Sara's Dorian Gray

Temporary yet eternal, Sara VanDerBeek's photographs of her own sculptural work evoke nothing less than a memory of an oeuvre that existed only for the purpose of being photographed. Furthermore, to exist no matter the form or not to exist in actual form, is it the death of a "subject" when it succumbs transformation into different media or is the concept a "Garden of Eden" for art?

The conceptual collage-like constructions are made up out of carefully collected images from a wide range of sources, including art history books, archives, magazines, and newspapers. Immediately following the shoot, VanDerBeek disassembles the works, which leaves the pictures as the sole evidence of the work itself.

My knowledge of the intentional elusion of the sculptures during the exhibition, draws me straight into the images in an unexpected, mindboggling, perhaps self-induced, pseudo-philosophical trip from 2D to 3D. Always having been obsessed with the Gothic Novel "classic collection literature" section of Waterstones, this notion evokes a slumbering feeling of the uncanny for the (to me) unmistakable parallel between VanDerBeek's concept and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray.

Whether VanDerBeek was trying to preserve the beauty of her work by eternalizing it in digital print will remain a mystery to me until a future encounter, but I am pretty certain she would at least consider seeing my point.

"Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, plunging him into debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging."

(Wikipedia, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

Sara Vanderbeek is currrently exhibiting at the Whitney Museum of American art in NYC, the show runs until december the 5th, well worth checking out whilst in the city.

Kätlin Liiv

An amazing video montage by the very talented Kätlin Liiv, capturing the journey of my friends in Berlin this fall.
Preciously beautiful.

The Thief Catcher.

Sunday nights would not be perfect without at least a drizzle of nostalgia-inducing jazz music or a pinch of silent movie IMDb browsing, therefore, please do take a look at Charlie Chaplin's first motion picture ever made, discovered only recently by film collector Paul Gierucki.

The cinephile was browsing through the rummage of an antique store in Taylor, Michigan, when he encountered a 16mm film print hidden in a trunk. As lovers of film don't come short of an obsessively compulsive attention to detail, he instantly dismantled the mystery tape as to being a 'Keystone Comedy - 1914 - dispersed classic', entitled "The Thief Catcher". Soon after the revelation took place, Charlie Chaplin's first born was brought back to life at its re-premiere during the 46th annual Cinecon Classic Film Festival at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.

I certainly wish I could have been there.

Clap, clap.

Psychotherapy: a menace to civilization?

The last year of high school, useless days of endless career conventions, only to end up making the wrong decisions whilst discovering that the group heading towards the Faculty of Psychology information desk is mostly made up out of the school's renown sociopaths and most feared OCD driven schizophrenics.

Like a time bomb ticking slowly, awaiting to ensure its lasting influence upon its vulnerable environment, the faculty of psychology is bursting with the amass of self-explorative mentalists who decide to help others since they have never been able to help themselves.

Anyhow, why rant about only one of the many cases of threatening backwardness in society, when one can celebrate art and irony? Baggelboy, an illustrator from the very East of London has created "A Colouring Book for Psychotherapists".

I wonder how his shrink feels about this.

Whoppers and enigmatic owls.

The Social Perv's fav David Shrigley drawings.

"Something like a phenomenon."

Exhibiting now in New York, Anton Kern Gallery.

September 15th 2010 - October 23rd 2010.

British Petroleum, der Führer.

BP, the US Defense Department's major supplier for gasoline in Afghanistan, the 21st century example of unwilling suspension of disbelief.
After the holocaust, alongside Coca Cola, supporting the petroleum industry has become one of the best global conscience cover-ups ever known to mankind.
Western civilization has proved to be prime in dominating "tech world", nevertheless succeeds in remaining a cold, sad, ethically poor example of human existence, one that chooses to sit back and indulge on reality documentaries about the mentally challenged wannabe singers and starlets. This all, to ignore the simple truth that mankind will forever live in a dictatorship ruled by the multinational polluters of planet earth and morality.

Did anyone see last night's X-factor?


















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Cross-Coal Express

Michael Markwick(Michigan 1974).
Charcoal on Paper.