Artist Statements

I've long thought that artist statements can make or break a piece. So many times a piece of art can be made much more interesting by knowing more about it. Today's 20x200 piece is an example of the opposite of that.

http://www.20x200.com/art/2010/10/untitled-from-the-series-owner-of-this-world.html

The Center for Fine Art Photography

My Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. image has been selected for an exhibition called New Normal at The Center for Fine Art Photography in Ft. Collins, CO. 750 images were submitted and 50 were chosen. (Yay, me!)

The juror was Edward Robinson who is the Associate Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He was also the former Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow in the Dept. of Photography at MoMA and curated a bunch of shows there. Wow!

Museum Collection!

I've made it into my first major museum collection! Last night was the first annual Gift of Gift of event where people could vote on photographs to be purchased and donated to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. An image from my How I Will Die series was on display and was one of the 8 chosen for purchase. YAY!! So, barring something going wrong (knock on wood) in the aquisition process, I'm in. Woo! I'm gonna be famous now.

Thank you soooo much to my friends, family and complete strangers who came and voted for me. I love you guys!

Vote for Kristy

Come vote me into the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston collection!

Cremaster Cycle

This weekend, I went to see the Cremaster Cycle by Matthew Barney at the Dobie Theatre in Austin. The cycle consists of 5 films that total about 7 hours and is mostly about testicals. Like the art nerd that I am, I took diligent notes during the show. I thought I’d share my thoughts on each and some of my crazy notes.

Cremaster 1 alternated between 2 blimps and a football field with dancers on it. Inside the blimps were tables with a lady underneath. The lady would arrange grapes into patterns and the dancers on the football fields would make the same formations.

Crazy notes taken during film:

“White tablecloth, testicle looking sculpture, green grapes”

“Giant lady under table digs hole in table and gets grapes”

“Grapes fall out of shoe”

Cremaster 2 was my least favorite. It had a ton of different stuff going on and none of it seemed to connect. First there was a couple and an older lady at a table. Then there was sex with lots of bees. When the guy pulled out, the end of his penis was a beehive. Then there a crazy drummer covered in bees and 2 Ford Mustangs connected with a tunnel. Then a guy got shot and some cowboys dance. It was weird.

Some of my favorite notes from this one include:

“Woman puts yellow powder on inner thigh”

“Beehive in end of sex penis”

“Man in car has red swollen eyes”

“Dancing man and woman in cowboy hats around saddle in old walled room”

“Stuffed goat inside giant log cabin”

“Houdini becomes part of cage”

Cremaster 3 is the only one that I had seen part of before. In grad school, we watched a section where Matthew Barney must get through different obstacles to get to the top of the Guggenheim. I really liked the part I had seen so this is the reason why I wanted to watch the whole thing. This film actually wound up being my second to least favorite. The whole film was 2 main sections: ascending the Chrysler building and ascending the Guggenheim and a small section involving cave men.

Weird notes:

“Giant caveman east mice and has gold finger”

“Cars crash into car with dirt lady inside”

“Silver dressed lady in room with potatoes and cat”

“Wrinkled rubber tube comes out of his butt, teeth and goo flow from tube”

“Serra throws melted Vaseline”

Cremaster 4 was my favorite of the 5. It was also the first one of the cycle that he made. It flashed between Mathew Barney dressed as a satyr tap dancing his way through a building on the end of a pier and a drag race between two phallic shaped motorcycles with sidecar. Barney taps so much in one spot that he creates a whole in the floor and falls through into the ocean. Then he finds himself in a narrow goo filled tunnel that he must crawl through. The film ends with a shot of his crotch with clips attached the area where his balls should be. The clips have ribbons coming off them that are attached to each of the motorcycles.

Favorite notes from this one include:

“Slime balls come out of racing outfits”

“Wheel with balls goes onto blue racer”

“Barney buried in white pearls then white goo”

“Crotch with clamps and strings”

Cremaster 5 consisted of an opera singer and under water fairy nymphs. There was also Matthew Barney with another crotch prosthetic. At the end, there were ribbons attached to his crotch and birds flying away with the other ends. There was also a guy on a horse that jumped off a bridge in the end.

Crazy notes:

“Red guards uncover pink ribbon man’s face”

“Black cloak male is nude with large white belt thing”

“Vaginal hole under opera sings leads to hole”

“Nude man, no penis, only balls, petals on legs”

“Pink ribbon guy gets to end of stage and melts”

“Underwater fairies kiss man and put ball in his mouth”

“Goo from opera lady’s mouth drips into pool”

Anyway, I’m really glad I got to see the whole thing. I feel like a more complete artist now.

How I Will Die and Everything has its Place

It was a busy art weekend. In addition to going to a two day class to learn Lightroom, I went to two fun receptions. The first was my own show, How I Will Die. It was actually a closing for us. I organized the show and I am super happy with how it turned out. Here's me with my work.

The artists in the show were: (from left to right) Laura J. Bennett, Jennifer L. F. McNichols, David McClain, Rachel Hewlett, me, An Nguyen, Emily Peacock and Matthew Manalo.

On Saturday, the UH seniors had their senior show. Most of this group was in the very first class I taught at UH so it was really cool to see what they've made since then. Here are some of them. Thanks to Monica Kressman for letting me gank her images from her facebook page to use here.

Charlotte Boman

Dena Wallace

Rowan Bigham

Stephanie Gobea

How I Will Die - THIS FRIDAY!

Don't forget! This Friday is a reception for the group show I'm participating in in conjunction with Fotofest 2010 called "How I Will Die." The reception will be Friday, March 26 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at the Annex Gallery at HCC-SW. The address is 13645 Murphy Road, Suite 250, Stafford, Texas. Hope to see you there!