That's Not Art - Broken Area Podcast

This week, Mark has some bad news, he lost a dear friend, Ben Portis.  Luckily, Mark had a chance to spend some time with his friend back in April. They went to see an orchestra. To his family, colleagues, friends, and all the artists who knew him,  we wish to offer our deepest regrets on this tragic loss.

http://canadianart.ca/features/ben-portis-1960-2017/

In this episode, Isabelle has a conversation with a musician friend from Toronto.

Sam was the co-owner of the Gore Street Café, in Sault Ste. Marie (2015-2016). In this episode, I reconnect with him through the magic of social media. He talks a little bit about some of the shows he saw recently in Toronto; Jessica Karuhanga does performances based on dance and projections (see link below.) Sam has a very experimental side to his artmaking. He blogs and podcasts on Instagram. He plays music and hosts open mic nights at the Belljar Café. I talked to him a bit about the Dawaa Dazhi Gallery and a little bit and my summer activities. I feel happy to have had a conversation with Sam, he is always full of surprises. I think he laughs a little bit at my old fashioned ways.... haha! That's ok, he's allowed. 

Intro song: Stargazing by Sam Decter, 2015. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND41Rs8PnjQ

https://www.instagram.com/sa_me_di/

http://www.belljarcafe.com/

http://boxesofboom.blogspot.ca/2016/

https://soundcloud.com/sam-e-m-decter

https://vimeo.com/184163619

Why are clowns so creepy? It could be the ambiguity we feel about these characters, are they safe or not? Is it the fact that the brain is wired to find average features attractive and therefore trustworthy? Is it something learned socially about jesters and characters that have populated our childhoods ? Maybe all of this together ? However, Cirque du Soleil clowns are not as scary.  Making art 24\7 is not necessarily my choice, I do make a lot, maybe not up to the point of some artists. Cindy Sherman creates staged photography. She transforms herself to create different moods, with a vacant look in her eyes, inspired by the women in advertising around her in the 60's and 70's. 

https://art21.org/artist/cindy-sherman/

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s5/transformation/

Micheal Snow and Richard Prince, two artists who have a different idea of intellectual property. 

Snow VS Eaton, read about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_v_Eaton_Centre_Ltd

Read about Richard Prince here: http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/richard-prince--june-12-2015

Intro music: Bob Marley, Three Little Birds.

Christoph Niemann talks about his work and his process. He designed many of the magazine The New Yorker front covers. There is a new series on Netflix Abstract : The Art of Design which we are watching. We talk about when is the time when kids start not drawing emotionally and instinctively but according to standards set by whoever around them. Why is it that they are not encouraged to continue along that line. As usual, our conversations take on a meandering of its own.  (PS a little scratchy here and there.)

Abstract: The Art of Design   https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80057883

Christoph NIemann :  http://www.christophniemann.com/

We watched an Art21 movie on three artists.  Katarina Grosse makes gigantic sculptural paintings involving trees, dirt, and the space of the art gallery itself.  Joan Jonas makes performance drawings involving dancers, musicians, and herself in her installations. Omer Fast makes experimental/journalistic-like movies about Drone Pilots or Porn Actors. We agree that performance art is problematic. Becoming the body that is viewed as the art is a little bit problematic. Where is the line? How much of that happens out of peer pressure? My definition of art is pretty broad and I would not say performance is "not art" however, I would definitely say that I cannot engage in it the same way that I would with physical space. 

http://www.art21.org/artists/katharina-grosse

Mark suggested we watched Diana Al-Hadid, a young artist of Syrio-american artist on Art21. Al-Hadid gives a tour of the Venice Biennale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZ9B5L_5vY .

I worked on self-publishing my paintings in a book, it's not perfect but it's cute. http://www.blurb.com/b/7656667-kow-and-zibra

Happy New Year and Bonne Année 2017

Mark did some computer programming and he liked that, it's a creative program solving that he likes. Stan Douglas of Vancouver brings us inside the old neighbourhood he grew up in. He did a show called "Les détroits" of photography and prints of Detroit. He is focussed on Urban Decay.  Diana Thater produces installations that are movie based, or influenced by film. Abstraction in film for her is abstraction of time. Diana Thater builds a maquette, she photographs the animals that she displays.

As viewers of videos on the Art21 website, we are really fascinated with the process of art making. As viewers we are seeing the complete arc of artmaking from the development of ideas in the studio to the actual installation of the pieces, to interviews with the artists during the exhibition. Immersive installations because they involve all the senses and the space require so much knowledge and also so much money to get the right kind of equipment, they might not be the easiest thing to get into. However... it can be done!

Opening song: Ratatat Loud Pipes

Photo : Diana Thater, Knots and Surfaces (2001)

For more information on all these awesome videos we are talking about:  www.art21.org

Today we watched the Art21 website and we both picked an artist to view and we discussed these artists. Mark went for the work of Matthew Barney who made a film series called "The Cremaster" which he started in 1995. I believe he made 4 movies based on his study of Male Sexuality.  We also watched Liz Magor talk about her gloves that she is casting and we saw an aluminum house on stilts in Coal Harbour British Columbia. Amazing work. Matthew Barney's work, I must admit to not understanding and it almost seems like the biggest extension of a man's ego I have ever seen, short of the Trump Tower... but maybe I am missing the point. Who knows? 

Opening Theme: Blink 182 I miss you

Image: Liz Magor Being this 2012 http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/liz-magor/works/#25

Pixels and technology have inundated our lives. Charles Baudelaire said that urban living or the city was  "an immense reservoir of electric energy." in his essay "The Painter of Modern Life" (1863).  In the rise of industrialisation and mechanisation,  "the eye was never allowed to rest." (Geiger, Rutsky, 2005) The same anxieties felt in the fin du siècle are mirrored in the Twenty-First Century whenever we talk about technology.  Bombarded by pixels and movies, video games, apps, memes, pinterest images and instagram, the pixel is ubiquitous. Mark and I are still on that topic!! Join in, anytime you feel! Drop me a line at [email protected]

Intro song by Félix Leclerc, Hymne au printemps 

Photo: Isabelle Michaud Une journée dans la vie de Madame Michaud