Manipulating Media

I was in Boston on Thursday delivering work to Arden Gallery (love saying that) and afterwards stopped in at the ICA to see the Mark Bradford show. I think that there is a resonance between his work and mine, so I was particularly interested to see it in person. The show was organized by Christopher Bedford, curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and is touring to four museums. The Boston ICA is the first stop followed by Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco. Check the Wexner link for dates.

I had seen the videos that the ICA has on line such as Pinocchio Is On Fire and the brief Art 21 clip called "Paper." Bradford says that when he first began making art, he only knew of materials that came from Home Depot. His attitude is that anything and everything can be used in making his work and one of his main sources has been posters found in the Los Angeles neighborhood where his studio is located.

He has developed an unusual method of layering the found posters with caulk or string over the letters, then gluing on layers of paper on top and sanding, tearing or cutting down through the layers until some of the underneath text is exposed.

Here is a closeup image from Joanne Mattera's blog showing letters and numbers exposed after layering

There are some works like this in the ICA show, especially a huge wall of posters with silvery paint advertising PROPANE FOR FEMA TRAILERS. You can guess where those were from; Bradford was in the New Orleans Biennial in 2008 and did several large works for it.

But most of the 45 works in the ICA show are massive map-like works of billboard paper on paper or canvas that really have to be seen in person to be appreciated as the massive undertakings that they are. Apparently they are based on Google maps of particular areas of Los Angeles. (Let me just make a disclaimer that most of the images in this post do not do Bradford's works justice. As readers of this blog may remember, the ICA does not allow photography so I was only able to get images from the Wexner site. But if you watch the videos linked above, you can get a better sense of what the works are like. Also, I was unable to get images online of many of the works in the show, especially my favorite, Black Venus.)

In person the works have a very strong physical presence, not only because of their enormous size but because of the thick layers of paper, the rough surface, their usually tattered bottom edges and the sense of impermanence from the ephemeral nature of their components.

Scorched Earth, 2006, 94 1/2 x 118 inches 

The map works and the massive poster pieces were spectacular, but my favorites were made using two other methods. Strawberry is one of the earlier works in the show and uses the permanent wave end papers that Bradford began making his works with initially. His mother used to run a beauty shop in the building that he eventually bought for his studio. Bradford helped out his mother in the shop and bought the papers for his work because they were so cheap. He would torch the edges of a stack of papers to get a contrasting edge. I really liked the way he made the bright red and orange areas retreat in this work using the delicate-looking white tissues.

Strawberry, 2002, 72 x 84 inches

Smokey, 2003, 60 x 72 inches

Smokey is another work using the end papers that I really loved. The subtle bends in the horizontal lines and the darker colors that come in at the bottom are very beautiful.

Another of Bradford's techniques is to glue down rope on billboard and/or poster paper and then layer over it with more paper. He strips off layers and/or glues down more found paper in contrasting colors.

Potable Water, 2005, 130 x 196 inches 

The works with horizontals are my favorites. I think my absolute favorite work in the show was Grey Gardens, below.

Grey Gardens, 2010, 60 x 72 inches

This piece is actually a soft grey and much paler overall with less contrast than in this image. There is an area of scattered stick pieces on the left side just above the middle that look pink here but actually stand out as the whitest part of the piece in person.

I'm glad that I was able to get in to Boston to see this show (that will be in Boston until March 13th). It was inspiring to see work by someone who has invented ways to manipulate found media and make it his own. What I particularly admire about Bradford's work is the way he has subordinated the found media to his larger intention. By that I mean that he is not timid about destroying or vastly altering the found media. At the same time, while the media has lost its singularity and become part of the greater whole, there are still glimpses of some of the unique, found components. It is a balancing act that I strive for in my own work.

Mix o'Media
I feel a real kinship with Mark Bradford because of his mix of media, and as I was taking a snow day today to catch up on my reading and television watching, I seemed to see reminders everywhere I looked that media is being chewed up and spit out in new configurations - for example:

Ron English
I have a new (to me) cable channel called Ovation that features programming on the arts. Tonight I watched a program on the artist Ron English, apparently made a few years back when he was actively co-opting billboards with posters that slyly mimicked real ads. Most of his subverted billboards targeted advertising aimed at children. His campaign against the Joe Camel figure contributed to its notoriety and downfall, and he has also become well known for his anti-McDonalds supersized figure.

I was out here in the boonies of western Mass. when he pasted up his giant wall of Lincoln/Obamas in Boston's South End in 2008 so I missed the controversy about all the other posters being pasted up in his wake by wanna-bes and wheat paster amateurs.

That's Ron at the right of the picture.

This guy is a really good draftsman and very capable realist painter with an excellent sense of ironic humor. It's too bad he had to stop taking over billboards due to the threat of arrest because he had some very good ones. I can't resist posting a few:

Aural Mix o'Media
The Ron English program came on the heels of two other articles I read this afternoon in the Sunday Times magazine from a couple of weeks ago. Yes, I know - by the time all this stuff gets into the popular culture, it's already old news. And, by the time it gets to me, it's probably ovah already. But just to remind you...

First, Greg Gillis a/k/a Girl Talk who mashes up music samples from "50 years of the revolving trends of pop music."  Here's a MySpace link so you can see what his high-energy sound is like. Then, what should I see on the Ovation channel but a show about copyright violations because of sampling and how music publishers are fighting the mash up trend. This is an old story and a losing battle.

