Friday 27 June 2014

Manifesto 2014 @ Generator Projects 27.06.14 - pictures

To the Generator this evening for Manifesto 2014, a show exploring themes of globalisation, national identity and collaboration. I took a few photos and here they are:

The name of the show is Manifesto 2014






















 Henri Meadows - Chute 

Lada Wilson - Alphabetarij, performing languages

Jacob Dwyer - The Celtic Body

Tara Chaloner and Claire Briegel - Kabij

The Dundee art massive

http://generatorprojects.co.uk/manifesto-2014/

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Receipts

Bought a few items:






















Paul Curran - Left Hand (Civil Coping Mechanisms), £7.10
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20686758-left-hand

Traxx / NPNK - Revenge Of The Poulet Cat EP 12" (Macadam Mambo), £8.99
http://www.discogs.com/Traxx-4-Npnk-Revenge-Of-The-Poulet-Cat/release/5744592

Nico + The Faction ‎– Camera Obscura LP (Music On Vinyl), £16.79
http://www.discogs.com/Nico-3-Faction-The-Camera-Obscura/release/3199378

Sunday 22 June 2014

shift @ Enjoy..! Coffee Lounge 22.06.14 - pictures

To the Enjoy..! Coffee Lounge today for shift, a show of new works by Morgan Cahn, Becca Clark, Katie Reid, Richard Taylor and Lada Wilson. Made in response to an understanding of the third place, a place other than or in between ‘home' and ‘workplace', the Coffee Lounge becomes studio, gallery and library playing host to performance and installation over one Sunday afternoon.

The name of the show is shift 






















Questioning how we enact the process of learning, while highlighting the moments of educational exchange that can occur through conversation, Morgan develops an active and evolving library as she shares and exchanges knowledge with visitors.



Richard Taylor presented a small sculpture and a drawing, connected by themes expanded upon in a new text read to the audience along with selected photography. The text was read at 1pm, 2.30pm and 4pm during the event. Each time the reading was slightly edited after journeying repeatedly to the top of Dundee Law hill and back down to the coffee lounge to read again.

For shift, Lada Wilson invited the audience to take part in a verbal and visual exchange that created a portrait of time from words and imagination.






















A zine by Becca Clark 


Thursday 19 June 2014

smart

Nan Goldin - Amanda in the mirror, Berlin 1992

Extract from Juliet Escoria - Black Cloud

I.

You work in a nightclub, in coat check. The club is three stories, and well drinks are twelve dollars. This is in Manhattan, right near the Williamsburg Bridge. The coat check is on the top floor, which is closed in by a glass ceiling. The lights on the bridge look like they are there specifically to impress all the girls in their tight neon dresses and all the boys in their polo shirts, as they get fucked up on bottle service and molly and sing along to that Jay-Z song.

The coat check job is three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday. You make more in a night at this job than you do in two weeks at your “real” job, which is adjuncting English. To do that job, you need an advanced degree. To do this job, you need to put on a lot of make-up and a slutty outfit and look younger than your twenty-nine years. Nothing adds up in New York, and you like that.

One of the owners has a thing for you. He stands there and stares at you from the end of the hallway, wearing his dark velvet suits. He’s mean to everyone, swearing and brooding, but for you he brings cupcakes from the kitchen. You smoke together on the deck when it’s slow. He tells you about his girlfriend, who is seven years younger than you and covered in tattoos. They fight a lot. You ask him if they tell each other ‘I love you’ and he says yes, but it’s just something he says. He asks you if you do the same with your boyfriend, and you say yes, but you actually mean it. You tell him how nice your boyfriend is, how smart and funny and talented. You tell him how happy you are together and how it’s assumed you’ll marry, but even you hear the catch in your voice. It starts to rain, and the cabs drive by in whispers.

II

The tattooed girl and the owner break up. You and your boyfriend stay together.

III.

