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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Christine K. passed along a link to Rachel Sussman's hunt for the Oldest Living Things in the World -- fun reading and some great photography. I was particularly taken with Sussman's photo of the llareta, an Andean plant which grows over rocks kind of like moss and forms some delightful shapes as it ages through the millenia.  Currently Sussman is on a pilgrimage to see a 9,500-year-old Spruce tree that is growing in Sweden.
posted evening of September 24th, 2009: 1 response
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Wednesday, September second, 2009
By way of the Wooster Collective I see that street artist Elbow-Toe has a new painting in Union Square, based on Rembrandt's drawing "Monk in a Cornfield" -- beautiful, I hope it is still there next time I am in the city! The Rembrandt drawing really captured my imagination when I saw it a few years ago at the Pierrepont-Morgan Library.
posted evening of September second, 2009: Respond
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Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Last time I went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, was with my friends Monique and Jeremy; and I took a couple of pictures on Monique's camera which I had since forgotten all about. But today she mailed them to me. Thanks Monique! The pictures are of a statue whose title and author I have since forgotten, I'm hoping somebody will recognize these photos. If you do, please let me know in comments. Here is the front view of the statue:
and here is the view from behind, over the statue's shoulder, which is what initially caught my eye:
 And speaking of that Museum: I'm going there this Sunday afternoon to meet up with Bill of Orbis Quintus; Bill let me know about the current exhibition of James Ensor's work. (So if nobody recognizes the statue, I will check when I'm there.) I don't know much about Ensor but I'm very intrigued by the sample images I've found looking around the web.
posted evening of July 30th, 2009: 1 response
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Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Last week, it was Photoshop Phriday at Something Awful, with the proprietors trying to assemble their favorite fictional animals out of real photographs. Results are mixed but some of them are just great -- check out this take on Miyazaki's Catbus:
I want to take a ride with Totoro! (And speaking of Studio Ghibli, I am on pins and needles waiting for Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea to hit the theaters...) On another page, we see in quick succession Charmander, Road Runner and Wile E., and Cat Dog.
posted evening of July 29th, 2009: 1 response
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Saturday, June 27th, 2009
 John Holbo's latest episode of Squid and Owl (if you haven't been reading along, view them as a slide show here -- funny stuff) mentioned the pleasantly-named Codex Zouche-Nutall, which sent me looking to find out more about it. Turns out scanned images of it and several other Aztec, Miztec and Mayan codices are online at the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies website.
posted morning of June 27th, 2009: 2 responses
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Friday, June 19th, 2009
Martha's latest work is up on YouTube: Catchy!
posted evening of June 19th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
I spent yesterday afternoon at the MoMA with some friends, where I found two exhibitions devoted to word-based art. Both are really engaging and interesting, although by the time I got to the second I was already towards the end of my attention span... Tangled Alphabets is a show of the calligraphic art of León Ferrari and Mira Schendel. I was particularly taken with Ferrari's work -- Schendel's mostly left me cold, though I could see how it makes sense to exhibit the two together and how Schendel's work sometimes offers a nice counterpoint. I was sorry there was no print available of Ferrari's Cuadro escrito, which seemed like the highlight of the show to me: -- the text is a description of the painting Ferrari would compose "if I knew how to paint, if God in his embarrassment and confusion had accidentally touched me..." There is a catalog of the show, and additionally a bilingual edition of León Ferrari: Obra 1976-2008 -- this latter does not have a whole lot of the calligraphic works but does contain some really interesting texts and paintings. Downstairs there was an exhibition of printed art and techniques of printing, The Printed Picture -- the primary focus of this was on technology used to render graphic images in printing, but what really caught my eye was a room of typography in different faces and made with different printing technologies.
 Si yo supiera pintar, si Dios en su apuro y turbado por error confuso me hubiera tocado, agarrarÃa los vellos de la marta en la punta de una rama de fresno flexible empapados sumergidos en óleo bermejo y precisamente en este lugar iniciarÃa una lÃnea delgada flaca ya con la intención de cubrirla después maniobrando con la transparencia. Al lado un pozo absolutamente negro y definitivo. Enganchados en las ramas algunos repugnantes amarillos circuncisos como nidos de codesera el cochino pájaro del ártico que utiliza sus mismÃsimos hijos para alimentar las focas que le placen (nadie supo nunca por qué siguen naciendo) colgantes arracimados a la tela ayer virgen de la cual dejo dos cuartas cuadradas libres y enseguida un caballo formidable pero frustratorio por retaceado blanco corriendo espumante con las crines y las colas desplegadas, un verdadero corcel del malón resuelto con realismo fotográfico pero con cierto aire metafÃsico para introducir uno de los elementos de confusión y también un sospechado sugerido signifÃcado opaco bajo el barniz, no simbólico, como para que al verlo alguien ni siquiera se de cuenta que en sus entrañas se refriega preguntándose qué significa ese caballo blanco veloz hacia el monte de Venus entre las hierbas altas oscuras enruladas la gran quebrada magnética y luego el volcán.
↻...done
posted morning of June 13th, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
 Nice. (Thanks for the link, Dave!)
posted afternoon of June 9th, 2009: 2 responses
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Friday, June 5th, 2009
 So I happened in today's XKCD upon the knowledge that Codex Seraphinianus is not the only or the first such book, written in an invented language and alphabet -- I mean I suspected vaguely that there were other similar books, but the cartoon gave me the name of one, and the Wikipædia article on that one gave me some more names. Best thing: at the bottom of that article is a link to a complete download of the Voynich manuscript, scanned in at pretty high quality.
Update: Some thoughts from ciphermysteries.com about decoding the Voynich manuscript.
posted evening of June 5th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Martha posts an image of a new painting at her Flickr account today, Loki's House. She explains: Loki was hiding out after the death of Baldur in a house open to all four directions, so he could see if the gods were coming after him. He was making a fishnet when they arrived. He threw the net in the fire and hid in the stream as a fish. But the net didn't burn fast enough.
A longer version of the story is here.Update: Today is a good day for FB friends posting new artwork. Below the fold, a beautiful illustration of James Trotter and various bugs floating on a giant peach, by Jed Alexander.
posted evening of April 25th, 2009: Respond
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