Living Vicariously Thru Other People's Art

Summoned Luck for Missing Numbers

2012-01-26T20:27:00.001-05:00

Karen Kraven
Date unknown

Stripping without triggering a security light

2011-10-31T15:33:00.000-04:00

Kianoosh Motallebi
2006-2007

Display Book Shelf

2011-08-10T21:33:00.001-04:00

Daniel Eatock
2009

Five years ago I had photographs printed measuring about 4' wide. Each print was askew, printing a nearly imperceptible bend in the middle. It was like a visual take on a record's wow. A problem at the time, the printer gave me a credit for the mistakes. A friend suggested that I print a black band as long as the credit would afford... Up close, the print would look like a waste of money and ink; at a distance, however, the 'wow' would just be more pronounced.

British graphic designer and artist Daniel Eatock* uses the same incidental wow with his book shelf pictured above. Using MDF and the weight of too many books and insufficient support, the shelf gives in the middle. The books hint at a problem, but in leveling themselves, they boast purpose. The wow, underlying and supportive, is hushed.

*The same who created indexhibit, which can be seen here and downloaded here.

Samson

2011-07-26T22:33:00.000-04:00

Chris Burden
1985

Green Trace

2011-05-21T20:43:00.002-04:00

Innovo
2010

Seedlings in the tray of this pseudo-stand are grown by the used umbrellas that drip dry atop it.

Innovo, the Chinese design collective, describes Green Trace as such:

Random movements of people could influence easily life circumstances.The Chinese ancient philosophy believes that respecting the principle of nature is how humans are able to survive in this world. If the human habits follow the law of nature, they can be embodied in the products through kinds of phenomenon. When a design conforms to the natural habit of human, the product will have more vitality.

Translation: Best Umbrella Stand Ever.

Carnation

2011-05-14T20:59:00.002-04:00

Holly Coulis
2011

When I saw this,

I immediately thought this:

When I met my friend, Lauren, for brunch last year, I brought her a peony from outside my building. The best way to tote it around was in this bottle of water. Set beside the restaurant's table piece, our resourcefulness at once signified poor etiquette but a hell of a lot of charm.

Depleting 89 marker pens that I received on the occasion of entering the computer age

2011-04-19T20:54:00.000-04:00

Toril Johannessen
2008

Depleting is nice. Everything that could be done was done, and look what came of it.

Prelude

2011-04-13T07:11:00.000-04:00

Michal Kohút
2009

If sounds of nature must be disturbed by anything, let it be this. Czech artist Michal Kohút set a xylophone underneath roofs, gutters, and trees, letting the melting snow strike the bars however they fell.

Armada

2011-04-02T16:22:00.000-04:00

Jessie Henson
2009

Found paintings of schooners on the open sea meet at each one's horizon. Individually, they boast the vastness of the sea, the fresh air, calm, and occasional bout of danger. Edging the perimeter of this angular space, they suggest a time line of fallen ships, regaling cavalier notions of survival and a flat planet.

Janelle Monáe Rocks To Lauryn Hill & Kanye West

2011-03-29T22:35:00.001-04:00

2011

Magical Monáe filled a Toronto club with soul.

I wish I was there.

Flower Tree

2011-03-27T18:17:00.002-04:00

Matt Wedel
2010

Messy, meticulous, and gorgeous all in one. This makes me miss working with clay.

Wedel is offering this piece through the GlobalGiving eBay project/store "Handmade for Japan". 100% of the final selling price will be donated to help raise relief funds for Japan.

Famous Are Dreaming

2011-03-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

Luis Dourado
2010

Words cannot describe.

See the series here.

iksi.tv

2011-03-22T13:16:00.000-04:00

Iksi
Ongoing

A manipulable image reveals a snippet of time from Antwerp- and Amsterdam-based designer Iksi's immediate or passing scenery. The solitary feel projects a sense of knowing neither language nor anyone. For a moment, you are visitor of his locale, site, and life.

Broken Things

2011-03-20T00:31:00.001-04:00

Livia Marin
2009

Broken à la Things, I melt like Amélie.

Photos from Booooooom.

The Shining Recut

2011-03-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

neochosen
2006

Today is the Ides of March. The Ides of March marks the date of Julius Caesar's imminent death that was dramatized in Shakespeare's play. Backstabber (curated by Dave Dyment for Art Metropole, 2001) was an exhibition for the Ides of March. There's a bit of romanticization in both Shakespeare's and Dyment's work, so to honor all of that, here is the pinnacle of recut trailers (and with a bit of Ides in it too). You know the scene where Jack hurls the baseball down a long corridor? The first time I saw neochosen's trailer, I felt like that baseball -- happy-go-lucky-ly. That is how much I wish I came up with this first.

