Today Only

Today Only - artist book - accordion style

The Today Only artist book began in Leuven, Belgium and moved to Paris, France and finally to my studio in Connecticut.  It started with an impromptu series of performance documents by the Seeking Kali Artist Collective (Ria Vanden Eynde, Belgium, Susan Shulman, Canada and myself)  

 

 tests on a variety of papers and press pressures

Beginning with the concept of impermanence, the temporal and the idea that action only happens in the present we produced a series of pictures taken in thirty locations in Leuven, Brussels and Paris. A final ten were selected and matched to short statements and poetry concerning time and the location where each photograph was taken.

photogravure on solarplate

The images were first transferred to acetate positives then to solarplates.  The photo above shows the solarplate hardening in the UV light of the sun. The book unfolds to an approximate length of 20 feet.  Each page is also embellished with blind embossing.  Cloth covers with embossed lettering encases the pages.

detail of blind embossing

acetate, imprint and plate 

studio shot showing prints drying in foreground and potential order of pages on wall 

accordion folds

Video footage showing the inking and printing of a page from Today Only.

 Colophon

The entire project is even more special because as an international working group most of our collaboration is necessarily web based as we are rarely together to physically work on projects.

Brothers Quay Obliquely Viewed

I was able to catch the Quay Brothers exhibition this past Friday at MoMA just prior to its opening to the public and found it an enchanting departure from the spectacle that has been overtaking the art world of late. The Quay twins have been busy making their idiosyncratic films since the late 1970's with hardly a nod to the rest of the world for that matter.  I found myself fascinated by the world they portray in their films that seem to hearken back to surrealist works.

 The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer

Whether they portray dreamy interiors or mysterious landscapes, they avoid clear narrative yet have an interior logic that defies the viewer to deny the storytelling aspect inherent each piece. The brothers make use of elaborate stage sets, most are no larger than a table top to produce their stop motion fantasies mixing puppets, collage and live actors on occasion.

I was struck by the catalog statement concerning their early history. Born in Central Pennsylvania in 1947, the brothers seem totally without artifice in describing their lives as the typically American 1950's obediently bland upbringing. They certainly describe their awareness of an art (or art world) as minimal until arriving at art college.



The lighting, choreography, pacing and compact camera space make the spaces seem alive with magic.  Trained as calligraphers this type of flowing movement is still very important to the flowing movements of these dreamy films.  No pop flash of a Tim Burton extravaganza but a well crafted exhibit with rarely seen early works on paper.
The short film Anamorphosis which is included in  a DVD set available at the museum is instructive on how to approach the work of Brothers Quay. Anamorphosis, a technique of perspective that produces a distorted image unless viewed from a certain angle, describes well how one responds to the Quay's films.  They have a liminal quality that makes one feel as if there are answers just out of sight.

At MoMA in NYC-

Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets  

(August 12,2012 - January 7, 2013)

Kali at the Firehouse

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 Photograph of the Seeking Kali Collective by Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic's Brooklyn office.

The Seeking Kali Collective’s exhibit at the Second Avenue Firehouse Gallery opens next Saturday.  The Firehouse is located on Long Island in Bay Shore, N.Y and is included in the National Register of Historic Places and described as one of Bay Shore’s architectural gems.

We will be showing our Kali print edition, which marked the beginning of our collaborative experiments.  Occasioned by a Facebook thread concerning iconography associated with the Hindu goddess Kali, our association and explorations have continued since January of 2010. 

As a collective one of our objectives is to explore ways in which to utilize social media as an artistic tool enabling long distance collaboration among artists.   Ria Vanden Eynde works from Belgium, Susan Shulman is in Montreal, Canada and I have my studio in Connecticut.  Through the use of groups in Facebook, Skype and Google+ hangouts we have created a virtual studio where our explorations take place.

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Kali Edition

The print edition was completed in the summer of 2011 and our signing of the nine examples took place at the offices of the Brooklyn based arts blog, Hyperallergic.

