Archive - March, 2012

The Sunday Poem : Aimee Nezhukumatathil

March 31, 2012 in Sunday Poem, Words with 2 Comments

 

 

 

 

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

—The fear of long words

 

On the first day of classes, I secretly beg

my students Don’t be afraid of me. I know

my last name on your semester schedule

is chopped off or probably misspelled—

or both. I can’t help it. I know the panic

of too many consonants rubbed up

against each other, no room for vowels

to fan some air into the room of a box

marked Instructor. You want something

to startle you? Try tapping the ball

of roots of a potted tomato plant

into your cupped hand one spring, only

to find a small black toad who kicks

and blinks his cold eye at you,

the sun, a gnat. Be afraid of the x-rays

for your teeth or lung. Pray for no

dark spots. You may have

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis:

coal lung. Be afraid of money spiders tiptoeing

across your face while you sleep on a sweet, fat couch.

But don’t be afraid of me, my last name, what language

I speak or what accent dulls itself on my molars.

I will tell jokes, help you see the gleam

of the beak of a mohawked cockatiel. I will

lecture on luminescent sweeps of ocean, full of tiny

dinoflagellates oozing green light when disturbed.

I promise dark gatherings of toadfish and comical shrimp

just when you think you are alone, hoping to stay somehow afloat.

 

 

 

About Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Filipina mother and a father from South India.

She is the author of three poetry collections: Lucky Fish (2011); At the Drive-In Volcano (2007), winner of the Balcones Prize; and Miracle Fruit (2003), winner of the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the Global Filipino Award and a finalist for The Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award. Her first chapbook, Fishbone (2000), won the Snail’s Pace Press Prize.

Other awards include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, the Angoff Award from The Literary Review, the Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, and multiple fellowships to The MacDowell Colony.

Nezhukumatathil is associate professor of English at SUNY-Fredonia and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific University. She lives in Western New York with her husband and two young sons and is at work on a collection of nature essays and more poems.

To learn more about Aimee Nezhukumatathil and her work, please visit her website.

 

 

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“Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia” appears in At the Drive-In Volcano by Aimee Nezhukumatathil published by Tupelo Press. Copyright © 2007 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Used by permission of the author. All rights reserved.


Soo Sunny Park & Spencer Topel Transform a Chain-Link Fence into Art

March 30, 2012 in Images, Sounds, Spaces with 6 Comments

 

Artist Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne studies "Capturing Resonance," a piece made of chain-link fencing on view at the deCordova Museum. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

On my recent visit to the deCordova Museum, one of the artworks I found most compelling was “Capturing Resonance” by sculptor Soo Sunny Park and composer Spencer Topel.

Park, who was born in Seoul, Korea, currently lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College. The sculptor is best known for turning quotidian building materials like insulation and dry wall into sublime, experiential installations. For “Capturing Resonance,” Park has transformed the unconventionally-shaped Window Gallery of the deCordova into a multi-sensory environment using chain-link fencing.

 

Depending on the time of day, rainbow hued shadows fill the Window Gallery, shifting from crisp representations of the structure to abstract color washes. (Photo by Peter Harris courtesy the de Cordova Museum)

 

 

Soo Sunny Park

Soo Sunny Park is best known for turning quotidian building materials like insulation and dry wall into sublime, experiential installations. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

deCordova-Soo Sunny Park

When artists like Park re-purpose common materials, I find the technique is most effective when the everyday object becomes enmeshed in the final piece and doesn't advertise its cleverness in an overt, obnoxious way. The subtlety of Park's piece only adds to its drama. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

By inserting thousands of iridescent acrylic Plexiglas squares into chain link cells, Park has created a sprawling, undulating form that transmits, reflects, and refracts both the natural and artificial light into the gallery. (Photo by Peter Harris courtesy the de Cordova Museum)

When artists like Park re-purpose common materials, I find the technique is most effective when the everyday object becomes enmeshed in the final piece and doesn’t advertise its cleverness in an overt, obnoxious way. The subtlety of Park’s piece only adds to its drama. Only careful observers will recognize the fencing material, and I suspect some visitors never notice it at all.

