Reid Peppard

Reid Peppard. Lady taxidermist-jeweler. Fashion badass.

This necklace’s pendant is comprised of a a carrion crow leg cast in silver and a squirrel leg. Peppard's work seems like a big F You to the fashion world, taking haute couture's extreme style to an even further extreme. Like good fine art, it stretches the boundary between what is art and what is not.

"By transforming creatures usually perceived as pests into beautifully crafted objects for human adornment she invites the onlooker to become a participant in the work, thus straddling the boundary between fashion and art. "
-www.rpencore.com

Contemporary art and the public

I was really interesting in the new advertising that the art institute has put up along Columbus Drive. They feature an image of someone in the museum and then a succinct statement on the other side. These adds appear to be attempting to appeal to the masses. They reference the everyday. One says "Your artistic lunch" or something like that. Another references art class, another talks about escapism (something like "out of the everyday and into culture"). Yet another says "I prefer dots to pixels" referencing the over saturation of digital media and the art institute as an escape. This one I find the most odd since the art institute has a large photography collection which have pixels. But this add in particular highlights why I find these adds interesting. There is nothing Modern about them. They hang next to the Modern wing and yet every image are of the "celebrity" paintings from older parts of the museum (van Gogh, American Gothic, etc). I am interested that that Art Institute has decided to portray it's self in this narrow manner in order to appeal to the public. What does it mean for Modern and Contemporary art when one of the most respected art museums in the country wont advertise it's presence in their museum?

Cloud Nothings

Who knew that 18 year old Dylan Baldi from Cleveland, Ohio could create such heart-smashing low-fi? Though, honestly, he’s probably 19 by now. Baldi started recording songs in his basement, playing every instrument on every track. After the tracks started attracting attention, he formed a band and began to tour.

I stumbled upon the music of Cloud Nothings in 2009. I was a DJ at the time for my college’s radio station, WWRM. The station’s board and I went to our local record store, Speakertree Records, and chatted with the owner about organizing a concert. He suggested we ask Cloud Nothings to perform and told us that his independant record label (Speakertree Records) was releasing Cloud Nothing’s LP, Turning On. I just about lost my shit. I had played songs from Turning On on my radio show the week before and had fallen in love.

Of course, Cloud Nothings got “big” (in the indie sense of the term) really quickly. Baldi’s sound’s popy low-fi fits perfectly into the scene but his echoing paranormal vocals and the feeling of barely held together instrumental pandemonium makes Cloud Nothings stand out.

Cloud Nothings' songs are really fresh. I mean it. Check them out.

Jonsi

Jónsi came to The Vic on November 3^rd, bringing with him four other musicians (including his partner Alex) and Moutain Man, the female acapella trio that opened for him.

When I heard that Jónsi was coming to Chicago, I impulsively decided to go. In all seriousness, Go’s music has moved me to tears. It is the rare kind of music that is very honest, so honest that it risks sentimentality to create emotional, beautiful, and truthful art.

Jónsi Þór Birgisson, originally the main singer of the Icelandic group Sigur Ros, branched out in 2009 to create his first solo album Go. Jónsi’s stop at The Vic supported of this new album, whose grand orchestral sound differs from Sigur Ros’s quieter atmospheric style.

The stage, a landscape of instruments, held two pianos, a keyboard, a synthesizer, a drum kit, a stand of modified cymbals, a xylophone, a glockenspiel, and a harmonium. The lights went down after a brief set change, and when they came up, the stage had transformed into another world. Each musician was costumed. Jónsi’s costume dripped with fringe and feathers and was made with pieced together cloth. The projections behind the band showed fantastical animation of forestscapes and animals. Four barndoor lights illuminated the band from behind, creating glowing clouds when the fog machines were on. Though the set was simple and the costumes weren’t over the top, every aspect of Jónsi’s aesthetic coordinated with the music to transport the audience into a world that the music narrated.

No musician played only one instrument. Jónsi played acoustic guitar, electric guitar with a cello bow, ukulele, xylophone, and piano. The other members of the band alternated instruments as well. The movement of the band around the stage to different instruments (sometimes more than one per song) gave the feeling that the band, as well as the audience, was inside of some aural world being created at that moment. The use of these instruments gave the music a grand sound that, unlike Go’s orchestral strength, was nevertheless rich and moving.

The most powerful part of the concert for me was the encore. When the band came out again, Jónsi wore a green feathered headdress. After performing two songs, the rest of the band left the stage while Jónsi remained. He sang alone into his microphone, crouched over his KAOSS Pad (effects sampler) on the floor, playing his own voice like an instrument until it faded away. Even after the encore the crowd couldn’t stop clapping. When the band came out again to raised house lights, they stood at the edge of the stage applauding to the audience and receiving applause. At any other concert this might seem silly, but the Jónsi concert was such an experience that this felt like a moment of comradery. The audience thanked the artists for an aural and emotional experience and the artists thanked the audience for the opportunity to create it.

SOFA

And my last post for this weekend...