 Framed examples of Kali Edition prepared for the Firehouse Exhibit

Over the 18 months that marked the collaborative process of the edition we also embarked on the curation of an online blog that compiled images, video and poetry concerning the Kali goddess.   The results of that archive have been documented on a video that has since been exhibited in Berlin, Germany, Boston, MA and Joliette, Canada.  We will be again exhibiting that compilation as well as our latest curation of images relating to the Medusa archetype edited by Susan Shulman.

The exhibit will also contain other examples of the collective's video works including Kali's Sari which premiered during the Experimental Film Night hosted by the Mobius Artist Group of Boston, MA.  Kali's Sari is based on a Butoh performance with Shizu Homma, Jane Wang and Angela Ferrara's interaction with the handpainted Kali Scroll Sari by William Evertson. The video was edited with Ria Vanden Eynde utilizing Google+ video conference.

Video still from Kali's Sari

The Kali Collective has participated in The Billboard Project in which images are designed for large scale outdoor display in cities throughout the USA.  Giclee prints of several of these images have been prepared for exhibit.  The video archive of images from Richmond, Chicago, Duluth, Salem, Detroit and San Bernardino will be on display.  

Sphinx by Susan Shulman (from San Bernardino billboard display - 40' approx.)

Material from the Collective's series of Kalicorp Art Mysteries mentioned in the last post will also be on display. These graphic novels are a photographic odyssey exploring current art world events constructed in an exquisite corpse fashion.  

Mocking up the display for the graphic novels.

An edition of prints from the Metropolis series, the KaliRay Flip book, masks, puppets and other ephemera round out the exhibition.

We hope you can join us on Saturday August 4th between 6 and 8pm for the opening.  The exhibit is open on Saturdays during August from 12 -4pm.

Directions: The Second Ave. Firehouse is located in Bay Shore at the corner of Mechanicsville & Second Avenue Southern Pkwy to exit 42S (Fifth Avenue South), left on Union Blvd.,right on Second Avenue, proceed to the corner of Mechanicsville & Second Avenue. Firehouse is on the left. 17 Second Avenue

A Year in Comics

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 Kalicorp Art Mysteries #5 (front and back cover)

One of the collaborations that Seeking Kali worked on over the last year is a series of five comic books; the Kalicorp Art Mysteries.  These along with other works will be shown at our summer exhibition in Bayshore, N.Y. at the Firehouse Gallery. Information on this show can be found at the Seeking Kali website.

Graphic novels may seem a strange departure since our previous colabs tended to be a bit more serious.  The fact is that since our collaborations are experiments in long distance art making we are constantly testing new forms that are workable for our group. Ria Vanden Eynde, Susan Shulman and myself have experimented with video,  print editions, performance, net centric work and artist books over the past two plus years. Ideas that are carried forward are reached by discussions on G+ or chats in our Facebook group.

Initially a comic seemed like a fun and quirky way to send out a bit of PR to people and to put exhibition information, our web pages and current projects in as advertisements.  We never intended to make more than one until we got to the last page and threw in the “To Be Continued.” 

   

 Kalicorp Art Mysteries #1 last panel detail

We found that they were fun to produce and we could base it on a back story that almost all artists share; What the hell is the art world all about and why is it so damn difficult to get anywhere?  With photography and Photoshop we could easily work out scenes, story-lines and most importantly share files in our virtual studio. Note to new readers...I work in Connecticut, Susan from Montreal and Ria from Belgium.

   Artist Joan Harrison is woven into a scene concerning the Soethby's Art Handler strike.

Along the way we started to include some of our artist friends and art world notables in various roles.   We began our collectives journey after discussing the various iconography surrounding the Hindu goddess Kali. This  led to other historical explorations as well as sparking conversation concerning myth, contemporary art making and cultural mores. We find plenty of art world controversy and drama to weave into each story. So while we are not above a cheap laugh, at the heart of each comic are real issues that effect us as players on the contemporary art stage.

In issue #6 Kalicorp tackles unpaid internships and artspeak.

Examples from the Seeking Kali virtual studio collaborations as well as the comics and art from them will be on display at Long Island's Firehouse Gallery, 17 Second Ave., Bayshore, N.Y.  Opening reception August 4th from 6 - 8pm. Gallery is open Saturdays during August from 12 - 4pm.