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The Sunday Poem : Kwame Dawes

March 24, 2012 in Sunday Poem, Words with Comments Off

 

Born in Ghana in 1962, poet Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood in Jamaica. (Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths courtesy the Poetry Foundation)

Today’s Sunday Poem, “Tornado Child” by Kwame Dawes, is one of many powerful poems in Dawes’ book Wisteria, Twilight Songs from the Swamp Country. The poems in this collection are based on Dawes’ conversations with the elders of Sumter, South Carolina, who shared their memories of growing up in the Deep South under Jim Crow.

Dawes skillfully channels the voices of Sumter’s elderly African-American women—beauticians, seamstresses, teachers, domestic workers and farmers who lived through the 20th century. These moving accounts, retold in Dawes’ empathetic and unique, musical style, honor the resilience of these women who, until now, have largely been invisible.

 

 

Dawes, a prolific poet, playwright, novelist, actor, and musician, was born in Ghana in 1962, and grew up in Jamaica, where the “reggae aesthetic,” in particular, the music of Bob Marley, had a profound and lasting impact on the direction of his work. The musical traditions of both reggae and Negro spirituals seem particularly relevant to the poems in Wisteria. As the journal Chicken Bones says, “Dawes understands that redemption is essential, and he finds it in the pure music of his art.”

The musicality of Dawes’ poetry is best appreciated when his work is read aloud. This video of “Tornado Child,” which is part of PBS’s Poetry Everywhere series, captures Dawes at his most lyrical. Enjoy the poem and your Sunday!

 

 

 

 

 

About Kwame Dawes

Born in Ghana in 1962, Kwame Dawes spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica. As a poet, he is profoundly influenced by the rhythms and textures of that lush place, citing in a recent interview his “spiritual, intellectual, and emotional engagement with reggae music.” His book Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius remains the most authoritative study of the lyrics of Bob Marley.

His 11th collection of verse, Wisteria: Poems From the Swamp Country, was published in January 2006. In February, 2007 Akashic Books published his novel, She’s Gone and Peepal Tree Books published his 12th collection of poetry, Impossible Flying, and his non-fiction work, A Far Cry From Plymouth Rock: A Personal Narrative.

In October, 2007, his thirteenth book of poems, Gomer’s Song appeared on the Black Goat imprint of Akashic Books. His most recent poetry collection is Wheels.

Dawes has seen produced some twenty of his plays over the past twenty-five years including, most recently a production of his musical, One Love, at the Lyric Hammersmith in London .

His essays have appeared in numerous journals including Bomb Magazine, The London Review of Books, Granta, Essence, World Literature Today and Double Take Magazine.



Kwame Dawes is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, a Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a faculty member of the Pacific MFA program and of Cave Canem. He is also the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place in Jamaica in May of each year.

For more information about Kwame Dawes, please visit his website.

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 This video is part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on PBS. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival on location at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. “Tornado Child” © Kwame Dawes. To read a print version of “Tornado Child,” visit the Poetry Foundation website.


Jonah Lehrer on How Creativity Works : 5 Insights from Julia Child, Dylan, & Picasso

March 23, 2012 in Process, Words with 7 Comments

 

I can't sing

In 1965 singer Bob Dylan was burned out after a grueling tour; he was sick of reporters’ questions and tired of performing the same old songs. Dylan told his manager that he was quitting music for good and proceeded to disappear. He squirreled himself away in a cabin in Woodstock. Dylan’s plan was to write fiction and paint, so he didn’t even bother to bring along his guitar. But after a short period of rest, words began pouring out of the songwriter. By some accounts Dylan wrote 10 pages of stream-of-conscious verse in a short burst of activity; in other accounts, Dylan says it was 20 pages. Regardless of the length, in only a few months the singer was in the recording studio again recording one of his most memorable and influential songs, “Like a Rolling Stone.” Dylan called the creation of the song a “breakthrough,” later explaining that it changed his perception of where he was going in his career.

Why do creative epiphanies like the one Bob Dylan experienced happen? Is there a scientific reason that breakthroughs occur at certain times in our lives and not at others? Are there specific things we can do to encourage innovation in our personal lives and in the workplace?

Writer Jonah Lehrer delves into questions like these in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer, whose previous books include Proust Was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide, specializes in the relationship between science and the humanities. Lehner’s work could be described as Gladwell-esque. His books and articles for publications like Wired and The New Yorker are aimed at a general audience and attempt to synthesize research from the fields of neuroscience and psychology with interviews and biographical accounts of artists, creative thinkers, etc.

