Life is sweeter than Jewish Wine - Latest Comments

Re: The Pacifist Library on Kickstarter

Wine Club Reviews — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:38:14 -0000

nice blog thanks for this great blog.

Re: Two quotes by Cesare Pietroiusti

quotes about life 545 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:36:33 -0000

Hi,

guys, it article offers best information about two quotes. And i liked it.

Re: “Hinterland” Valentina Curandi – Sibylle Hofter – Nathaniel Katz

Sibylle-hofter — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:58:30 -0000

dear Nathaniel, I was just aiming to link your hinterland blog site to my HInterland page, but I couldn´t find it any more, did you throw it out or can you send me the link?
best
sibylle

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

Nathaniel Katz — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 04:55:41 -0000

yeah, you are right that drawing is a bit of cheating and that a childrens book is a project, no longer about daily practice.
though i have to say it is a big act of reconciliation for me to take on these two as a daily practice, because... there is a story...
in my early formative years as an artist i had two very influential teachers, one of which i have quite the story to tell (but will save for another time) the other was James McMullan, the poster artist for lincoln center. McMullan was my drawing teacher and i spent three years under his tutelage and the thirteen years since trying to shed his influence on my drawing. He took a real liking to me and toward the end of my final year at SVA he asked me to be his studio assistant. I trained with the outgoing assistant for a couple of months. My job consisted mostly of stretching watercolor paper, researching images at the photo collection in the NYPL, and occasionally modeling. If McMullan wasn't working on a poster he was usually illustrating children's books. He was very generous to me during that time and often offered opportunities to me for illustration work. Of course I was going through my independent painter phase and felt that any commercial work would compromise my integrity. After a couple of months of working for him, I quit, left New York and went to paint the desert in Arizona.

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

christopher robbins — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:15:22 -0000

You know after my kneejerk anti-katz speil, I realized that the most valuable thing for us people to do is a daily practice around our kind of work...

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

Christopher Robbins — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:57:55 -0000

For some reason (either bc it is obvious or simply b/c nathaniel is doing it), drawing feels like cheating. And I *know* that drawing a childrens book is cheating, b/c our daily practice pact is not allowed to be project based.

I will choose a medium new to me and give myself a certain amount of time for it. Maybe something with clothes and sewing...

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

Nathaniel Katz — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:51:24 -0000

Actually, one of the funny parts of that conversation was when i spoke of my Bruno B. project being in the "research stage" and dear Chris said he gives his students a hard time when they claim to be in such a phase. But for me, that is part of the everyday practice, all that I do goes toward informing my work, even if it culminates in a project based project.

Since the conversation, I did try to look for ways to integrate a daily practice as I suggested in this blog posting two weeks ago. I started drawing again everyday. Seems like maybe a no-brainer... but keeping a sketchbook is for me, and many project based artists, a place for research not for sketching. Anyway I started drawing again regularly, which is fun and while it may be irrelevant I am working on illustrating a children's book...

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

Nicole Petrescu — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:06:23 -0000

Daily rituals always inform our work one way or another, they become entangled in the fabric of our being, or by connecting us with the cultural underlying meaning. Drinking Romanian wine every day will make me not only an alcoholic, but also a more Romanian. Both aspects would inform my work conceptually or physically. It goes both ways, as art is a way of life, and life is art.

Re: absence

Sunitadee — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:24:35 -0000

congratulations you two! look forward to seeing you again someday, and meeting valentina...!

Re: art as a daily practice vs project based

Christopher Robbins — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:45:40 -0000

I have no idea how to have a daily practice, unless it is towards a specific project or goal. Other than jogging or yoga or something...

Are we talking about habits here? Nervous tics?

Re: The Carugate Biennial

jeanne jo — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:32:44 -0000

amazing!

Re: how not to get in touch with a community (for chris robbins)

nkatz22 — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:19:24 -0000

I followed up my statements with a bit of research (actually V translated some of the video for me...). Last year was the first edition of the hand cart race. It was done in reaction to a new law that was passed in Milan forbidding delivery in this manner. The race was a show of solidarity.

Re: The Promised Land

sunitadee — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:26:47 -0000

that land does indeed look promising. lovely image - sending warm thoughts to you and v!

Re: when did collaboration become the new f-you?

Mary Marjerrison — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:44:32 -0000

Hmm, I know this collaborative non-collaboration from another context.

Once in a serious painting class, where everyone needed to already have background in design and craft, the professor was delivering a beautiful message about proportion, perspetive, materials, etc. One of my fellow students turned to her and said, "what mean proportion?"

