Thursday, April 2, 2009

Giuseppe Penone's to reverse one's eyes



'"Mirrored lenses, when placed over my eyes, indicate the point that separates me from that which surrounds me. They are like a skin, a border element, the interruption of a channel of information...by blocking my vision I eliminate data necessary for my subsequent behaviour."
-Guiseppe Penone

"The Mirrored lenses were originally used for an action documented through a series of photographs by paolo mussat sartor. The artist's vision is presented as a literal reflector of his environment. The urban landscape mirrored in the lenses changes as the artist changes his position in relation to it. However, since the lenses effectively blind him, Penone suggests that the artist's relationship with his creativity drives his gaze back into himself."

Lieko Shiga









More here!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Bas Jan Ader's I'm too sad to tell you



"Ader sent this photograph of himself crying in the form of postcards to friends and acquaintances. Only the date and the message, "I'm too sad to tell you" were written on the reverse. Alternative wording he considered at the time included: "the space between us fills my heart with intolerable grief" and "the thoughts of our inevitable and seperate deaths fill my heart with intolerable grief." I'm too Sad...hinges not on the source of the artist's tears but on the re enacting of his private sadness for the camera. The image depends on the artifice and melodrama of the artist's act of placing himself before the camera while crying. As such, it questions our notions of authenticity in expression-- how is it that Ader convinces us he is sincere? through a denial of information-- "im too sad to tell you"-- Ader creates a sense of limitlessness in the extenet and source of grief and imaginative gap that we are forced to fill for ourselves with our own experience of sadness. As critic James Roberts has written: 'thre reason for his real crying is "a secret" known only by a few close friends but it is apparently important that we know there IS a reason.'"

Marina Abramovic and Ulay


"Abramovic and Ulay collaborated for several years for an opening at the Galleria Comunale D'arte Moderna, Bologna. they stood naked, facing each other in the main entrance, forcing the public entering the museum to choose which naked body to face--male or female --as they squeezed through the small space between the two artists. As each member of the public passed awkwardly between the two naked bodies they were filmed by a hidden camera and saw themselives being projected on monitors placed nearby. text on the wall by the monitors read: "Imponderable/such imponderable human factors/as one's aesthetic sensitivity/the overrinding importance/of imponderables in determining/human contact" The piece forced people to confront their attitudes and feelings about gender and sexuality, and the body of the "other" through a direct physical intervention in the architecture of both a building and a social event. They had planned to be the museum's "living door" for three hours but after 90 minutes their performance was stopped by the police."