Here are my suggestions from last night's meeting:



Maya Gold, represented by the Mike Weiss Gallery, seems to be just coming into attention. She works and lives in Isreal and is fresh out of school. Her large oil paintings (about 50 x 60 inches) show an individual or a group of people from far above in a barren and seemingly surreal setting. Each image has a strong sense of isolation, despite a grouping, simply from its bird's-eye perspective. The first work, titled December 21, midnight, shows a group of people (presumably) sheltered under their own individual umbrellas, while one (or two?) stand uncovered. The second, called While, shows a person sweeping into small piles across the barren canvas. I'm sure we're missing some of the subtlties of the work by only viewing it in 3 x 3 inches... Artnet reported that one of her oil paintings of similar size just sold for $11,250.



Kumi Yamashita is an artist originally from Japan (as a small child), and has been moving around the world ever since. The initial shock in her move from Japan to America made her realize the delicacies of identity, and how much of ourselves may not be as constant or as real as we believe.
Her work at the Kent Gallery is really amazingly crafted. She uses strong lights off to the side to reveal her carefully constructed shadows. Profile, on top, uses letters and numbers (which reminded us a lot of those kid magnets) to create a very realistic profile. This idea, of using letters and numbers, words and measurements, to describe oneself makes us realize that these things can only provide a shadow of identity, despite the attempt to make it concrete. (Profile almost automatically connected me to the idea of the Facebook profile, and how we try to define ourselves there. Also, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which the prisoners of his allegory were relating and defining the world only by the shadows they saw, without knowing that this wasn't, in fact, reality at all.) The second piece, called Oragami, has little pieces of paper folded carefully on the edge to show tiny shadow profiles. She was quoted saying, "Shadows are a fine medium for someone who believes more in variability... than in constancy, a stance that may be tempermental as well as philosophical" (Art in America, v. 91 no1 (January 2003) p. 106).


Kumi Yamashita's earlier work included portraits using boot footprints or credit card rubbings (which particularly remarks on commercialism and the definition of oneself by the property owned, etc.). These portraits are surprisingly realistic once you look closely at the technique, though not particularly engaging from far away.

An article by ARTnews says that her works can range from $5,000 to $20,000. I still have to call the gallery to get specifics on which works we could get for the cheaper prices, etc. One issue might be the delicacy of the installation, specifically for a piece like Profile. Luckily, once installed, the upkeep of the technology would seem to be as simple as changing a light bulb occasionally.

If you get a chance, tell me what you think about Paul Laffoley, also represented by Kent. He's particularly popular in exhibits at the American Visionary Art Museum, so I've seen his work before. They are very large and complicated, and tend on the religious side (which is why I bring it up for discussion, because is this, like nudity, something we might want to avoid?).


I found Luke DuBois among all the highly technological artists represented by Bitforms, and I thought, "Ooo! Cheap!" But I have yet to verify that. The series of works I'm particularly interested in is his Hindsight is Always 20/20, in which he took the State of the Union addresses of each president and calculated the frequency of every word used. He then organized the words in an eye exam chart with the most frequent word appearing at the top, and the less frequent words, in order, as it goes down to the small text at the bottom. Lincoln's is the top image and Reagan is underneath. What's fascinating about these is how you can read the character of the era and the president's personal rhetoric in just a glance. By looking at these charts, it's like we can tell almost everything about the problems faced and techniques used by each president in this all-knowing, hindsight 20/20, way. Likewise, it makes you think what words define us (I was on a define-ourselves roll yesterday), whether we choose them intentionally or not. This series has been on a pretty popular tour, so that might affect its price, as well as the format, which seems to come in either print (cheap!) or lightbox (not as cheap...). I think either Alison or I will get this information from Bitforms.

Also, check out Daniel Rozin and Raphael Lozano-Hemmer if you haven't already! The videos showing their work are addictive. It would be great to be able to get some of their work, but maybe not so possible... We should still look into it.

Along the same lines of the Paul Laffoley conundrum, a couple of us were talking about our responsibility regarding nudity in the collection... I had found Mona Kuhn's photographs absolutely beautiful (represented by Charles Cowles Gallery, whose website I can't seem to get to today...), but wasn't sure if they could bought simply on "tasteful" grounds (though that concern is totally relative).

Long post, I know.

Don't forget to add your galleries to our nifty gallery spreadsheet in Google Documents!
See you all next week!