oh you who sighs

oh you who sighs

may god give you relief

oh you who sighs

be patient amid your sighs

be patient amid your days of loneliness

time will pass and you will fall in love

oh you who sighs

your nights are long

and sadness makes them even longer

time becomes etched in your face

oh you who sighs

may god give you relief

oh you who sighs


//

c h a i n l e t t e r

the chain seems to have been broken. the SF show is BS. 

i cursed the gallery using hoodoo magic. and that was my piece.

c h a i n l e t t e r

my good new jersian friend stephen wuensch recently asked me to participate in chain letter 2011, a group show taking place in more than ten cities across the world, organized through a chain letter.

originated by christian cummings and doug harvey in 2006, the show will potentially include thousands of artists in simultaneous exhibition. with invitations dispensed based on feelings of 'admiration', it activates the idea of community as a living support system — jumping borders, mediums, and experience, and drawing attention to the important value of friends and champions. in time i hope to say more about those i passed my letter to.

meanwhile, come to the opening at noma gallery if you're in san francisco on saturday july 16th. 5 to 8 pm. i hope to see you there!

i n d e p e n d e n c e !

open at the people's gallery! pick up a card.

k o p f b a u b a s e l

"e-flux has been invited to develop a special project for the Kopfbau (head building) — the oldest building in the Messeplatz complex, slated for demolition later this year. In response to this invitation, artists Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle developed a constellation of projects situated somewhere between exhibitions of art and the concrete forms of sociality encountered in everyday life. 

Conceived as an independent universe with its own bar, hotel, shops, admissions, and so forth, this project operates in parallel, and as the inverse to the neighboring art fair: operating during alternative hours and in surprising and often paradoxical ways, and ranging in scope from the educational to playfully predatory and mercantile."

among its components is the agency of unrealized projects (AUP), an e-flux project in collaboration with the serpentine gallery, julieta aranda, hans ulrich obrist, julia peyton-jones and anton vidokle:

"Unlike unrealized architectural projects, which are frequently exhibited and circulated, unrealized artworks tend to remain unnoticed or little known. But perhaps there is another form of artistic agency in the partial expression, the incomplete idea, the projection of a mere intention? Agency of Unrealized Projects (AUP) seeks to document and display these works, in this way charting the terrain of a contingent future. 

Though the state of being unrealized implies the potential for realization, not all projects are intended to be carried out. In other instances, artists deliberately leave works incomplete, to record very interesting "failures" or experiments. Other planned projects involve consciously utopian, non-utilitarian, and conceptual spaces that were not made available for realization. Whether censored, forgotten, postponed, impossible, or rejected, unrealized projects form a unique testament to the speculative power of non-action.

if you happen to visit the AUP at art basel, you might find my proposal for INCEPTION: a theatrical installation based on christopher nolan's inception (a time-bending phenomenon described by a.o. scott), kierkegaard's figure of christ, boris groy's essay 'on the new', and emeryville's AMC baystreet theatre.

to be clear — even i can't be certain my proposal is there. if not, call it an unrealized unrealized unrealized project.

T H I S I S N O T T H I S I S S A N F R A N C I S C O

the bruce high quality foundation university open critique and lu magnus art laboratory + salon present a night of conversation, exhibition, and peer critique with fawad khan, chitra ganesh + a special project by the the san francisco based collective, PRACTICE: erin klenow, nick sung, and najeeb tarazi. the night is curated by stephen wuensch and paris ionescu. come by, if you're in new york!

open critique is a monthly group that discusses the work of emerging and established artists, meeting in borrowed spaces in new york, and working through bruce u — a free, unaccredited, artist-run university. lu magnus is a salon-style gallery that seeks to expand upon the functions of a traditional art gallery, questioning and exploring the idea of what art is.

learn more about the event, learn more about the bhqfu, and learn more about the open critique class.

friday, april 29th, 7 - 9 pm

lu magnus art laboratory + salon

55 hester street, new york

T E A C H 4 A M E R I K A

Teach 4 Amerika by The Bruce High Quality Foundation

on april 28th, the bruce high quality foundation arrives in san francisco on the western leg of their national tour, Teach 4 Amerika – a polemic against the failures of contemporary art education, and a call for creative counteraction. In 11 cities across the country bruce is initiating rallies and conversations, inviting students, administrators, and artists to engage in a dialogue about local art school practices, problems, successes, needs, and desires.

PRACTICE is collaborating with southern exposure to host Bruce's conversation, and looking to provide an understanding of the regional context that they're engaging with; the dialogue is national, but what are the bay area's unique challenges and opportunities, difficulties and innovations?

we're renting, drawing, writing, deflating, editing, projecting and recording things, hoping to facilitate an urgent and important conversation. visit southern exposure for more details or to attend!

attend the bruce rally at SFAI on april 27th //
and the conversation at SOEX on april 28th //

learn more about The Bruce High Quality Foundation
+ Teach 4 Amerika

e x e r c i s e . a t . s t e n d h a l g a l l e r y

i was recently invited to participate in a fluxus happening at stendhal gallery in new york, celebrating founder george maciunas, in two 'fluxhibitions', Mapping Macuinas and Exercise. the first examines the 'learning machines' maciunas developed to explore the correlations between historical movements in art and history—elaborate charts and diagrams of chronological causality—and the second investigates the idea that the themes at the center of fluxus are long lived, widespread and based on a concision as open ended as it is exact.

among the artists represented in Exercise are george brecht, la monte young, chieko shiomi, yoko ono, ken friedman, hans richter, giussepe chiari, nam jun paik, and robert filliou, as well as works by contemporary artists john robert moore, narumi iyama and harry stendhal, and my friends nicole demby and david bernstein who will be performing a 'conversation' at the event.

for my part, i recently stumbled upon—which is to say accidentally reinvented—the event score, a core contribution of george brecht, a research chemist, artist, and close friend of allan kaprow, robert watts, and john cage in the late 1950's. often a set of concise instructions, the event score helped push the artwork away from the world of physical objects and into the realm of thought, action, and life. installed in Exercise are a series of drawings i composed over the summer. if you're in new york tonight, please stop by!

Mapping Macuinas and Exercise february 3rd, 6:00—9:00pm

STENDHAL GALLERY 545 West 20th Street New York, NY 10011 

for more information, including an essay by nicole, click here.

p o w e r s . o f . t e n

PRACTICE has released a series of short films in celebration of the Eames Office's Powers of Ten, an exploration of logarithmic scale and the relative size of things in the universe. Over nights and weekends filming and editing we developed a few short reflections on the power of relating two things, the applied nature of order, and the human perspective at the heart of objective science.

This coincides with CORE77's Powers of Ten film challenge, for which participants have been asked to respond to the original film through reinterpretation, mashup, tribute, reflection, and love letter. Judges for this competition include Paola Antonelli, from the Museum of Modern Art, and Eames Demetrios, grandson of Ray and Charles Eames.

The work of the Eames Office, and the design philosophy of Ray and Charles has been a seminal influence over the years, and it's a privilege to have the opportunity to honor their insightful, generous, human achievements. Many thanks to Martin Jankowiak, Erin Klenow, and Najeeb Tarazi, for nice walks, early mornings, late nights, beautiful thoughts, and all the care and commitment required of that.

Enjoy our films here and here and here.
Thanks! PRACTICE