Utah Rocks (and more rocks)

Monument Valley in the rain

Straddling the corner of Utah and Arizona, Monument Valley lies mostly within the Navajo Nation. The scenery has become iconic thanks to John Ford's westerns and Ansel Adam's photos of the area. The day we visited the valley it was raining sporadically, and the classic reds and golds had become muted, the azure skies dramatic shades of grey. So here is a view not many see of Monument Valley, as it rains only a few times a year. 

More old and new walls in Montreal

This is a postscript to a note from last month, about the imprints and layers contained in city walls. Someone else also liked the traces of old structures left on new buildings, as seen is this parking lot on rue Saint Xavier in Montreal's Vieux Port neighborhood. Click on the photos to get a clearer view of the bricked-up windows. Across the street in another parking lot is a less intentional roof imprint:

Tout se transforme at the Quebec Triennale

Judging from the Triennale at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, 38 artists in Quebec have been having quite a lot of fun for the past three years.

Adad Hannah's tableaux vivants in the Prado (see kissing photo above)use Valazquez's Las Meninas as a backdrop. The work includes video, photos, and a glimpse inside the making of (which destroys the mystery of the images a little in my opinion).

For pure viewing pleasure, I liked two photo installations: Chih-Chien Wang's smoky water themed photos of goldfish and Niagra Falls and Nicolas Baier's luminous black monolith of mirrors.

I have never laughed harder in a museum than in Karen Tam's installation, a cosy karaoke chamber composed of comfy cushions, paper cutouts, a microphone and a tv screen on which were shown various videos of English and French songs dubbed into Mandarin (not sure) and subtitled for your singalong pleasure in French, English, and possibly Cree(again, not sure...). you can view the videos here, but the experience is not at all the same.

a painter's painter

Lucian Freud is one of my all time favorite painters, although I have only seen a few of his paintings in real life.

I've seen a show of his etchings before, but missed the one at the MOMA in New York which has a good online catalog.

FOUND Magazine

Being somewhat of a treasure hunter (although I usually limit myself to broken jewelry and images I can collage - see previous post) I am a big fan of FOUND Magazine. People send in photos, drawings, and text that they find on the street which are then published daily on the website. My all time favorite is "You park like an asshole asshole," but there are many other hilarious and mysterious gems.

book of fragments and collage

These are from a recently completed book of collaged paper materials that I collected in a box for a year. My favorites are facing pages that interact with each other. Here are a few examples (best viewed on Firefox for some reason).

New Roadsworth street stencils

A couple of years ago a renegade street artist known as Roadsworth was getting in a lot of trouble for his creative additions to the Montreal street scape. A crosswalk became a row of birthday candles, the dotted yellow line in the middle of the street became a zipper, and streetlights sprouted electric plugs. For some reason there was a big fuss about all this, and it's been a while since I've seen any of his "public mischief".

The new batch that appeared recently on rue Ste. Catherine looks somehow sanctioned in a way, slightly more socially concious and slightly less amusing for amusement's sake. One of my favorite is this vegetable garden, with plant markers reading "Trottoir genetiquement modifie" (genetically modified sidewalk). Nearby an alligator crawls out of the sewer, a trio of vultures waits for shoppers to drop, and the an intersection box (as in "don't block the box") becomes a swimming pool.

Visual notes to myself

This is a selection of photos that I have taken as visual notes to myself. I take pictures of colors, patterns, and compositions that I want to remember but don't have the opportunity to draw on the spot.

Old and new walls in Montreal

There's a lot of ongoing construction in the Place des Arts area (a.k.a. the Fur District) in Montreal. My favorite construction site has a backdrop of impromtu street art. While admiring the spray paint work, I noticed the ghost of a previous building, which left its trace on another building (which i'm pretty sure is historically protected) . I saw in an art and design magazine that there is another building like this in Montreal's Old Port, where the trace of the old building is accentuated with brick and stonework. Anyone know where this is? I'm on the lookout for it... meanwhile, here's a selection of the new additions to the wall:


Some good faces in this one.

I like the unfinished sketch at the top of this panel. It adds to the feeling of the space as a process.

(Thanks to Mu for the generous loan of his photos)

CUBA! at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

I just saw the exuberant exhibition of Cuban art in at the Montreal MFA, and was impressed by the way the art and history of the island were interwoven so cohesively. The show ranges from landscapes of sugarcane and sea, to political posters, to the journalistic photos of Walker Evans, to contemporary video installations and the collectively painted Salon de mai mural (1967) (see below). It explores various notions of "cubanidad", on both the personal and national level.

