Art and Fitness (or, How I am feeling these days)

Even beyond the references to “museum fatigue,” a condition that even the most diehard art historian has endured, what makes Karine Marenne’s photographs so humorous is the insurrection of base, physical exercise into the sphere of cerebral and sanctified culture. This occurs, however, with increased regularity as art museums turn their shiny wooden floors over to yoga instructors and meditation groups and, who knows, maybe even aerobics classes. Anyway, this series captures my own relentless and, at times, ridiculous cheerleading for art, which in recent weeks (as I have been slogging through various iterations of my dissertation proposal) has reached new heights (and sleepless nights).

(Karine Marenne, Museal Fitness)

brklyn photographer (courtesy mt. sinai medicine)

I like this guy’s photography; very everyday in the way that makes you want to look closer at your surroundings, which is a new goal of mine.

(Noah Kalina)

l'Atelier Populaire

In the process of finding my dissertation topic (and thus myself… ha ha) this summer, I have come across some amazing things. I am writing about art collectives in France in the decade following the massive 1968 protests (wikipedia is actually pretty good on this), but I will spare you more details now since you are going to be reading about this topic (along with me) for the next four years on this blog! As many of you may know, there were collective printshops—ateliers populaires—set up to produce posters for the protests. Along with grafitti, they plastered messages of social reform, police and government repression, and your general run-of-the-mill socialist messages as well as some cutting witticisms. I am waiting on the catalogue raisonné of the posters, but in the meantime, I sourced some of the best ones from the internet (but unfortunately cannot verify the dates or authenticity yet). The designs are simple, single-color woodcuts or screenprints that do a great job integrating text and image with clarity. Check them out:

Weekend art agenda for NYC: graffiti and European conceptualism.

I  am looking forward to checking out this new mural by Brazillian street artist group Os Gêmeos on the corner of Bowery and Houston in NYC this coming weekend. Check out the NYT slide show here and Roberta Smith’s story.

(images by Justin Maxon of the NYT)

Also, on the art agenda will be the MOMA’s “In and Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art,” which features one of my favorite artists Bas Jan Ader, who, among other things, did a series of falling or gravity pieces in the early 70s. When you watch the videos of his fall from a roof, tree, or standing, there is both humor and sadness in the action as the human body confronts forces much greater than itself and struggles to stay vertical. Vertical orientation has been described as one of the most essential human traits, and Ader seemed at pains to disrupt it. He died at 33 during his piece “In Search of the Miraculous,” a trip across the Atlantic Ocean on a 12-foot boat.

(Bas Jan Ader, Broken Fall (Organic), 1971)