the bathroom mirror project

A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME

Why men are inclined to take their pictures in bathroom mirrors alone in hotel rooms or on vacation. Time for a global check-up of this devoted extravagance. An art project if you like.

SLICK - STORA HOTELLET, FJÄLLBACKA, SWEDEN 050720 10:28 - Talking to me...? Well there´s no one else here... just reaching... just killing time... or is it time killing me? a hotel room... the west coast... the Himalaya room... overrated.. complementary shower caps though...

Let's face it. Everybody's done it at least once. It's almost a genre - bathroom mirror self-portraits. But why this serious and narcissistic pose of a genius artist with a slight stroke of madness - the cover for your next book, your next album...? We could either enjoy our splendid isolation, or prepare ourselves for the daily war on the market, but as we are seeing us differently from the rest of the world - in reverse, this daily check-up becomes a retrospective of the mystery of being. For most of us it's hardly vanity, there's no point in trying - men are restricted to only two options before we face another day - to shave or not to shave. That's it.

After many years of practice we occasionly get the right look and decide to preserve the moment, a point in time. "Now I finally get the photo that really shows the real me, this is a good day... I obviously still exist.... Some sort of western toilet meditation. The total waste of time - the last tabu. An attempt in vain. But a good time as any.

Gentlemen, go ahead and contribute

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Barbara Cole

Underworld

Begun as an extrapolation of Cole’s fascination with the “calm and soothing nature of water” and born of her desire to “explore the sensation of looking at water from the inside out”, the Underworld photographs were conceived one summer as she sat by the edge of her pool (Cole has always been a strong swimmer, and has been swimming since her twenties). It was not long before she found herself immersed in the project—literally, swimming alongside her models with a 35-mm camera, photographing them from above, the side, and below. At one point, she strapped a ten-pound weight to her stomach so that she could handily sink to the bottom of the pool and lie there looking up, calmly taking light readings and focusing.

“I can hold my breath for a long time”, Cole admits. Evidently so. For the most remarkable characteristics of these outrageously beautiful photographs are their balletic grace and a strange sense of timelessness that informs each of them; qualities unavailable to a photographer in a hurry and under pressure.
And their balletic grace goes hand in hand with a stirring sense of the archetypal, the long arcing questions the photographs ask of cultural history. Indeed, it seems almost inevitable that, no matter how apparently contemporary the model may appear in any of them we are never far from an inescapably Mediterranean sense of antique classicism.
Gary Michael Dault full text (pdf) here

Barbara Cole

Sex

Miki Jo


SEX (no.01)

SEX (no.05)



SEX (no.06)

SEX (no.10)

SEX (no.11)

SEX (no.12)

SEX (no.13)

SEX (no.14)

SEX (no.16)

SEX (no.19)

SEX (no.20)

all 2005, Gelatine Silver Print, sheet: 49x59cm / 59x49cm, ed.23

more at shugoarts

Wayne Levin

Wayne Levin has spent a career photographing the eerie and mysterious underwater world. Working in black and white, he removes the surface illusions about the ocean and the assumptions about underwater photography.

Robert Koch Gallery »

Wayne Levin


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Ship of Fools - The Raft of George W. Bush

The Raft of George W. Bush (2006) Joel-Peter Witkin (click to enlarge)

The Raft of George W. Bush is a contemporary "Ship of Fools" which has as its pictorial basis, the "Medusa" by Gericault. Bush sits lost in his grand ideas, shown as small electric lights. His left hand rests on the large, perfect breast of "Condi" Rice. Who, the most powerful woman on earth, is merely a mouthpiece, a token blackie who dresses in haute couture. Above Bush is his mother, Barbara, basking in the light, the myth of neo-conservatism. At her feet is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld crushed by the disaster of Iraq. Colin Powell wears the wreath of militarism and the dollar sign vision he now lives for, after lying to the world at the United Nations. Powell taps Bush on the shoulder to make him aware of the rescue. Vice President Cheney and his wife express joyful rapture in their perceived deliverance. Dick Cheney, a "whatever it takes to succeed" type, is dressed in a gown and bra reminiscent of the cowardly men on the sinking Titanic who dressed as women in order to save themselves. Below the mast is a religious figure representing Theocracy and Priest-pederasts. Has the young man below him received spiritual comfort or oral sex? The angry angel, wearing a bra of tea cups, holds a large bone signifying cannibalistic capitalism, that charnel house of our dismal social progress. All the other models in this tableaux are posed as characters in the Gericault painting. With the exception of the black African immigre named Cyril, who waves to the ship, all other men are examples of under educated, fast food prodigals, a result of this misdirected country.

Joel-Peter Witkin

via Joerg Colberg who points to some discussion about The Raft of George W. Bush here and here

pools

abandoned pools that is. Fine folio from the personal works by commercial photographer Carlo Van De Roer.














