11.02.2007

The Blogger Show

I'm a part of The Blogger Show, organized by John Morris of Digging Pitt Gallery in Pittsburgh. I have pieces at Digging Pitt and at the NYC venue. The press release is below, but I also wanted to preview what I'm doing on this blog for the show.

Most art blogs are almost all writing, but mine (and I'm not alone at all in this) also has a lot of my own work on it, at times set up in deliberate sequence. So blog as art distribution channel. When I was thinking about what to have in the show I strongly wanted to have a blog-component to the show, especially because I use this thing all the time to broadcast images.

So for the duration of the shows I'll be posting new images every weekday. The images will be new additions to a maps little spell, an online project I began last year. They'll be fold into the rough structure of amls, but will also function as an ongoing narrative themselves. You'll be able to "read" them here or click through and encounter them all mixed up in amls.

The first update is today, but it's only a change to the title page of amls. Monday will begin the new "story." Here's the press release for the show in Pittsburgh:

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Digging Pitt Gallery
412-605-0450
4417 Butler Street
Pittsburgh PA 15201
TH 12 - 8 FR 12 - 7
SA/SU 11 - 7
and by appointment
The Blogger Show
November 10 - January 12
Public Reception
December 8, 2007: 6-9pm


Stay current on artists and details on The Blogger Show Blog
The Blogger Show Blog is --
A place to get acquainted with the artists and their blogs
A forum for discussion
A central clearinghouse for details and updates about the exhibits


In November, Digging Pitt will assemble work from artists whose common interest is in clarifying artistic discourse through their blogs. The Blogger Show will utilize several spaces in Pittsburgh and New York for the exhibits. All of the exhibits will take place between November 3, 2007 and January 12, 2008. Free and open to the public.

The Blogger Show

Digging Pitt Gallery began Digging Pittsburgh Arts in June 2006. The experience has been enriching for the gallery. Through active participation in the art-blogging community, Digging Pitt has brought new artists to the flat file archive, with results like the Pittsburgh Alumni show, and now, the Blogger Show.

The artists in the exhibits represent a range of visual disciplines and aesthetics. The one commonality is actively blogging. Some use blogging as a platform for discussing issues facing visual artists while others treat the blog as a public journal. Whatever approach or combination of approaches, all have brought a level of clarity to artistic discourse.

Whether your interest is contemporary painting or DIY, you'll be able to find some practitioner posting about it. This show is a reflection, in physical space, of the ephemeral blogosphere. And by its very nature, an extension of the guding philosophy behind Digging Pitt's flat file archive. - Read more

The Blogger Show @ Digging Pitt Gallery

Anaba
Sharon Butler (Mystic, CT) – Two Coats of Paint
Parker, CO) New Work and Inspiration
Mid Atlantic Art News
paperWorks
Kevin Clancy (Boston MA and Pittsburgh PA) - soft soft pink pulls through the ivory void
drawer
Fallon and Rosof's Artblog
Detroitarts
Cable Griffith
Works by Tracy Helgeson
Pretty Lady
Washington, D.C.) Thinking About Art
Minneapolis, MN) stillifes
Portland, OR) Eva Lake
Steven LaRose
Richmond VA)Annabelle's Aspirin
Digging Pittsburgh Arts
Woolgathering
Fallon and Rosof's Artblog Fiji Island Mermaid Press

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and here's the one for the NYC venue:

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Agni Gallery
170 East 2nd Street,
Storefront #3
New York, NY 10009
412-389-0288

WE/TH/FR/SA 1-7
and by appointment
The Blogger Show
November 3- 30, 2007
Public Reception
November 3, 6 - 9pm
Stay current on artists and details on The Blogger Show Blog
The Blogger Show Blog is --
A place to get acquainted with the artists and their blogs
A forum for discussion
A central clearinghouse for details and updates about the exhibits


In November, Digging Pitt will assemble work from artists whose common interest is in clarifying artistic discourse through their blogs. The Blogger Show will utilize several spaces in Pittsburgh and New York for the exhibits. All of the exhibits will take place between November 3, 2007 and January 12, 2008. Free and open to the public.

It isn’t just the artist bloggers, although there are quite a few of them. It is also the art lovers that have marshaled their personal resources to express their thoughts about what is happening in this ephemeral community. James Kalm points out in his Brooklyn Rail article, (Gangs of New York ) that the nature of the blog reflects the current pluralism that is a hallmark of contemporary art, with so many disciplines and aesthetic systems coexisting.

