Composition 1960 #7

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)

Mathew Sawyer
2002

That's my kind of risk.

Fair Isle Saddle

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

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

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)

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

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

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.)

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

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)

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)

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

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...

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

Susanna Hertrich
2007-2009

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

Numbers

Are Blytt
2009

I even like how it is a tetraptych.

Sixteen Months Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel

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

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

Marianne Viero

2005

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

Untitled

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Lee
ongoing

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

Pictured: Capri, Italy

You Fit Into Me

Margaret Atwood
1971

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Railings

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

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

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

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

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.

Just Between You And Me

Objects of co-dependency
Keetra Dean Dixon
2005-2008

Being co-dependent, there is no wonder why I'd be drawn to this. A setback is made into an asset through modifying ready-made objects into extraordinary art-quips.

Pendu (Hung)

Julien Previeux
1998
Looks
like
fun.

Jumping in Art Museums

Allison Reimus

2006-Present

Exaltation reaches new heights in this ongoing project by Allison Reimus. The artist encourages museum patrons to go with their bodily instinct -- when brimming with joy (over art), jump for it. Also acceptable: cartwheels, handstands, and backbends. A friend of mine slid down a banister at The Louvre; I wonder if that's cool too.

http://jumpinginartmuseums.blogspot.com/

Demons Stole My Soul: Rock ‘n Roll Drums in Contemporary Art

Camilla Singh (curator)
June 3 – July 3, 2005

This is an exhibition dedicated to the western drum kit. I used to be perfectly content playing the drums all by myself in a corner of my parents' basement. A consequence to never playing in public, I will always wonder about it like the-one-that-got-away. Curating this show or playing in public would have satisfied the same desire that I have now.

Pictured is my favorite piece from Demons Stole My Soul: "Cheese Kit Diptych" by Dutch artist Water Willems. Willems built this kit to be played by Dutch improvisational jazz drummer Han Bennink, and considered it incomplete until Bennink played it. I think it works best left good and well alone as a sculpture... but give me ten years and maybe I'll wonder otherwise.

For a far more comprehensive review of the show, see Canadian writer R. M. Vaughan's blog entry here.

Walls Notebook

Sherwood Forlee
2009

Eighty blank walls around NYC are featured in this book, inviting you to tag to your heart's content, 100% risk-free. In addition to the book's intention, it also serves as a photo album of clean walls, instilling a heightened awareness of them and the lack/abundance of graffiti. For a taste of the book, check out Forlee's online version of the project.

The Lost Tribes of New York City

Andy & Carolyn London
2009

Here NY-based couple/production team London Squared present the stories of NYers through inanimate objects, playing up the significance of both.

Bad

Julien Prévieux
2006

Homage to MJ, the album, the tag, or covering cover art.

Floral Shower

Mina Wu
2004

The white t-shirt is a wardrobe wallflower, and the pits oft-neglected ground for anything but deodorant residue. With nothing but skill and a careful approach, Mina Wu adorns the pits of a t-shirt's interior with delicate floral prints and embroidery. If not just using ignored fabric, Wu also reminds of the delicacy of our own pheromonal, ticklish pits.

Made for Droog. Also pictured is Hector Serrano's "Clothes hanger lamp", functional and resembling your also delicate heart brimming with joy.

You, Your Wee Sister, Your Parents and The Social Services

David Shrigley
2001

Liking this feels like laughing at a really. bad. time.

Panel discussion accompanying release of Vandal Squad: Inside the New York City Transit Police Department, 1984-2004

powerHouse Arena
2009

Vandal Squad chronicles the work of heavy-hitting graffiti artists on the MTA, but especially the work of cops dealing with the offenses. The panel discussion, moderated by Stern Rockwell of Streets are Saying Things, brought together cops Joseph Rivera, Steven Mona, and Ken Chiulli and artists COPE2, Ket, and ELLIS G. The platform allowed for the parties to duke out their opposing truths, but furthermore demonstrated the strife that before could only be imagined.

photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimkiernan/

video excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYQU_9otifE

Nummer acht: Everything is going to be allright

Guido van der Werve
2007

A man walks in front of a ship that crushes the ice behind him. It's a silent film that was projected in Times Square c/o Creative Time, boasting an impossible relationship that could go on forever.