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I’m finally getting ready to exhibit my “Monitor” piece, or “Monitor Landscape” as I’m now calling it as an installation, but as usual, I’m on to bigger and better things even before I’ve finished the last thing – my new favorite obsession is the “Doomsday Hourglass” installation – I hope I get an opportunity to build it – I’ve been haunted by the flashing “12:00″ LED display for about 4 years now, and I finally figured out how to work with it…

Next, I got a kind comment on my “Recent Submissions” post from Liz Unterman who works at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, where I will soon be taking a class on Fine Art Printing so that I can be better at pretending to be a photographer. Liz has a cool art blog that is a Real Blog (she actually posts regularly, and it’s about other artists and stuff, not just the self-indulgent bullshit that I post).

Anyway, Liz’s blog has some great posts and links and it looks good and is laid out well too (I’m working on making mine not look so lame…) and one of her recent posts was about a photograper named Matt Siber, so I clipped and pasted her post about his work below, but I suggest you go check out her original post on her blog too.

clipped from lifeasanartistinwoodstock.blogspot.com

Matt Siber’s work is amazing. These images help us to understand how the landscape is used to express power & control. By removing the often overwhelming amount of text, Siber has forced us to recognize how much of an impact it has on the way we see and interpret the world.

In addition, these logos- which are floating in space like a religious icon- have been transformed and appear alien-like.

You can bid on one of his photographs at the Photographic Resource Center Auction. Check it out here.

I like Matt Siber’s work, as it relates to my interest in billboards, although he clearly approaches the subject from a corporate/political point of view, rather than an environmental point of view. I guess that reflects his background as a commercial photographer, and if you go to his site, you can see some other work that is essentially table top “product shots” of generic look-alike cleaning products, and is a take on Warhol’s consumer identity works, but I find those works less compelling. Despite their conceptual rigor, I still can’t get past their cold “what you see is what you get” advertising format. I prefer the hint at religious iconography (naturally) in his works like the McDonald’s sign above. The other pic above (and corresponding body of work) is also very compelling, and although it lacks the slickness of corporate table-top advertising, and is essentially a “here and now” presentation, it still is responding to the urban environment, which reflects that urban prejudice prevalent in http://blog.davehebb.com/?p=132 Here’s a new thing – I’m gonna post my submissions to various contests, fellowships, galleries, etc.  These first 3 have already been submitted (the deadlines were Oct. 1st), but I’m planning on adding submissions to my blog before I submit in the future.

[View with PicLens]

 

This second one is also to CPW for their quarterly magazine – I haven’t heard yet on this one, but I’ll update if I get in.

[View with PicLens]

 

Here’s the photos I submitted to the prestigious West Collection, which is a seriously important contemporary art collection in Pennsylvania – major “emerging” contemporary artists in the collection. There were over 16,000 submissions (up to 10 per person) – 10 people will win a $10,000 prize and be in a major group show (fat chance – I’m outta my league, but what the hell) – I submitted 6 photos (with 2 details) as well as 4 video/installation works, and they will announce the winners on December 1st.

[View with PicLens]

 

Here’s the videos I submitted to the West Collection Channel:

Votive

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Monitor (excerpt)

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Metaphase (excerpt)

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

End of Summer, Endless Night

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

You can also view my work or other submissions from the West Collection at their site, or you can view the other video submission there or at their YouTube Channel.  There’s a lot of great stuff on there (also lots of crap), so it’s fun just to be in their online collection, even if for only a few months.  If you go there, log in and vote for me – Hey, it can’t hurt!