Jonah Lehrer

Lehrer’s recent interview on NPR’s Fresh Air is a useful introduction to many of the ideas discussed in Imagine. While most of these findings won’t be new to those of you who have read other popular books on the subject of psychology and creative thinking, Lehrer does a skillful job weaving together disparate sources. This book will surely be a hit with the TED crowd and with entrepreneurs, managers, and creative professionals who are trying to foster innovation in the workplace.

But after listening to Lehrer’s NPR interview this morning, I’ve been thinking more about how Lehrer’s ideas apply to artists of all disciplines, as well as to the employees of organizations. Here are some key insights that I find most compelling…

 

The deepest, creative insights usually occur when we relax and let go.

The worst thing we can do as artists is to try too hard. We try too hard in all sorts of ridiculous ways–we set unrealistic goals and deadlines, we set out to make the ultimate “masterpiece,” we compare ourselves to others, and we chastise ourselves when we fail to live up to these lofty standards. In order to make our best work, we have to leave all of this mental baggage at the door and approach the work empty-handed without expectations.

Lehrer cites Bob Dylan and the story of how he came to write “Like a Rolling Stone” as a prime example of an artist who experienced a major breakthrough as a result of letting go.

When we’re stressed, under deadline pressure, and trying desperately to produce our best work, we are likely to fail unless we step back, force ourselves to unplug, and take a break. As Lehrer points out, we’ll actually be more innovative and efficient if we stop obsessing and instead go for a walk, take a shower or nap, tinker with a favorite hobby, or meditate. Scientists have determined that people in a relaxed state and a good mood are far more likely to develop innovative or creative thoughts.

Lehrer cites Bob Dylan and the story of how he came to write "Like a Rolling Stone" as a prime example of an artist who experienced a major breakthrough as a result of taking a break and letting go. (Photo courtesy thelavinagency.com)

Lehrer gives some striking illustrations of this symbiotic relationship between creativity and relaxation. Researchers have found that people are more creative and productive when they work in a room that is painted blue, to give one example. Why? Because blue is associated the ocean and the sky and relaxation.

Relaxing and letting go is not just an internal process, but in many cases demands changes in our external behavior as well. As William Powers has pointed out in his book Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, we must make conscientious choices about how and when we use technology, unless we want to be slave to a screen 24/7. Compulsively checking email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. interrupts deep creative thinking. We’re addicted to screens; too often we forget that we control technology–it doesn’t control us. We have a choice–we can keep technology in it’s place, or allow it to erode our attention spans and precious work time. Taking digital breaks is just as important as taking physical ones. Whether we use internet blocking software like Mac Freedom, turn off social networking, phones, and email while working, or commit to staying offline on weekends (as Powers has done), our creative work will benefit.

 

Art isn’t all fun and games.

If only the deep insights and epiphanies were enough…But it takes a lot of hard work to realize a creative project. Here’s Lehrer discussing the subject in his Fresh Air interview:

“It would be wonderful if the recipe for all kinds of creativity was to take showers and play ping-pong and go on vacation and go for walks on the beach, but when you really talk to people in the creative business, they want to tell their romantic stories about the epiphanies but then if you push them, they say even that epiphany had to go through lots of edits on it and iterations and lots of hard work after we have the big idea. And that’s a big part of the creative process too, and it is not as fun. In fact, there’s evidence that it makes us melancholy and a little bit depressed. But it’s a crucial part in creating something interesting and worthwhile. If creativity were always easy or about these blinding flashes, Picasso would not be so famous.”

 

"Sunset over Mt. Monadnock" by my six-year-old friend Louisa

 

In order to do our best creative work, we need to find the right balance between mental absorption and letting go.

Silence, focus, and concentration are important. But too much introspection and self-awareness can get in the way of innovation. Research has found that when professional musicians and performers improvise on stage, their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex–the part of the mind that controls inhibitions–actually shuts down.

Self-consciousness is an enemy of creativity. Remember how exciting art class was in kindergarten when we had no inhibitions? But eccentricity, individuality, and creativity are discouraged and eventually “schooled” out of us. At some point, we all learn the so-called “rules” about art–rules about staying inside the lines, coloring in one direction, and choosing the “right” green crayon for a grassy lawn.

