The open air library is once again open!

The Open Air Library on the highest mountain of Buyukada is once again open. Kerem aka Argos Libertos managed to open it again after the police forced him to shut it down last year but they were no match to his persistance. Kerem cured well from his jump from 3 high in the centre of Istanbul and could walk well again after being operated, first half year with help of a stick. His library has now signed works of dutch poets Arjen Duinker, Tonnus Oosterhoff, K.Schippers and Alfred Schaffer who by means of Bart van der Pligt were kind enough to donate books. When you’re in Istanbul you should surely stop by and please bring a book or two!

Atlantida, by Olga Mink and Scanner

A multi-channel video with immersive sound work, that addresses the themes of silence and landscape with location recordings of each of the seven volcanic islands captured in high detail. Its ten minute duration presents an ethereal sequence of scenes that resonates with the glory of the natural environment. Mink and Scanner captured the idea of silence and human intervention, by creating traces through different areas which addresses the existence of the real and imagined landscapes that they’ve confronted and readjusted throughout their journey…

Atlantida, Installation at 2nd Biennial of the Canaries 2009 from Olga Mink on Vimeo.

The work of Christian Faur

One of the most special artists I’ve seen this month is American artist Christian Faur.

Faur is an artist that developed his own colour-code language to communicate with and he also makes works that uses scientific and mathematical formulas. Also special are the portraits he builds out of colour codes with nothing but crayons. Faur proves to be a many-sided and interesting contemporary artist and I got his permission to show some of his works here.

Christian Faur – Just Paper II / 2008

This is the work of Faur that touched me most. It’s made from torn pieces of paper stuck on a foam background. It’s the well known image of the tower of Guantanamo Bay. What makes the work special is that it’s build from the shredded constitution of the United States of America. Marvellous.

Christian Faur – Continuum / 2001

Faur also has a number of paintings based on mathematical and/or scientific formula. They come close to something I would call visual poetry, and very startling visual poetry indeed, that also has a scientific background. That background and fascination for the laws of nature sounds trhough in most of Faur’s work. Some of his work is also strongly conceptual; he has published an essay of Wittgenstein translated into his own colour language:

(original handmade artists book based on the text “Remarks on Color*” by Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Also special are the works that are build from hundreds of coloured crayons, which again contain coloured codes which will probably yield hidden messages when they are translated from the colour language Faur has constructed:

The Wind, the wind, 2007, Hand Cast Encaustic Crayons, 3 Panels at 19.5 in x 19.5 in each

The Wind, the wind, 2007, Hand Cast Encaustic Crayons, Left panel 19.5 in x 19.5 in.

In short, Faur is a fascinating artist that developed his own language and tries to grasp the forces and formula behind our realities. He definatly deserves the attention of a wider audience. Please take a look at his website:

http://www.christianfaur.com/

De Ex Libris works of Serik Kulmeshkenov

The Kazakhstan born graphic artist Serik Kulmeshkenov is one of the few artists that keeps the ex Libris craft alive, a special genre within the arts. Ex Libris are special book seals people use to personify their person book collection. The works of Serik Kulmeshkenov are excellent examples of why this craft should never disappear:

Ex libris Natalya Chebotar / size 90mm x 90mm, 2005.

Ex libris Sergey and Irina Khrapov / size 80mm x 105mm, 2008

Ex libris Paul Elliott / size 65mm x 82mm, 2008.

These and many more magnificent Ex libris works you can view at the website of Serik Kulmeshkenov. Every serious book collector should have such an emblem, in my opinion.

Work of Josefina Muslera

Josefina Muslera is a painter from Argentina, who makes interesting drawing and paintings. She writes about her own work:

I grew up in La Rioja (Northwest Argentina), next to an ancient olive wood , close to the “powerful” Andes mountain chain. An area of high temperature, surrounded by generous nature in its raw nakedness, unpredictable, contrasting and heartbreaking; I lived and interacted with their wild “worlds “organic and inorganic, their myths, sharing with people in love with their land. Earth full of spirituality. Since then, I can not express myself and create but from the relationship between the body lived sensation (sensory body), the conscience and dramatic emotion of things, and their reciprocal influence on me. I believe in the idea of love as a force and energy alive, joining and separating incessantly, and within that, becoming incessant the power of instant creation, “Instant strengthening the real moment.”