This video represents a huge departure for me, in that it actually uses the human form (myself), and it is not directly dealing with the natural landscape and industrial/technological infrastructure as a subject, but is metaphorical in its representation of natural phenomena – namely the growth of hair as a metaphor for the seemingly infinite renewal power inherent in Nature.  More chatter after you view the video:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Hi Res version – Direct Link

Now click below for some extra commentary and background, or continue to the prevoius post… This piece can be seen as an homage to some of my heroes of conceptual art, video art, and even independent film heroes, namely Vito Acconci, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, and oddly enough, Martin Scorsese – he did a student film in 1967 at NYU  (where I also went to film school) titled “The Big Shave” that was essentially a guy shaving in the mirror, and cutting himself – that was his first and last art film – it was an allegory about the draft, the Vietnam war, shaving to join the military so you could go kill people in Vietnam, etc…

I also reference “heroes” from the mythological Greeks as well in the title, and you can find out how Narcissus and Sisyphus relate by following those links to Wikipedia if you like.  The Greeks are also referenced in my “seminal” conceptual video piece Votive (Baudrillard and Sartre in Plato’s Cave), which of course has a lot in common with this piece, as they both deal with versions of reality as defined by the video screen.  Two of my other recent photographic works deal with reproducing reality photographically, and also reference “feedback” or a picture within a picture vortex -  namely my series Trash Can Triptych, which is now a single image, which I will post here in the next post, and panoramic series Pine Lane Pole Series, which was an ephemeral site-specific conceptual piece that I installed over a period of days at a major rural intersection where I live.  Both of these pieces refer to an earlier site-specific installation series of photographs titled Infinity Wall that I installed in a tiny gallery “Ljósmyndkompan” (Photo Closet) in Akureyri, Iceland in 1998.  All those photos were printed at a local one-hour photo printer, and then immediately rephotographed to create the vortex/feedback effect.  I have plans to pursue this avenue further as time passes, any thoughts?  Nick, you need to comment….

Anyway, I’ve been photographing a wastewater runoff pipe in Woodstock, NY for a few years now – it’s a huge (2 foot diameter) pipe that comes straight out of the ground vertically at the bank of the Millstream in Woodstock, and constantly belches out “treated” sewage water that flows over some rocks down to the stream about 15′ from the pipe.  My previous three photos have been included here as a triptych, both in their “original” saturation, which was adjusted to my 7 year old crappy CRT monitor, and my new improved saturation level based on my fabulous new Mac’s LCD monitor.  Tell me which one looks better on your monitor…

“original” version:

Wastewater triptych - old saturation levels

New improved version:

Wastewater Triptych - new saturation levels

So, there you have the original wastewater images, with both saturation levels.  Now, here are some more recent photos of the same location/composition…  Here’s one from this past winter:

Wastewater 3-13-08

Here’s 3 more from July, August, and September 2008 respectively – most recent one from last week:

Wastewater 7-2-08

Wastewater 8-7-08

Wastewater 9-5-08

And here’s one from today:

Wastewater 9-10-08

My latest interests have to do with witnessing man-made “interventions” within a natural setting, most interesting to me are those artifacts that relate to our industrial/technological infrastructure as it relates to our fundamental urban and suburban living environment (electricity, water, sewage, heating, etc.)  Also, I have a fascination of how nature and “artifact” interact visually and structurally over time, which is why I return to the same spot many times.  This practice is relatively new, and began with my video project Monitor which is nearing completion of shooting.  I will upload some stills in a near future post, and begin the arduous task of completing the editing so that I can eventually exhibit the completed video (currently the video on my site is only a “work in progress” representing the first 3 months of the one-year long project).

This series also relates specifically to my own past growing up in Dearborn, MI, where there was a huge concrete storm drain pipe (10′ diameter) behind my parents’ house that dumped raw sewage into the Rouge River every time it rained.  The smell of raw sewage is ingrained in my olfactory memory system so deeply that I can smell it from miles away wherever I am.  Finally, after more than 40 years (since I lived there, at least) the town has finally acknowledged how horrible this is, and is digging up the pipe and diverting the wastewater to a new treatment station that is being built.  Here’s a photo that I took of that process a few weeks ago (a documentation photo, not an “art” photo):

construction behind my parents

This is facing away from the river – that’s my parents’ house in the background, and my mom is a tiny speck standing there too.