Lehrer’s research shows that ignoring such rules and allowing ourselves to be playful again is an essential ingredient for the creative life. As Yo-Yo Ma told Lehrer, we must welcome the first mistake, because the first mistake makes us free. To do our best creative work, we must be focused, but also relaxed and at ease in our own skin.

Yo-Yo Ma "tells this great story about Julia Child making a roast chicken...She was talking to the camera and the chicken would just fall off the plate, onto the floor. And he said, 'Did she make this look of horror? Did she scream? No, the smile never left her face. She picked up the chicken, dusted it off and just went on with the show.' -Jonah Lehrer

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The Sunday Poem : Jane Kenyon

March 18, 2012 in Sunday Poem, Words with 6 Comments

 

 

 

 

After an Illness, Walking the Dog

 

Wet things smell stronger,
and I suppose his main regret is that
he can sniff just one at a time.
In a frenzy of delight
he runs way up the sandy road—
scored by freshets after five days
of rain. Every pebble gleams, every leaf.

When I whistle he halts abruptly
and steps in a circle,
swings his extravagant tail.
Then he rolls and rubs his muzzle
in a particular place, while the drizzle
falls without cease, and Queen Anne’s lace
and Goldenrod bend low.

The top of the logging road stands open
and light. Another day, before
hunting starts, we’ll see how far it goes,
leaving word first at home.
The footing is ambiguous.

Soaked and muddy, the dog drops,
panting, and looks up with what amounts
to a grin. It’s so good to be uphill with him,
nicely winded, and looking down on the pond.

A sound commences in my left ear
like the sound of the sea in a shell;
a downward, vertiginous drag comes with it.
Time to head home. I wait
until we’re nearly out to the main road
to put him back on the leash, and he
—the designated optimist—
imagines to the end that he is free.

 

 

 

About Jane Kenyon

New Hampshire’s poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Jane Kenyon was noted for verse that probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as essayist Gary Roberts noted in Contemporary Women Poets, her poetry was “acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies.”

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kenyon spent her first two decades in the Midwest, attending the University of Michigan in her hometown through completion of her master’s degree in 1972. It was while she was a student at the University of Michigan that Kenyon met her future husband, the poet Donald Hall, who taught there. After her marriage, Kenyon moved with Hall to Eagle Pond Farm, a New Hampshire farm that had been in Hall’s family for generations and where she would spend the remainder of her life.

Poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon lived together at Eagle Pond Farm, a New Hampshire farm that had been in Hall’s family for generations. She spent the remainder of her life there until her untimely death at the age of 47.

Kenyon published only four volumes of poetry during her life: From Room to Room, The Little Boat, Let Evening Come, and Constance, and translated a volume of works by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Despite her relatively small output, her poetry was highly lauded by critics throughout her lifetime. As fellow poet Carol Muske remarked in the New York Times when describing Kenyon’s The Boat of Quiet Hours, “These poems surprise beauty at every turn and capture truth at its familiar New England slant. Here, in Keats’s terms, is a capable poet.” Indeed, Kenyon’s work has often been compared with that of English Romantic poet John Keats; Roberts dubbed her a “Keatsian poet” and noted that, “like Keats, she attempts to redeem morbidity with a peculiar kind of gusto, one which seeks a quiet annihilation of self-identity through identification with benign things.”

The cycles of nature held special significance for Kenyon, who returned to them again and again, both in her variations on Keats’s ode “To Autumn,” and in other pastoral verse. In Let Evening Come, her third published collection—and one that found the poet taking what Poetry essayist Paul Breslin called “a darker turn”—Kenyon explored nature’s cycles in other ways: the fall of light from day to dusk to night, and the cycles of relationships with family and friends throughout a long span of years brought to a close by death. Let Evening Come “shows [Kenyon] at the height of her powers,” according to Muske in a review of the 1990 volume for the New York Times Book Review, with the poet’s “descriptive skills . . . as notable as her dramatic ones. Her rendering of natural settings, in lines of well-judged rhythm and simple syntax, contribute to the [volume's] memorableness.”

