Paris WaterCannon

Good to see how the French deal with their domestic affairs. Reminds me of a story: a diplomat asked Chairman Mao what he thought of the French Revolution. Mao said, "It's too early to tell".

I have a watercannon fantasy I'd like to apply to certain streets in Barrie , Ontario. If that makes me a fascist pig then so be it. Billy and the Frenchies.

My card...

Yves Klein: The Chelsea Hotel Manifesto

Got an e-mail from a relative of mine. She read This month's Yves Klein salute and had this to say:

And that Klein artist is just crazy.... period.... sorry..... Although I can see how he could inspire you crazy artist people.

Yves Klein at work.

Well, if I'm crazy like Klein then I don't want to be sane. I made the mistake of not allowing Klein to speak for himself. Although this great artist (in my crazy opinion) died of a heart attack on June 6th, 1962, he left us his very own Chelsea Hotel Manifesto.

Here's a small sample:

At present, I am particularly excited by "bad taste". I have the deep feeling that there exists in the very essence of bad taste a power capable of creating those things situated far beyond what is traditionally termed "The Work of Art". I wish to play with human feeling, with its "morbidity" in a cold and ferocious manner. Only very recently I have become a sort of grave digger of art (oddly enough, I am using the very terms of my enemies). Some of my latest works have been coffins and tombs. During the same time I succeeded in painting with fire, using particularly powerful and searing gas flames, some of them measuring three to four meters high. I use these to bathe the surface of the painting in such a way that it registered the spontaneous trace of fire.

So I hope I've done a better job of presenting the true Yves Klein this time 'round.

Yves Klein, Chelsea Hotel apartment/studio.

I hope once my 'sane' relative reads his Chelsea Hotel Manifesto she'll have a better idea if Mr. Klein is/was crazy or a rare artistic genius.

Art Garbage?

I was walking home last night and came across two canvas paintings on wooden frames leaning against garbage bags. Castaways.


They were both 3' x 4'. I went with my first reaction and carried them about 20 blocks home. It was amusing, thinking myself all romantic artist, carrying stretched canvases down Queen St.

Not quite sure what to do with them. Paint over them? It would be difficult to paint over the nude. She's quite the creature and beginning to grow on me.

And what about this one?

Is she a doll, a young girl, something else?

Functional Ark: On Thinking Big

Hats off to Dutchman, Johan Huibers, who is building a modern day replica of the bible's famous 'Noah's Ark'. It's 1/5th scale of the original. As reported by BBC News:

The 47-year-old from Schagen, 45km (30 miles) north of Amsterdam, plans to set sail in September through the interior waters of the Netherlands.

Mr Huibers' vision is more modest - he said he plans to stock his ark with horses, lambs, chickens and rabbits - mostly baby animals to save space.

"This will speak very much to children, because it will give them something tangible to see that Noah's Ark really existed," Mr Huibers told the Associated Press news agency.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be just under 1m euros (£0.7m; US$1.2m) and was funded with bank loans.

Mr Huibers plans to charge people to tour the boat and said a drink and religious pamphlet will be included in the admission price. At least 100,000 people will need to visit for the project to break-even financially.

Mr Huibers said his wife was not very keen on the idea.

I love the balls on Johan. What the heck did he tell the bankers to get them to finance his idea? What vision on Johan. Wouldn't it be a wild experience to set sail on the ark with the sound, smell, vision of it all? Why not have Sunday church services at sea as well? It's perfect as an act of religeous devotion, pedagogy, art, and business. And who cares if it fails financially? All participants will, presumably, have the blessing of their god. You can't beat the smile on Johan's face. He hopes to use the profits to finance building a full scale ark in a few years.

My only thought is (looking at the photo) maybe he could have tossed some port holes into the design for light, ventilation, and the occasional shovelling of animal dung overboard.

More Details:

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/other_news/&articleid=259753

'Demolition' series

Was thrilled to come across this destruction site along Toronto's central Esplanade.

'Tunnel of Love' Winner(s)!

The result(s) are in! Shan was all over #5.

Then Cinesonic came in with #1.

Dear Reader, you know I'm a fan of the pit match with two go in, one come out. But these are different times with laws to abide.

I just want to thank y'all for coming out and giving the reasons whyfor one photo over the other. Shee...we all winners now.

'Tunnel of Love' vote counting

The polling booths have closed for the 'Tunnel of Love' winner.

Now Art Slob has to sit down and count the results.

'Tunnel of Love' series

Dear reader, would you be so kind...as to type your personal 'top' and 'bottom' rank for this bakery-fresh series, 'Tunnel of Love'?

In 'comments' type...

top: 'photo#'

bottom: 'photo#'


Especial thanks if you write your reason why. Help me out here, because I have no idea.

1

2

3

4

5

6

The midnight carwash would be a fine tunnel of love. Is it? The same youthful wonder of the carnival seems to linger in the automated car wash. My favourites are the ones with the towel ending. Y'know, the old-time car washes.

The best carwash/tunnels of love are the really long ones. I think our car culture needs to look to the carwash as cheap bordello. "Wanna got to the car wash?".

Soundtrack? 'Dance Me to the End of Love' by Leonard Cohen.

Gallery Crawl Teaser

One of my hobbies is to photograph Toronto art gallery receptions. I hope to show these photos on my www.gallerycrawl.ca website as soon as I can figure out that darn web technology.