Christmas happens. You go to your boyfriend’s home for the second year in a row and his parents have a fire lit and it is snowing and they are happy to see you. The two of you sleep in his childhood bed and you feel so safe in his arms and they are around you like a blanket but all you want to do is go outside so you can shiver. There is something deeply wrong at your core and you know it and have always known it but he doesn’t see it yet.

http://atticusreview.org/black-cloud-an-excerpt/

Tuesday 17 June 2014

You Are The Ref

You Are The Ref is a British comic strip featuring a series of awkward football refereeing challenges, which has run in various publications since 1957. Created by sports artist Paul Trevillion, also famous for Roy of the Rovers, the strip features contributions from several top referees, and was collected into an official book in 2006. Since 2008, it has appeared online at Guardian.co.uk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Are_The_Ref

You Are The Ref - the cult classic cartoon strip responsible for 90 percent of all 1970s playground rows - made its newspaper debut in 1957. Featuring a series of hardcore refereeing dilemmas, it demands you react instantly and accurately to the situations you face.

The strip's original artist, comic realism legend Paul Trevillion, and the Premier League's Head of Referees Keith Hackett agreed to bring YATR back to life in The Observer's sport section in 2006, and it went live online here for the first time in August 2008.

Paul Trevillion
 
Age: 74.
 
Born: London.
 
Main job: Artist.

Started young, drawing for comics like Eagle and TV21 while he was still at school. His work has appeared in most national papers, and has been syndicated worldwide. Famous for Roy of The Rovers, he's also the author of more than 20 books, and has met and drawn countless sporting greats from Pele to Sugar Ray Robinson and Wayne Rooney. He's rated the world's top proponent of "comic art realism". Disney animator Milt Neil said it took "20 Disney drawings to produce the movement Trevillion captures in one".

Other roles: Trevillion's non-art life so far: a stand-up career supporting Norman Wisdom and Bob Monkhouse; a brief record deal; being crowned world speed-kissing champion (25,009 in two hours); meeting and drawing Winston Churchill; devising a spilt-handed putting technique; drawing Evonne Goolagong in the nude for The Sun; inventing sock tags for Don Revie's Leeds team; and dressing up as DJ Bear, the Panda of Peace, in the 1980s, to pacify hooligans and spread love in the game. As a result he has no nasal bone.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/aug/07/football.ref

The peregrinating strip that has served time in Shoot magazine (during my formative years), Roy of the Rovers and The Observer has been terrifically well served by this lavish artefact, authored by Keith Hackett, official at the classic two game FA Cup Final between Spurs and Manchester City in 1981 and later to become overall assessor of the breed.

He’s joined by long-time collaborator Paul Trevillion – and it’s this man’s illustrations that really give the book its punch – to this reader at least, turning the page to see David Moyes and Lionel Messi in graphic format confirms the update when one almost expects to see a toothless Joe Jordan in a Scotland shirt or Don Revie barking from the sidelines.

That said, the old adage that referees should be seen and not heard is perhaps weighed up by the meat and two veg central sections of the book with the laws of the game expertly trawled through even if the accompanying drawings are generic and don’t feature recognisable players. Needless to say, this is a part of the book you’d refer to rather than read.

So it’s the accompanying material that really holds the interest – a couple of anecdotes from Hackett on refereeing stateside including one in which the Portland Timbers lumberjack gets a mention as well as slightly matey pen pics of players and managers he has come into contact with including the laptop wielding, Prozone touting Sam Allardyce and Neil Warnock, of whom Hackett understates, ‘I must say that at times we failed to agree on certain incidents’.
Lanterne Rouge
http://thetwounfortunates.com/book-review-you-are-the-ref/ 

In the future, everyone will be a referee for 15 minutes. Ruud van Nistelrooy’s goal for Holland against Italy at Euro 2008 not only prompted a fervent discussion about the offside laws, it also exposed the fact that players, ex-players, pundits and fans alike for once had something in common – very few of us are truly familiar with the laws of the game. By a nice coincidence, the BBC website chose Euro 2008 to revive the You Are The Ref column that puts exactly such unusual scenarios to its reader, and then lets them get on with exposing their own ignorance.


There’s actually no excuse for not knowing the game’s laws. They’re available for download from fifa.com in a pdf file, and they’re not that long. Still, they leave plenty of room for interpretation, and with major games nowadays under the scrutiny of a dozen or more cameras, there always seem to be an arcane point up for debate, even if some of those are the result of commentators eager to stoke up a quasi-controversial incident.

The People newspaper began You Are The Ref in 1957, then for years Shoot! magazine continued the illustrated column, drawn throughout its half century of life by Paul Trevillion. If I remember correctly, some of its conundrums were easy, and were aimed at familiarising the young reader with the game’s laws. Some were just odd, which gave the column a trainspotterish charm. If a mongoose runs on to the field of play and diverts a shot into the net, do you award a goal? That kind of thing.

