Coexistence

I value the referential quality of art, the fact that a work can allude to things or states of being without in any way representing them. The ideas that give rise to a work can be quite diffuse, so I would describe my usual working process as a kind of distillation — trying to make coherence out of things that can seem contradictory. But coherence is not the same as resolution. The most interesting art for me retains a flickering quality, where opposed ideas can be held in a tense coexistence.

– Martin Puryear, 2007

Quivering Maelstroms

Gutai Group: Japanese art movement from the 1950’s emphasizing the beauty of decay.

Gutai Manifesto: “The fact that the ruins receive us warmly and kindly after all, and that they attract us with their cracks and flaking surfaces, could this not really be a sign of the material taking revenge, having recaptured its original life?”

Sarah Sze, 1999, Venice Biennale

2001, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

2011, The High Line

2011, Asian Society Museum, New York

The creations of Sarah Sze are modern representations of the Gutai Group’s interest in the possibilities of decay. Using the space surrounding her constructions as a material, culminates in sculptures perfectly balanced between positive and negative, stability and fluctuation. She draws in three dimensions, giving her sculptures the freedom of weightlessness. Creating beautiful constructions out of common detritus, her work is the artistic representation of the chaos of nature combining to form a disorderly, yet functionary whole.

A Brief History of John Baldessari

Baldessari’s advice for a young artist:

1. Talent is cheap.
2. You have to be possessed but you can’t will.
3. Being at the right place at the right time.

Yes.

Thank you Tom Waits for being the best narrator ever in this highly entertaining video of an entertaining man.