Many thanks to our two most recent advertisers, artists Mara Thompson and Bibiana Padilla Maltos for their financial support. 

I Have My Pistol....

...and I have my whistle and when I say NON I mean it. The 20 year old gendarme didn't look old enough to shave but he had the aggressive bearing that meant I was not going to be able to take a photograph of the breech of a 16th century cannon bearing a casting of a Medusa head, despite signs indicating that photography was allowed. 

Les Invalides - Copyright (c) 2003 David Monniaux

Perhaps because it was Labor Day in France and the laborers filled the Paris streets in full protest and police were on high alert because both Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy were both in town.   Military and police were making a show of force and the wail of sirens filled the city as I walked the streets with my wife, Karen and fellow artist and collaborator Ria Vanden Eynde of Belgium, in search of inspiration (and Medusa heads to compliment our current artist call on the Seeking Kali blog).

 Classic French cannon ornamentation from circa 1666 - 1764 

As we toured the courtyard of Les Invalides, the home and hospital for aged and injured soldiers initiated by Louis XIV in 1670 and now also home to a museum dedicated to French military history, I became fascinated by the rich ornamentation of the cannons and further learned that each caliber had its distinguishing mythological or antique motif cast into the breech.  The 24 caliber bearing the Nemean lion, the head of a cock on the 12 and that the 16 caliber was the head of Medusa.  

Cannon breech with the Medusa head.

The signs indicated that surviving examples of all caliber of cannon were on display and I began my search for Medusa; no small quest given the 100's of cannons on display in the enormous complex and surrounding grounds.  After a fruitless search lasting over an hour we left the complex but over to one side was one last  row of cannons.  Unfortunately these were draped with a rope, although seen from the side was the Medusa casting on the breech of one of the group.

 Medusa in profile - second from bottom

Unfortunately to get a shot of it from the rear would involve stepping over the knee high rope protecting this particular group.  Even more unfortunate was deciding to ask permission from the nearby lad with the pistol and whistle who first indicated that it was ok to photograph until I put a foot over the rope and leaned in to get the shot who then changed his mind.  No explanation or S'il vous plait was going to change his mind, plus now even trying to get another angled shot from behind the rope was off limits.  He claimed that something could fall off the building and hit us although I suspect that boredom or the fact that instead of wearing body armor and chasing protesters he was stuck with tourists that day was the real reason.

What was it about this particular group that caused it be be roped off? ... French military secrets still classified from the 17th century?  

As it turned out we passed by on another day and this time a much more reasonable female gendarme gave us the ok for a quick photo op.  

Breech casting of Medusa head

It probably helped that the second time around that our other Seeking Kali collaborator, Susan Shulman was helping with the charm.

A Catalog of Works

Two weeks ago, during one of the frequent brainstorming sessions that our collective engages in over G+, we decided what we were missing was a physical archive of works. Between our website and blogs and their various links we could go back and see the various exhibits and pieces  we've created  as Seeking Kali. But, with a couple of face to face meetings coming up with people who could give us a leg up we realized we needed something more than a laptop to present our work.  

Susan Shulman, Ria Vanden Eynde and myself have been in high gear with over a dozen projects squeezed into the past two years and we wanted something physical to show the scope and variety of what we've accomplished with our experiment in social media networking.

early mock up of catalog

This may have been one of those projects that could have been accomplished on one of the self publishing sites but we're particular about every aspect of book making and it's also a good opportunity to show off some skills as well as the art.  So the idea for a small catalog that touched upon all the past two years work was born.  Initially we needed to layout how big this project was and what we wanted to include, so a few trials with printer paper mock ups led us to settle on a 36 page book that contains 3 hand stitched sections.

 cover with the three sections prior to binding

Most of our layout was done in Photoshop and via G+ we screenshared order, layouts, captions, possible photos for inclusion and proofing the final bifolds.  Once settled online the pages were printed in my Connecticut studio on a nine color Epson 3800 using Red River semigloss Zeppelin 45 lb paper.