More work can be seen on her weblog, posted below the images. These are two works I liked:

Visit Josefina Muslera’s weblog

Playmobil Security Checkpoint

Comments by Loosenut from Amazon:

I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger’s shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger’s scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said “that’s the worst security ever!”. But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.
The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I’ve heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I’ll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush).

The work of Alexandra Crouwers

One of my favorite artists at this moment is Alexandra Crouwers. Her work is fantastic, actually, no matter if it’s her drawings, installation works or animations. Here are four examples of an installation artwork she did, more work of her and drawings/animations can be directly viewed on her website through the link below the images:

Visit the website of Alexandra Crouwers

Two pieces by Charles Goff III

The American sound artist Charles Goff III, known from the Taped Rugs initiative, has turned two of my older poems into sound works/songs. Both are very interesting and I encourage Loewak readers to freely download both. The first one is based on the poem ‘Classical Music’ and the second one is based on the poem ‘I am the law’. I will possibly do a future collaboration with Mr Goff III and I will keep you all informed about those efforts.

Download (Right click – save as)

Classical Music

I am the Law

More work of Charles Goff III on the Taped Rugs site

Trespassing by Olga Mink

Triple channel video that is part of “The Nature of being” by Scanner and Olga Mink.

This video is based on the idea how we memorise and connect data stored in parts of our brain. Intercontextual information is created within moments, memories, images sounds, that have occured in the past. The video touches the subject of how people share a single event together, yet experience “reality” completely different. Subjective.

trespassing [part of Nature of Being] from Olga Mink on Vimeo.

‘Tuin’ by Eva Mouton

Eva Mouton is a Belgian artist and poet, this is her work ‘Tuin’ (garden) which I find very effective in its simplicity:

Eva also has her own website here: Evamouton.be, with drawings and funny anecdotes in Dutch.

The dream of the fisherman’s wife

I remember I once saw a pornshoot with a girl and an octopus in a bathtub which I found very artistic and exciting. Today, I saw this amazing artwork on Linh Dinh’s weblog about the lower half of the human body:

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. C. 1820. 6 1/2″ x 8 3/4″ by Katsushika Hokusai

What a touching image! There is more work of this artist on this website

The lovely brenda

One of my acquaintances on facebook is Brenda Staudenmaier, and she posted this picture today which I think is very beautiful:

the lovely brenda collaboration with faro exhibited at alphabeta nyc nov 2008

Anarchitecton by Jordi Colomer

This is one of the most grabbing artworks I have seen lately and the overall best example of conceptual protest art I have seen. I am talking about Jordi Colomer’s ‘Anarchitecton’ which is a serie of videos and pictures of people protesting with buildings as a protest sign:

That makes you think in these times of economic crisis: is capitalism actually a protest against itself?

Isn’t the only way to effectively protest capitalism becoming capitalism itself? The way things are build now there’s no way to escape the system, unless you manage to climb on top of it. The same is true about our so-called ‘democracy’: it has become the most intolerant political system ever invented, far more intolerant than any dictatorship has ever been. That is an interesting paradox.

View the whole work on Jordi Colomers website

Mutant Bond Girl

Mutant Bond Girl

My brother just saw the documentary about Arthur Russell and…

My brother just saw the documentary about Arthur Russell and said it was great.  Go see Wild Combination.

The Empty Stage as an Art object – Colorium by Rivkah Young

Rivkah Young is an artist born in Koln, Germany. One of her projects is called ‘Colorium’ and it evolves around photographing empty stages. The stage normally doesn’t get any attention as an object, it is always treated as applied art at best, as something dependant on the artists or showmasters that perform there. That is why Rivkah Youngs photographs are very special. Her photographs evoke an almost alien sense of beauty and her eye for composition is remarkable.

