Michael Joaquin Grey: Orange between orange and Orange

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There’s a Kindergarten-style sandpit, gigantic orange worms, various pieces of ‘computational cinema’ and media archaeology right now at the Carroll/Fletcher gallery continue

Death: A Self-portrait

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From a group of ancient Incan skulls, to a spectacular chandelier made of 3000 plaster-cast bones by British artist Jodie Carey, this singular collection, by turns disturbing, macabre and moving, opens a window upon our enduring desire to make peace with death continue

Shomei Tomatsu at the Barbican

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Shomei Tomatsu’s most famous series is “Nagasaki 11:02”. Fifteen years after the horrific atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Shomei Tomatsu was commissioned by the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs to document the effects of the A-bomb on the city of Nagasaki and on its inhabitants continue

Kosmica sound night

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Last Friday, i spent the evening at the Arts Catalyst for the Kosmica sound night, ‘a social event for artists, scientists and the cosmically curious exploring sound and sonification of space.’ That means drinks, crisps, pop corn, space music and presentations by curator and artist Honor Harger, sound artist and composer Kaffe Matthews and designer slash sound artist Yuri Suzuki. Arts Catalyst uploaded the videos of the whole evening. And i’m adding a summary of the presentations, along with a few links to the projects, historical facts and scientific discoveries mentioned during the presentations continue

#A.I.L / artists in laboratories, episode 14: London Fieldworks

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London Fieldworks asked avant-garde artist Gustav Metzger to sit on a chair for 20 minutes thinking of nothing. Meanwhile, readings were taken of the electrical activity taking place inside his brain. The resulting electroencephalograms were then analyzed and turned into instructions for a factory robot to drill a hole inside a bloc of stone continue

Manfred Mohr: one and zero

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Beginning in 1969, Mohr was one of the first visual artists to explore the use of algorithms and computer programs to make independent abstract artworks. His early computer plotter drawings – when he had access to one of the earliest computer driven plotter drawing machines at the Meteorology Institute in Paris – are delicate, spare monochrome works on paper derived from algorithms devised by the artist and executed by the computer continue

Shoot! Existential Photography

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In the period following World War I, a curious attraction appeared at fairgrounds: the photographic shooting gallery. If the punter’s bullet hit the centre of the target, this triggered a camera. Instead of winning a balloon or toy, the participant would win a snapshot of him or herself in the act of shooting continue

#A.I.L / artists in laboratories, episode 12: Ruairi Glynn

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This week, i’m talking with architect, artist and curator Ruairi Glynn about cybernetics, interactivity, puppetry and machines with a mind of their own continue

Watchtowers, West Bank, Palestine

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‘As a Palestinian born in Gaza I am not authorized to return to the West Bank, so I delegated a Palestinian photographer to carry out these photos. They are out of focus, clumsily framed, imperfectly lighted. In this territory, one cannot install the heavy equipment of the Bechers or take the time to frame the perfect position, let alone afford to wait days for the ideal light conditions.’ continue

Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men

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Resurrection men were body snatchers who often worked in gangs to steal corpses from mortuaries and dug up recently buried corpses to supply anatomy schools with bodies to dissect and study. Unsurprisingly, the poor, often hastily buried, were easier to unearth and carry to the nearest anatomy school. continue

Russian Criminal Tattoo portraits

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This morning i went to the press view of Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union at the Saatchi Gallery and I’m not sure that the artists participating to the exhibition heartily agree with Joseph Stalin’s statement. Although this survey of contemporary art in Russia contains humour, balls and a few satisfyingly good pieces, the show is not exactly cheerful.

Take the gentlemen portrayed by Sergei Vasiliev. Their skin is their biopic, their tattoos carrying political messages and details about their criminal life. The motifs were drawn using whichever tools and ink they could get their hands on: melted books, urine, blood, etc. continue

#A.I.L – artists in laboratories, episode 9

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Today in the radio show Neal White from The Office of Experiments will be talking declassified materials, underground bunker housing alternative Cabinet War rooms, cold war archive footage, Atomic Weapons Establishment, sites used by the UK Nuclear peace protestors, etc. I’d tune in if i were you continue

Frieze part 4: from gorilla to snow white

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Time to close these reports about the Frieze Art Fair with plenty of images and almost no text because sometimes that’s all i feel like producing continue

Frieze part 2: murders at the art fair

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Biro portraits of ‘Criminal Women’, live crime drama installation and gruesome collection of front pages of PM, the local tabloid in Ciudad Juárez, a city sadly renowned for the violence perpetrated by the drug cartels continue

The Individual and the Organisation: Artist Placement Group 1966-79

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Between 1966 and the turn of the 1980s, APG negotiated approximately fifteen placements for artists lasting from a few weeks to several years; first within industries (often large corporations such as British Steel and ICI) and later within UK government departments such as the Department of Health and the Scottish Office continue

Frieze part 1: The fun of the fair

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The Frieze art fair dismantled its tents a few days ago at Regent’s Park in London. Over the next few days, i will submit the blog to an avalanche of images and works from the fair. Let’s start light and very fast with a few art pieces that demonstrate that even artists shown at art fairs have a sense of humour continue

My Labor is My Protest

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Some artists comment on real estate, some real estate developers are interested in art but i doubt that many people can be both artists and real estate developers. Actually i only know of one: Theaster Gates. He is an urban planner, a visual artist, a musician, a curator and an activist continue

‘Someday All the Adults Will Die’: Punk Graphics 1971 – 1984

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The exhibition includes several hundred pieces of previously unseen material from private archives and collections: homemade cassettes, fanzines, posters, handbills, records and clothing. Highlights include work by Gee Vaucher, Jamie Reid, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, John Holmstrom and Penny Rimbaud, alongside numerous anonymous artists continue

Chance meeting on a chess board of a Russian mystic and a fashion designer

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A quick post about The Art of Chess, an exhibition of 16 chess sets designed by some of the biggest names in contemporary art. Hirst has a medicine cabinet, Tracey Emin a chess set that looks slightly unhygienic, Paul McCarthy adds ketchup, Yayoi Kusama goes for dots, and the Chapman brothers do it dark and provocative. Most of the artists are playing their usual tricks, then. But somehow i didn’t mind because many of the works are spectacular continue

In the Shadow of Faded Dreams, a visit to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

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For people working at the Yuri Gagarin Training Centre, a military complex where all cosmonauts have been trained since the 1960s, Gagarin remains a hero while space is the only reality they know, almost blending with the surreal machines they work with, they seem to be trapped in a window of time. In the shadow of faded dreams, thus sheds the light on a close-knit community of space-lovers, still clinging to the decaying legacy of the 1960s Space dream continue