The great thing about this column is that even after Mr Hackett has given his opinion, the debate continues in the comments. You suspect that several referees read the site. “I have this terrible feeling that the man in charge of our referees doesn’t actually know the Laws…” writes one respondent. But in truth most of the pre-supposed scenarios are unusual enough that referees might have to think on their feet and instinctively react in a commonsense manner. As opposed to recalling the exact letter of the law and applying it to, say, the following query: a goalkeeper and a defender waste time by playing header-and-catch to each other on the edge of the penalty area. Legal it might be, but few refs are going to stand there and let them continue without making a gesture of admonitory impatience to move the ball upfield.

What I like about You Are The Ref is the fertile footballing imagination of those who send in their “What if...?” queries. If you go to the official site of the US Soccer Federation, they have an Ask The Ref section that is taken very seriously by both those asking questions and those giving answers. Most of the queries are based on real situations and require so much concentration to follow the acronym-filled paragraphs of build-up to the situation in question that you’ll be put off for good from training for your official’s badge.

In fact it’s quite terrifying to picture yourself in some of these situations, with 22 expectant players, their coaching staff and any number of spectators (including possibly rabid parents) waiting for you to make the snap decision, which must appear to be the correct one. Often, several or all of these people will be offering their own advice and interpretations of what’s just happened, and anyone who’s taken the whistle for a seemingly casual game will be familiar with the sudden noise and pressure.

Until we read the ref’s advice underneath the query, though, most of us generally can’t be sure of the answer. We may immediately recognise the advice as correct, but would we have made the right decision in half a second? In that respect, these are entertaining and useful pages that players and fans should read. The internet, after all, is as much about education as it is about leisure, and given the overall deficit of knowledge on even some of the game’s basic laws, should serve as homework for all of us who instinctively love to scream at that poor bastard in the middle.
Ian Plenderleith
http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/15-Webwatch/4443-you-are-the-ref



Monday 16 June 2014

Yuck 'n Yum - CC Launch + Other Exciting News

Hello there Yuck 'n Yummers!

We're feeling proud! 


Our little fledgling zine idol winning zinesters, CC have gone and launched their first issue of 'THE CC PRESENT'

It's a fabulous thing! And they had a fabulous launch! YnYer Morgan went up to spread the CC cheer and to cheer them on too. Nothing but nice things to say about the whole evening, which was held in Cafe Contour in Aberdeen; where CC are based, and where is currently stocking 'THE CC PRESENT' 

Some pictures of all the fun that was had and the art that was shared! >



We're super chuffed for these guys! And really looking forward to their next issue. We'll keep you posted on the details of that for sure. But for now, to find out where to get a copy of the first issue and to keep up to speed with what they're planning, check here and here.

Well done guys!

In other news..

Yuck 'n Yum are part of the very exciting Studio Jamming: Artists' Collaborations in Scotland hosted by The Cooper Gallery, in partnership with GENERATION. Details are being finalised for what we'll be getting up to. But we're excited for sure! There's a whole host of events running along side, be sure to take a nosey.

We're also in the process of getting this years YnY Zine Fair organised! More details to be announced soon, so keep your eyes peeled at the usual channels. And for now, save the date; Saturday September 13th!

That's all for now folks. As you'll know, we're restructuring at the moment. So updates will be coming! But for now, over and out.

Love from the Yuck 'n Yum team.

Photos of the 'THE CC PRESENT' launch event taken from CC Tumblr.

http://www.yucknyum.com/ 

Monday 9 June 2014

Charles Ray - Unpainted Sculpture

Charles Ray (born 1953) is a Los Angeles-based American sculptor. He is known for his strange and enigmatic sculptures that draw the viewer’s perceptual judgments into question in jarring and unexpected ways. Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times wrote that Ray’s “career as an artist…is easily among the most important of the last twenty years.”

