I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in .  I want to survive my life without becoming numb .  I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell .  I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of stars .

- Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds.

Early Fall

 My favorite season falls this year during a moment where I can slow down for a change, rather than speeding up, and after quite a speedy summer. Adjusting to my little vacation has been interesting, but has given me a chance to sit back and take in the gorgeous weather, even to make some art. Views from VT...

Cadavre Exquis

Nude; Cadavre Exquis (French) with Yves Tanguy (American, born France. 1900–1955), Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893–1983), Max Morise (French, 1900–1973) and Man Ray (American, 1890–1976). 1926-1927. Composite drawing of ink, pencil, and colored pencil on paper. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

I remember as a child playing this game - "Exquisite Corpse." We would fold paper, each drawing a section of a figure without seeing the previous drawing. When we were done, we would unfold the paper, revealing the creature we had made. In the hands of the Surrealists in the 1920s and 1930s,* this game became a vehicle for chance, a mode of encounter, both for the disparate parts of the drawing and for the individual imaginations of the participating artists (and look at that collection of star power!). 

What continues to attract me to these drawings, as a scholar and as an artist, is the ways in which collaboration and process intersect, creating a composite result that is also completely unique. There's an element of communication and dialogue, yet also of concealment, and most importantly, whimsy and play.

Figure; Cadavre Exquis (French) with André Breton (French, 1896–1966), Jacques Hérold (Romanian, 1910–1991), Yves Tanguy (American, born France. 1900–1955) and Victor Brauner (Romanian, 1903–1966). 1934. Pencil on paper. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 

The idea of surrendering to the process as a kind of automatic happening is certainly very Modernist, but I love that these drawings still seem so fresh and polyvocal, like documents of a conversation or interaction as much as they stand as experimental or poetic gestures.

*This time period is increasingly holding my interest as I enjoy the opportunity to look, read and think at my leisure...

blog-ing

Any time I tried to keep a diary it was always a disaster - for me things are either in the regular chores category or the random/fun category. This falls somewhere in between. Still, I really do like it as a creative outlet, and it beats mass emails for update purposes. I guess as a low-tech person, I am just still in awe of the sheer amount of social networking opportunities out there, and often get overwhelmed at trying to keep up with all of them. 

Huh. 

Anyways, going to try to make this fun and a regular chore. Here goes!

Spent an amazing weekend in Vail, Colorado. Life's good at 9,000 feet!

it does

“Art removes objects from the automatism of perception”

Victor Shklovsky, Art as Technique

Evening Run, East River

 

Photos snapped on my iPhone on a couple of my almost daily runs along the east river. Late afternoon and early evening, the light is just spectacular...

 

 Dissonant daffodils near the highway, and some Modernist architecture illuminated.

Signs of Spring...

Spring is Springing

Finally emerging from under the literal pile of paper that is/was/continues to be my final MA project just as Spring weather emerges here in New York. Must post here more often. In the meantime, a lovely picture of a place (I don't know where) that I want to get to as soon as possible.

Happy Happy!

My annual family holiday card design: a delicate interpretation of the twelve days of Christmas.

Getting into the spirit post-finals, and am so grateful for all this year has brought!

Happy Happy!

echoes of Europe at 7:50 am

Vogue and a cappuccino with cinnamon on the steps of school this morning. It's the little things.

the sweet dilemmas of the art historian

"choose your area of study based on where you want to travel" - Professor Rubin, on our first day of graduate school. 


... hmmm what a lovely luxury. now where ever shall I choose?

I swear.

blast from the past/sudden urge to be on a hill in Vicenza.

November in New York. I swear.

First Curatorial Venture! Seeking Artists: Women, Subjectivity, Embodiment, Migration

Call for women artists working in all media!

We are two NYU graduate students curating a group exhibition that stems from our interest in women artists, and issues such as subjectivity, borders and boundaries, migration, and embodiment. 

We are interested in a creative and collaborative curatorial approach, centering on the exchange of ideas between artists, curators and the public.  Our intention is to create a thought provoking exhibition which challenges modes of reception not only between viewers and works of art in the gallery space, but that invites new dialogues about the ways in which we approach self/other and subject/object relationships. We're seeking artwork that can challenge our understanding of the world and urge us to rethink art's role within contemporary culture.

Email kimia.r.shahi@gmail.com or reply here

Please NYC area only.

Boro Park & Coney Island

 The warm weather today reminds me of a great visit I made with my grandparents to the edges of Brooklyn.

 We began in the predominately Hasidic neighborhood of Boro Park...

...Then to Coney Island, hotdogs and the beach...

 

 

There's something very uncanny about Coney Island. I really like that.

 

...And then through Sheepshead Bay all the way to my grandfather's old neighborhood on Avenue U.
 (By way of Randazzo's Clam Bar)

 

 

It was a different world out there. Great to know it's all part of the same city.

new pen drawings

I'm very interested in the idea of playing with scale, thinking about how a delicate pen line can carry the monumental weight of a brush stroke, so that every detail is activated in an interesting way. For me, I think I enjoy this kind of drawing because it's loose and experimental, really coming from the mental space of the doodle, both relaxed and slightly distracted and more open to chance.  

(all drawings are colored pen on small paper or post-it notes)

 

still points

some stolen moments of calm amid the storm that is New York.

sitting on a bench, watching the world. there's good, and beauty in it.