Constance began Kenyon’s study of depression, and her work in this regard has been compared with that of the late poet Sylvia Plath. Comparing the two, Breslin wrote that “Kenyon’s language is much quieter, less self-dramatizing” than that of Plath, and where the earlier poet “would give herself up, writing her lyrical surrender to oblivion, . . . Kenyon fought to the end.” Breslin noted the absence of self-pity in Kenyon’s work, and the poet’s ability to separate from self and acknowledge the grief and emotional pain of others, as in her poems “Coats,” “Sleepers in Jaipur,” and “Gettysburg: July 1, 1863,” which imagines a mortally wounded soldier lying in wait for death on the historic battlefield.

In Otherwise, a posthumous collection containing twenty poems written just prior to her death as well as several taken from her earlier books, Kenyon “chronicles the uncertainty of living as culpable, temporary creatures,” according to Nation contributor Emily Gordon. As Muske added in the New York Times Book Review, Kenyon avoids sentimentality throughout Otherwise. “The poet here sears a housewife’s apron, hangs wash on the line, walks a family dog and draws her thought from a melancholy, ecstatic soul as if from the common well, ‘where the fearful and rash alike must come for water.’ In ecstasy,” Muske continued, Kenyon “sees this world as a kind of threshold through which we enter God’s wonder.”

 

“After an Illness, Walking the Dog” appears in Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon. Copyright © 2007 by Jane Kenyon. Used by permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved. Jane Kenyon biography courtesy The Poetry Foundation.

 

New England Artists Finally Get Their Due at the deCordova’s 2012 Biennial

March 14, 2012 in Events, Images with 2 Comments

 

Steve Lambert, "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False," 2011. Aluminum and electronics. 9 x 20 x 7 feet. Electronics by Alexander Reben (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

A few weeks ago I attended the opening for the 2012 deCordova Biennial, which is on view in Lincoln, Massachusetts, through April 22nd. This year curators Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman have created a regional Biennial that features the work of 23 New England artists.

As Greg Cook points out in his recent review, the one billion dollars that have been invested in expanding and endowing Boston’s museums over the past decade is finally paying off in a newly vigorous Boston contemporary art scene.

And yet, contemporary New England artists aren’t benefiting from this expanded exhibition space as much as one might expect. As an example, Cook cites the new contemporary wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, which “features big shots upstairs,” with locals “segregated out in a downstairs hall alongside art by Boston youth.” The deCordova Museum’s 2012 Biennial is a welcome remedy to this situation.

In an interview with WBUR, the two curators explain how they pored over portfolios, road-tripped across six states, and visited about 100 studios in order to choose the work featured in the show. As is typical of these types of group shows, both the press and the museum itself have been eager to prescribe common themes for the work.

A lot has been made about the 2012 Biennial being reflective of the larger anxiety currently being experienced in our culture. While I have no doubt that many people are feeling anxious right now, particularly artists struggling to make a living in a bad economy, forcing artists’ work into pre-determined categories only ends up feeling contrived in the end. There are some interesting parallels that can be made between specific art works, but let’s put the grand pronouncements aside for now, and allow these affinities to emerge organically from the work itself…

DeCordova curator Dina Deitsch and guest curator Abigail Ross Goodman pored over portfolios, road-tripped across six states, and visited about 100 studios in order to choose the work featured in the 2012 Biennial. (Courtesy photo via WBUR)

 

 

An interesting irony about Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False" is that he used Kickstarter to raise the money he needed to build the project. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False" is a fun, provocative way to engage visitors outside of the museum walls. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

 

 

Steve Lambert's sign will travel to various towns around Boston and the rest of the country. As an interactive project, the work asks viewers to cast a simple vote—a common act in the era of the Facebook “like” button. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

One of the highlights in the show is also the first piece visitors see. While darkness prevented me from enjoying the museum’s outdoor sculpture park on the night of the opening, Steve Lambert‘s Capitalism Works For Me! True/False was a fun, provocative way to engage visitors outside of the museum walls.

Although I’ve never met Lambert, I’ve been following his work for some time now, and always find his projects intriguing. Lambert is an artist interested in dialogue, particularly in the public sphere. He co-organizes workshops for artists and activists at the Center for Artistic Activism, gives lectures and performances, and examines advertising’s effect in public space with the Anti-Advertising Agency (an art group founded by the artist). In 2008, he led a collaboration with hundreds of volunteers circulating thousands of fake New York Times Special Edition newspapers that announced the end of the war in Iraq.

