London: Things To Do

`Fashion Illustration

My ghosts of FIT's past come to haunt, with some fashion illustration exhibits going on in London, including (personal favs) McQueen and Chanel

Drawing Fashion from Design Museum on Vimeo.

Walking Tours:

Duchamp famously said "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges"; so,perhaps this is where my fascination with them comes from. While, I dont believe any bridges on this walking tour of bridges are American (by way to design, not geography), I still find bridges incredible romantic. Despite the taunt : London bridges falling down, these all seem lovely.

Another walking tour is of authors and an activist or two thrown in including Orwell, Ghandi, Yeats, Woolf, and of course Wilde (while, originally from Dublin, he's famed for his UK cheekiness, and was held in the same jail that Julian Assange was just held)

Little Extra Theater:

My housemate is going on the theater end of the seminar and invited me to see a rendintion of Madame Butterfly, so since I will not be going on the Harry Potter tour with her (because I'd rather do any number of things then go on that) this actually sounds... interesting to say the least. I've never been to an opera, first time for everything...

Some Other Things I'm Thinking About

silly touristy things of popular culture affiliation : finding Alice Ayers, Paddington bear as well as famed sights of the Beatles, the Sex Pistols and The Clash. I also plan on spending entirely too much time in bookstores and cafes.

Benjamin_001

one of my favorites

Banksy : British graffiti artist

cheeky.

Ai Weiwei

Since we are going to see Ai Wei Wei's work (on January 10 at the Tate), I figured this would be an interesting article to post from Art21 about Part 1 and Part 2

"The nature of the Chinese language, whose words take up only 1–2 characters on screen, mean that Chinese-language tweets can be as long as a paragraph. Thus, we opted for Tumblr, which preserves the real-time and social nature of Twitter while allowing greater flexibility in translation and contextualization. I worked with our anonymous designer to develop a two-column format ideally suited for translation, and I work to ensure the site’s operations are running smoothly while contributing my own translations and working with Jennifer to determine the overall direction of the site"

ArtSeminar_03: Vegan

It is very easy being vegan in London, with so many vegan and vegetarian restaurants and health-food shops, and most major supermarkets now sell soya milk and other dairy-free products.

ArtSeminar_02 : the tube

Relational Aesthetics

Confession : I am not sure who took out relation aesthetics after me, but I am solely responsible for the pencil markings in the first half of the book; and it was the reason for the $18 dollar hold on my account which held up my registration for the class. Anyhow...

I would like to attribute the lack of "ism" to the deconstruction period of the late 60s: The Negative notion of the "ism"

"Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
All we are saying is give peace a chance" (lennon 196)

and then, a further popular culture anti-ism follow up :

"Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.' Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. " (bueller 1986)


well, koo koo kachoo.

the negative associations with the "ism" Fascism, Racism, superseded those such as feminism (although a third wave perspective could call it negative), and conceptualism. To make a long story short the basic idea is that lables got a bad wrap - critics stopped using them so much - let alone started making them up themselves...

While, I should be upfront with the fact that I do NOT agree with the term itself "Relational Aesthetics", I appreciate the idea of A term. I say this because the "termless" nature of postmodern (as well as contemporary criticism); it has been mostly a wash when it comes down to actually categorizing things. One aspect of art that I find particularly troubled by this, lack of, or rather, i should say this resistance of nomenclature is sculptural field. I am not alone in this opinion, (i quote Johanna Burton in saying) the past 2 year there have been twenty or so shows dealing with the notion of "what is sculpture" and i think this is directly related to terminology. Any how, back to Relation Aesthetics

Thoughts on Lewis' Rules:

1. A NEW "ISM" MUST DEVELOP FROM AN OLD "ISM"
- i really do not agree, impressionism didnt start from an "ism" nor did art neovea or de stijl, bauhaus, and movements from them could be "isms"

2. A NEW "ISM" IS A NEW OF THINKING ABOUT ART
-vague but fine.

3. ARTISTS OF AN "ISM" MUST HANG OUT TOGETHER
-okay fine, no real issues there, if not hang out, at least communicate (note dada was happened in France, New York etc)

4. AN "ISM" IS CREATED BY AN ART CRITIC
- i dont think it HAS to be, but its a trend

5 ANY "ISM" HAS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SUB-SPECIES
-Lewis had examples although, not terribly relevant

6.AT FIRST PEOPLE MUST THINK AN "ISM" IS NOT ART
-not in all cases : but it should be significantly progressive

7.A NEW ERA LEADS TO A NEW "ISM"
not a must, but seems to be a trend (similar to 4)

8. A NEW "ISM" MUST HAVE A LANDMARK EXHIBITION
-institutionalized validity okay.

ArtSeminar_01