Newest Features
This conversation with Andrea Fraser took place in January, on the day that followed her performance of Men on the Line: Men Committed to Feminism, KPFK, 1972 at the ICA Boston. Fraser has gained much recognition for her engagement in Institutional Critique, with pieces such as Museum Highlights (1989), Little Frank and His Carp (2001), and the now notorious Untitled.1 Men on the Line, a tender and complex performance in which Fraser embodies four different male voices and positions, came as a surprise to me because of its departure from the more…
Lee Mingwei was born in Taiwan and is based out of New York City. He is currently an artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where he has been in residence numerous times since 1999. His ongoing project there is called The Living Room. It transforms a part of the museum into a casual interactive performance space where a host discusses an object that they brought with them into the museum with whomever happens to visit the museum and cares to talk to the host. The conversation between host and…
Here is a work of art you can recreate at home. This is Caminhando (Going/Trailing), a 1964 work by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark: Begin by taking a strip of paper, twisting it, and taping the ends together; this forms a mobius strip. To continue, in Clark’s own words, you: . . .take a pair of scissors, stick one point into the surface and cut continuously along the length of the strip. Take care not to converge with the pre-existing cut– which will cause the band to separate into two pieces. When you…
Thanks to all your initial write-in nominations, Big Red & Shiny is now an official nominee for the Boston Phoenix’s Best of Boston 2013. Although we have only been covering the art scene for about five months since our two year hiatus, in a way, it feels like we never left. The support from the Boston arts community has been tremendous, and we couldn’t be happier doing what we do here at BR&S. Please keep voting for us and help us spread the word. Share the ballot with followers and friends on…
It has been over two months since I wrote this piece about art school in Ireland. I’m back in the States now, and returning to a teaching semester, but I am still thinking about the community over at Burren College of Art, and about how we can do better on this side of the pond, so it seemed like a good time to write a follow up. Lately I’ve been thinking hard about the kind of community I want my students to have. It is an issue very much on everyone’s mind…
Since my last post I’ve been busy … (procrastinating!) updating my website, and making an animation showing my process. But imagine the video clip as an endless loop. (You can view it as a gif here.) The animation was made with an infrared hunting trail camera, that is making an image every 10 seconds or so. It’s my family out photographing at night. The resulting photographs I made that night are on the top of the page. What a funny dance we do for a picture. Also, something strange and serendipitous…
I want to believe in ghosts. I want a trace to dwell in the intimate places of someone’s life after she has died. I want these spaces to in some small way to always belong to her; for emotions and events to permeate the solid structures of inhabitance, so that a house could testify of its former residents. Angela Strassheim’s ‘Evidence Series’ makes visible this residual remnant, the grim incarnation of unhappy ghosts. Strassheim meticulously researches a violent crime and then seeks out the current residents who are often completely unaware…
“Poïesis is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term ποιέω, which means “to make”. This word, the root of our modern “poetry”, was first a verb, an action that transforms and continues the world. Neither technical production nor creation in the romantic sense, poietic work reconciles thought with matter and time, and man with the world.” (Wikipedia) This is a regular series of poems on the topic of art. Kurt Eidsvig’s column, Poïesis, which appeared in Volume 1 of Big Red & Shiny, brings a poetic twist to our conversation on…