Sign making is also an integral part of Lambert’s art practice. An interesting irony about this particular project is that Lambert used Kickstarter to raise the money he needed to build Capitalism Works For Me! True/False. Lambert is in sync with the times and came up with the idea for his project before the Occupy movement ignited. The sign will travel to various towns around Boston and the rest of the country. As an interactive project, the work asks viewers to cast a simple vote—a common act in the era of the Facebook “like” button.

“I want my art to be relevant to those outside the gallery – say, at the nearest bus stop – to reach them in ways that are engaging and fun,” the artist explains on his website. “I intend what I do to be funny, but at the core of each piece there is also a solemn critique. It’s important to be able to laugh while actively questioning the various power structures at work in our daily lives.”

Capitalism Works For Me! True/False works on all of these fronts, and best of all it is provocative without being preachy. To my mind, Lambert’s art is the perfect combination of humor and gravitas. With Capitalism Works For Me! True/False Lambert harnesses the power of a simple question to make us think about a economic reality we typically take for granted in our daily lives.

Biennial artists Steve Lambert and Ven Voisey with Gavin Kroeber and Rebecca Uchill (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

 

 

Mary Lum, "Index 2." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 10" x 13" (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

 

 

An installation shot of Mary Lum's collages and photographs at the deCordova (Photo by Clements Photography & Design, Boston, Massachusetts, courtesy dailyserving.com)

The colorful, surreal collages of Mary Lum were another standout in the 2012 Biennial. For a start, Lum’s works are beautifully presented in tightly grouped white frames lining a long hallway. Placing Lum’s works in a corridor works well, for there is a real sense of movement in these pieces, which is only heightened by their placement.

I was not surprised to learn that Lum considers herself in the role of a latter-day flâneuse (a French term meaning stroller coined by Charles Baudelaire). Lum’s work owes something not only to Baudelaire, but also to Walter Benjamin’s unfinished Arcades Project, and to the concept of psychogeography as practiced by 1950s and 60s writers and artists of the Situationists International. At the root of psychogeography is the idea that we all experience our environments through intuition rather than cognitive organization.

Lum strolls around the city photographing the urban environment—buildings, railings, stairwells, and other architectural details. She then deconstructs these photos and collages them with acrylic paint, creating dynamic, unique spaces for viewers to occupy and explore. Lum’s images left me feeling both exhilarated and disoriented, as though I were in a dream where the environment was familiar, yet not quite right. What is fact and what is fiction? There’s no easy answer to this question when viewing a Mary Lum collage, and it’s this uncertainty that creates a fascinating tension.

Mary Lum, "Incident 1073." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 11" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

 

 

Artist Mary Lum (on right) with guests Monique Johannet and Harwood Egan (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

 

 

Mary Lum, "Fifth Glance." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 12" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

 

 

Mary Lum, "Seventh Glance." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 12" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

I also found the work of Chris Taylor absorbing. Although Taylor is a glassblower, he is as much a conceptual artist as a craftsman. For Taylor, process is often more important than product. The artist was born in Tehran, Iran, and now teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Taylor’s previous projects include SCHOTT Return (2003-10), in which Taylor fabricated a replica glass lab beaker with slight imperfections, which he then shipped to the SCHOT manufacturer as a flawed object for return. After receiving a new ‘perfect’ beaker from the factory, Taylor exhibited the two works side-by-side, challenging the viewer to reconsider what was “real.” For another project, Taylor learned how to reproduce a 16th century Venetian goblet (a technique that had been lost for over 500 years), and then planted his reproduction next to the original in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Taylor continues to play with the idea of authenticity in the Biennial. I love his collection of hand-blown glass cups made to look like cheap, throw-away styrofoam. Taylor’s video, Small Craft Advisory (2009), is also on view at the deCordova. For this danger-filled performance, Taylor blew glass in hot furnace while sitting in a seven-foot dinghy floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

"I love Chris Taylor's collection of handblown glass cups made to look like cheap, throw-away styrofoam." Chris Taylor, Untitled, 2004–2010, glass, dimensions variable (Photo courtesy Chris Taylor and the deCordova)

