Now that we're being honest...

Hilarious inappropriate VD cards

polkaostrich — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:14:48 +0000

I love calling Valentine’s Day VD. Artist Mitch O’Connell has quite a collection:

Titanic violin

polkaostrich — Sat, 11 May 2013 22:03:39 +0000

Oh whoa. The violin that Wallace Hartley was playing Nearer my God to Thee on while the Titanic was sinking has been found. After the ship sunk, he used it to float on. The violin was discovered only by chance when the son of an amateur musician found it in his attic. It was given to his mother by her violin teacher and was left gathering dust.

Vanishing Spirits: The Dried Remains of Single Malt Scotch

polkaostrich — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:48:56 +0000

Macallan 101

If you’ve ever met me, you know I love Scotch. And I love photography and what weird things photographers come up with to keep the medium new and fresh. So I love Ernie Button‘s photographic experiments with Scotch residue–he’s shining different colored light through it, photographing the residue, and on and on. They’re gorgeous. Like seascapes! Listen on NPR!

Aberlour 108

Michael Pajon

polkaostrich — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:13:21 +0000

Michael Pajon has a show at New Orleans’ Jonathan Ferrera Gallery through the end of May. It’s titled O Bury Me Not from a Depression-era cowboy ballad, and has collages that I could spend all day looking at. Check it out, lucky ones in Nola!

Extinct Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

polkaostrich — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:42:23 +0000

I’m talking at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts about the work I did for their photography Art Cart. It’s sort of like a petting zoo for the history of photography–I made 12 images in 12 different historic photo process–cyanotype, Van Dyke, tintype, color slide, silver gelatin, direct positive paper, calotype (paper negative), albumen carte de visite (with Gocco printed personalized photographer’s back…yessssssss), salted paper, stereographs, Polaroid, and digital image. The Art Cart will be out so you can hold a tintype or look at a 3D stereoscope picture. And we’ll look at new daguerreotypes! Here is the MIA’s description of the evening:

Listen as some of our cities’ most interesting artists give us the back stories about their work in this series of on-stage narratives.

In 2011, the MIA commissioned photographer Lacey Prpic Hedtke to document the museum’s collection using archaic photographic techniques, such as tintypes, collotypes, and stereograms. She commenced upon an intensive exploration of history, representation, and visual interpretation, resulting in a kind of photographic archaeology that unearthed new connections and fresh interpretations of familiar artworks.

Prpic Hedtke will discuss this project, the history of photography, and how she decided to pair certain art works with particular archaic photographic techniques.

$10; $5 for MIA members. To reserve tickets, call (612) 870-6323 or reserve tickets online.

Heineken’s World Brick

polkaostrich — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:18:22 +0000

Come on manufacturers! We can do this! In the 1960s Heineken and Dutch architect John Habraken collaborated to create the “World Bottle”–a beer bottle that can be used as building material. After Alfred Heineken saw Heineken beer bottles wash up on a Caribbean beach, he was inspired to produce 100,000 World Bottles.

Why can’t we do this now? I love double- or triple-duty items. Bring the World Bottle back, Heineken! We could build fences, garages, houses–you name it. And we could cut down on trash. Brilliant.

Adrienne Slane

polkaostrich — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:57:42 +0000

Wow, I wasn’t expecting to insert all those images, but enjoy! So Adrienne Slane is an Ohio artist (LOVE Ohio) who uses vintage illustrations “Inspired by the history of the curiosity cabinet and the myth of Eden.”

Usually when I see collagey work, I think, eh, it’s just a bunch of stuff glued down. But Slane is onto something great! I hope she has an endless stream of vintage magazines to cut up! Come to Mpls, Adrienne, and go to Hunt & Gather!

Survival Research Institute of Canada

polkaostrich — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:22:32 +0000

There is a Survival Research Institute of Canada (SRIC) in Winnipeg that is giving a free talk on table levitation phenomena. Who wouldn’t go to this? For F-R-E-E?! The SRIC’s mission is “to investigate whether some part of human consciousness or personality survives physical death and whether that surviving “spirit” is able to communicate with the living.”

They seem to be a good resource of all things spiritualist if you’re in Canada. Plus they have a library and books that you can buy that you prolly can’t find anywhere else. I have totally forgone the use of the word “probably” for prolly and I’m ok with it.
I like that they use terms like “bodily death”.

They also just did a lecture about ectoplasm that is the same lecture that’s been done since 1922 which is weird. The ectoplasm presentation accompanies Irish artist Susan MacWilliam‘s exhibit of her “Flammarion” installation based upon the 10 June 1931 ectoplasm photographed by Dr. T.G. Hamilton. She researched at the T. G. Hamilton archives at the University of Manitoba, which has digitized over 700 images and 1300 notes from seances. Want to watch hours of video about T. G. Hamilton and the work he did around voice mediumship, wax fingerprints, and ectoplasmic phenomena? Here are seven videos.

Here MacWilliam is talking about her work at the Venice Biennale.

Also, did you happen to see Helen Duncan in that article? She was the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act in 1944. She was a Scottish spiritualist.

The whole thing is just so thrilling. Susan MacWilliam wins artist of the century! Even if just for effort and intrigue.

Bloom

polkaostrich — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:45:57 +0000

The Massachusetts Mental Health Center (formerly the Boston Psychopathic Hospital) closed in 2003, and was slated for demolition. Artist Anna Schuleit was commissioned to create a site-specific project where she installed 28,000 flowers in the building. The public was invited to view the installation for a four-day period. There are some Q&As with the artist on Colossal.

The Collective Tarot

polkaostrich — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 18:29:57 +0000

I LOOOVE this. It’s the tarot, updated for queers of today! Two dozen artists created a deck of 78 cards, updating the imagery for contemporary wants. They changed the Major arcana to found objects: bones, feathers, bottles and keys. Here’s what one of the creators, Annie Murphy says about the project:

We set out on this project because we wanted to access the ancient tradition of the Tarot, but were unable to relate to what we saw as archaic Christian, Euro- and hetero-centricities of modern decks available on the market. With the Collective Tarot, people can expect to see beings and bodies of size and of color represented, as well as differently-abled, multi-gendered and multi-generational characters. Tarot itself is Euro-Centric, originating (arguably) in 15th-century Italy. It is folk-art-magic that has amazingly survived through centuries of repression. We wanted to be able to use the Tarot as a tool while making the images relevant to ourselves and our communities.

You can order one today!