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. With Pictures of Stuff, cont’d: Shoppingcart-full
Via JunkCulture:
Taizo Yamamoto. Click for more.
Part of a series.
Books, the idea: “Simulated book subscription service”
Conrad Bakker — mentioned earlier in this series, in this post — tells me (well, me and everyone on his mailing list) about his interesting contribution to Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft. At the Contemporary Art Museum Houston: May 15 – July 25, 2010
Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft is a dynamic group exhibition that explores the innovative means by which artists continue to expand the traditional boundaries of art and craft.
Others in the show include friend of Murketing Sabrina Gschwandtner, and Unconsumption-featured soundsuit creator Nick Cave, among others.
Bakker says:
My contribution to this exhibition is Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month-Club — a simulated book subscription service involving hand- carved and painted sculptures based on paperback books from the 1960s and 1970s, whose subjects range from social issues and existential philosophy to DIY crafts and self improvement. This project examines the way books and their networks of distribution produce a specific gathering of persons, things, and ideas.
Untitled Project: Book-of-the-Month-Club brochures/membership forms are available at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Lora Reynolds Gallery (Austin, TX) and by email request: bookofthemonthclub@untitledprojects.com (if you would like to receive an actual brochure, please include your mail address)
A PDF of the brochure complete with membership agreement and important details in very small print can be found here.
Pictures of Stuff, cont’d: More (global) people and possessions
Following the recent post here about people in China photographed with their possessions, reader Jay D. hipped me to photojournalist Peter Menzel’s 1990 project Material World, which involved photographs of families around the world and their possessions, and became the basis for a book, and a PBS Nova episode. Some images from the Nova page below. This post is part of an occasional series. (THX, Jay!)
Japan. Photo by Peter Menzel. Click for more.
China. Photo by Peter Menzel. Click for more.
U.S.A. Photo by Peter Menzel. Click for more.
Pictures of Stuff, cont’d: Chinese families and their possessions
By Huang Qingjun, click for more
The inexhaustible Junk Culture:
Huang Qingjun and Ma Hongjie … project ‘Family Stuff’ [aims] to portray rural Chinese families and their possessions …. A series of 20 images has been compiled that were exhibited at the 798 Photo Gallery in Beijing in 2007… . In 2011 the project is scheduled to end with a total of 50 pictures and a book.
This post is part of an occasional series.
In The New York Times Magazine: A thing that sells itself
JUST PRICELESS:
Assessing the value of an art object that sells itself.
…. Even if [he] won the object, created by a young artist named Caleb Larsen, his ownership would be tentative: the technical innards of “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” carried a program that would relist the thing on eBay every week, forever.
Read the column in the May 9, 2010, New York Times Magazine, or here.
Discuss, make fun of, or praise this column to the skies at the Consumed Facebook page.
Books, the idea: Paper sculpture
By Stephen Doyle. Click for more.
Junk Culture strikes again with this post pointing to a photo-filled interview with Stephen Doyle. Excerpt:
Q Why work with paper and books?
Books are where ideas come from. The book is such a great form. Before doing these works, I was making concrete casts of books. What interested me was, if you take all the information out, does the form still have any power?
Somewhere along the line I started wondering, well, what does happen when you take the ideas out? So, I started taking out the binding and the pages and setting the words free. And I’ve been working from there.
This post is part of a series.
By Stephen Doyle. Click for more.
Books, the idea: Sculpture-objects
When I first saw these via Junk Culture, I thought it was something I’d covered previously in this series. But now I think not — I believe I was thinking of the Brian Dettmer work noted here. This is a different artist, Alexander Korzer-Robinson, making Book Objects:
"Development of the Human Heart," Click for more.
"To The Rescue," Click for more.
Digital representation, made physical
This, apparently, is a physical representation of a digital (video game) representation of a Coke can. The artist (Ashley A on Flickr) writes:
While playing Bad Dudes, I killed a ninja, who upon dying dropped a 5 x 9 pixel powerup; that powerup, despite its incredibly small size, was instantly recognizable as a Coca Cola can. It blew my freaking mind!!! I was in love.
This particular image is the first iteration in a series exploring this super-reduced icon of an Icon (with a capital “I”) in various media.
Via Not A Real Thing.