The river that the pipe used to flow into is the famous Rouge River of Dearborn, MI used by the Ford Motor Company.  An earlier photo of mine was taken under a bridge on the Rouge River nearby – I have since taken it off my site, so here it is again (note the concrete storm drain pipe that empties into the river on the middle left at the river edge – that is similar to what is/was behind my parents’ house):

Bridge (Rouge River)

That was from 1998.  You can see that I’ve been obsessed with circular forms, reflections, industrial infrastructure surrounding nature, and water reflections for awhile.  I guess that’s more than enough for this post, although it has reminded me of many issues that I would like to address in future posts, mainly something about site and non-site, a concept proposed by Robert Smithson, and how the now hip concept of psychogeography is biased towards urban environments and has completely overlooked the way that the so-called natural environment can now be considered an additional part of inhabited and “designed” urban space.  More on that, if anyone cares…. you tell me…

Okay, I have to admit this makes my blog like every other blog – just linking a bunch of stupid internet stories from other blogs – a bunch of recursive and endlessly recycled tabloidism, but my friend Gina sent this to me, and it seems relevant to my past work, as well as a starting off point for discussion…

BERN, Switzerland—Paul McCarthy’s Complex Shit, a giant inflatable dog turd, escaped from its moorings at the Zentrum Paul Klee last week and brought down a power line and broke a window before landing on the grounds of a children’s home 200 meters away, the Guardian reports. Although the unintended flight happened on July 31, details emerged only yesterday.

The McCarthy piece, which is reportedly the size of a house, is part of the exhibition “East of Eden: A Garden Show,” which runs through October 26. According to Juri Steiner, the director of the Klee center, the museum was not yet sure if the work would go back on display.

Link: http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/28279/mccarthy-dogshit-work-wreaks-havoc-in-switzerland/

Other mainstream news link: Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum | World news | guardian.co.uk.

So, what more can I say?  Well, if you read my last post, lots…  First of all, it’s totally lame that the only way a fine artist such as Paul McCarthy ever gets any real press is when one of his more humorously obnoxious pieces flies through the air (what I wouldn’t give for video footage of that…)  This is typical of the mainstream (tabloid) media’s fascination with art and artists – it’s only newsworthy if someone gets hurt or if it will outrage the “general public”, whoever THEY are.  Obviously, scatological references, gay sex, and anything with christ or the virgin mary are bound to titillate…  What you never would see, and what I naturally would prefer, is something like this from Wikipedia:

His work evolved from painting to transgressive performance art, psychosexual events intended to fly in the face of social convention, testing the emotional limits of both artist and viewer. An example of this is his 1976 piece Class Fool, where McCarthy threw himself around a ketchup spattered classroom at the University of California, San Diego until dazed and injured. He then vomited several times and inserted a Barbie doll into his rectum.^[1] The piece ended when the audience could no longer stand to watch his performance.^[1]

Talk about getting the Puritans’ panties in a bunch!  You can watch some of his performances and video here at UbuWeb, which is a great resource for video art.  In any case, his work has long been a favorite of mine, mainly due to its “in your face” confrontational nature, but also because it attempts to not only inject humor, but force the viewer to confront their discomfort with their own bodily functions, irrational fears and desires, and the seemingly uncontrollable desire to sanitize and heroicize all cultural iconography.  Why can’t it just BE MESSY?!?  The ironic side of his work, and many others who work in this vein, such as the Chapman Brothers, or any of the Fluxus artists, is that the very institutions that they have indicted or even rejected, now embrace them wholeheartedly!  This irony has been driving me nuts lately, and I will post a lengthier article on it in the future, specifically as it relates to Guy Debord and the now fashionable French Situationists and Psychogeography, which I have been flirting with lately.  Until then, let’s hear from you all out there…