For Unpainted Sculpture (1997), over the course of two years, Ray has reconstructed a life-sized crashed Pontiac Grand Am (circa 1991) out of fiberglass, casting and assembling each piece to match the bent and twisted forms of the original. Despite the work’s misleading title, it is painted a soft dove grey that is reminiscent of the plastic parts of model car kits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ray_%28artist%29

The Art that I would like to talk about is the Unpainted Sculpture by Charles Ray, which is the spray painted car that we talked about in class so much. One of the main reasons people did or didn't like the piece was because it was modeled after a car that someone had died in. I think the fact that someone died in the car makes you think about how smashed up it is. Ray once said "It mattered to me that somebody had looked at it, and I wanted to make it matter to you." (Michael Fried, and Charles Ray, “Conversation”) about his sculpture Hinoki, but I think the same idea applies to this sclupture as well. Before I knew that I just thought oh that car is just kinda smashed up, that's kinda fancy, but after you know the context of it you look at it differently. You see every little piece of twisted metal in the car, every bend. I was picturing the car running into something and this person being thrown around the car and everyone around them rushing over to help, calling 911, and cops and paramedics showing up, the whole thing. I think it also helps for me because I have been in an accident similar to that, same side of the car smashed and everything, though obviously not as bad. So the knowledge that someone didn't make it through that really hits home. I think with me though whenever something happens in my life I always know that somehow it will turn out alright, which I believe is the opposite of Charles Ray, who seems to have a slightly more pessimistic way of viewing things.
Lucy
http://lucyblogforoad.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/re-assesing-walker.html

DENNIS COOPER: Can you remember how you got the idea for Unpainted Sculpture?
 

CHARLES RAY: Well, I was working on the Fashions film. I hadn't actually made anything in a long time, and there was a catalog that got sent to me from a show. One of my big mannequins was on the cover. I saw her hand out of the corner of my eye, and I remembered working on that hand, and its spatiality. It made me yearn to work on something with form again. Then later that week, I was out to dinner with the young artist Tim Rogeberg, who was my student at the time, and some other people, and Tim's car was smashed up. He was debating whether to take it to the body shop, and I said, "Why don't you just take a fiberglass mold of the wrecked fender and put it back on?" It was sort of a joke, but Chris Finley was with us, and he said, "That would be a good piece for you to do, Charley," and it just stuck with me. So that was the entrance.

DENNIS: But at some point it became about death too.
 

CHARLES: No, never per se about death. I spent a couple of months looking for a wrecked car that was really sculptural. I went to all these insurance yards, and I was looking at ones in which fatalities had occurred. I don't believe in ghosts, but I wondered that if there were ghosts, would the ghost inhabit the actual physical molecules of the structure, or would it be more interested in inhabiting the topology or the geometry of the structure? You know, if you were to duplicate the geometry, would the ghost follow?

DENNIS: Do you think it has in some way?
 

CHARLES: When I first got the car to my house, it was all bloody, and it had much more of her presence then, I think. What's more interesting to me than thinking about ghosts is thinking that that car had a whole life. When we took it apart, we saw evidence that it had been in a serious accident before the fatal one. I figure it's starting its life over again as an art object. I think about its life - from the factory in Detroit, through the wrecks, then ending up in my hands, and now it's ended up in another weird assembly line in my studio, and it's going back out again. It has a funny trail of identity.

DENNIS: Did it give you pause when Princess Di died in a car wreck?
 

CHARLES: No, no. It more gave me pause when I heard they were making a movie of Crash. Ballard was a big influence on me, but not in terms of this project. More in terms of the figurative work, the relationship between sex and technology. My fear was that the piece would be seen as like an advertisement for the movie, but I got over that, and now I'm interested in the topicality of the car wreck as a counterpoint to the abstraction. The piece has wound up being really abstract. It's moved away from the specific.

DENNIS: Do you find that, knowing about the possible misassociation with Crash, you've consciously covered your bases, either in the conceptualizing or in the physical construction of the piece?
 

CHARLES: The only thing that covers the bases really is the title, Unpainted Sculpture.

DENNIS: What about the decision to make it gray? Originally you were going to replicate the look of the original car, paint and all.