Her pictures evoke a strange sense of beauty and solitude. She gave me permission to post some of them on Loewak:

More of Rivkah Young’s work can be seen on her website. She also has a PDF with all the Colorium works online:

Website – Colorium PDF

“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die but only retire a little from…”

“It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Whatever does not concern us is concealed from us.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo

Culture Shock

3,408 years ago a man laid down underneath the head of the Great Sphinx at Giza. The sun god was at its apex, blazing heat down onto the lone figure and the colossal stone monument-to-mystery. At that time the Great Sphinx was buried in sand up to its powerful shoulders. The man searched for respite from the sun god in the Great Sphinx’s shadow. As he slept beneath the chin of the stone god he was visited by a living god. Hamarkhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum appeared to the young man. “You will become a great man,” he said, “Hear my words and heed them, and you will be made great.” The young man was stunned silent by pious awe—piety and awe are profound modes of life that modern men are no longer capable of, but they were once powerful forces nonetheless. As he gazed in silence Hamarkhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum spoke once more, “Reveal my earthly form to this waning civilization. Restore my majestic glory on earth. Do this and you will taste of immortality.” When the young man awoke from the dream he was sweating and shivering, but he was neither hot nor feverish. He had been given a sacred vision, and he knew his transcendent responsibility.

The young man was the future Pharaoh Thothmos IV. 3,400 years ago he excavated and restored the Great Sphinx, which had been buried in drifting sands after more than 1,000 years of standing watch over the Egyptian tombs called the Great Pyramids. That’s right. The Great Sphinx is over 4,400 years old. Four thousand four hundred years this mythic masterpiece of human spirit has endured. Nowadays we call it a “marvel of human ingenuity,” but that is because we moderns are alien to awe and piety. For us the sacred is just an idea, it is not a value to live one’s life in accordance with. For us such a masterpiece is a marvel of human “ingenuity” and this is why we can’t comprehend its construction. It was not mere inventiveness that made this creature possible. The Great Sphinx could only have been made by a culture in whom the infinite and omnipotent power of spirit moved. A culture quickened and galvanized by a true mythic ethos. A culture for whom ethos was not merely a word, but a living power.

In our day we pride ourselves on having abolished slavery. But I wonder how much different the life of a slave then would have been to the life of a blue collar worker now? We trudge, zombie-like, to our miserable jobs every day searching desperately for any form of distraction to keep us from facing the abysmal truth of our pathetic and hopeless existence. The life of an Egyptian slave must have also been quite painful. But I wonder what it would have felt like to know that you were working on a monument that was truly powerful? A monument that was truly meaningful? A monument that was truly sublime? A monument that was truly awesome? They had to know. There was no escaping the monumentality of that job. If Egyptian slave, Abdul, met modern slave, Bill, what would they say? Abdul would point to an image of the Great Sphinx and say “I helped make that.” Bill would point to a toxin filled burger and say “I put that in a box.”

Original post by Jehosephat Sunrays

A work by Laurent Nivalle

An interesting and charming work by the French photographer Laurent Nivalle, posted with his permission:

More work by Laurent can be seen on his website

Cultural Heritage

The Vienna Secession was the first movement that I consciously identified with. I remember seeing Schiele’s drawings in college and thinking “Man, that putrid green and pus colored prostitute is soooooo hot. And look at those tortured lines.” But that was art. And then when I began to study design I was also set on fire by the secessionists’ astoundingly fresh and vigorous design work. Klimt, Moser, Kokoschka, et al were just amazingly gifted designers. Their poster work was one of the main inspirations for the entire 60s psychedelic look in America. Not to take anything away from Victor Moscoso or Wes Wilson (everyone has their artistic heritage), but without the Secession and Jugendstijl there is no psychedelic poster.

And then a few years ago my friend, last-of-the-sages Kenneth Smith, introduced me to the Viennese artist Ernst Fuchs. If the Secession was the first conscious influence in my artistic self-culture then Fuchs may be most profound. For those that have ears let them hear, and eyes, let them see. For Ernst Fuchs is the creator of some of the most powerfully spiritual and visionary art since the likes of Bosch, Grünewald, Blake and the few others like them. His work is invested with a living energy that simply cannot be denied by anyone with open orifices and an unshriveled mind.

So, you can imagine my delight when Mary and I traveled to Vienna for our honeymoon. I was able to visit the Olbrich designed Secession building and see Klimt’s Beethoven frieze. And I was euphoric at Professor Fuchs’ museum. Designed by Otto Wagner and refurbished and embellished by Fuchs himself the place was simply astounding. Professor Fuchs’ paintings virtually glow in person and to be in a room in which every piece was painted specifically for that spot was just awe inspiring. Next time you are in Vienna go check these places out. Until then I have some photos.