Help Japan

2011-03-15T19:42:00.000-04:00

W+K
2011

W+K studio designed this print to raise relief funds for the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, and now threat of nuclear meltdown. Buy a poster for $25 or more, 100% goes to the Red Cross.

To donate and receive a print, visit W+K Studio here.

To make a $10 donation directly to the Red Cross, text REDCROSS to 90999 or click here.

Found by James

2011-02-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

James
ongoing

Not only does he share with us rare finds from around the world, but he also makes them attainable.

Alto Cumulus

2011-01-01T15:33:00.002-05:00

Max Streicher
2006

Oxygen chemoreceptors in our bodies is what cues the respiratory cycle for most people. This hypoxic drive to breathe is what I feel when seeing this work by Canadian artist Max Streicher. Symptoms of hypoxia, the lack of arterial oxygen that fuels tissues and entire body, can be felt by headache, nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, and slight euphoria. Shortness of breath and euphoria? Check and check. With severe hypoxia, the skin may take on a blueish color, which is only funny here because the reflection of the swimming pool gives off the cyanotic appearance. The hypoxic urge to inhale all the air in the room and the stench of chlorine in an enclosed space is nauseating; therein lies the humor. None of this matters to Streicher, whose drive is to make swimming more playful within the architecture of the room. Check.

Electric Shadow

2010-12-31T16:03:00.004-05:00

Zevs
2000

I wanted to do this five years ago, but lacked the nerve. Luckily, French street artist Zevs did it five years prior and a hundred times better. By tracing the shadows of street objects (posts, benches, garbage cans, etc.), the artist created streetscapes based on the fleeting je nais sais quoi of light hitting at just the right moment. Doing this, oft-ignored street objects are commemorated and their temporary accompaniments are made subtle constants.

Other beauties:

Buildings Made of Sky

2010-11-28T19:38:00.005-05:00

Peter Wegner
2009

I like these as tall as those buildings are.

L'Hospice

2010-10-10T20:46:00.000-04:00

Gilles Barbier
2002

Nothing makes superheroes more real than the throes of aging.

Slammer

2010-09-16T21:02:00.000-04:00

James Hopkins
2008

Hopkins corrects the imbalance that the medium creates.

Benten Kozō Kikunosuke

2010-09-07T21:31:00.001-04:00

Utagawa Kunisada I (Toyokuni III)
1860

This is a theatrical scene from the artist's imagination. The male actor plays a thief who dresses as a woman; the reveal is made by his tattooed arm peeking out, as only men bore tattoos back then. Despite that, I like to think of this as a self-portrait. I mean, I sit on furniture and drink tea with my arm out like that all the time.

A) Everything's gonna be alright

2010-09-05T11:16:00.001-04:00

Julien Berthier
2004

or

B) Work No. 790

Martin Creed
2007

A.

Skulls

2010-09-02T19:33:00.002-04:00

Julie Moon
circa 2007

Skulls are too dark to keep on display in plain sight in your home, no matter what the attraction is. Canadian artist Julie Moon smooths over the grim discrepancy with her ceramic skulls pictured here. At first glance, the skull is made a lovely object. On second thought, Moon resets the skull. The object, which is usually and expectedly so infused with male bravado, softens. In place of intimidation and death, the innate quality of the skull is brought back to mind: its home within and the sensitivity of it.

Smiling Skull

2010-08-31T23:16:00.001-04:00

Gilles Barbier
2008

It's contagious.

Goethe

2010-08-30T22:38:00.002-04:00

Jens Stegger Ledaal
date unknown

Friedrich Schiller died in 1805 and was buried in a mass grave. Twenty-one years later, the German playwright's mortal remains were exhumed. Karl Leberecht Schwabe, the mayor of Weimar, decided that the largest of the 20-something skulls in the grave could have only belonged to Schiller.

For safe-keeping in his home, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe removed his confidant's skull from the library where his entire skeleton was displayed. Goethe later wrote the poem "Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull."

In 1999 it was revealed that a group of scientists exhumed Goethe's skeleton to conserve it in November 1970, nearly 140 years after his death. The German polymath's skeleton also comes with paleopathological interest. Opinions on the source of Goethe's stiff gait and posture were qualified, proving ankylosis (stiffened or consolidated joints) in his spine due to loss of intervertebral discs, spondylosis deformans (degeneration of intervertebral discs), and Morbus Forestier (fusion of several vertebrae).

Busts commemorate. Whether or not the back story is commemorated in the skull piece pictured above doesn't matter for my liking. Norway-based artist Jens Stegger Ledaal carved into a ready-made bust of Goethe, revealing what we know would naturally lie beneath. Most skull pieces I've seen are standalones that never reference the face or entire head. They are sculpted or embellished, but in this case features are removed in order to create. Grim might be a characteristic that comes to mind, but clever and brainy wins out.