After folding and collating we made final corrections for spacing and content before printing the first run of 10 copies.  

a stiff open weave cloth is glued to the spine before the cover is attached

screen shot showing a finished book over G+ video conference

From idea to book in two weeks.  We now have examples of our portfolio from the last two years and while the work ranges from performance to video to print editions we also have artist books and the catalog is an nice example to lay into the hands of a few curious curators.  Wish us luck.

More about our artist books can be found on the Seeking Kali website.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Handing off Issue #4 of Kalicorp Art Mysteries to Hennessy Youngman (aka Jayson Musson)

Sure enough our Kalicorp Art Mysteries is in that big fancy Artworld show thanks to Jayson's YouTube call out for works to fill the new Family Business Gallery in Chelsea.  The tiny 125 s.f. Family Business gallery is a walled off  section of Anna Kustera at 520 W. 21st. recently opened by Maurizio Cattelan (retired?) and New Museum curator Massimiliano Gioni.

Jayson in his Hennessy Youngman persona invited the world wide web to drop off art for his show.  As fans of his video observations on Artworld and in part because our Kalicorp Art Mysteries is about this kind of high drama we wrote him into the story line and brought a comic for the show.

We even got it there in just in time because Jayson was receiving a ton of art and 125 s.f. of space is...well...tiny.  The shutters were coming down for a regrouping but the comic is in. (see top photo)  and despite being just a little distracted he did mention he was a comic fan.

But for anyone not lucky enough to get in, there was some consolation.

Hennessy Youngman's Itsa Small Small World open April 3 and runs through the 16th at Family Business.

The Art World is a Funny Place

So why isn't there a comic book about it?  Well, there is.  The Seeking Kali Collective has been publishing Kalicorp Art Mysteries since November 2011 and judging from readers reactions to our latest issue, we're achieving our desired results. 

I like to think of our comic as a slow motion blog. We publish one every other month and they combine our art lives; the art making, trying to snag exhibition space, getting press, getting grants and making a few dollars with current events and controversy in the larger art world.

Issue #4 Panel detail page 2

For instance, remember Damien Hirst's world wide exhibitions of Spot Paintings?  Issue #4 details our efforts to stop seeing spots.  Or last Fall; the controversy surrounding forged Abstract Expressionist paintings?

Issue #2 Panel detail page 1

Since  my two collaborators, Susan Shulman (Canada) and Ria Vanden Eynde (Belgium) and I live  live too far apart for hands on collaboration the fast pace of putting out a timely graphic novel suits the nature of our "virtual studios".  We can work independently on different panels or the story line itself and assemble the comic over the web.  The actual printing is done from my studio in Connecticut on an Epson 3800 with pigment inks.

Putting the story line together does present problems, we'll often wake to a request for a off the wall picture or pose to help move the story...everything stops and scavenger hunts for a wheelbarrow, limo, bicycle built for two etc ensue.

Issue #2 Panel detail page 5

During the MOCA gala fundraiser Marina Abramovic's human centerpieces raised eyebrows in the art world.

Naturally we worked it into our story line.



We use many of our friends in cameo appearances and although their artist personalities are usually not the same as portrayed in the comic, they all are significant artists and our readers can find links to their web portfolios on the back cover of each issue.


Issue #2 Panel detail page 6



Even as the information age reaches overload the Art World remains largely an impenetrable confusing mystery that Kalicorp is dedicated to shed light on. 

Issue #4 Panel detail page 12

As Ria says. "pack your bags"...we're in for a long journey.

More information on the Kalicorp Art Mysteries and other projects by the Seeking Kali Arist Collective can be found on our website, seeking kali.com (where they are also available for purchase)

Thanks also to new advertiser Bibiana Padilla Maltos for support and to artist Keith Buchholz for placing our graphic novel in the archives of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Getty, Yale and MoMA.

Kalicorp Art Mysteries is also now carried Down Under at Sticky Institute.

A Forgotten Memory

I wanted to share a wonder story written by a lovely Poetess and friend from India, Abha Iyengar. Depending on your privacy settings Facebook notifies friends of upcoming birthdays. Mine recently passed and I had changed my profile picture to a grainy black and white photo of myself from 1958 as a six year old sitting at home staring at a cake.

