Lux Lotus

Outside, Looking In

I'm looking forward to seeing the Sister Gertrude Morgan exhibition at the Folk Art Museum sometime soon. I have always been interested in outsider art, but this show is especially intriguing to me given the fact that I lived there in New Orleans for a year in college and my mother was born and raised there. I absolutely love, love, love New Orleans and all of the eccentric behavior that passes for normal in the South.

There is so much fabulous outsider art that has entered the mainstream, and yet it seems to appeal to a niche audience. I find the unique cosmology of outsider artists to be one of their most compelling traits. It's too bad that the Folk Art Museum's website doesn't go much into Sister Gertrude's artistic philosophy, or her motivating belief that she was "the bride of Christ." At the Guggenheim, I once saw an intricate, highly ornamental coat made by an institutionalized man who thought he would wear it to meet God. I think it was part of the Brazil: Body & Soul exhibition, but I'm not certain of that fact.

Other artists are motivated by more earthly concerns, such as painting their community and local happenings. Socially conscious New York trade activist Ralph Fasanella and Gullah Islander Sam Doyle come immediately to mind. The New Orleans Museum of Art has a small but very charming collection of works by Sam Doyle.

A self taught artist, Doyle paints on wood, scraps of metal, and anything that is conveniently found around the island. His art documents the community, prominently displaying important members of St. Helena. One of the most well known people on the island was Dr. Buzz. a Voodoo Doctor that listened to a conch shell for advice. Doyle also documented many of the firsts of his community. "The First Football Game on St. Helena Island" is an example of this.

The quilt show at The Whitney last year was really amazing, and it was wonderful to see the original, strikingly modern works by the women of Gee's Bend receive their proper due. One of the things I most remember most about the exhibition was reading on a wall placard how isolated the community was after the residents tried to vote in the '60s and the only ferry service to the mainland was abruptly discontinued as a direct result.

Last time I went to Los Angeles, I visited the Watts Towers, which really must be seen to be believed. Simon Rodia's multi-decade art works constitute an amazingly vibrant, complex sculpture of found objects and deliberate artistry.

If any of this piques your interest, there is an terrific magazine devoted to outsider art called Raw Vision.

Bad Publicity

I think that the death of former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman, killed in Afghanistan while fulfilling his duties as an Army Ranger, is going to be the tipping point in this year's election cycle. George W. Bush has a fair chance at staying in the White House as long as his poll ratings hover above 50%, but he's governed in a way that has left the country sharply divided.

From a sports column in The Washington Post today:

More than 700 members of the armed forces have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11. Pictures of flag-draped coffins, photos of dead soldiers in newspapers and nightly television images of casualties are painful, as is the dispatch of a rare pro athlete dying. In the Vietnam War, one pro football player, Buffalo Bills lineman Bob Kalsu, was killed. In World War II, Navy pilot Nile Kinnick, the only University of Iowa player to win the Heisman Trophy, was killed. The Iowa football stadium is named for him.

A nation of celebrity-watchers, right or wrong, we snap to attention when an NFL player who rejected millions to serve his country is killed.

Escapists will no longer be able to avoid the fact that we're fighting a seemingly endless war, especially as sports coverage and newscasts have turned Tillman into an overnight icon. With so much riding on the shifting tides of public opinion, Bush can't afford the sort of negative reaction against the administration that Tillman's death will likely produce.

Mapping Beat Culture

Right now I’m reading Paul D. Miller’s Rhythm Science, a rumination on the future of art, technology and digital culture, and a roadmap of their intersecting paths.

Here’s an example:

Future generations won’t have a “dependence” on technology. They will have technology as a core aspect of their existence – as much as the languages we speak, the air we breathe, and the food that we eat are all aspects of technology. In this context, rhythm science is a lot broader than someone just sitting down and using whatever computer is around to make sounds. The dependence is basically part of the process of being human. Whether it’s drum machines in the Bronx or aboriginals playing didgeridoo in the Australian desert, what holds them together is the machinery of culture as an organizing system.

