Josiah McElheny – Page 2

Luke Jerram’s Glass Microbiology

Large E-Coli.

Or art as virus…. Just because micro-organisms can make us seriously ill doesn’t mean they can’t be beautiful. Luke Jerram‘s glass renderings of some of the most deadly examples are on display at the Smithfield Gallery, London, until October 3rd.

The sculptures were designed in consultation with virologists from the University of Bristol using a combination of different scientific photographs and models. They were made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones and Norman Veitch. (More.)

Avian flu.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Andy Paiko’s glass art
• The art of Josiah McElheny
• The art of Angelo Filomeno
• IKO stained glass
• Cristalophonics: searching for the Cocteau sound
• Glass engines and marble machines
• Wesley Fleming’s glass insects
• The art of Lucio Bubacco
• The glass menagerie

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N is a collaboration between artist Cerith Wyn Evans and Throbbing Gristle, the once notorious Industrial music act now enjoying a resurgence of activity and attention. Evans and TG have an earlier connection via Derek Jarman, for whom Evans worked as an assistant. Given how much I enjoy seeing mirrors used in art, I’m very taken with these, and knowing that they function as drifting speakers transmitting specially recorded TG audio makes them doubly interesting. The mirrors-plus-audio aspect is reminiscent of Josiah McElheny’s recent Island Universes with Paul Schütze but that’s not to imply any influence, both artists have been following their individual paths for some time.

The title of this work comes from a poem by Stephan Mallarmé (1842–1898), a poet closely associated with the Symbolists. Looking at an English translation, the piece ends with the line “a snow of white bouquets of perfumed stars”; that final, impossible flourish—perfumed stars—is a very Symbolist touch. Claude Debussy, who took the title of his Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune from Mallarmé, set Apparition to music in 1884.

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N can be seen at Tramway, Glasgow until September 27, 2009.

• A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N test run on Chris Carter’s Flickr pages.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman
• The art of Josiah McElheny

Andy Paiko’s glass art

The Glass Chair.

Today’s glass artists continue to astonish. Andy Paiko‘s one-off creation above is a chair whose vitrines contain a rhesus monkey skull, a piece of octopus coral, a murex spiny trumpet shell, the skeleton of a rat, and a mountain lion skull. The piece below contains a 24 carat gold-plated coyote skull with the work as a whole being described by the artist as representing various stages of the alchemical process. Go and feast your eyes on the rest of his creations. Thanks again to Thom for the tip!

Canis Auribus Tenere.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Josiah McElheny
• The art of Angelo Filomeno
• IKO stained glass
• Cristalophonics: searching for the Cocteau sound
• Glass engines and marble machines
• Wesley Fleming’s glass insects
• The art of Lucio Bubacco
• The glass menagerie

Paul Schütze online

One of the drawbacks with recommending Paul Schütze‘s music lately has been a lack of availability, with most of his CDs being out of print. That changes this month with his back catalogue returning via iTunes sporting a range of impressive new artwork (above) created by Mr Schütze himself.

Schütze’s electronic music stood out for me in the mid-Nineties for a number of reasons: firstly, and most obviously, it wasn’t always tied to the rigid metronomic pulse which governed the rest of the dance world. There were 4/4 beats at times—and he even had an album on Belgian dance label Apollo under the anagrammatical pseudonym Uzect Plausch—but his music was equally subject to unusual time-signatures with chiming timbres borrowed from gamelan orchestras.

Those timbres and their attendant tropical atmospheres were a second point of distinction. Like Jon Hassell, to whom he pays homage on Stateless (1997), there’s an acknowledgement of non-Western music without any falling into pastiche. This realises one aspect of Hassell’s Fourth World concept, whereby a meeting of the First World and the Third World creates an exclusive temporary zone that nonetheless can’t exist without the contribution of either party.

A third distinction would require a detailing of Schütze’s notable collaborators—Bill Laswell and Raoul Björkenheim among them—and his inventive track titles, many of which sound like Surrealist paintings. But describing music is always a poor thing compared to experiencing it. If you want a place to start, I’d recommend New Maps of Hell II: The Rapture of Metals (1993; reissued 1996) or Abysmal Evenings (1996), two constant favourites.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Josiah McElheny
• The Garden of Instruments

Infinite reflections

Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kusama (2002).

One of my favourite contemporary artworks, Fireflies on the Water by Yayoi Kusama, receives a new showing at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Her mirrored room features 150 lights and a pool of water and while most photos show an impressive work, none of them can match this fantastic 360º panorama by Australian photographer Peter Murphy. Kusama isn’t the only artist to use mirrors this way but mirror rooms and reflective surfaces have become as much a recurrent feature of her work as her trademark spots.

Fireflies on the Water is being shown as part of the Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years exhibition and can be seen until June 8th, 2009. (Via Nevertheless.)

Mirrored Room by Lucas Samaras (1966).

I’ve often wondered how far back the invention of the fully-mirrored room can be traced. Halls of mirrors are historically common but the mirrors tend to be on the walls only. American artist Lucas Samaras produced his Mirrored Room (with mirrored chair and table) in 1966, something which fascinated me when I first encountered it in art books.

It evidently fascinated ex-art student Brian Eno who I’m sure must have borrowed the idea for the cover of his collaboration with Robert Fripp, (No Pussyfooting), in 1973. I’ve always assumed this was a room in Eno’s home at the time but never seen that confirmed. Anyone know whether this is the case?

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Josiah McElheny
• Yayoi Kusama
• The art of Yayoi Kusama
• Exposure by Robert Fripp