Résidence secondaire

2010-08-29T09:56:00.000-04:00

Julien Berthier
2008

Let this be a cautionary tale of using limbs in art. When I was in art school, a classmate made a plaster cast of his open palms with a bird's nest delicately placed in the center. I was dying to say something; I liked the piece because I thought he was being cheeky, using hands that looked severed. He explained that the piece was about nurturing and protection... so the class, including myself, remained silent. I am all for both those things in life, but less in sculpture.

A couple of years later, Arrested Development made me feel better.

The natural association between viewer and art is a good quality, but limbs, severed ones especially, make it too didactic or hackneyed. Bones, while relatable, are less familiar. People go their whole lives without seeing their bones; it's safer to use them in art for this reason. They are mysterious.

The standalone skull is a common face (ha) in art. They come with their own cautionary history: Halloween, poison, and pirates are a few. Even Hamlet. These beg for reconciliation, which could explain their place in art. Maybe it's anthropological, bad-assy, easy to contrast, about the figure, the form, or a well-traveled bridge to science. At first I thought skulls in art was overdone, but my appreciation has grown because of the next few posts, beginning with Berthier's topiary.

Here, the skull isn't a mere object. Instead of a shrub in the shape of a squirrel or flower, the skull turns the homely art of tree sculpting against itself. The greenery is reminiscent of a welcome mat, but screams keep away. Seeing it so large, though, beckons because it is so funny.

Le terrier & La cabane

2010-08-27T10:22:00.004-04:00

Gilles Barbier
2008

My grafting house and desk plants and big trees suddenly feels less fun.

Boy Scout

2010-08-26T07:35:00.001-04:00

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2008

For now, ignore the part about the boy scout, and just get a load of that bed:

1) Impossible
2) Understandable
3) Love

Here comes the sun

2010-08-25T09:36:00.001-04:00

Alejandro Cesarco
2004

I could watch this sun rise all day.

Welcome Home

2010-08-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

Julien Berthier
2003

My heart just cartwheeled.

40 cm higher

2010-08-23T10:25:00.002-04:00

Massimo Bartolini
1993-2001

When I was little, I used to imagine the ceiling as the floor. Imagine the windows closer to the floor, and having to walk around the light fixture. Imagine the floor feeling like spackle. Imagine no furniture on it. I wasn't going for minimalism, but something more like Bartolini's 40 cm higher. Imagine the floor 40 cm higher, swallowing everything on it. Imagine you're 40 cm higher, and everything else is 40 cm inconvenient.

Bellevue, July 17th, 1994 (Cooling Box #5)

2010-08-22T14:13:00.003-04:00

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2009

When Damien Hirst made Hymn (1996), the 20-foot sculpture of an anatomical model toy, his fabricator hesitated painting over the expensive, labor-intensive, impeccable bronze. Hirst's final justification was that the paint on the outdoor sculpture would be like skin, and eventually be worn down by the elements as such.

Elmgreen & Dragset is a couple living and working in Berlin. The couple's collaborative work brings mischief to mind, but it's done so sweetly that their subversiveness becomes earnest gestures. One work is pictured above, a painted bronze sculpture of a cooler installed at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Perhaps the impetus of painting this bronze (and Hirst's) was simply the absurdity of making the material look plastic.

Tetris 3-D

2010-08-12T22:41:00.000-04:00

Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen
2010

I started out wanting to describe the brain activity of imagining Tetris long after a game is over. Eyes closed and trying to sleep, Tetris colors and blocks descend, rotate, and accumulate still. Awake, things appear rigid and inefficient; it's as if cars, people, sidewalks, everything could get by a little easier if only they could rotate like Tetris blocks. As far as brain activity goes, what's been found is a counter intuitive learning curve. As the Tetris game gets harder, the brain requires less energy to play it; this suggests that the brain becomes more efficient at handling the stimuli.

Artists Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen have created extra-large 3D Tetris blocks. By placing the large sculptures outdoors, it's as if the artists are referring to the inescapable quality of the blocks, but also turn them into conquered standstills. Another side of the work could be folding the insular Tetris game unto itself, making the overall piece something to be shared in public and that requires multiple hands to move.

Mantra

2010-08-08T08:50:00.001-04:00

Stefano Arienti
2007

Much of Arienti's work involves reinterpreting and resurfacing various covers, from refrigerator doors to album sleeves. Mantras are recited to help with focus and meditation, and in my favorite piece, the Italian artist took cue from the record. Here, Arienti transcribed his own mantra with the one already there.

Variable Piece #34

2010-08-06T22:46:00.002-04:00

Douglas Huebler
1970

I imagine it went like this:

DH: May I photograph your face?
W: Me, my face, whatever for?
DH: Why, you have a beautiful face.

