Wassup Censors?

Larry Clark‘s retrospective exhibition opens today at Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.  The artist is known for his talent in depicting both fictional and true stories of disturbed youth through a raw and glaringly graphic eye.  His photo documentations  (Tulsa, Teenage Lust) and his films (Bully, Kids, Ken Park, Wassup Rockers) have that certain “ewww” factor that makes you think you are smelling something disgusting, want to take 2 showers and think “I should watch  Little House on the Prairie right now”.  However, regardless of the  “ewww”, his work offers something more than just a superficial visual assault; his work heavily permeates the viewers’ thoughts, sensations and emotions not just when viewing but even at the mere thought of it.  That’s what I would call powerful work. However, “powerful” is not the word chosen by the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, I believe that word would be “censor”. The mayor is imposing the first ever age restriction on an art exhibition in Paris. Minors are prohibited from seeing his retrospective.   To read more >>

“Larry Clark: Kiss the Past Hello” runs from October 8, 2010 until January 2, 2011

Read Full Post »

Interview With James Roper in Issue 16 of Hi-Fructose Magazine

Issue 16 of Hi-Fructose Magazine features an interview I conducted with UK-based artist, James Roper. I encourage you to pick up a copy but in the meantime, here’s a snippet:

“…to grasp the complexity of Roper as a creator is to know him first and foremost as a thinker. If the viewer were to act as archaeologist peeling back the surface layers of paint, gesso, and canvas, he would find the core of the work to be built upon a conceptual framework of organized philosophical thought aimed at exploring the most fundamental of mankind’s musings: who and what we are.”

Read Full Post »

Andy Ritchie Reviews “Temporal Surfaces” for Art Slant

Kevin Cyr installation

Thanks to Andy Ritchie for the excellently-written “post-mortem” review of “Temporal Surfaces”, the show I guest-curated for White Walls this past month. Read the review on the Art Slant Pick List and if you missed the show, you can still check out the work on the White Walls website.

Read Full Post »

Feature Article on James Marshall (Dalek) in Issue 15 of Hi-Fructose

I recently conducted an interview with James Marshall (Dalek) for Hi-Fructose discussing his latest work and a decade of creativity. Issue 15 is on newsstands now!

Read Full Post »

Visionaire 56: SOLAR

Visionaire is a the gold standard of art and fashion publications. Released three times a year, the album features a different theme and format with each issue. The 56th publication, “Solar”, is one of the most innovative expressions of packaging and design I have seen thus far. What appears under indoor light as an all-white book with white embroidery and white book sleeve transforms in the sunlight to the colorful presentation you see below. Utilizing this same printing technology for the inside of the book, the pages of black and white imagery adjust with explosions of color when exposed to sunlight. See more images after the jump.

Read Full Post »

Editorial Piece in Issue 13 of Hi Fructose

Be sure to pick up Issue 13 of Hi Fructose and check out the article I wrote on the artist Candice Tripp. Love her work!

Read Full Post »

Tracking Transience: The Art of Hasan Elahi

In the recent Winter issue of Colors Magazine, there is an article on the art of surveillance that is quite intriguing. The featured work belongs to Hasan Elahi who, in 2002, was stopped by the FBI at the Detroit airport and questioned about his whereabouts on September 11th.

Read Full Post »

Interview With Travis Louie in September Issue of Jux

I conducted an interview with the very talented artist Travis Louie for the September issue of Juxtapoz Magazine. We had a chance to discuss his early influences, the foundation of his aesthetic, as well as the stories behind his intriguing characters. It’s on newsstands now!

Read Full Post »

A&O Interview With Jesse Reno

Choosing Between Shapes

I’ve been mesmerized by Jesse Reno‘s paintings for years. To call them mere paintings is almost myopic, relegating them to a definition that can easily be obtained through a cursory inspection. It’s best to take your time with Reno’s work, to examine the layers, the complex pattern work, scrawled lines, and his preternatural subjects who adorn the surface like holy beings, deities, and sacred creatures from another realm. To deny Reno’s oeuvre this small justice is to miss the visual stories the artist seeks to tell; ancient glyphs from the dreamscape of Reno’s waking life, unearthed into the light of day.

For this A&O interview, I asked the prolific Portland-based artist to share some of his inspiration and recent work with me. Reno was also kind enough to include a written piece with info he normally shares with his students for the “Tips & Techniques” section of A&O. You don’t want to miss this!

Read Full Post »

New Editorial Pieces in Issue 12 of Hi-Fructose

I have a couple of pieces in the latest issue of Hi-Fructose. The first is an introduction for the interview Annie Owens did with Michael Page and the second is a book review on Joe Ledbetter’s new book, Creatures of Habit. Issue 12 of Hi-Fructose is on newsstands now.

Read Full Post »