 

 

I circled Antoniadis & Stone's sculptures a number of times before I realized that what appeared to be aged metal, stone, and concrete was actually plaster, particle board, and paint. (Photo by Suzanne Kreiter for The Boston Globe via boston.com)

 

 

Anna Von Mertens, "Jupiter Rising, January 7, 1610, Padua, Italy," 2008. Hand-stitched, hand-dyed cotton, 54" x 100" (Photo courtesy Anna Von Mertens)

 

 

For "Jupiter Rising, January 7, 1610, Padua, Italy" Anna Von Mertens turned to the journals of Galileo for inspiration, mapping the night sky on the day that Galileo discovered Jupiter’s moons. (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

Illusion is also the theme of Alexi Antoniadis and Nico Stone’s large-scale sculptures. While not initially attracted to these industrial, slightly menacing works, something compelled me to continue looking. I circled Antoniadis & Stone‘s sculptures a number of times before I realized that what appeared to be aged metal, stone, and concrete was actually plaster, particle board, and paint. They are impressive fakes and once the visual joke is revealed the temptation to touch these pieces is overwhelming (though for the record, I didn’t). Luckily, the museum’s Process Room provides materials for viewers like myself who want a hands-on experience with the artists’ materials.
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Ai Weiwei : Creativity Is the Power to Act

March 11, 2012 in Design, Images, Process with 14 Comments

 

Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," 1995. Middle view of a triptych of gelatin silver prints, each print 49 5/8” x 39 1/4”. (Photo courtesy dailyserving.com)

 

Ai Weiwei, "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn," 1995. Last view of a triptych of gelatin silver prints, each print 49 5/8” x 39 1/4”. (Photo courtesy dailyserving.com)

 

Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009 has been good company the past few days. Between 2006 and 2009, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei used his blog as a daily notebook where he posted thousands of photos, documented his artistic practice and personal life, wrote about art and architecture, and turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary. Over 100,000 people visited the blog on a daily basis until the Chinese government shut Ai’s site down in 2009.

Ai Weiwei is a Renaissance man of sorts, with a broad range of interests. He is a writer, architect, sculptor, curator, poet, critic, publisher, and photographer. In the West, he is probably best known for his spectacular installation Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern in London. The work consisted of one hundred million porcelain “seeds,” each individually hand-painted by 1,600 Chinese artisans, and scattered over a large area of Turbine Hall.

 

In Ai Weiwei's "first large-scale solo exhibition to be held anywhere in the ethnic Chinese world," Taipei Fine Arts Museum's 'Ai Weiwei absent' was a critical success. The highlight was the artist's "Forever Bicycles" installation, which was made specifically for this exhibition out of 1,200 bicycle units. (Photo courtesy thisiscolossol.com)

 

Herzog and DeMeuron’s Olympic Stadium, fondly referred to by some as the “Bird’s Nest,” is a feat of engineering, an aesthetic marvel. Ai Weiwei served as a consultant on the project. (Photo courtesy Inhabitat.com)

 

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei holds some porcelain sunflower seeds from his installation at The Tate Modern in London on October 11, 2010. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images courtesy The Asia Society)

Ai is also a self-taught architect and proponent of authentic, simple design. He has worked on over 70 architectural projects total, including a notable collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron , which resulted in the memorable “Bird’s Nest” stadium for the Beijing Olympics

Recently, Ai has been making headlines for other reasons. On April 3, 2011, the artist was arrested at Peking Airport just before catching a flight to Hong Kong. Around 50 police officers searched Ai’s studio and took away laptops and hard drives. Police also detained eight staff members and Ai’s wife, Lu Qing. The arrest sparked major protests around the world. On 22 June 2011, the Chinese authorities released him on bail after close to three months’ detention on charges of tax evasion. He is prohibited from leaving Beijing without permission for one year.