BOOM.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Les articulations

2010-08-03T23:20:00.007-04:00

Gilles Barbier
2008

Flags and speech bubbles babble between two articulation surfaces of a simple joint.

It's literal, and it's hilarious.

Stadium

2010-08-02T19:23:00.005-04:00

Maurizio Cattelan
1991

Cattelan built an extra long table-football game that would accommodate as many players as an actual football/soccer game requires. I like it just as it is, ignoring the politics of the piece: art world as a mini society, but more sobering (Cattelan's home) Italian team played by Senegalese immigrants who suffered racism in Italy versus another team wearing a Nazi slogan on their shirts. Yes, those points and the game/war comparison make it a more serious piece, but in all honesty, the resounding groan of a lost victory in a World Cup game is far more beautiful to me.

Please water the plant and feed the fish

2010-08-01T00:12:00.002-04:00

Juliette Blightman
2008

I would water and feed the hell out of these.

Thinking About Someone Special Who Lost Someone Special While Listening to Dolly Parton

2010-07-03T15:18:00.004-04:00

Tad Hozumi
coming soon

I was looking for Tad's soccer paintings in honor of World Cup, since it is the only sport thing that conjures a warm fuzzy feeling for me. Something about many countries, one simple problem, quick recovery from loss, united rooting, and rooting for a country not one's own that does it. Instead I found a more recent work that, far from sport, radiates warmth in itself.

Thinking about meditation or yoga, it's not uncommon for one to hold an idea or person in mind, essentially sending healing energy to it. Thinking About Someone Special Who Lost Someone Special While Listening to Dolly Parton operates similarly, I would imagine, and does so in two ways. First, the consideration that thinking about someone special can help said person heal*. Second, music as a tool to conjure up a certain feeling, and music as a therapy**.

* There have been studies on this. I'll prove it in a forthcoming entry.
** There are studies on this too, but most people have experienced it firsthand.

Words and Years

2010-06-30T15:43:00.006-04:00

Toril Johannessen
2010

Norwegian artist Toril Johannessen graphs the frequency of opposing words in academic journals. Underlying the work is an original dichotomy: drama and objectivity. I like Edward Tufte, but the beauty in Johannessen's series lives not only in presentation, but in the inquiry as well. Miracles, crisis, nature, Science, art, logic and love, hope and reality, expansion and recession... these meander my thoughts, but infrequently result in a calm, cool, and collected picture. Johannessen harmonizes the discord. See the series here.

Untitled

2010-06-20T19:30:00.004-04:00

Jenny Walters
2006

Temporary Allegiance, a project on the UIC campus by artist Philip von Zweck, was your ordinary flagpole, but with an ever-changing repertoire of wavering commitment. Just as much it was a democratic means for several people to wave their veritable allegiances. LA-based artist Jenny Walters made my fave.

Harness

2010-06-06T00:55:00.003-04:00

Robert Wechsler
2006

As the mouse tirelessly runs, the music box plays Brahm's Lullaby.

Grandpa used to wash my hands with gasoline

2010-05-24T20:51:00.004-04:00

Clint Neufeld
2010

The exhibition that just ended at Parisian Laundry in Montréal featured the work of Saskatoon artist Clint Neufeld. The gallery's announcement said it best:

Nostalgia and memory play a key roll and act as the contextual impetus behind these aesthetic objects, rendering them useless of their design. They present a dichotomy of a romantic tension of memory and masculine and feminine clichés – delicate motif and car envy. Starting from the personal, Neufeld minds his regional prairie past and relationships with male figures in his life. Men who were not necessarily there emotionally but who, in their ways and language connected the artist to time and observing the extraordinary in the everyday.

The parts I like best are italicized. Thank you.

Wonderland

2010-05-20T22:12:00.000-04:00

Yeondoo Jung
2005

In Yeondoo Jung's Wonderland series, the artist recreates children's drawings. Preserving their keen observations, fashion, and titles, Jung at once validates children's imaginations and filters them for adult eyes via c-print. "He didn't sleep for three days" is pictured above. Other favorites are "Modern Wedding" and "The Magician Turned the Wale into a Flower."

Up There

2010-05-19T19:26:00.005-04:00

Malcolm Murray/Sky High Murals/Colossal Media Group

The guys, the city, the painting... the attention to detail, the doing things the hard way... the watching them paint... The only thing bigger than the turn on is the actual wall.

Rainy Day Posters

2010-05-18T19:05:00.004-04:00

Jasmine Raznahan
circa 2008

A clear screen print on stainless steel needs rain to make its message clearer. The effect that Raznahan's poster has on passersby is not lost when advancing the image on her website.