 
CHARLES: The decision to make it gray was a long time coming, through a reckoning with the form. I started to think of it as like the fade-ins and outs in movies, because a lot of it is sort of blank, like a pause. Part of that decision was due to financial limitations, but it's a better piece for the decision. I think the piece has my very best and my very worst in it. It has a bit of my showoffiness, and my sensationalism and grandstanding. Like everyone told me, "It's impossible. You can't take a mold of a wrecked car like this." And I said, "You can. You have to think of it as a thousand small sculptures." That's what we did, made a mold of every piece and assembled it back together. So it has my worst, like I said - my showoffiness - but it also has my best, I think, in its uncanniness. I hope it draws people in.

http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/charles_ray.shtml

Unpainted Sculpture is a meticulous recreation in fibreglass of a crashed Pontiac Grand Am (circa 1991) where everything from engine hoses to cracked tail lights, carpet texture to coin holder is carefully replicated. Despite the work’s misleading title, it is painted a soft dove grey that is reminiscent of the plastic parts of model car kits (genuinely unpainted), intimating an irrational shift in scale not dissimilar to many of the artist’s recent works. The monotone grey just as importantly serves to equalise every square inch of the wreck, so that as one’s eyes probe the bulges and recesses, all details become significant and are shown to be mutually dependent on the overall dynamics of the composition. Thus, as frontal impact has sent the bonnet billowing backwards into the cockpit, so has it incrementally rippled the roof and popped the rear doors askew. The viewing process is intensified by this egalitarian dynamism, but also by the spectacular destruction represented, so that the same curiosity that slows down drivers hungry to see the results of a motorway accident equally propels gallery visitors to pore over the wreckage and speculate about the fate of its occupant. It is highly probable that the driver was killed, judging from the egregious penetration by the bonnet into the space of the front seat, and also by the full reclination of that seat to allow the body to be resuscitated or removed (how much we know about such things!), yet that doesn’t close the door on the drama of the work.

In spite of its hulking presence in the gallery, the work’s material and colour endow it with an ethereal lightness that belies its massive physicality. The suggested spectre of death similarly pulls it into a realm of otherworldliness in which its baroque arabesques of twisted metal and mangled plastic miraculously align this most profane sculpture with religious art. Surveying the soft folds of crumpled door panels and undulating roof contours, my thoughts turned to Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (1645-52), a sculpture that makes monochromatic, grey-white marble look as if it could float heavenward in its exuberant evocation of drapery. St. Theresa was pierced by a flaming arrow, while the driver of the Pontiac was done in by a larger projectile, yet both, it can be assumed, were convinced that God would take them to a better place. In the case of the latter-day saint, a ‘Jesus is Lord’ plaque mounted on the lid of the car’s boot serves as a wholly plausible proclamation of contemporary faith.

Contemporaneity is key in Ray’s work, for connections to the myths and beliefs of the present give it an urgency that is only enriched by art historical associations. The car wreck, in particular, is an entirely modern event that has played a major role in works by figures such as Warhol, Godard, Ballard, Cronenberg and Chamberlain, all of whom have explored its power, beauty, tragedy and banality to varying degrees. The list of cultural luminaries immortalised by their automotive deaths is even longer, from Jackson Pollock to James Dean, Princess Grace to Princess Di, and brings enough combined romanticism and longing to the genre to make suicide seem a second-rate route to iconicity. Ray has likewise immortalised himself with a deadly car crash, making the best work of his career, yet in his case, living to talk about it may be less a blessing than an unexpected curse. How will he ever top this?
Michael Darling
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/charles_ray/ 


Saturday 7 June 2014

John Baldessari - Wrong






















Wrong, 1966-68


John Anthony Baldessari (born June 17, 1931) is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice, California.

Baldessari is best known for works that blend photographic materials (such as film stills), take them out of their original context and rearrange their form, often including the addition of words or sentences. Related to his early text paintings were his Wrong series (1966-1968), which paired photographic images with lines of text from an amateur photography book, aiming at the violation of a set of basic "rules" on snapshot composition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Baldessari























An Artist is Not Merely the Slavish Announcer, 1966-68

John Baldessari is known for works that blend photographic materials such as film stills. He takes them out of their original context and rearranges their form, often outlining their shapes including the addition of words or short sentences.

The artist made this work between 1966 and 1968. He was intentionally questioning the conventions of picture-making, among other things. The artist created this work after looking at an art instruction book about how to properly compose images. Baldessari had himself photographed in front of a palm tree. He comments: The person that did the book had sketches of the scene, of let’s say a landscape, but there would be two. And one would be right, according to him, and one would be wrong. And I loved the idea that somebody would just say that this is right and this is wrong. So I decided I would have a painting that was wrong, a work of art that was wrong, which seemed right to me.