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Urgent Actions

Sudan: Two women at risk of being stoned to death

Sadia Idriss Fadul (f), aged 22 and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum (f), aged 23

Sadia Idriss Fadul and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum, both from the Darfur region in western Sudan, are at risk of being stoned to death after being convicted of adultery. Their sentence could be carried out at any time.

Sadia Idriss Fadul, from the Fur ethnic group, was sentenced to death by stoning on 13 February. Amouna Abdallah Daldoum, a member of the Tama ethnic group, was sentenced on 6 March. They were both convicted of adultery by a criminal court in Managil province, in Gazira state, central Sudan. According to reports, the women had no lawyer during their trial, and were not able to defend themselves, as their first languages are those of their ethnic groups in Darfur. The court proceedings were conducted in Arabic, and the women were reportedly not provided with a translator. They have yet to lodge an appeal against their sentence.

Both women are married with children. They are currently in detention in Wad Madani women’s prison in Wad Madani, Gazira State. One of the women, Sadia Idriss Fadul, has one of her children with her in prison.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Sudanese Penal Code, which is partly based on interpretation of Islamic Law, allows for penalties such as flogging, amputations and deaths by hanging or stoning. While Amnesty International does not take a position on Islamic or any other religious law, it considers such penalties to be cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments which are inconsistent with Sudan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally and under any circumstances.

The two women were charged under Article 146 (a) of Sudan’s 1991 Penal Code.
Article 146 states that anyone having sex outside marriage shall be punished with execution by stoning when the offender is married (Muhsan); or one hundred lashes when the offender is not married (non-muhsan).
source: english francais


recommended action: sign in the Amnesty International site

Andreas Gursky, 'Bahrain I', 2005, 306 x 221.5 cm, C-Print

Andreas Gursky´s motifs are photographed using both analog and digital methods. Employing the many shots taken this way, the final image is composed using digital technology. Andreas Gursky's works, therefore, are not classical documentary photographs that attempt to portray objects with the greatest possible likeness by making use of the medium, but, rather, are fictions based on facts.

Andreas Gursky, '99 Cent', 1999, Chromogenic color print, 6 ' 9 1/2" x 11' (207 x 337 cm).

Two weeks after breaking the record for the world's most expensive photograph at Sotheby's ('99 Cent II', a photographic diptych of an American supermarket sold for £1,700,000) Gursky opened his first museum show in Germany for nine years and the largest exhibition of his work to date. One of the first photographers to make large-scale pictures, Gursky has gone a stage further for this show by enlarging his images still further - the largest now measure almost 2 metres by 5 metres.

The photographs are often taken from a slightly elevated perspective. This vantage point displays the local contexts as entities that are often unusual to the viewer. Sometimes the artist presents his motifs simultaneously from above and at an angle or from above and from below, thereby creating an artificial, privileged perspective, which allows the viewer to float weightlessly above the subject matter, enabling him to view the objects from an idealized perception that he is normally denied. In this way the artist implies an availability and accessibility that does not, in fact, exist in reality. The unusual popularity of Andreas Gursky's works is based in part on this type of accessibility.

continue reading at Saatchi´s blog
where you can also find an essay by Thomas Weski, Chief Curator at Haus der Kunst, who is responsible for the show.




Andreas Gursky, 'Pyongyang I', 2007, 307 x 215.5 cm, C-Print


The exhibition is on at the Haus der Kunst until 13 May. It will then travel to Istanbul Modern and Sharjah Art Museum.

all pics courtesy Monika Sprüth / Philomene Magers

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highly illogical

me and a good friend discussing placebo physics.

snapped by splendired

Amanda Ross-Ho

I WANT A PONY

Restraining Order, 2005, Dimensions variable.

Artificial plastic balloons, studio detritus, hot glue, sawhorses.

There´s a playful, frisky charm throughout the work of Amanda Ross-Ho

100 Arranged Marriages, 2003, Found objects, rubber bands.

A series of arranged inanimate object pairings selected from the artist’s home and studio.

to see more

One Foul Swoop, 2004, Video, 6 min. 30 sec.

Shot on location in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The Earth is Rotating with This Room as it's Axis, 2003
Raw footage, LP's.

Installation view. This library/screening room makes available over 40 volumes of raw footage shot between 2001-2003. Completely unedited with the exception of the disabling of its audio components, viewers can construct a unique cinematic experience by pairing audio from the accompanying library of unlabeled LP's with any of the available unlabeled video volumes.

White Out, 2003, 9" x 21"

Archival Ink Jet Print.

Ruby Slipper Sneaker Covers, 2002

Fabric, sneakers.

Still Life, 2003, 56" x 24" x 24"
Red Bandannas, Vase, Sticks.

Hobo Stick, 2002, 8' x 2'
Screenprinted fabric, wood, wardrobe.

Oversized hobo stick constructed to contain the entirety of the artist's wardrobe.

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little people

little people is a tiny street art project by slinkachu that showcases little handpainted people, left in London to fend for themselves.
nifty



to see more little ones













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