Stitched Table

2010-05-17T17:27:00.005-04:00

Uhuru
year unknown, also made to order

Butterfly joints are made, like sutures, to prevent a split in wood from breaking further apart. Using wood scrapped because of their splits, I used butterfly joints in such a way that their sentiment outweighed their function. Here, Brooklyn-based design and furniture company Uhuru operates on the same split-joint shtick. Although their material and design compete with the sentiment behind my pieces, their table still makes me warm and fuzzy.

Be Kind Rewind

2010-05-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

Michel Gondry
2008

Mos Def and Jack Black play childhood friends who must recreate popular films after accidentally erasing the VHS copies belonging to a video store. Using found objects and everyday materials, Ghost Busters, Driving Miss Daisy, and Rush Hour are given new life as live-action dioramas. Think Wes Anderson meets Ed Wood. Above, Mos Def's character provides sound effects for a martial arts fight scene*. The play mat beside him is used in a scene to appear suspended from a tall building.

Director Michele Gondry is behind repurposing the turntable, play mat and, if you'll forgive my last spoiler, tinsel. The brilliance of tinsel is no longer attributed to foil.

In Be Kind Rewind, the exhibition at Deitch Projects in NYC**, Gondry reinstalled the video store from the film in the gallery, along with other sets. Inviting visitors to re/create their own movies, Gondry's message in the film -- to participate freely and actively in one's own entertainment -- echoed into the present; this, perhaps, is a nod to relational and performance art and participatory exhibitions. More importantly, the familiarity of the sets built in the gallery (café, office, waiting room, junkyard, etc.) were further encouragement for visitors to examine their everyday scenery and objects as materials.

*This reminds me of Oliver Laric's Kung Fu Percussion, which I love, but can't find on the artist's website anymore.

**Deitch Projects will close permanently this summer. The current exhibition by Shepard Fairey, which is the gallery's last, closes at the end of this month.

Paired Gold Mats, for Ross and Felix

2010-05-11T19:37:00.003-04:00

Roni Horn
1994-95

The gallery text accompanying this piece at the ICA Boston reads, "The space between the gold sheets glows with an energy that would never exist without their delicate pairing."

Remove the gold, and you've got something remarkable.

Untitled

2010-05-05T19:31:00.005-04:00

Plastic Pollution Coalition and Rethink
2010

The two porpoises in this Vancouver public sculpture are found caught in a large six-pack ring. Through their intervention, the Plastic Pollution Coalition and advertising firm Rethink draws awareness to the impact of pollution on wildlife, meanwhile pulling off a pretty ballsy PSA.

I just want to know where they got their cohones...

Untitled

2010-04-22T18:40:00.006-04:00

Troutman Chair Co.
1997-present

Boarding a flight from Boston to Toronto, I caught a glimpse of this rocking chair at the gate. Turns out that there are a number of these rocking chairs in several airports, but the idea originates from North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport and their 1997 photography exhibition titled Porchsitting. I like the reimagined environment through displacement of rocking chair.

Untitled

2010-04-11T19:37:00.006-04:00

Amy Cheung
2010

The exercise ball has been brought under the wing of numerous physiological contexts, from physical therapy to birthing to just plain sitting. Though unclear of my friend Amy's appropriation of the ball, her use of a papasan frame to contain it unveils a beautiful pairing.

Bouquet V

2010-03-19T23:03:00.003-04:00

Willem de Rooij
2010

Made with florist Mireille Ruch, de Rooij's bouquet consists of one flower drawn from 95 different floral species. As one wilts, it is replaced with another of the same. Other arrangements include collaborations with Dutch artist Jeroen de Rijke (1970-2006): Bouquet II that references the robe colors of 2002 Nigerian beauty pageant contestants, and Bouquet IV that uses flowers selected for their gray-scale conversion and overall short range that eliminates stark black and stark white.

The Library of Rhizomatic Activity

2010-03-16T16:56:00.002-04:00

Lucy Pullen
2005

Select books in various collections are covered in artist-made reflective dust jackets. As Pullen writes, when photographed, "the book appears to be consumed in a burst of bright white light, and disappears from the photograph." While the dust jacket conceals the book in normal light, in a darkened room it is a beacon.

Constellation

2010-03-15T16:25:00.003-04:00

Chu Yun
2006

Makes me want to get busy in a darkened room with lots and lots of electronics. Plus, I like it when artwork requires the absence of conventional light.

Anything Frank Netter

2010-03-10T19:16:00.005-05:00

Frank Netter

Photorealism shmotorealism. Unless we're talkin' medical illustrations in the style of Frank Netter. As only an artist can, Netter's gouache paintings infuse the sterility of medicine with command and palpable sensitivity. If you're wondering what my face looks like as I look at Netter's illustrations, sorry, only he could have drawn it.

Souvenirs

2010-03-03T20:40:00.004-05:00

Michael Hughes
ongoing

Photographer Michael Hughes superimposes souvenirs over their inspiration, resulting in kitschy but sometimes beautiful reunions. Browse the photos in his Flickr set here.

