Centro de Arte y Naturaleza
Fundación Beulas
C/ Doctor Artero, s/n
Huesca
Spain 22004
t. +34 974 239 893

Exhibition:
Rummaging in the garbage: Waste and recycling in the contemporary art

“The first notions that usually come to mind when considering garbage, waste and deterioration are generally negative, when not outright nauseating. We are aware of the physical and chemical processes of the matter around us, beginning with the cycles of nature itself, including industrial processes, technical constructions and manufactured consumer items, and ending with the very materiality of the human being as a living organism. This crisscrossing of elements and activities-which, after all, is what makes the human being civilized and cultural, negotiating and struggling to domesticate and exploit the landscape and the ecosystem, the planet, in short-generates endless reactions, overpopulation and overproduction, upsets and imbalances, and therefore waste, before which we often do not know how to react or that, metaphorically, but also in the practical reality, we end up sweeping under the rug and looking the other way.”

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[text from Centro website. Graphic from Google image search for 'Chris Jordan,' participating artist Caption: "Recycling Yard #6." Cross-posted to The Data Stream..]

NBC Universal Presents Bravo Reality Series “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist”NBC Universal Presents Bravo Reality Series “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist”

PASADENA, CA.- Bravo’s latest stroke on the reality canvas brings Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Sarah Jessica Parker and her production company, Pretty Matches, together with the Emmy-nominated Magical Elves (”Top Chef,” “Project Runway”) and Eli Holzman, to produce “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” an hour-long creative competition series among contemporary artists. “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” will bring together 14 aspiring artists to compete for a solo show at a nationally recognized museum and a generous cash prize.

Hosting this colorful new series is art enthusiast China Chow, alongside world-renowned art auctioneer, Simon de Pury. Joining them on the judging panel are experts Bill Powers, a New York Gallery owner and literary art contributor, Jerry Saltz, current art critic for New York Magazine, and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, esteemed curator and owner of Salon94 gallery.

In each episode, contestants are faced with the challenge of creating unique pieces in a variety of media such as painting, sculpture, photography, collage and industrial design. The weekly assignments are exciting, original and will challenge the artists to push the limits of their technical skills and creative boundaries. Completed works of art will be appraised by the panel of top art world figures alongside a new celebrated guest judge every week. Through a gallery showing at the end of each challenge, the industry luminaries dictate which artists have successfully mastered the subject matter and creation of their piece, as well as whose concept leaves the greatest impact.

“Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” is produced by Pretty Matches and Magical Elves for Bravo. Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alison Benson and Eli Holzman serve as executive producers.

Coming Summer 2010.

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[Text from artdaily.org. Graphic from tv.com. Thanks to DLP in IC fo the tip. Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê has opened a new exhibit called Elegies at P·P·O·W.  It serves as a prelude to Lê’s exhibition in June at the Museum of Modern Art, entitled The Farmers and The Helicoptors.

P·P·O·W features works based on the United States’ troubled exit from the Vietnam war, specifically the jettisoning of helicopters from the overcrowded decks of aircraft carriers evacuating military and diplomatic personnel.

Michael Swaine mends clothing for free in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.  In the past, he has collaborated with Futurefarmers, a socially engaged arts collective, and views his work as a way to explore and expand the commons.  The Financial Times included him this week in their First Person column.

Farmlab
1745 North Spring Street, Unit 4
Los Angeles, CA 90012
1.323.226-1158

Friday, February 5, 2010, Noon

Metabolic Studio Public Salon
Simon Balm

A Year at the South Pole

Simon Balm will describe his experiences during a year spent at the South Pole conducting astronomical research in one of the coldest and extreme environments on Earth.

A native of London, England, Simon Balm received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Durham in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Sussex in 1992, working with Nobel Prize winning chemist Sir Harold Kroto. After graduate school he spent two years as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in the UCLA Astronomy Department followed by four years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA where he helped to design, build and install a radio telescope at the geographical South Pole. After several Summer visits to the Antarctic he wintered-over with the telescope at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station during the 1995-1996 season as a scientist with United States Antarctic Program.

[text and graphic from Farmlab website. Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

Ice House Detroit is a project bringing awareness to a variety of housing issues in Detroit.

Follow their blog or join their Facebook group.

It’s great to hear new work from this poet/survivor, and generator of the radical meme: “The revolution will not be televised.”

The video is of Scott-Heron’s cover of Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil and is included on his new album which can be heard on his website.

Here’s an animation by Ineke Goes of Johnson’s original song.

Scott-Heron’s Message to the Messengers.

BBC interview.

Jess Baines has an excellent new article in Afterall on the history of radical graphics beginning in England in the 1960’s.  It’s a great introduction/reminder of how a previous revolution in technology, namely broad access to low-cost printing equipment, fueled global resistance to war and helped spread alternative social justice movements.

A wiki has been started to collect information on the topic.

Image: Poster from the Poster-Film Collective’s History Series.

Sue Coe has an exhibition at the Philadelphia Print Center, as part of the Philagrafika 2010 festival.  A short interview with her appears in the Philadelphia City Paper:

“It comes back to that theme of power and control, who has it, and who does not and why? I am wary of telling people what to think; I do not like being told what to think. All my work is my own inquiry and despair for the state of the world, and joy in the making of art, and sharing that work with people, and getting their comments.”

Perhaps you’ve already heard about Howard Zinn’s death, or maybe you haven’t. Inconveniently, another author, J.D. Salinger, a legend in his own right, died at the same time, eclipsing Zinn’s passing. The media’s reflex was to focus on Salinger, whose books are required reading in many high schools, and to essentially ignore Zinn, a historian whose books most don’t encounter until college, if ever. Of course, Zinn probably expected this reaction.

Zinn will remain important, however, for bringing to light many of the less flattering aspects of America’s history, undermining national myths of meritocracy and making frequent use of a dirty five-letter word, “class.”

Zinn’s website features a wide variety of interesting obituaries and tributes for him, including one from Willie Nelson.