Tim O’Reilly defines…
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")

Arts bloggers are using this technology to redefine the role of arts in American culture. The interactive aspect of blogging has encouraged the growth of artistic discourse in unexpected ways, with a shift in who and how art is discussed. One of the most significant contributions of artist bloggers to this dialog is an honest appraisal of process and theory. Using the platform of the internet to express these thoughts has included a multitude of elements. Many artists load images onto their blogs. Another aspect of the online community that has yet to make its impact felt is in the arena of regional arts that makes an exhibit in Detroit is accessible as one in New York.

Read more

The Blogger Show at Agni Gallery
All of the artists involved in the Blogger Show project will have a representative work at Agni Gallery. Links, provided below, are to the artists' blogs.

Tire Shop Anaba
Sharon Butler (Mystic, CT) – Two Coats of Paint Parker, CO) New Work and Inspiration paperWorks
Kevin Clancy (Boston MA and Pittsburgh PA) - soft soft pink pulls through the ivory void Oranje drawer Jacksonville Florida) JaxCal.org Christiane D Fallon and Rosof’s Artblog Detroitarts Cable Griffith Serendipity Canton, CT) Artblog Comments Works by Tracy Helgeson Pretty Lady Washington, D.C.) Thinking About Art Minneapolis, MN) stillifes Portland, OR) Eva Lake Steven LaRose Richmond VA)Annabelle’s Aspirin Joanne Mattera Art Blog Matthews The Younger Digging Pittsburgh Arts
Loren Munk (Brooklyn NY) - James Kalm Woolgathering find the time to rhyme Fallon and Rosof’s Artblog Wood Ridge NJ) NYC Art Fiji Island Mermaid Press

11.01.2007

Amadora again



So here's my wrap-up of the trip:

First, Lisbon. It was great, and much better because I was hanging out with locals who took me all over the place. We talked a lot about art and comics and they showed me lots of new work I had never seen. Big awesome to Pedro who was my host (and the curator of the show I was in) for being so generous with his time.

I had learned a little Portuguese and even the tiny bit I retained helped a lot. A few times I was bear-hugged by folks so happy that I had bothered to try. I ate a lot of good food (mostly fish), drank a lot of wine and saw Lisbon from a very non-tourist perspective. My first night there Pedro took me to meet pals in some club. He led me into a seemingly abandoned building, then up rickety stairs, to what looked like a run-down office. Inside was a squatter punk club, and we sat around a table with pals drinking tiny beers and talking comics. But in the corner was an old man cutting hair - with a full barber setup, including mirror, lights, chair etc. Other old man came in and got their hair cut.

One morning we went to the beach and I went surfing. Cold, clear water, chest high strong waves and some really good surfers out. I floundered a lot, but got a couple rides.

The Festival itself was outside Lisbon in a suburb, and was a series of art shows, along with booksellers, artists signing things and an auditorium for panels. The shows were all euro-comics dominated and had original art from a variety of work, mostly commercial and competent if a little boring. There was an "erotic art" show with work from Milo Manara, whose comics were pretty, but whose paintings were horrible.



The show I was in, curated by Pedro Moura, stood out as something different. Go look at my Flickr set to see it, but all of us are definitely doing weird things in "comics". Fabio Zimbres (Brazil), who was there with me, had a wide variety of wonderfully drawn and sometimes painstakingly created pages. Ilan Manouach (Greece )had lovely pencil pages that formed discontinuous narratives. Frédéric Coché (France)had the original etchings he makes his books from, and in a clever bit they showed them on short pedestals, like they were on printing beds. Hye-Rim Lee (South Korea) had her work projected, which was nice to be able to walk into them. I had work from HOW TO BE EVERYWHERE, thickets and Jefferson Forest in frames.


a page from Fabio Zimbres - all the color bits are tiny cut pieces of paper.


I could quickly see why Pedro titled the show Divide et Impera - we all pull things apart and put them together in our work. This is the first show I've been in in a while where I was excited and amazed by all the other artists work. Later I'll write about the books I got from them in depth, but for now I can really recommend anything they have available.

Other than the shows there were bookshops where I bought a lot of stuff. I also sat to sign my books and draw pictures for people - believe it or not there were folks who were fans and asked me to sign things. I drew a lot of trees for people.


Fabio, Pedro and I at our panel. This was just as Pedro began beatboxing and singing Tony Bennett songs.


So, another hearty obrigado to everyone at Amadora for including my work and getting me there. Also big awesome to people I became friends with, especially Pedro and Fabio. Trips like this with people like this are powerful fuel for making work - I came home exhausted but eager to get drawing. I had already been planning some changes in focus for my practice, and the great experience of this trip just reinforced that conclusion.