Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: america, cars, chris jordan, consumerism, intolerable beauty
After coming across Chris Jordan’s work in the Envisioning Change exhibition, I decided to look up some more. He addresses the issue of American consumerism, with portraits of, as he puts it, Intolerable Beauty. I’m especially drawn to the Washington photographs of the life cycle of a car, from shiny machine produced nodules in a parking lot to the colourful sneezes of the junkyard to finally, the raw gorgeousness of varicoloured rent and shredded metal of crushed cars.
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Filed under: art, eco, greenarchic | Tags: art, balloons, climate change, e-waste, envisioning change, global warming, greenarchic, is the new black, world environment day
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Seems like every other instant, there’s a new ‘… is the new black’. This collaborative piece from Gil Cocker, Pete Bell, Luke Bird, Nic Kane, Paul Niblock, Lucinda Randell, Fiona Storey and Carys Tiley creates a lovely comment on this with what they call “a look at the fickle and ever changing trend of the new black in fashion”. In which they created a fake space and filled it with thousands of balloons representing every colour that isn’t black. |
Filed under: america | Tags: ballet, fireworks, july 4, kim gordon, public art, sonic youth, swan lake, the feelies, thurston moore
 [photo by Davey Wilson] |
 [photo by Ryan Muir] |
 [photo by cverwall] |
I wasn’t actually madly impressed by the NYC fireworks on the Fourth of July. Maybe they would have been better from a different viewing point – we were aiming for the South Street Seaport, but ended up in a bit of a dead end on Pier 36 when they started. Apparently they’re the largest display of fireworks in the world, when all four concurrent segments are put together. That’s an interesting label – maybe attached because one centralised city authority covers the firework display for the entire city?
As opposed to maybe Dubai where almost each hotel will have ridiculous displays on New Year’s Eve (not so much the 4th July..). A friend from Hong Kong mentions a similar effect. Overall the display is far larger, but I suppose they’re technically many smaller displays happening at the same time. Not so technically, I suspect there’s a good deal of American-centrism and pride in this statement too. |
MORE: SONIC YOUTH AND FIREWORKS AS THE MOST ACCESSIBLE FORM OF PUBLIC ART
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: allen ginsberg, america, ☭☭☭, expat, headspace, nationalism?, possibility, western freedoms
[photo by Jacques Strappe]
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
MORE: THERE’S NOTHING ON THE TV NOTHING ON THE RADIO THAT I CAN BELIEVE IN
Filed under: art, photographer | Tags: consumerism, karma, nyc, personality crisis, romain laurent, subways
Once upon a time – I don’t remember when – I put one of those stencil label things on one of my banged-up computer speakers to read “YOUR KARMA IS LEAKING“. I believe it’s flowing quite nicely these days though, with giving away tickets to tomorrows to-be- Friday’s incredible Sonic Youth & Feelies show. Plus the whole weekend bidoun Arabic part is pretty sick. So no, definitely not leaking but joyously brimming over and spilling out around corners (karma’s flexible like that, see), yes. Kind of like these amazing images by Romain Laurent that I came across via the artist and his model.