5 Rooms

2010-03-02T18:04:00.003-05:00

Jasper Niens
2009

There's something about people braving their way through a fun house that makes me want to throw some drywall and doors together, slap on some signage and call it art. Watch video of Niens's site-specific installation here.

Basketball Court #6

2010-02-28T18:33:00.008-05:00

Harmen de Hoop
1992

de Hoop painted portions of full-scale basketball courts in inconspicuous locations: on the foundation of a partly demolished building, a parking lot, an empty housing plot, and in the walkway of a housing development. The city council in Amsterdam eventually followed suit, installing a hoop in the artist's court.

Lifejacket

2010-02-25T22:17:00.005-05:00

Marisa Jahn & Steve Shada
2001

"Intended as a lifejacket for two, it's unclear whether the device saves or drowns the two."

Ah, codependency.

I like modifying ready-mades too.

unknown

2010-02-22T18:04:00.008-05:00

Tony Romano
2010

Romano's next show titled A Fist Full of Flies opens on February 25. I'm not sure what the exhibition is really about, nor can I guess what the figure made from tree branches and brush is doing, but I like it.

In 2005 I started working with trees, grafting any scion-stock combination so long as it wasn't homogeneous. Though short-lived, these grafts begged to replicate in other parks, another country, and my parents' backyard. The Tree Museum, DeCordova, and Arnold Arboretum seemed natural to pursue, but not until I had grafting down, as I was sure that no tree museum would allow something funny that couldn't first and foremost proliferate. Or at least sustain.

For years it seemed as if tree 'museums' lacked a sense of humor -- until I saw the photo above. Immediately I thought Canadian artist Romano got something funny into the Tree Museum in Muskoka, Ontario -- until I realized that that might not be the Tree Museum at all, nor is he trying to be funny (don't know yet). Despite the seriousness of nature and the unknowns of his unopened show, Romano inadvertently gave hope to tree museums everywhere, as I am once again determined to get grafting down. Grafting season is open, and in the spirit of Elmer Fudd, those twees are gonna get scwewy.

As an aside, below is Will Egan's Tripod Rod (2006), a prank/retaliatory sculpture made mostly of wood, complete with speech bubble and, well, wood.

Untitled (small branch slice icosahedron)

2010-02-15T20:08:00.000-05:00

Stan Krzyzanowski
circa 2006

Geometry carries an undeniable beauty that is only multiplied as a sculpture. I don't mind the math, but prefer the visual. Krzyzanowski's icosahedral wood sculptures add tactility to my faceted love for the mathematical branch.

Sphere eversion schematic

2010-02-14T15:05:00.001-05:00

Anthony Phillips (Text by Peter Eleey)
1966 (2009)

"He preserves something not generally afforded to us: the ability to return to that primordial condition of mystery after the revelation."

Mass Black Implosion (Free music No. 1, Percy Grainger)

2010-02-11T19:06:00.003-05:00

Marco Fusinato
2009

The answer is yes.

Parisian Love Story

2010-02-08T20:40:00.002-05:00

Aaron Duffy/1st Ave Machine
2010

Makes me want to be a French girl.

Sleep Talkin' Man

2010-01-09T17:58:00.005-05:00

Karen S-L and Adam L
ongoing

A woman documents her husband's nightly sweet nothings, like, "I don't want to watch. I want to get my hands dirty, all the way up to my shoulder. Filthy," and, "Don't... Don't put the noodles and the dumplings together in the boat. They'll fight! The noodles are bullies. Poor dumplings."

My heart, like he in another dream, goes pitter patter.

Composition 1960 #7

2009-12-30T17:32:00.008-05:00

La Monte Young
1960

After John Cage, La Monte Young created a number of 'non-musical' scores that played with instruction and the liberties of sound. The scraping of furniture and the inaudible flutter of butterflies are two examples, as well as Composition 1960 #7, above, consisting of a B, an F# (a perfect fifth) and the instruction: "To be held for a long time." Uninterested in LMY's piece for the sound of it (and somewhat debonair quality to his body of work), I like it as a drawing.

Just like that.

Someone to share my life with (detail)

2009-12-23T20:56:00.003-05:00

Mathew Sawyer
2002

That's my kind of risk.

Fair Isle Saddle

2009-12-19T23:44:00.003-05:00

KGLeather
2009

I might just be in wish list mode, or maybe I really do wish I could make a bike saddle like this.

Artists on Their Bicycles

2009-12-18T00:20:00.007-05:00

Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York
2010

Fourteen artists riding their bicycles around NYC grace the pages of Swiss Institute's 2010 calendar, available at Art Basel Miami and online, printed in a limited edition of 500. Move over, Sports Illustrated; this SI calendar does it for me.

