See more on Milana Braslavsky’s artwork via Colectiva

Greg Sand, Likeness, Liquid Paper on antique photographs, 11" x 14"

Greg Sand does some digital defacing as well as some Liquid Paper defacing to find identity… he comes to us via acido latte

Eric Rondepierre, W189, tirage argentique sur aluminium, 47 x 70 cm, 1993-1995.

Eric Rondepierre finds frames eroded or defaced by time and the projector. find out more on him here

Hollis Brown Thornton

Hollis Brown Thornton does some esthetical defacing of his own, more on him here

Wang Du, International Kebab, 2008, Rotating Installation

Wang Du’s International Kebab, a rotating installation where the public is invited to attack the art work with a bread cutting knife falls in the Defacing movement that I keep referencing in this blog. Can anybody else see it happening? More on Wang Du at La Force de l’art here

Pierre Bismuth

Pierre Bismuth does some defacing too:

“For his ongoing series, Following the right hand, Pierre Bismuth does just that. He projects a feature film onto a sheet of Plexiglas and painstakingly follows the movements of the lead actress’ right hand with a black marker. The resultant abstract drawings are then enframed over a 30 by 40 inch photographic print of a still image from the film. The image selected by the artist represents the moment that he disengages from the actress, sometimes near the beginning of the film, creating a simple drawing; but just as often near the end of the film, creating an aggressive thicket of marks that almost obliterate the filmic image. In this way, the motion picture is occluded by a chance pattern that constitutes a kind of messy signature made by the actress. There is an undeniably fetishistic aspect of this work, as a portion of its appeal is linked to the actress’s name and aura; at the same time, the focus on the squiggly marks paradoxically negates the film, along with its star, by obscuring them with black ink, frustrating our desire to connect with the screened image.”

Find out more here

Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, Laurence Sterne, found image

Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle do some defacing on their Natural Education project.

“What does Jean-Jacques Rousseau tell us? He says that we are born weak, that we are born stupid, without judgement; unprovided for, we need aid. This aid will come to us from education, which will cultivate us like plants. Self-reliant, observant of the world around us, we will learn the consequences of liberty, of choice, Removed from the corrupting effects of society, we will move back to our natural state, like the wild girl of the woods of Champagne; we will not follow rules; rather, we will learn from the consequences of our actions, and later, we may read literature and philosophy, when we have developed the capacity to judge.”

Information about these artists thanks to Caroline Rossiter via thegreatexposition.com

Tate Triennial 2009, Photo by suziesparkle

Posted on Le Monde on 04/09/09
by Emmanuelle Lequeux

Le Français Nicolas Bourriaud aime les concepts et ce n’est pas ce qu’il fait de plus mal. Cet ancien directeur du Palais de Tokyo, le principal centre d’art en France, a profité de son exil londonien pour développer son nouveau credo dans le cadre d’une exposition à la Tate Britain.

Dans les années 1990, il a forgé l’idée d’”esthétique relationnelle” : voir les oeuvres pour les liens sociaux qu’elles tissent et produisent entre elles et non comme des objets d’art autonomes. Dans les années 2000, il a défini les plasticiens comme des “sémionautes” : navigateurs sur un océan de signes.

Sa nouvelle recherche est joliment intitulée “Altermodernisme”. Pour Bourriaud, les vingt-cinq dernières années du XXe siècle “furent un long épisode mélancolique. Les oeuvres d’art se sont définies comme un après : après le mythe du progrès, l’utopie révolutionnaire, la défaite du colonialisme, les luttes d’émancipations politiques, sociales et sexuelles”. Il faut revenir au présent. Le terme altermodernisme suggère “une multitude d’alternatives à une voie unique. L’alterglobalisation définit la pluralité des oppositions locales à la standardisation économique, et donc la lutte pour la diversité”.

Reste à illustrer ce propos avec des oeuvres d’artistes, tous “nomades culturels”. Un énorme champignon atomique érigé dans de la vaisselle en Inox par l’Indien Subodh Gupta dit le chambardement nécessaire à l’émergence de cette pensée nouvelle. La suite est plus confuse, et la pensée de Bourriaud s’avère difficile à suivre. Même si on y ressent que le déplacement, dans le temps et l’espace, vaut leitmotiv.

Citons les frappantes peintures inspirées à Franz Ackerman par ses voyages mondialisés, ou le sublime environnement de cristal liquide de Gustav Metzger, octogénaire qui fait chanter les murs en moirures et moisissures. Ou enfin Katie Paterson qui nous met en relation téléphonique avec un glacier en pleine fonte…

“Altermodern” : Tate Triennal 2009, Tate Britain, Millbank, Londres. Jusqu’au 26 avril.

Gregory Crewdson rocks with a portrait of the American Dream gone real at Galerie Daniel Templon

Check out Alex Prager’s photos here

Yesterday I went to a cool Vernisage of a group show called Corps à Faire at Galerie Jeune Creation were I saw a cool performance I did not understand where the shapes reminded me of an old Max Ernst painting.

The poetics of an empty landscape. I am happy to congratulate my good friend Guillaume Lemarchal for being awarded the HSBC grant. He is currently showing at Galerie Michèle Chomette and you can see a couple of shoots of his show here below. more on him here

©Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris.

Recently, I saw an exhibition by Shirin Neshat at the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont where we can see two amazing new color cinematographic videos entitled Munis and Faezeh, these two videos were of an enigmatic beauty rare in contemporary art today. Those of you who saw her work at MAM may remember how most of her videos were black and white, youtube her here if you want to catch a few reminders, but these new color films are color corrected in such a fine and delicate way that I was surprised and immersed in it… like a boy with cartoons… The colors were soft pastels colors. The subject matter of the two videos are based on Women Without Men, a novel by the Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipu depicting the perception of a young Iranian woman during the summer of 1953 in Iran’s political unrest and a psychological breakdown of a Muslim woman following a sexual assault. The two videos are stuning and remain in my mind even a few days later. I recommend you try to see this recent works when it comes to your town.

The new large scale photographs, some seen here below, which mainly feature portraits of middle east men and women have been hand tagged in Persian calligraphy. The large images take a position of a face to face confrontation with a culture that remains covered by the Media and rarely seen in contemporary art. I liked them!

Take a look at this contemporary artist Harald Fernagu. I went to school with him and I appreciate him very much, site is using my latest css, flash and php, take a look here

This weekend we walked lots in the city and found just like that the Swiss Cultural Center where we saw an exhibition that included Lukas Wassmann, some friends of mine said it is gratuitous violent and sexual art and that it is all we see these days including my stuff … I happened to like it…