Baldessari is interested in communicating his concept more than he is in creating something precious or unique. After he decided that his own handwriting was too personal and not distant enough he hired a professional sign painter to letter the word “wrong” you see on the original painting. This poster as a mere reproduction may therefore be undeniably seen as a work of art, though unsigned.
John Baldessari says about his work: I’m very interested in both language and imagery; I don’t really know why, but I find word and image equally important.
http://www.thearchiveislimited.com/john-baldessari-wrong-1966-1968/ 






















 The Spectator Is Compelled …, 1966–1968

Aaron Schuman: In your early photo-based work, you took your own photographs and applied them to a canvas.  Then you had someone else take pictures of you; then you asked others to take photographs for you; and finally you started to use found imagery, such as film-stills, photos from newspapers, and so on.  Why did you gradually take yourself out of the pictures, so to speak?


JB: It was mainly about trying to escape my own good taste, or good taste in general.  I think that each time you do some art you get better at it, so I was trying to figure out a way to work against that.  Anytime that I could not take a photograph – where I could just give instructions to somebody else to take a photograph – I would do it; if I needed a photograph of a house, I would just tell one of my assistants, ‘Go out and photograph a house.’  Then I would be honor-bound to accept it, because that’s all that I’d asked for.  I didn’t say to them what kind of house, or what kind of architecture I wanted – it was just a picture of whatever they thought a house was.  I had other ploys too.  I’d sit a camera in front of a TV on a tripod, and put an intervalometer on it so that every five minutes it would take a picture, and I would use those photographs.  Another thing that I’d do was compose a photograph perfectly using a tripod, and then pick the tripod up, move it a foot, and take the picture.  It was all about getting away from good taste.


AS: Why were you intent on avoiding good taste?

JB: Back then, I said that I was trying to work against my own good taste because I figured that good taste is going to come out anyway, no matter what you do, so there’s no reason to work at it. 


AS: You’ve often talked about how people such as Marcel Duchamp were deeply influential to you as a young artist, and now you yourself have become an incredibly influential figure in your own right.  What’s it like to play such an important role in the lives of other artists?

JB:  I think that it’s incredibly flattering to have an effect on other artists.  I’ve always seen art as a conversation between artists – I do something that is trying to speak to other artists, and if they’re listening, they do something that tries to speak back to me.  It’s kind of like a cocktail party full of artists, but their not talking; they’re making art.  I don’t work at trying to influence other artists, but I’m happy that I do, because it means that I’m doing something that’s worthwhile.
http://www.seesawmagazine.com/baldessariinterviewpages/baldessariinterview.html

A Work with Only One Property, 1966


A photo and a word. A four-by-five-foot stretched canvas with a deadpan black-and-white photograph printed on its acrylic surface, showing a lanky westerner standing in front of a palm tree that seems to be growing out of his head, confronted by the single word WRONG neatly lettered below. Critics have come to see this 1967-68 work as John Baldessari`s signature piece and taken it as a laconic gag, one of a series of droll Conceptualist challenges aimed at the compositional standards of conventional photography. This casts Baldessari as a kind of Will Rogers of Conceptual art, and what kind of Conceptualism is that? California Conceptualism, for most of us, who saw it further develop with William Wegman`s loyal Weimaraners, Robert Cumming`s nutty installations, Eleanor Antin`s "ioo BOOTS" 1971-73, and Lowell Darling`s political campaigns. Cartoon Conceptualism, for Joseph Kosuth, who preferred the turgid theorizing of Art 8t Language and his own pedantic prose.

But if Wrong is Baldessari`s signature piece, is it as simple as an arrow directed at a meaning? Another work from around the same time (1967-68) casts doubt on this-a text piece that has lettered on its otherwise blank white ground

A WORK WITH ONLY ONE PROPERTY.