The Secession

The Fuchs Museum

One of the rooms in the museum (all the furniture is also designed by Professor Fuchs)

Professor Fuchs contemplating my sketchbook (Imagine my delight when I was told he happened to be in town on business. He lives in France these days.)

Inside the temple designed by Fuchs, next to the museum

Original post by Jehosephat Sunrays

Betelnut girls art exhibition

Betelnut is a stimulant sold in many Asian countries. It’s a red wpowder you chew and it’s supposed to make you relaxed. They use it a lot in India and it gives people that famous red tongue. I tried it, but I didn’t like it much. It didn’t make me feel relaxed at all!

Betelnut is often sold by sexy dressed young girls in small streetside booths. A couple of years ago, artist Annamarie Ho recreated a Betel nut booth as a gallery installation commenting on this “sexually provocative sales style” in which, it would seem, customers are buying interaction with the salesperson as much as they’re paying for the Betelnut. For the next two weekends, Annamarie is reviving the piece, Binlang Xi Shi (Betelnut Girls), but this time in the more unpredictable location of a New York City storefront.

Visit Betelnut Girls

Film Review: Kableuy

‘Kabluey’ is a comedy film of director Scott Prendergast and was quite a nice surprise to watch. The film is about a loser who has to take care of his sister-in-law’s children, while his brother is in the war in Iraq. He gets a job as a company mascotte, standing next to a deserted road all day.

‘Kabluey’ is a genuinely funny movie, thanks to the talents of Scott Prendergast who plays the main role in his own movie. The guy has a priceless face that steals the show almost every scene. But besides that, the film is a sympathetic and contains many funny moments and a good rural America atmosphere. One thing I didn’t like was the ending: that seemed far too straight and linear for such an essentially sarcastic movie.

3 works by Ezgi Kınalı

Ezgi Kınalı is a girl i know from facebook. She doesn’t have a lot of work yet, being 20, but I think she has some considerable talent and I hope she will go on working…

Transsiberian: one of the better films of 2008

Tonight I saw the movie ‘Transsiberian’ , directed by Brad Anderson. Transsiberian is his second film and for a second film ‘Transiberian’ is pretty amazing, even though we already knew Anderson was talented from his first film ‘The Machinist’ which I thought was one of the best films of 2005.

Transsiberian has two of my favourite actors in it: Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley. Frankly, I blindly go to any movie that has Ben Kingsley in it. I have never seen him do bad films. He’s one of the most important actors on the screen nowadays and any film he finds good enough to play in I will find good enough to watch.

Transsiberian had me at the edge of my seat for 2 hours. The films script is good, the story is excellent, the actors are top class. Two minor points I didn’t like: a too exaggerated torture scene that seems to have been put in by the demand of producers (‘must have some gore boys’) and I thought the end of the film was somewhat weak. But other than that, far better than ‘Batman’ so if you have to choose try this one, it won’t disappoint. Brad Anderson is one of the most promising directors of his generation.

Laura Lipton’s Haunted Dollhouse

Laura Lipton is an American born artist who lives in London now. She gave me permission to post some images from her ‘haunted dollhouse’ work which you can see below. Laura Lipton is an exceptionally skilled drawing artist who creates works with almost impossible detail levels. Besides that, her work is also conceptually interesting and very atmospheric. She has a show opening on 11 October in Santa Monica, Florida, called ‘Day of the Dead’. Lots of her work is inspired by tales and (mexican) folk traditions.

“The Haunted Doll’s House”,charcoal & pencil on paper, 55″ x 80″ (with doors open)

Guy Ben-Ner: Selfportrait of a family man

An interesting installation by the Israel-born artist Guy Ben-Ner, who currently lives in New York. We see him pose on a paradisical island in his kitchen home and as some sort of Abraham in a self-constructed symbolic tree, an installation called ‘tree house kit’:

I wouldn’t be surprised if the tree was build entirely from IKEA parts! It’s hard to say why this work touches me – maybe it has something to do with the iconic idea of the father in the tree, christmas, or maybe with the weird symbolism of the whole piece.

You can see the whole installation here

Pierrot by Elisa Fabris

Click me for good sounds

Click me for good sounds: A transatlantic mix by yours truly and Damon

Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus

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