That passage sort of reminds me of what I think whenever I'm on the subway surrounded by people plugged into their iPods, telltale white cords creeping out of their shirts and up towards their ears.

No Fatties!

Supermodel Personals:

NYC Ewan Macgregor lookalike wanted for flea-market Sundays and drives in my Mini Cooper. I won't talk if you won't.

[via Monochrom]

Cloak and Dazzle

The shawl is the ultimate accessory. Both traditional and ultramodern at the same time, the art of wrapping oneself in fabric is as timeless as the idea of clothing. I love the idea of a piece of beautiful cloth that is at once always and never the same, its fluidity and substance like life itself. Fold, repeat, twist and fold again. It retains its essential shape and dimensions, yet it can be converted to any use at a moment’s notice. Shawls are wonderful year-round accessories. The wrap that keeps your shoulders warm on a breezy summer night can be doubled over to make the super-thick scarf that protects your neck on a winter morning.

Here's a gorgeous example from the "conscientiously chic" line Tarsian & Blinkley, which produces elegant designer clothing made by Afghan women.

Free Radicals

There is an excellent article (not available online - updated, both pieces by Brown-Martin mentioned in this post are now online at AMMO CITY) in the current issue of TRACE magazine (March/April) about poet Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Graham Brown-Martin writes:

Born in Chapleton, Jamaica, in 1952, Linton arrived in London in 1963 to join his mother who had emigrated there two years previously. He was educated at a state comprehensive school in Brixton before graduating with a sociology school from Goldsmiths University, which presented him with an honorary fellowship in 2003. As a young man he joined the Black Panthers, and inspired by the words of W.E.B. DuBois, organised a poetry workshop within the movement. He was first published in 1974 with his first volume of poems, Voices of the Living and Dead followed by a landmark second volume, Dread, Beat an’ Blood coinciding with a film made by the BBC of the same name. He is only the second living poet ever to appear in the Penguin Modern Classics series of books with Mi Revalueshanary Fren.

The interview is brief but illuminating, e.g.

The U.K. seems less preoccupied than the U.S. with the notion of race, why do you think that is?

The black experience in the U.S. is different from the U.K. Largely it's historical, despite getting rid of people like Jim Crow and all that, race is very much under the surface of American social life, politics and culture. They still fly the Confederate flag in some parts of the Southern states. A lot of African Americans are living in developing world conditions in the United States, and so like Jamaica you’ve got the gangsters as a consequence of poverty and despair who become role models for the kids.

Do you think that the visualization of such role models on television and in the media propagates the problem?

It’s another form of American cultural imperialism. We’re all subject to the effects of media but not all of its negative, and there are still conscious artists coming through. It’s too easy to assume that people do negative things as a consequence of negative images on television.

Other highlights of the issue include a lush photo essay about the city of Dakar, and another interesting, smart and personal article by Graham Brown-Martin on why he’s moving to Jamaica. About half the fashion spreads are weak (the bags in particular are a petty insult to the sighted), and the magazine’s definition (and designation) of “fashion personalities” makes me want to use them as tearsheets so I can commit them to memory and run in the opposite direction if I see any of them around town. The essay on Why Jeremy Scott* Matters, is sort of amusing, but earns double-negative points for calling him both an "international man of mystery” and a "zany designer" in the same sentence. All in all, an uneven but promising mix of intriguing subjects and sensibilities that’s still worth checking in with on a regular basis. The few things I liked were stellar enough to make the magazine well worth the cover price of $5. Pick it up.

*I saw Jeremy Scott speak on a fashion panel at Tokion’s Creativity Now conference, held at Cooper Union last year, and he was hilarious. He’s on of the most subversive and compelling designers working today, and between his tangents on the heartbreak he suffered to discover that Bill Cosby was no Cliff Huxtable to Lisa Bonet (he allegedly couldn’t stand her, or her outfits) and his raging mullet, he definitely kept it interesting. A few months later, when I read that he staged a fashion show that consisted of Staten Island cheerleaders doing routines - and no actual fashion show - I liked him even more.