a claim that becomes absurd once you ask yourself what this one property could be, which might be that it`s manifestly false, and then retreat to wonder if, in fact, the text presents a claim at all or merely an invitation to try to imagine a work possessing one property only-and its difficulties. The bluntness of this text`s assertion, if it is an assertion, and its dubiousness connect it directly to Wrong, about which we can reasonably ask, "What`s WRONG?" and answer, "You think you`re looking at a photograph, but it`s a painting." Or, "You think you`re looking at a painting, but it`s a photograph." Or, "You think you`re looking at a provincial artist in a drab little city cracking a joke at his situation." And you`re RIGHT. But you`re also WRONG, because he was employing a cutting-edge art-world strategy for attacking received meaning. So the artist`s ploy of being WRONG for making a photograph and WRONG for making a painting was precisely RIGHT for making the kind of critical art that Conceptual art was claiming to be. It seems like we`re dealing with another form of the Cretan Paradox-in which Epimenides tells you, "All Cretans are liars"; if he`s telling the truth he`s lying, and if he`s lying he`s telling the truth. So Wrong may truly be a signature piece, in that all of Baldessari`s incursions into video, photography, and painting have been very obviously WRONG, because he stumbles as precisely as a silent-era film comedian into the orderly discourses surrounding the genres, leaving the kind of cheerful mess that is usually RIGHT.

David Antin 
http://www.mutualart.com/OpenArticle/John-Baldessari/B88EB62D9D43B6BD 

Friday 6 June 2014

Wilsons pies






















Cross Gates (sometimes spelled Crossgates) is a suburb in east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Gates

Wilsons, winners of “Britain’s Best Butchers (2012-2013) are award winning traditional butchers who cater for the requirements of today’s conscientious consumer. They achieve this by sourcing only the finest locally produced beef, outdoor reared pork and Yorkshire lamb which is matured and cut by master craftsmen to give tender, succulent meat with real flavour. Wilsons are also noted for their home made sausage and Champion Pies & Pasties, being three times winners of the Yorkshire Small Pork Pie Competition. They even make 10 inch celebration pork pies for special occasions as well as a three tier wedding pork pie. Wilsons also have an online shop with deliveries direct to your door – you won’t be disappointed!
http://www.qguild.co.uk/your-local-butcher/west-yorkshire/wilsons-of-crossgates/

Now, being an East Leeds lad, I always assumed that the finest growlers were from Wilsons of Crossgates (and Morley). They are championship winners after all and (according to the sign) have featured on the Terry Wogan show.
raveydavey
http://www.secretleeds.co.uk/forum/Messages.aspx?ThreadID=1821 

Pork pie sales have soared by 50% at Wilsons Butchers in Crossgates, Leeds following the shop’s supreme championship winning success in this year’s 13th annual charity pork pie competition staged by The Pork Pie Appreciation Society at the Old Bridge Inn, Ripponden, on Saturday, April 9.

Wilsons success in the competition also achieved widespread publicity in local and regional newspaper and broadcast media, including personal appearances for the owners, brothers Andrew and John Green, on both BBC Look North and YTV Calendar.

Mind you, the duo were quick to take up the initiative, personally delivering batches of their championship pies to the media, who were highly appreciative of the gesture.

John explains: “We have also had enquiries from further afield. A cafe from Wakefield wanted us to deliver, while a man from Liverpool who works near Skipton asked us to post him some of our award winning pies. 

“Winning The Pork Pie Appreciation Society competition has certainly boosted our profile considerably  and our sales!

It was third time lucky in 2005 for Wilsons Butchers, based in Austhorpe Road , Crossgates, who had finished runners up in the competition for the previous two years.

Fourth generation butchers, Andrew and John Green, have made remarkable progress since taking over at in Crossgates in 1985. Expansion, diversification and a true commitment to their chosen trade, backed by a skilled and experienced team both in the shop and behind the scenes, have seen Wilsons become one of the best known and most successful butchers in the whole region.

Andrew Green recalls: “In the early days, we operated as a specialist meat shop, before opening an in house bakery and introducing our own home made pies. We haven’t looked back since. The bakery has grown since day one and is going forward all the time.”
http://www.porkpieclub.com/index.php/pork-pie-history/31-wilsons-success-is-not-pie-in-the-sky.html 

Monday 2 June 2014

Receipts

Bought a few items:






















Mark Fisher - Ghosts of My Life (Zero Books), £6.66
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20863042-ghosts-of-my-life






















Richard Barnett - The Sick Rose (Distributed Art Publishers), £14.83
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20300524-the-sick-rose

Mixx & Camero - The Best Of Ron Hardy Vol. 1 12" (Streetfire Records), £7.99
http://www.discogs.com/Mixx-Camero-The-Best-Of-Ron-Hardy-Volume-I/release/5629320