I had a recent conversation at work about the school's mission and vision, ...and another about organizational structure and leadership.
hmm, those stories will need to be told in person. Remind me. It has to do with having big ideas in terms of buzz words and ideals...what looks good... but not with reality nor with what one's actions tell us about their beliefs.

Here's to hope. There must be collaboration happening in places where it goes beyond a discussion over coffee, a collective masturbation! The same goes for rigor and shared leadership.

Re: christopher robbins blog re-enactment

Christopher Robbins — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:52:05 -0000

Just re-read this a year later. Now I like it. I miss nikki. But what does mundan-izing have to do with life as art?

Re: Social Practice and Artist’s Responsibility

Christopher Robbins — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:58:47 -0000

Good point! So, she flattened a 2D experience into a 1D experience, turned a conversation into a speech, a "with" into an "at". I got all soft and lubby-dubby and no hater no hater no hater at Skowhegan - which is good, we need more love - but I shouldn't let it overwhelm all criticality!

Re: Social Practice and Artist’s Responsibility

nkatz22 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:05:05 -0000

Thanks Chris,
I agree about the audience, it's true, it's a simple equation, and probably one that i also often exploit...
My concern was that there was a direct relationship between content and meaning. In the context of a bar story, or even an artist talk (both of which have an audience), I could have reflected on the role and goals of the artist in social practice and also engaged Rascic in conversation on this.
When Rascic framed the story as a frontal performance in which the audience became passive viewers, meaning making becomes one way, which to me means that as a viewer i want to be active in a process interpretation. In this situation, I as a viewer have an expectation that within the performance there is room for me to interpret, which means there is some metaphoric, or symbolic value, or room for side effects and other meanings. If there is a direct relationship between the content and its meaning then it is what it is.

Re: Social Practice and Artist’s Responsibility

Christopher Robbins — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:40:28 -0000

Hello Nathaniel,

As always, I've a few comments!

Regarding your concerns that this story works perfectly as a bar-story and gained nothing by becoming a performance, I would respond that (most importantly) it gained an audience. Secondly, it became an object.

For instance, I saw this during the summer re-presented as an art piece. I would not have watched it otherwise. I enjoyed being taken down the path from initial ridicule and rejection to acceptance of its cheezy amazingness.

And if Rascic hadn't turned the bar-story into an art object, would you have considered that "While this quotation may have been meant to place Pietroiusti also in the absurdity of the situation, it functioned as a nice reflection on the role and goals of the artist in social practice"?

I doubt it.

Re: Drawing inside the Box

ana isabel — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:11:02 -0000

next time i teach, i am going to have my dancers dance inside of a box. authentic movement in a confined space! the question is: can the box move around the room as long as the student stays inside?

Re: Feitelogram

Nick — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:28:17 -0000

Glad you approve.

Re: Oh Cow Opening Saturday July 18

sunitadee — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:55:29 -0000

Re: Pietroiusti’s side effects

Christopher Robbins — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:53:34 -0000

Of course, the side effects were that we ended up talking about how "I" bombed them 10 years ago:

"The juxtaposition of a child describing US bombs, and then snapping back into character as Shaquille O'Neal or Dr. Phil in the Scary Movie 4 scene he watched on YouTube presses at the delicate balance of shared cultures in a post-conflict society."

http://www.christopher-robbins...

(scroll down)

Re: Pietroiusti’s side effects

Christopher Robbins — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:28:43 -0000

I often say "I am counting on the unintended consequences" When I organize a group of Roma, Albanian and Serbian youth to turn a defunct swimming pool into a free public cinema for one night, for the screening of their home made re-enactments of pirated hollywood dvds, 8km from the border with Kosovo, you could say the side effects are more important than the main attraction

Re: Pietroiusti’s side effects

nkatz22 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:48:43 -0000

I'm glad that you found a use for that quote...
And I agree with most of what you say in that post.
What I found interesting in this Pietroiusti piece, in many of his works, and in the interview from which I quoted below (which I also had stored for later use, and i'm sorry that I don't have the entire interview with me now to quote more extensively when he is speaking about this piece in particular) is that whatever the project is and its implications and consequences (the PLYOTSP), it is constructed with such precision (i think is the word he uses) so that when approaching the question of the documentation, he can be open to the side effects, and allow those side effects to open up more and further questions. I'm planning a blog post soon about side effects and documentation in relation to the bread project, so was thinking about this quote from Cesare. Have you had any notable side effects that in turn open up new questions?

Re: Pietroiusti’s side effects

Christopher Robbins — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:09:13 -0000

http://www.christopher-robbins...

“People have better things to do than deal with people like you on the street!”
-Steve Fagin, via Deborah Fisher