The artist at six - Moravia, New York 1958

Abha, who has created several poems for the Seeking Kali blog that I co-curate, saw the photograph and asked if she could write a story based on the image. I thought "what serendipity" because I have no memory of what I might have been thinking or wishing for with my eyes closed and about to blow out the candles.

This is the story of my forgotten memory by Abha Iyengar 

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Cakes, Candles and A Bird Story

Bill looked at the candles and the cake and he smiled. He was smiling because he was thinking about the bird story. What bird story?

 The one his grandmother told him the night before his birthday. Of how when he turned six, which was in a few hours time, the big bird would come down from the mountians so very far away and flap its wings in front of Bill.

And?

And ask Bill to sit on its back and take a ride far far away, into the land of dreams.

“This only happens to some children, the few chosen ones, the ones who listen carefully to grandmother’s stories.”

Bill had understood.

“I have informed the big bird about your seriousness regarding stories. Perhaps he will come.”

Bill had looked at his grandmother and given her the sweetest of smiles. He had been unable to sleep, the excitement had been too much for him.

He was wide awake now, sittting in front of the cake and wondering whether he could blow the candles, eat the cake, ride on the big bird, go to the land of dreams and still be back for school?

Grandmother had not told him anything more in the night. He would just have to wait and find out.

He sat there watching the candles and waiting for his mother and grandmother to come with the plates from the kitchen and wished for something that he really wanted.

He heard the doorbell ring. Birds did not ring doorbells, did they?

He sat quietly, not breathing, not moving.

From the corner of his eye he saw someone walk in. He recognized a pair of shoes. He must be dreaming. He closed his eyes, and there it was, the big bird in front of his eyes. It was flapping its wings.

When Bill opened his eyes, his father stood there, his arms open for him to run into them. They were big and wide, just like a bird’s wings.

Since then, Bill knows grandmother stories are all that the world needs to believe in. He was a special boy at six, the one who believed and still does.

*****

© Abha Iyengar, March 2012

A birthday gift to Bill

 More of Abha Iyengar's poetry and short stories can be found at:

http://abhaencounter.blogspot.com/

Kali Down Under

The Seeking Kali Collective's limited edition "Kali" at the State Library of Victoria.

Des Crowley - Manager of Rare Printed Collections, Susan Shulman of Seeking Kali, Robert Heather - Manager of Collection Interpretation

The Kali Edition has a new home in Australia.  Seeking Kali Collective member Susan Shulman is pictured in the beautiful State Library of Victoria, located in Melbourne, Australia, presenting a copy of the limited edition to curators Des Crowley and Robert Heather.

The self titled "Kali" Edition was hand produced in a limited edition of 9 numbered copies with 3 additional Artist Proofs (AP).  The edition contains six works each by Susan Shulman (Canada), William Evertson (USA) and Ria Vanden Eynde (Belgium). The clamshell case is also handmade and lettered in goldleaf.

The Kali Collective began in 2010 as an experiment in the use of social media to produce collaborative work without the need for a defined home base. The social media platforms and blogs have been used to invite other artists into as virtual collaborative spaces and have resulted in several international projects exhibited in cities around the world.

Bringing our work to the already vibrant Melbourne art scene furthers our explorations in the artist uses of social media collaboration.  

Susan also presented the first two issues of the Kalicorp Art Mysteries graphic novel series and a copy of the KaliRay Flip Book.

Susan Shulman and Des Crowley examine the individual prints.

The State Library of Victoria is a major cultural resource of Australia and while its material that relates to Australia is second to none, the collection is international in scope.

"International in scope, the collection represents important schools, movements and genres across all of its subjects. Popular culture is strongly represented in areas such as local and international rock and popular music, film studies, photography, graphic novels and comic books from the 1920s to the present.

The international branch of the collection is built on a strong tradition of Western culture across all of the main subjects, with strengths in European and American material. This has been broadened in recent years to increase the profile of other cultures, most notably those of the Asia–Pacific region."  (From the State Library of Victoria website)

Several editions are still available through our Canadian representative The Book Collectors Library.
More information on this edition is on the Seeking Kali website.