Above, the November spread with Pierre Huyghe.

Ladder Stack

2009-12-14T20:02:00.005-05:00

John Sasaki
2009

Canadian artist Jon Sasaki scales his obstacle using as many ladders as it takes. If I were as daring and resourceful, I could stop living vicariously for a moment and realize a project of my own.

The Odd Couple (German Version)

2009-12-09T17:29:00.004-05:00

Jonathan Monk
2008

Grandfather clock facing grandmother clock. I could talk about romance. I could talk about time. I could talk about staring contests and slow dancing and things facing each other, but why spoil the moment?

Table with Two Legs on the Wall

2009-12-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ai Weiwei
2009

Ai Weiwei combines social commentary and art practice with his modified table from the Qing Dynasty. Forget politics. I like the ready-made table as the material, the woodworking, and most of all the familiarity of this absurd posture.

Table, can you lift a leg?

One Minute Sculpture

2009-12-07T19:05:00.002-05:00

Erwin Wurm
late 1980s-ongoing

About five years ago I taught an art class for a group of grade school students, most of whom had ADHD. Without a budget for supplies, I was faced with the same dilemma that led Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, during his art school days, to use everyday objects in his work. Exploring the time between action and sculpture, Wurm created an ongoing series of One Minute Sculptures that use bodies and everyday objects to realize instructional pieces. Literally taking pages out of his book, I'd hoped that minute-long art and moving quickly in between, like in a game of freeze tag, would utilize the kids' ADHD almost as a material.

Wurm's One Minute Sculpture above is, in yoga, a halfway tripod headstand. Without a chair, below is my half-sculpture.

Office of Paul Sahre (O.O.P.S.)

2009-12-05T10:58:00.002-05:00

Paul Sahre
c. 2006

There is sometimes a delicate line between art and shitty office. To make the former from the latter (think material, not locale) is a testament to one's skill, or at the very least sense of humour. Graphic designer Paul Sahre is my new fave.

Fail Harder

2009-11-28T18:07:00.008-05:00

Wieden+Kennedy 12
2006

An experimental advertising school within the Wieden+Kennedy agency in Portland, members of W+K 12 used clear push pins to create this dazzling mural, reminding of the importance of failure during the creative process.

See their process here.

Untitled (Plate IX)

2009-11-19T19:34:00.006-05:00

David Moreno
1993

I want to heal in a tender yet pithy and subversive manner too...

Read this excerpt from the Healing exhibition text by Feature, Inc.:

during the early 90s when the socio-political surrounding aids and disease were big topics in the trendiest part of the contemporary art world, david moreno made a group of four diptychs that quietly approached the epidemic personally and constructively, from the point of view of healing -- specifically the healing abilities of art and artists. each painting has an unframed left panel of a chromo-litho xtracted from a book on venereal and skin diseases that was published in 1890. the person or part of person represented is resplendent with the effects of the advanced stages of their disease. the right gold framed panel is a painted copy of the same person or part of person healed by the artist.

Untitled (A Curse)

2009-11-18T21:12:00.004-05:00

Tom Friedman
1992

In 1992, American conceptual sculptor Tom Friedman hired a witch to curse a spherical space 27 cm above a gallery plinth. It is not known if the curse travels with the plinth, or remains in the original location. Or if it has since expired.

I am currently looking for a witch in an attempt to reverse the curse.

Robin Redbreasts's Territory

2009-11-16T22:24:00.003-05:00

Jan Dibbets
1969

Jan Dibbets displaced a robin in a park by giving it a perch, and moving the perch every day.

Following the right hand of...

2009-10-27T20:51:00.005-04:00

Pierre Bismuth
ongoing

Pictured is "Following the right hand of Sophia Loren in 'Too Bad She's Bad'" (2009). Bismuth's series is an interplay between adoration and distance. By following the lead actresses' right hand with a marker, what results is an abstract line that obliterates the person.

Chrono-shredder

2009-10-26T18:35:00.004-04:00

Susanna Hertrich
2007-2009

The date advances on its own, shredding over 24 hrs.

Numbers

2009-10-24T21:23:00.005-04:00

Are Blytt
2009

I even like how it is a tetraptych.

Sixteen Months Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel

2009-10-21T22:25:00.003-04:00

Danielle Aubert
2009

As soon as I started working outside of the arts, I started drawing in Excel. One project was to chart the rudest person's progress in warming up to me, but when I finally decided that it was time to begin collecting data, it was too late. The months of coaxing him out of his prickish shell worked, but I had nothing to show for it. I considered turning him back only to start over, but it wasn't worth the trouble. The project was scrapped, more like an Excel doodle.

Danielle Aubert, however, stuck with all of her Excel projects, producing her collection of drawings in three renditions. Pictured above is her book, published by Various Projects, Inc., and can be purchased through their Project No. 8 here. Her other collections made for web and video can be viewed on her website.