A common theme was the insularity of Cuba, and the importance of the sea in identity. This idea is expressed very well in the poem "La isla en peso" ("The Weight of the Island") by the poet Virgilio Pinera:

"...sintiendo como el agua lo rodea por todas partes/ mas abajo, mas abajo, y el mar picando en sus espaldas/ un pueblo permanece junto a su bestia en la hora de partir/ aullando en el mar, devorando frutas, sacrificando animales/ siempre mas abajo, hasta saber el peso de su isla/ el peso de una isla en el amor de un pueblo."

As a frequent visitor to Canada from the south, I was surprised by the lack of politics surrounding the show, and the true focus on the art (appropriate for a museum, I suppose). What did remind me of the political side was the fact that I was unfamiliar with most of the artists represented (Maria Madelena Compos-Pons was not included)such as the Cuban-born French painter Wilfredo Lam.

Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today
at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Until June 8, 2008

Sarah Malakoff, photographer

I make notes of artists whose work I like to return to for visual inspiration, and Sarah Malkoff is one. Here's a few interiors from her website. Some recurrent themes are empty chairs, patterns, quirky spaces, and unexpected details. I find her sense of color to be very delicate and somewhat unexpected, and the stillness to be engaging rather than chilly.

Henry Payer Jr. at AIAI, Santa Fe

I absolutely love this painting by Henry Payer Jr., a student graduating from AIAI in Santa Fe. The painting is in the senior show at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum. I like the use of the "noble savage" stereotyped pose but without romanticizing the subject. The body and background are flattened, while the face is sculptural. In his artist statement he talks about the importance of color in the religion of the Hochunk (a.k.a. Winnebago) tribe, and symbolism. I have since seen some of his other work and it's impressive.I'll try and post some here if I can get permission from the artist.

The Dana-Thomas House

The Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's first commissions. It contains a lot of unique features, such Wright's only hanging glass window (beautiful but not functional), his only animal art glass motif (a butterfly, probably requested by the patron) and a semi-prominent entrance (again, probably as per his patron's request). It's also one of the only building of his on which the roof does not leak. ;)
The plaster frieze was destroyed by the elements but restored to its original glory when the plaster mold was found in the basement. The plaster is glazed with several colors and looks like aged copper or stamped tile. The signature geometric art glass is inspired by the sumac plant, a decorative emblem that appears elsewhere throughout the house, such as in the mural in the dining room.

Because of copyright issues, cameras were confiscated at the door of the house, so you'll have to go there to see the interior yourself.

White Sands National Monument

Another equally surreal place in New Mexico is White Sands National Monument, which consists of 270 or so miles of lunar landscapes. It makes you feel as small as you really are, which encouraged sledding and sand angels on our part.


At sunset the shadows of the dunes change color every few minutes. The electric blue was a good one:
I've read (but have not confirmed) that the park is open til 11 on nights with a full moon. You can also camp there.

The Surreal becomes Real - Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is AMAZING. It's pretty difficult to capture on film, but I got a few images I like. Next time (when I'm less nervous about hanging out in a cave) I'm going to draw down there. It's AMAZING. seriously.

The Art of Ruins and How the West is One at the MFA Santa Fe

This diminutive sculpture by Charles Simonds is hidden in the corner of the courtyard at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Conservators are not allowed to go near it, and it is gathering dust and cobwebs until one day it will decay. (I'm guessing the museum is counting on this event happening to their investment later rather than sooner.

The museum shows work by artists who worked or work in New Mexico, the most well known being Georgia O'Keefe and Marsden Hartley.


A current exhibition "How the West is One" (until April 20, 2010) shows the union, rather than the splintering, of the three main cultural influences in the state: hispanic, american indian, and anglo.

Junkyard Bugs - Carrizozo, New Mexico

Southern New Mexico is becoming a haven for working artists who don't mind living the simple life (and occasionally being viewed as satanists). The town of Carrizozo boasts a few galleries, studios, and some un-controversial public art. This was my favorite of the bunch. Click on the photo to see the detail better.

20 to Watch - Austin Museum of Art

I went to see a group exhibition of new art at the Austin Museum of Art in Texas. The show represented the work of twenty local (or semi-local?) artists, and this is a brief glance at my three favorites.
Sarah Sudhoff 's "Repository" series of photographs documents her diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer.

Yoon Cho 's 3 minute performance video "Hair" shows the artist and her husband getting the same haircut, exploring the process of assimilation.


Jules Buck Jones 's deliciously surfaced alligator drawings, positively prehistoric in scale, play with classical drawing, and semi-abstract pattern making.

An excellent show, and I'm always happy to see art I might not get to otherwise.

20 to Watch at the Austin Museum of Art (until May 11, 2008)