Brian Eno...

...On Gaza!

Julie Mehretu

The aesthetic connection between Sarah Sze and Julie Mehretu is almost seamless.
Mehretu is one of my all-time favorite painters, it's easy to see why.
I've had the pleasure of viewing her work first-hand at MoMA, and it's scale is very important... her work is huge.

Sarah Sze

One of my favorite contemporary artists, who i stumbled upon while wandering through the internets, is Sarah Sze. This is the stuff of dreams.
It's tough for me to get into installation, though I fancy myself an installation artist of sorts... i'm also really squeemish about sculpture. Perhaps this is why i'm so captivated by Sze, being both of those things and more + evoking images of Lebbeus Woods, Lee Bontecou, Aleksandr Vesnin, Kandinsky, Julie Mehretu & Hannah Hoch, just to name a few.
You can read more about Sarah Sze here at Artsy.

Paul Antonson

I'll be featuring some posts on artists and illustrators that i like & the why's.
Check out Village Voice's illustrator Paul Antonson, i like his sketchbook pages.
For the past who knows how many years, Paul has made the voice cover for his Mermaid Parade illustrations.
I've always been a big fan of sketchbooks, leafing through other's, obsessively cataloging and gushing over my own, which i keep next to me on shelves at all times.
Sketchbooks are personal, revealing, honest, magical and precious.

CharmingBlog

Charming Wall is a great little gallery in the West Village with a really fun flash site. Their artists are neat too. Check it out!

Wenceslaus Hollar

I just found out who the artist responsible for my Facebook avatar is.
Wenceslaus Hollar was a Czech etcher born in Prague who lived much of his life in London. He created close to 3000 etchings in his lifetime, all beautiful works on a wide range of subjects.

Sadly, he died in poverty, "his last recorded words being a request to the bailiffs that they would not carry away the bed on which he was dying." - wikipedia

Here is a great collection of his works from the University of Toronto.

Gettin' Mugged Suuhhhhhhkz

Ok, watch this video from Gothamist.
This is EXACTLY how it went down when I was mugged, as far as how they had me and the duration of time. Plus the punch to the head at the end. The only thing I was missing were all the kicks and the head-stomp finishing move.

I'm sorry, but when I see this video, my humanitarian feelings of opposition to the death penalty are severely compromised and I become engorged with passion and I fantasize about filling these criminal's mouths with my hands and ripping their jaws off of their faces with all of my concentrated rage. Lots of rage. I feel no compassion, I no longer feel sorry for them, I only wish to even the scores, and perhaps tip the scales in my favor to reward me for not being the original perpetrator.
Perhaps it was the veil of being glad to be alive and healthy after my attack that graced me with feelings of pity for my attackers. I don't know, it's tough. It's a very primitive, retarded feeling... very testosterone-driven.

Something I'm still tossin' around in my head, i guess. Age-old issue, age-old questions, no clear answers. Is there not enough love in the world to go around to get to everyone?

China censors Obama

{via NYT}
How childish and afraid are communists?
check out 0:09 when obama mentions "communists"
by 0:21 the censors have cut to some banal political commentary, MID-SPEECH, to cover up the part of the speech where he references the dreaded and long-expired dogmas of fascism and communism. the reporter is caught completely off guard!
How silly is it for a ruling party to display such childish, fearful tactics and expect respect from its citizens? Who, besides the silly Chinese communist party would worry so much about shielding its people from information for fear it might be taken seriously (see previous post)? Who has such little faith in her people (see previous post)?!!

no one is buying this!

Art Legal

The Contract Monitor
I ran into this website while researching artist's contracts.
Since I have begun negotiating contracts of my own, I find this website to be really interesting and helpful.
It's also quite disheartening, as a short investigation will reveal how vile most companies are in terms of fucking you over and trying to give you the least amount of compensation and credit as possible.
In most cases, they fancy more power than they need, just to see if they can get away with it. This includes contracts with illustrators to renown publications such as the New Yorker and Los Angeles Times!
As if it weren't tough enough to be an artist or illustrator without having to battle with your professional clients and conduits for BASIC rights to original work.
Click here to read a contract that "illustrates" how the New Yorker, an illustration-driven publication famous for it's commissioned artwork, has changed it's standard contract over the years to deal with web rights and everything that follows in a way that backs the artist into new corners.
The attitude of these contracts is gross.
you gotta fight for your right to party.