I ALSO went to SOFA, Show of Folk and Outsider Art at the Navy Pier. This event was kind of overwhelming at first when walking in, with all of the booths in this huge space, but after the first 5 minutes I became accustomed. There was definitely more sculpture than anything else in the show, but I felt it there was a good balance between all the mediums presented within sculpture. One of the artists shown was Akio Takamori who makes wonderful ceramic sculptures, usually always of figures. I do have to say he is a professor at my alma mater, University of Washington and I had to give him kudos and represent my school! :) I would have to say my favorite part about his pieces is the way he uses color. His application is almost like water colors, very thin and fluid giving off a lighter, muted hue. He is a wonderful person and makes great work. If you have time tomorrow go to the Navy Pier to see the SOFA show and check out Takamori's work. The last day is tomorrow!!!!

MFA Open Studios

Also on Friday night I went to the open MFA studios where I was very inspired and impressed with most of the work, but I also felt let down at the same time in other cases. During this evening that was extremely crowded and slightly uncomfortable, I stumbled upon Adrienne Tarver's studio. She is a painter who also works with paper and fiber on canvas. I enjoyed her work because it was figural but not just representational paintings. She used the silhouettes of the figures, set in a specific setting (ex. a girl sitting on a swing in a yard) and within the the silhouette she depicts a pattern. These images take you back to your childhood and memories arise. Its really quite nice.

Check her stuff out at: www.adriennetarver.com

Faculty Projects

This Friday I went to the opening reception for the Faculty Projects show and I have to say my favorite artist was Gorden Powell. He created beautiful patterns using pencil, ink, and tempura on mylar. His line is quite exquisite as its not too bold or too soft; they felt very figural to me. Two thumbs up for Mr. Powell. Go see the show in the Columbus building. :)

Gerhard Richter

I was excited to see Richter posted on the Top 100 People in the art world list. I have always been fascinated by not only his work but his process. Richter is painter but he uses photography as the outline for images he paints. He also keeps what he calls "Atlas" which is a extensive collection of images he has taken as inspiration for his paintings. Often the viewer can find a photograph that looks almost exactly like the painting. Very few painters work in this way, it appears Richter does because he paints in the style of photographs, he utilizes depth of field, blur and sharp focus. In addition he paints his images to replicate the way that light reads on film. His paintings become oddly liminal, they use painting to reference photography to reference painting. He also is very transparent about his process he shows not only his paintings but the photographic explorations that lead to them. Both are displayed as art objects, and Richter is very transparent about their connection. On his website when you access one of his paintings the atlas page that holds the images which inspired it pops up, and visa versa. Richter wants the viewer to understand the connection between the two, and his process.

http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/atlas/detail.php?number=445&paintID=7668

the other day I went to the West Loop Gallery area and came across this collaborative exhibit at the Western Exhibition for the Miller & Shellabarger show http://www.westernexhibitions.com/current/index.html. The participating artists, Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger, not only creative partners, but are also husband and husband, an issue which they explored in their Miller & Shellabarger show. Even though the aesthetics and stylization was very reminiscent of the Victorian Era, the show still felt very contemporary. This exhibition was so wonderful to experience and SO romantic and sentimental, but in the best way possible. I highly recommend going to see this show. A couple highlights for me were the sliver-plate couple portraits, where the husband-husband couple (mind you they look like biker dudes) is posed together in a photographic series that reads like hyper romantic couple portraits in gardens and on low hanging tree branches that were taken during the Victorian Era. They are quite intriguing and beautiful. i also adored the monogrammed pillows. Please go see this show next time you are in West Loop its only up until Nov 13th!

art world top 100

Jerry Saltz (position: #75) wrote an article about being on The Power 100 list (read it under "features"). It's about how he knows this list means art is all about how much money you have, being popular, etc., and how he loves being on the list but it's not a big deal. The thing written about him also mentions he has 3,963 friends on Facebook, which is a lot, but he probably accepts everybody who asks him.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman, who ranks No.27 in the 2010 Power 100 List, is one of my favorite contemporary artists. I know Cindy from Art: 21.Most of her works are photography of herself wearing different makeup and costumes. My favorite two series of her works are clowns and social portrays. In the clown series, she wears different kinds of clown makeup. Though the clowns suppose to entertain me, when I look at them, they make me feel there is something behind them and I cannot trust them at all. What’s more, I guess it is not easy for a person to have different clowns makeup and let the audiences believe they are not the same person under the clown makeup. In the series of social portray, Cindy dresses up as people living in different social levels. One of my favorites is a woman wearing a red sweater under a black jacket, sitting in front of a building. The building appears like a fancy hotel to me. Apparently the background building is added after taking the woman’s photo during the post-production period. I can tell the woman is rich from her hairstyle and scurf. Her winkles and lower abdomen show her age and the gesture she poses, makes me feel she is the center of her family. The other thing I found interesting about Cindy is：she leaves her works untitled. To me, it is a good thing. Without descriptive language on her images, I can rely myself to develop narratives as an essential component of appreciating the work. Her playful mixture of camp and horror, heightened by gritty realism—provides a new lens through which to examine societal assumptions surrounding gender and the valuation of concept over style.