Saturday 4th February 2012
Studien nach der Natur (Studies After Nature) by German artist Bergbauer is an archive of 665 photographs of 152 different rock forms that were found at the roadside. Bergbauer photographed them from various perspectives and arranged them, by “form and applicability.” Each of the plates are presented on solid off white backgrounds and are based on the compositional criteria of the form of the object and positioning of the objects within Bergbauer’s defined space.
Waito’s small oil paintings on masonite, measuring roughly 5x6 inches, of crystals and minerals are absolutely stunning. The renderings demand a double take to see if they are photos because of the meticulous detail and depth of field. These are from the series “Little Crowns” shown at Narwhal Art Projects in Toronto last year.
An absolutely amazing project, Raw Color is a collaboration between designers Christoph Brach and Daniera ter Haar in Holland. They dismantle and purify vegetables to their visual essence ‘raw color’. The harvested color is captured by a new process preserving their intensity on color cards. Categorized by shades and families a new map is created which shows their beautiful diversity. This projects reinterprets the vegetable and puts it into new context.
Link: http://www.rawcolor.nl/
We don’t know much about Jan Maarten Voskuil, other than he is Dutch, and we love this series of work “There is no point”.
In 1970, Andy Warhol purchased a Polaroid Big Shot camera, a clunky piece of machinery that had a fixed focal length of just three feet. With his characteristic voracity, he turned his new toy on everyone, from the famous – Muhammad Ali, Georgia O’Keeffe, Blondie, and seen here Grace Jones and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – to the completely anonymous. Most of Warhol’s Polaroids were used as studies for eventual silk-screen portraits. The artist would cover his subjects’ faces in white kabuki-like makeup to conceal wrinkles and blemishes. He intended his Polaroids to serve as time-capsule glimpses of a specific era—namely, the ‘70s and early ‘80s when he was at the height of his fame.
We are sad to hear that Dennis Hopper has died at the age of 74 following a battle with prostate cancer. Known for such cult classics as Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and–our favourite–Blue Velvet, Hopper embodied the image of the Hollywood icon. He was also a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor. His photography is known for portraits from the 1960s. His painting style ranged from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often included references to his cinematic work and to other artists. He began working as a painter and a poet as well as a collector of art in the 1960s, particularly Pop Art. One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans bought for $75.
We were lucky enough to go to a talk last night by artist Corin Hewitt who has been working in Dorsch Gallery over a period of two weeks to make a series of still life photographs of flower arrangements using microwave ovens to dry flowers. The arrangements combine seasonal flowers from Vermont and Florida, as well as other objects. The performance is sadly over but the prints will be up in the gallery for a while and are well worth a visit. This print was our particular favourite; incredible lighting, colour, and composition.