Franz Xaver Messerschmidt

Messerschmidt became mentally ill in the later years of his life (1771-1784) the period during which he had created the 69 busts. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and during analysis told doctors he was persecuted by demons at night who visited and tortured him at night. Most of his disturbances centered upon the mouth, and he was very troubled that men, unlike animals display the red of the lips. His preoccupation with the mouth seems to be the result of his associating it directly with the anus. While working on the sculpted heads he pinched himself repeatedly in certain areas of his body. Combined with violently contorted facial expressions, both aimed at gaining control over the demons. His image making activity was largely confined to self portraiture based on the distorted facial expressions as seen in a mirror. The busts function as masks and guardian images in a desperate but intensely focused attempted to ward them off.





The above piece, according to him, actually depicts the ‘demon of proportion’ (as he called it) and can be understood as an illustration of his hallucination. The mouth is dealt with as a strange beak-like shape with no indication of lips.

damian ortega

controller of the universe


false movement (stability and economic growth)


cosmic thing



skin

With Skin, Ortega took three modernist buildings that serve as public housing and has cut out the floorplan of a single apartment unit in leather. The leather floorplan was then hung from a meat hook from the ceiling. It shows the contrast between architectural theory and the end result. Soft hanging scultpures that are based on architects’ attempts to solve the problem of overpopulated urban living. Skin as a border of the body and the wall as a border of a home. An image of the housing structure that the floorplan belongs to is cleverly tattooed on each piece. With Skin, Ortega provides further proof as to how an architect like Le Corbusier failed in his meglomaniacal attempt at public housing and how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. [designboston.org]

tem·per

[This word just unlocked my brain. How lovely, a single word that can be applied to both metalwork and the mind!]

–noun
1.a particular state of mind or feelings.
2.habit of mind, esp. with respect to irritability or patience,outbursts of anger, or the like; disposition: an even temper.
3.heat of mind or passion, shown in outbursts of anger,resentment, etc.
4.calm disposition or state of mind: to be out of temper.
5.a substance added to something to modify its properties or qualities.
6.Metallurgy .a.the degree of hardness and strength imparted to a metal, as by quenching, heat treatment, or coldworking.
b. the percentage of carbon in tool steel.
c.the operation of tempering.
7.Archaic . a middle course; compromise.
8.Obsolete . the constitution or character of a substance.

–verb (used with object)
9.to moderate or mitigate: to temper justice with mercy.
10. to soften or tone down.
11.to bring to a proper, suitable, or desirable state by or as by blending or admixture.
12.to moisten, mix, and work up into proper consistency, as clay or mortar
13.Metallurgy . to impart strength or toughness to (steel or castiron) by heating and cooling.

mounir fatmi

minimalism is capitalist // easels, painting, sentence, circular saw, posters, neon light //



underneath/ part of the Fuck Architects series // wood table




Leave, and wait for me, I will arrive. // vhs tapes, acrylic wall painting //



keeping faith // mirrored floor, vhs tapes, leather straps //



forget // helmet and skulls in ceramic //

william goodman

more images at: http://www.enhancedmixture.com

a few words I'm not sure what to do with yet..

sense
tense
tension
intention
intuition
institution

Art Must Be Beautiful

marina abramovic

in the darkest hour there may be light

I don't care what people say, I still love you Damien Hirst.

Miss Shapely Silhouette

Lido Pool Margate beauty competition, 1950

e.v. day

Bondage / Bandage, 2008

Hervé Léger bandage dress, bandages, hardware, resin, Ghost chair, mirrored dressing room
7.5 x 4 x 3 feet






"Bride Fight", 2006

Two bridal gowns and accessories susupended in battle between floor and ceiling of Lever House.





Under Tension at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, 2008

an interesting essay concerning blood..

The sacrificial Aesthetic: Blood Rituals from Art to Murder

The Death of Venus

Roger Reutimann- Swiss-American sculptor

Fernando Vicente

..those who favor fire

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And would suffice.

robert frost

Elegance of the Hedgehog

I have less than a hundred pages left in this book, and for the first time in a while I'm sad that it has to end. It has kept me sane and even happy this summer. This is one of the many beautiful passages that especially moved me:

Indeed what constitutes life? Day after day, we put up the brave struggle to play our role in this phantom comedy. We are good primates, so we spend most of our time maintaining and defending our territory, so that it will protect and gratify us; climbing – or trying not to slide down – the tribe’s hierarchical ladder, and fornicating in every manner imaginable – even merely phantasms – as much for the pleasure of it as for the promised offspring. Thus we use up a considerable amount of our energy in intimidation and seduction, and these two strategies alone ensure the quest for territory, hierarchy and sex that gives life to our conatus. But none of this touches our consciousness. We talk about love, about good and evil, philosophy and civilization, and we cling to these respectable icons the way a tick clings to its nice big warm dog.

There are times, however, when life becomes a phantom comedy. As if aroused from a dream, we watch ourselves in action and, shocked to realize how much vitality is required to support our primitive requirements, we wonder bewildered, where Art fits in. All our frenzied nudging and posturing suddenly becomes utterly insignificant; our cozy little nest is reduced to some futile barbarian custom, and our position in society, hard-won and eternally precarious, is but a crude vanity. As for our progeny, we view them now with new eyes, and we are horrified, because without the cloak of altruism, the reproductive act seems extraordinarily out of place. All that is left is sexual pleasure, but if it is relegated to a mere manifestation of primal abjection, it will fail in proportion, because a loveless session of gymnastics is not what we have struggled so hard to master.

Jon Haeber - abandon structures

All photos and descriptions are from his flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/


Retro fan in tuberculosis hospital


steel mill in Michigan

This steel factory outside of Detroit was the first to use computer controls. On a related note, I've been reading an academic piece that analyzes the downfall of Detroit. A major reason for Detroit's demise - or so says the thesis statement - is the increased mechanization and automation of the steel production process. No more workers were needed, so blue collar jobs disappeared, while white collar managerial classes prospered. The paper posits that Detroit was hampered by a combination of automation, government policies encouraging dispersed, suburban factories and - of course - increasing globalization. Mainly, however, it was the computer that destroyed the typical Detroit blue collar job.


At the abandoned steel mill outside of Detroit, a throttle resembles the black and red checkerboard pattern of the iconic Vegas roulette. Items in the machine shop essentially remained just they did when the last workers left.


I'd like to mention in full disclosure that everything except for the ash tray was there as it was! The ash tray originally was immediately to the left of this frame. And yes, the dryer WAS plugged in.

beautiful metal manufacturing

Magnitka. Camera man's cut. from Sasha Aleksandrov on Vimeo.

dominic paul moore

praise praise


The drawings of Dominic Paul Moore

"Put This in Your Mouth" features Chicago artist Dominic Paul Moore's graphite depictions of images culled from medical advertisements, modified according to his memories of the sterile hospital environment as an asthmatic child and the son of a respiratory therapist. Moore's stark and simplistic compositions often replace the ads' humane medical assistants with cold yet anthropomorphous machines, exploiting the cinematic qualities of these source materials to subvert their original intent. Moore's sinister scenes lead the viewer to question medical care and wonder whether the supposedly safe and reliable hospital establishment is as innocent as it may seem—are these care-givers prolonging life or taking it? -SlantArt Chicago


again infancy again






easy to clean


simple to maintain


put this in your mouth