Exile Art Down Under

This is a great article about exiled Chinese artists living and working in Australia that came out a week or so ago , but is worth a read if you haven't seen it yet:

Nearly 15 years after the massacre, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed, the works of these exiles have given Australian art an Asian flavor.

"It was an incredible cultural coup for Australia to get the sort of intellectual input that New York got with the Second World War," said Sydney art gallery-owner Ray Hughes.

I think it's worth mentioning that the article is from Reuters, which seems to pull together really incredible stories from its international correspondents. Like this one, "Desperate Afghan Women Opt For Fiery Suicides." Phenomenal.

Cruella deGlitter

I stopped by the Whitney to check out the Biennial for a few minutes (I'm going to go back next week and linger, but it's right by my office so I popped in). It was very, very crowded with a line halfway down the street on pay-as-you-wish night. I breezed through it, but the things that stick out in my mind are the installation by assume astro vivid focus and some terrific photos combining classical portraiture with modern realism. There's a lot of good drawing in the show and it seems like an intriguing mix of young art now, although some of it was really absolute crap. The best part is that plastic surgery/art victim Orlan was in the check-out line in front of me at the museum shop. She is striking, to say the least, and has dyed her hair half black and half white to go with her new look, which includes cheek implants in her forehead. It was nice to see her up close, because she sports shimmer shadow on said cheek implants. It's a nice touch.

Wien

Ever since I learned that most of Egon Schiele's work is in state-owned museums in Austria, I have longed to visit Vienna. And, of course, there is my inexplicable fondness for Kruder & Dorfmeister. It's looking even more intriguing now that I've found out that work by British/Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare is going to show at Kunsthalle Vien this summer. Here's some text from the catalog:

In a playful, humorous and visually overwhelming way, Shonibare's work tackles important issues in contemporary society, such as multiculturalism, identity, ethnicity and globalization. Besides photographs of Shonibare's most important works from 1994 onwards, this publication includes a selection of essays written by specialists in various fields, exploring themes which occupy an important place in the artist's oeuvre, such as trade in 'African' batik fabrics, the history of the dandy, sexuality and recreational activities of the Victorian aristocracy, and the rise of modernism in Nigeria. An interview with the artist provides insight into his sources of inspiration and recent artwork which has influenced him.

I couldn't find much about the exhibition itself, but I hope it includes a piece called "The Swing," a multimedia sculptural reinterpretation of Jean-Honore Fragonard's Rococo painting of the same name. I read an article (in Women's Wear Daily, of all places) that discussed the work, included in an exhibition called "Double Dress" that was held at The Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan last Fall.

Here is what Amanda Kaiser wrote about it in an article entitled "Batik Chic," (WWD, 9/8/03):

...In a style-sensitive take on the relationship between Europe and Africa, the 41-year old artist crafts African batik fabrics into 18th and 19th century-style garments. But he also sews the colorful prints into stuffed aliens, to reflect society's fears of the unknown, whether cultural or extraterrestrial...In Shonibare's version [of "The Swing"], a batik-bedecked mannequin seductively kicks her legs up on a garden swing. But the top layer of this aristocrat's frilly frock is printed with a Chanel logo. She is also headless, in a cheeky nod to the imminent French Revolution. Nothing put an end to those idle days quite like the guillotine.

During my own upcoming idle days, as my current professional assignment ends and I search for another, I hope I can make it to Vienna. Heady stuff!

Related: Yinka Shonibare: Double Dutch.

Citoyens, aux barricades!

"In fact, 'Bergdorf Blondes' makes 'Sex and the City' resemble a carefully constructed anarcho-feminist critique of capitalist society."

More of this positively delicious review by Choire Sicha in last week's Times here. Just hearing "anarcho-" anything is fabulous. It reminds me of reading radical political tracts at a boring desk job working for a trade union one summer, e.g. WHAT IS CAPITALISM? ... BREAKING IMPERIALISM'S CHAINS!