Here's a Gallery Crawl teaser of one gallery reception with original art prints.

Open Studio Gallery (401 Richmond St. W. #104, Toronto)
Feb. 9, 2006
Artist(s): Jerome Fortin, Lotti Thomas, Linda Kristin
Show: Prints
Notes: "Open Studio is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to the production, promotion and preservation of contemporary original fine art prints. Incorporated in 1971, Open Studio is a comprehensive artist-run centre providing multi-faceted services, programs and information to artists and the general public...."

These two prints are lithographs. The limestone (centre) is used to make a negative image for the print. A print is then made when ink is applied to the stone and pressed against paper.

Artist Lotti Thomas at her lithograph press.

Thanks for the tour, Lotti.

Screen Printing

My creative consultant, Mr. McCleary, has suggested in an earlier post that I actually print out some of the photos appearing on this blog. I hadn't considered actually selling them.

I guess I'm waiting for the flood of purchase offers for my photos before I start dropping cash on printing. So far as I know, Mr. McCleary is the only official fan of my photos as art objects.

This would involve printing, as he suggests, onto large format print watercolour paper. For my reader's possible interest in the screen printing art production technique, I include an excerpt from a Toronto printing cooperative.

"SCREEN PRINTING: The technique of screenprinting (also known as Silkscreen and Serigraphy) evolved out of Chinese and Japanese Stencil printing. A fine mesh or screen is taughtly stretched over a wooden frame to hold the stencil design. A stencil may be created in several ways. In its simplest form, hand cut forms are adhered to the screen. These forms stop the ink from passing through the tiny holes of the fabric onto the paper during the printing process. Another method is to hand apply a "stop out" solution to the areas of the print that you want to remain ink free. Many artists today employ a photographic process by first treating the screen with a photo- sensitive emulsion, onto which a positive is exposed. The positive image is then washed away leaving an open stencil for printing."

"All of the above methods rely on the blocking out ability of their stencils in order to create a finished print. Ink is then pushed through the screen with the dragging motion of a rubber squeegee. A new screen is required for every subsequent colour or layer which the artist wishes obtain in the final image."

SOURCE: http://www.openstudio.on.ca/

Hot Jazz

I hear a lot of talk about 'cool' these days. Well, I like my jazz hot. Tonight I got a belly full at The Gladstone Ballroom.

Some photos of those swingin' cats, Alexis Baro & Guests.

Power Lines!

'Power Station'

You wanted power lines? You got power lines!

'Tower of Power'

'Godzilla Fence'

'Tesla'

Go Train

'Track and Ties'

I took the train to Burlington and back today for a carpentry job. Here's some of the images. It's fun to play with the camera and explore new 'sculptural forms'. These objects held some fascination for me. I don't know why.

'Hangin' Two'

Hangin' two tractor treads over the concrete rubble mound, that is. Now I think of Fred Flintstone when I look at it.

'Ford'

'Tweedledum & Tweedledee'

The two verticals, the storage container and smoke stack(?), look like they're repairing the building. Or maybe it's a big cake that just looks like an old factory.

'Urban Oasis'

'Roof Line'

'Good Morning Sunshine'

There is definately something about these industrial buildings I like. It may be their variability. Each one has unpredictable aspects as the train passed. Passing these various objects turned a once boring ride into a photo feeding frenzy. 228 photos. Much like highway 400's granite corridor, the Lakeshore Go Train line was a moving gallery for me today.

AS: Yves Klein Salute!

I hereby launch a monthly tradition! Art Slob wishes to salute an artist who has done a bang up job and is generally really groovy. Few artists are this groovy....

Yves Klein was a French conceptual artist (I guess) who did a lot of interesting things. Things like jump into midair for a photo (taken by a trusted friend, surely) entitled 'Leap into the Void'. While Yves prided himself on his judo blackbelt status, he, nevertheless, broke a bone or two as a result of this particular leap. That's commitment, kids.

One of the many things Klein was art-world-famous for was his decision to identify himself almost exclusively to one shade of blue.

Anytime you saw that Yves Klein blue colour as a monochrome painting (or applied to objects like a rhino head), you were to think, "Yves Klein!"

The man was a self-marketing genius. Klein was also an artist of grand gestures.

Here we see Klein as the master impressario. He gives verbal orders to his nude models on how to apply his blue paint to their bodies and how to press those bodies against the white surface shown at the left side of the photo. Events degenerated into a knock 'n drag around, fortunately. Just look at this photo below for a few hours (over the next week or so) as I have. Note the levels of categorical juxtaposition in form and theme. If this is a dream, don't wake Bobo up! Fine work, Yves. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

The evening, entitled 'Monochrome Symphony Performance' was set in a Paris art gallery and attended by the who's who of French society. The symphony played a single note throughout (or was it silent?).

Klein was a man of style first and foremost. Note (photo below) the fine tailoring of the artist's vest and trousers whilst sporting the latest in post WWII flame-thrower technology.

My favourite Klein performance (title unknown - AS) was when the artist met a very sophisticated German collector at the top of a stone bridge. As per the agreement, the collector presented Klein with a box containing gold coins with the 1960s value of $10,000 (US). Klein tossed half of the coins into the river below and walked away with the rest. What did the German collector get for his money? A great moment in art history.