Ai Weiwei with musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou in the elevator when taken in custody by the police, Sichuan, China, August 2009 (Photo courtesy Ai Weiwei and Christine König Galerie)

 

One thousand and one antique Chinese chairs for the 1,001 Chinese visitors Ai Weiwei brought to Kassel, Germany, for Documenta 12 (2007) as part of his project, "Fairytale." (Photo Courtesy Ai Weiwei via pbs.org)

 

Artist Cpak Ming took a series of photographs of flash stencils around Hong Kong after the arrest of Ai Weiwei. The photographer received a firm warning from the Chinese government after photographing this piece of flash graffiti on the side of the People’s Liberation Army barracks in Admiralty, Hong Kong. Next to Ai's Weiwei's face are the words: "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" (Photo by Cpak Ming courtesy mymodernmet.com)

In his art practice, Ai has actively embraced technology. “I think the Internet and information era is the greatest period mankind has encountered,” Ai told Hans Ulrich Obrist in the book Ai Weiwei Speaks. “Thanks to this period, humans finally have the opportunity to become independent, to acquire information and communicate independently…I think that art won’t have too grand or too much of a future if it fails to connect with today’s lifestyles and technologies.”

For Ai, virtual reality is as important as reality itself. He believes that all art is social in its way and  that technology can bolster the power and reach of art, particularly in oppressed societies. Ai’s first blog post was one sentence: “You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.”

In 2007 Ai used his blog to create a compelling work titled Fairytale. Using the internet, he recruited 1,001 Chinese people who had never been to Europe to wander around the town of Kassel Germany during Documenta. As someone who spent 12 years in New York City, Ai understood the power of travel and hoped Fairytale would change the lives of those 1,001 individuals who made the trip to Europe.
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The Sunday Poem : Nick Flynn

March 4, 2012 in Sunday Poem, Words with 3 Comments

 

Poet Nick Flynn's memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" is the basis of the new film "Being Flynn" (Photo © Geordie Wood)

 

I’ve been a long-time admirer of the writer Nick Flynn. Unlike some writers who struggle to find their subject matter, Nick has had more than his fair share of life experience–the kind that can either eat a writer alive or supply a writer with an entire career’s worth of memorable material.

Nick has worked as a ship’s captain, an electrician, and as a case-worker with homeless adults. His parents divorced when he was young and his mother committed suicide when he was 22. He drifted through several jobs before starting work at a homeless shelter in Boston, where at age twenty-seven, he met his estranged, homeless father for the first time.

As a teenager, Nick had received letters from this stranger, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior used to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other.

The memoir has been adapted into a new film by Paul Weitz (About a Boy), with Flynn serving as an advisor and executive producer. Being Flynn stars Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Julianne Moore, and Lili Taylor, who is married to Nick.

For today’s Sunday Poem, I thought I’d share one of my favorite works from Nick’s debut collection, Some Ether. When the book won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the judges said, “These poems establish their emotional authority through their very movement—their wayward, whispering music. At once reckless and demure, outrageous and delicate…”

 

 

 

 

Cartoon Physics, part 1

 

Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down — earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas

where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump

you will be saved. A child

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
& drives across a city of sand. She knows

the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall

until he notices his mistake.

 

 

 

 

About Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn (Photo by Dion Ogust)

Poet and memoirist Nick Flynn was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, on Boston’s South Shore, in 1960. His debut poetry collection, Some Ether (2000), won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. Most of the poems in Some Ether focus on Flynn’s tumultuous family life and include a detached yet affecting look at childhood and trauma. Having written about his family in both poetry and prose, Flynn has said, “The way I write I don’t see much distinction between the two, although prose seems more suited to daylight, and poetry to night. I try to cook both down to something essential—by the end hopefully some balance between mystery and clarity remains.”

Nick Flynn’s most recent book is The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands (2011), a collection of poems that are linked to his latest memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb (2010), which the Los Angeles Times calls a “disquieting masterpiece.”

His previous memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, was shortlisted for France’s Prix Femina, and has been translated into fourteen languages. He is also the author of a play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins (2008), as well as two other books of poetry, Some Ether (2000), and Blind Huber (2002), for which he received fellowships from, among other organizations, The Guggenheim Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, and The Library of Congress.

 

 

Some of the venues his poems, essays and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, The Paris Review, National Public Radio’s This American Life, and The New York Times Book Review. His film credits include artistic collaborator and “field poet” on the film Darwin’s Nightmare (nominated for an Academy Award for best feature documentary in 2006), as well as executive producer and artistic collaborator on Being Flynn, the film version of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (from Focus Features, directed by Paul Weitz, starring Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, and Julianne Moore).

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