Shopping Losts

2009-10-19T15:51:00.003-04:00

Simon Attwater
2009

I love finding handwritten notes, and I've always wanted to do a project that shows how much I like fonts. London-based Attwater nails both the found and typographical aspects with Shopping Losts, an ongoing project where he turns found shopping lists into "something to be treasured." Touche.

My favorite:

Out of Order #1

2009-10-18T14:09:00.006-04:00

Marianne Viero

2005

The backs of library books, faded by the sun, are displayed like so.

Untitled

2009-10-17T00:39:00.003-04:00

Unknown
2007

While we're on the topic of pylon cones, this is another piece happened upon in Toronto. I found this in the east end one morning in May. The chain as barrier is an obvious choice; the chain as thread is oft-forgotten. Maximize on the chain, throw a cone on that baby, and you have an undeniable blockade... with an illusional effect.

Untitled

2009-10-14T22:12:00.006-04:00

Unknown
2009

A jack o' lantern carved from a pylon cone was found and photographed in Toronto by Stan Krzyzanowski. Destructive but harmless, the vandalism behind this marks a quiet mischief that only the best street artists possess. I don't know about 'haunting beauty', but roguishness, I fear, is beautiful.

Two Projects Involving Height

2009-10-10T16:30:00.009-04:00

My roommate is working on a radio piece on height, and these two pieces immediately came to mind. In ascending order:

My Height in HB Pencil
Jonathan Monk
2002

Full Length
Jack Falanga
2007

"My Height in HB Pencil" is a postcard to be hung anywhere, with the line six feet from the ground. Produced by Art Metropole, edition of 200. "Full Length" measures the artist's height and width.

My arms outstretched 4'9" illustrates how much I like these.

Climate Control

2009-10-06T21:39:00.000-04:00

Michael Rakowitz
2000-2001

Rakowitz built a climate control system for P.S.1 in Brooklyn. The artist says it best: While the system is adjustable and can maintain a stabilized environment for the display of even delicate works on paper, there is no space to exhibit other art: Climate Control completely engulfs the room. The result is an absurd machine built to maintain itself.

Holding Room

2009-10-05T18:25:00.008-04:00

Jack Falanga

2007

This is a proposal for, "A room with no entrance. An exterior corner is constructed to follow the frontal contour of the artist's body in sleeping position. The proposed space functions to hold room and as a room to hold."

A room to hold.

Balloon Project

2009-10-04T20:48:00.003-04:00

Kelli Harper, Vanna Zona, Leann Diehl, and Dan Guzek
with a Wooster Collective grant
2009

For one of my birthdays I made balloons and planned to hand them out on the street. It was too windy and cold that year (as it always is on March 6 in the northeast, Toronto no less), so my project didn't come to fruition. Instead the balloons were in a show. In a gallery. Far from my birthday. Stationary.

Wooster Collective, based in NYC, celebrates street art around the world. Occasionally they put forward the question: If you had $50 to spend on art, how would you spend it? This time, Kelli Harper, Vanna Zona, Leann Diehl, and Dan Guzek took the prize with "Balloon Project", where they bought $50 worth of balloons and handed them out on the streets of Pennsylvania.

Google Earth/Google Images

2009-10-03T09:48:00.000-04:00

Chris Lee
ongoing

Chris matches landscapes from Google Images with captures from Google Earth.

Pictured: Capri, Italy

You Fit Into Me

2009-10-02T21:48:00.000-04:00

Margaret Atwood
1971

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Railings

2009-10-01T16:41:00.000-04:00

Greyworld
1997

These rails are tuned to play "The Girl From Ipanema" when dragged along with a stick.

I melt.

A Line Made by Walking / Poll

2009-09-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

A Line Made by Walking
Richard Long
1967

I have always wanted to be the one who made this.

And then this:

Poll
Germaine Koh
1999

The pole measures the popularity of routes while two lines are made by walking.

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry

2009-09-30T13:36:00.000-04:00

Leanne Shapton

2009

Appealing to romantic voyeurs, artist Leanne Shapton chronicles the relationship of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, 2002-2006. This auction house catalogue of the couple's belongings is generous, simultaneously detached and intimate. Buy the artist's book before it is branded with "Now a Major Motion Picture Featuring Natalie Portman and Brad Pitt!" Seriously.

You Are The CSS To My HTML

2009-09-28T23:10:00.000-04:00

Pop + Shorty

Making something like this button ($1.25) or magnet ($1.75) is the kind of search I'd do for my CSS.

One Square Foot Studio

2009-09-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

Antoine Lefebvre
2009

The daunting task of clearing out workspace is rewarded by the resulting art piece. Even when everything pictured is reduced to a square foot, it still works.