The Return of Photographs

January 15th, 2012 § 0 comments

The final months of 2011 were good for writing, and good for my photography. Prolifically shooting while in South America, switching between lenses I borrowed that allowed me much more freedom than my own kit lens, I finally had a reason to edit and publish my images—I’d promised my editor a few art related photo essays while on vacation. It was an excuse, really, to do what I would have done anyway, and that extra motivation I need to get the images edited and published. I’m thinking of turning all my vacations into business ventures, or things I can get paid to write about later, and have my sights set on the upcoming art biennale in Havana, Cuba this May—with four weeks of paid vacation this year, travel options are much less restrictive than in the past.

Though I am very detailed in my research while writing here at home, I found I was much less committed to getting the necessary information while away, perhaps understandably, though it’s something I’ll have to work on in the future to save myself hours of Google time later. While in South America I covered street art in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aries, and a show about India at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. My piece on street art in BA was tweeted by MoMA as a “great read,” and as a result was read, looked at, liked, reposted, and retweeted by more people than have looked at anything I’ve done, ever. That particular piece is also going to be republished by the online magazine Global Graffiti sometime in February.

As usual 2011 was brought to a close by Patti Smith, who gave one of the least impressive performances I’ve ever seen her give, leaving me to think perhaps her 65 birthday was too much for her to handle. I wrote a piece about the show nonetheless, and I’ve got a good feeling about 2012—it’s going to be a damn productive year.

South America—Rio de Janeiro

December 15th, 2011 § 0 comments

Nothing about South America is what I expected. It’s a huge continent, and you can’t hop from country to country like you can in Europe; it took four hours just to fly from Brazil to Argentina. There are entry fees and visa’s required, which seems exciting until you actually have to pay them or get one. Because you have to fly everywhere you want to visit, I had to ask (and then pretend to be) a travel agent what would be a doable two-week trip. I had to fight my instincts for months while I planned, otherwise we would have covered all of South America in fourteen days. When the trip was finally narrowed down to Brazil and Argentina, the debate over Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo began. It’s hard to ‘pick’ a city when you don’t really know what it is you’re picking, but I chose Rio on the advice of a good friend. In the end I planned what was probably the most reasonable vacation of my life: one week in Rio, and one week in Buenos Aires.

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Personal Libraries & Pawel Althamer

October 13th, 2011 § 0 comments

The nice thing about being a book critic, aside from getting to read books that you normally wouldn’t read (or wouldn’t want to read), is that you get to keep them, and therefore build a library. I’ve been getting spoiled lately, wishing I had more books than I actually have, while moving the ones I’ve amassed between several different bookshelves. A while back we created a dedicated book area that now seems to be expanding to other walls and shelves, and I’m already dreaming of the day when one whole area is filled only with art books. The appeal is not just to have them, however, though some are pretty, but to also use them. Currently researching for a review on Eva Hesse, I keep wishing that I had a good collection of writing by the minimalists or Judd, who wrote highly and often about her work. A somewhat forgotten woman in a generation of male sculptors, I keep finding archived articles in the New York Times with titles like “Eva Who?”

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In Memory: Five Years Since

September 17th, 2011 § 2 comments

Did you see our brother
He was here the other day
But he only came to say that he was leaving

Who writes to dead people? Poets, artists, daydreamers, perhaps Emily Dickinson, and certainly those who miss someone lost. Five years you’ve been dead, and only one year has gone by that I didn’t acknowledge it. It reminds me of a scene from a very beautiful French movie called Il y a Longtemps que Je T’aime (I’ve Loved you so Long), about a woman coming to live with her sister after spending fifteen years in prison. In a dramatic scene she accuses her sister of forgetting her, at which point the younger sister shows her day planner after day planner where her name is written at the top of each page. Hemmed within thousands of little boxes dictating the day of the week, the month of the year, or scheduled daily obligations, were 5,475 remembrances. Though writing a name everyday is a simple task, it takes great deal of effort, like putting a penny in a jar at the same time every morning as my brother did as a teenager, to remember someone gone.

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At Long Last: Montréal

September 12th, 2011 § 0 comments

It’s a city I’ve wanted to visit for a long time now, and one I haven’t ever lived too far away from. When I lived in Chicago I remember spending a decent amount of time wishing I could visit Canada, as it seemed so close. After a false start and a few passport problems, I finally made it past the U.S./Canadian border. It still seems strange to me that while I’ve traveled outside the U.S. a great deal, I’ve never visited our two nearest neighbors: Canada and Mexico. I wish train travel was a bit more romantic than it actually is. I wish the bathrooms worked correctly, and that dining cars served more than pre-packaged snacks, but neither does. It was certainly a beautiful ten-hour ride upstate; the tracks running along the river and through forests and fields. The sun was setting as our train, finally fully inspected, was allowed to continue onwards toward Gare Centrale. Montréal itself is only about an hour from the border, and it was dusk when the silhouette of the city skyline appeared outside my train car window. Reading up on the city before I left, I had already dispelled my preconceived notion that Montréal is a small, quaint city. It’s a large, busy city with more modern buildings than historic ones.

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