

Robert Barry

Work by Robert Barry.

[via 01blog]