Forever After Mix o'Media 
The second story about media that I noted in the Times was about the lingering virtual presence you will still have after you are long gone. Your email, all those Likes on Facebook, the inane tweets, the Flickr pictures from the summer barbecues, the vacations at the beach, the dogs, the cats, the snowstorms, the garden, your daily iPhone pix, the graduation, the wedding, the new grandchild, the Christmas tree, the blog post about media - all, all, all left behind after you go on to your reward. But, not to worry, the article tells about a new growth industry of people who will take care of it all for you. Just as you may go Up or Down after you die (in theory), you may choose to live on forever with a service such as that provided by VirtualEternity.com or end it all with DeathSwitch.com. The choice is yours but one you must make while you can still surf in real time.

Dear ICA, Please Let Bloggers Photograph Art

Yesterday I made a visit to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston with some friends. It was a sparkling day, breezy with a bright sun and lovely blue sky full of wispy clouds. The ICA looked magnificent perched on the edge of the sea in its award-winning Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed building. On this day it was nestled behind the minarets and turrets of the yellow and blue Cirque du Soleil tents set up in the ICA's parking lot.

The building makes a stunning addition to the Boston waterfront and views of the sea are visible throughout the building or, as the ICA's website more poetically describes it, "The design weaves together interior and exterior space, producing shifting perspectives of the waterfront throughout the museum's galleries and public spaces."

On the sea-side of the building, an 80-foot cantilever extends out over steps that provide a public space for seating, water gazing and people watching.

Cantilever and steps

View from steps

We were there to see the Charles LeDray exhibition "workworkworkworkwork," a traveling show that remains at the ICA through October 17 and then goes to The Whitney Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

The Admissions desk was kind enough to honor our blogger credentials but unable to provide press kits. All seemed to be going well until we hit the dreaded sign posted in front of the elevator announcing that photography is prohibited.

The sign announces that this policy exists to "protect the art" from photography along with other damaging practices such as touching the art, getting food and drink on the art and banging into the art with large bags. However, the only harm that my little digital camera could possibly do to the art (unless I happened to stumble into something while holding the camera in front of my face) is with a flash. I have the option of turning the flash off. Use of the non-flash mode is permitted in most museums. Why doesn't the ICA allow it? Could it be because they want to control images of the art? I think that they should rethink this unfriendly policy. It seems to me that bloggers posting images of the art and discussing it would draw people to the museum to see the show and this would promote attendance. Isn't this the museum's goal? It is unpaid advertising. This no photography policy is antiquated and anti-internet. ICA - CHANGE YOUR POLICY!

If you don't, here is what you get:


A MUSEUM VISIT WITH NO PHOTOS OF THE ART

First we looked at the art. If you want to see any of Charles LeDray's work, here's the website for Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York which represents Charles LeDray. Also here is a link to an essay about Charles LeDray and "workworkworkworkwork" by Jerry Saltz, originally published in Arts Magazine, April 1992. We also looked at the other exhibitions: Dr. Lakra, Francesca Dimattio: Banquet and a range of works from the ICA collection.

Now on to something I can photograph:

An excursion boat to the Boston harbor islands approaches. I am viewing it from behind the glass wall of a gallery that stretches the entire width of the building. It's called the "John Hancock Founders Gallery."

Boat getting closer

Boat disappearing behind Anthony's Pier 4 Restaurant next door to the ICA.

Ladies room with walls painted a lovely shade of radiant turquoise blue (very similar to the color I have in my living room)

Faucets in ladies room. They even have automatic soap-dispensing faucets where you stick your hand under and foamy soap comes out all on its own.

Oops! I forgot to take photos of the lovely lunch we had. I chose the naan of the day, sort of an Indian pizza, with a naan bread topped with shrimp, mozzarella cheese, chopped tomatoes, Kalamata olive tapenade and balsamic vinegar. Very tasty. We ate outdoors and it was even a little chilly with the wind off the water.

This is sort of a computer lab with rows of computers, desks and chairs lining steps down to a window that frames a view of the water. This whole room is suspended from the cantilever. If you look back at the photo of the cantilever, you will see a kind of slanted box attached. That is this room. Its official name is the Poss Family Mediatheque.

Here is the big TV where the ICA screens videos about the exhibitions. There is also a reading area with publications about the exhibitions.

Looking down the elevator shaft.

The ICA has a wonderful room-size glass elevator that we immediately sized up as being as big as a New York apartment. Not only the walls of the elevator are glass, but the walls of the elevator shaft are glass on both sides. This was a great treat to watch.

Elevator rising. The people in the bottom of the photo are in the elevator car.

Elevator continuing to rise

Elevator almost at our floor

Then we took the elevator down ourselves.

Leaving the 4th floor

Going further down. Note the sea view visible.

Just about on the ground floor.

And of course we had to exit through the gift shop.

Gift shop 1

Gift shop 2

Gift shop 3

It was a great visit, made even better by chatting amongst ourselves and to the guards who were very friendly and informative. It would only have been better if photos were permitted and I could have written about the art instead of the ladies room faucets and other such fascinating items.

Addendum: My friend Pam Farrell sent me a link to a post on Alyson Stanfield's Art Biz Blog on the topic of photography in museums by bloggers. Alyson and her many commenters have some good ideas on this topic.