Books, the idea, cont’d: Spines as art
I’m still poring over the delightful Bookshelf blog, but here’s a little bit to add to this occasional series of posts.
By Hans Feldman
Bookshelf says: “‘Bookshelves’ is a 5-panel, life-size photograph of Feldmann’s own bookshelves at his home in Düsseldorf.”
"Alasdair Macintyre," by Victoria Reichelt; click for more.
Apparently this is an oil on canvas piece, one several made by Victoria Reichelt. Bookshelf quotes her:
While some of these bookshelf paintings are of random books, I’ve recently done a series that are portraits of people. So I’d go to their houses and photograph their bookshelves and then make paintings from the photos as a way of telling the viewer about the person.
She also made this series of color-grouped books, which I think are pretty stunning:
"Blue Ocean," by Victoria Reichelt, click for more.
Pictures of stuff, cont’d: Garbarge
By Arman. Click for more.
Via EverydayTrash. This is household trash, in a glass box, photographed by a French artist named Arman. More info here and here.
Mildly related: Justin Gignac’s garbage in a box.
This post is part of a series.
Pictures of stuff, cont’d: Disassembled
Disassembled household appliances photographed by Brittny Badger, via the invaluable Junk Culture.
Can Opener; click for more.
Iron; click for more.
See also Adam Voorhees’ “Exploded” images, noted early on in this series of posts.
Signficant Objects X Kate Bingaman-Burt X 20×200 — now available!
11×14; edition of 500: $50!
I teased this last week — and now it’s here! We’re really excited to announce the latest Significant Objects team-up, resulting in thoroughly affordable art, and another way to support v3 beneficiary Girls Write Now.
The prints you see on this page are available in limited editions from 20×200, Jen Bekman’s online project that sells a dazzling array of prints from an impressive roster of artists, all priced to meet a mission of making art available to all.
16×20; edition of 20: $200!
The artist is Kate Bingaman-Burt, whose delightful book Obsessive Consumption was just published, and whose combination of thoughtfulness about consumer behavior and mad drawing skills make her our perfect match.
All these prints are created using archival pigment inks on 100% cotton rag paper with a matte finish.
8×10; edition of 200: $20!
Proceeds from the sale of these prints will benefit Girls Write Now, contributing to Significant Object’s grand total donation.
Girls Write Now provides guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City’s underserved or at-risk high school girls, enabling them to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career and life.
Pictures of Stuff, cont’d: Clutter? Joy?
Doug Bell. Click for more.
Via Junk Culture, yet again:
Artist Doug Bell makes sculptures that range from small table-top sized, manipulated found object pieces, to life size tableaus and wall sized installations. The installations can be made up of hundreds of objects…. His work is a reflection of his need to make order out of chaos and give meaning to the incoherent.
Part of a series.
To Do In Savannah: “Soldier Portraits” At The Telfair Museum
Please pardon this brief aside. I’m really excited about E‘s latest show, at the Telfair Museum of Art here in Savannah. The opening reception is tomorrow night. I don’t know how many Murketing readers are actually in Savannah, but for those who are, here’s the info:
Ellen Susan / Soldier Portraits
Opening Reception: Thursday April 15, 6 pm.
Telfair’s Jepson Center
Savannah, GA
If you can’t make the opening, check out the actual show before closes July 25. Many of the images on view are ambrotypes (and tintypes) made with the wet-plate collodion process. This is a rather complicated and intense antique process that, while difficult, produces one-of-a-kind images that look particularly amazing in person.
For various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot lately about recognition and the art process, and I think it’s an important dimension of this project. The combination of this process and these subjects strikes me as a useful antidote to the way we’ve gotten used to seeing soldiers in the press: Whatever your stance might be about the war, “the troops” are often just fleeting, interchangeable images, more of an idea than actual people.
The Soldier Portraits project started when we first moved to Savannah a couple of years ago; locally based soldiers, who were all around at the grocery store or the mall, were at the time preparing to deploy to Iraq, some for the third time. Suddenly it was impossible not to recognize them as more than simply “the troops,” but rather as individuals. I think these images — made with long exposures, captured through a difficult process onto what are in effect unique objects — force the viewer to undergo a similar process.
Yes, I’m biased. But in this instance, I’m also right.
Not in Savannah? Well at least visit the project’s web site.
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Kim Fellner's book 
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A