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?