Flickr: The Autografik Pool.

Moleskin sketchbooks, which read like storybooks, hang from the ceiling in one corner, while large scale drawings hang in the hallways and the walls of her studio space. Disfigured small-scale sculptures sit patiently on the table, some housed in their own small cupboards, while larger scale sculptures sit free form outside. Each work seems to represent a different episode, or a different manifestation of her feelings as a new character (or doppelganger, as she says). Incredibly detailed and fantastical, she is right in assuming that “the works are initially understood as playful, cute and humorous, but this is merely a polite disguise, just as one uses a smile to hide a despicable body and mind that has gone berserk. Thus, through the lens of my own experience, I direct the viewers’ visions to the complex, deep-level, make-up of who we are, and make us dwell on the abject nature of being human.”

Swing Space is a space grant program that connects artists and arts organizations with vacant commercial space downtown. Studio, rehearsal, office, installation, and exhibition space awards are typically for one to six months and may be accompanied by a project stipend of $300-$3,000, when funds are available. Housed in an expansive upper-level office floor in a skyscraper in the Financial District, the 10th floor of 77 Water Street is the summer home of the Swing Space visual artist studios. Twenty former bankers’ offices lining the nearly 20,000 square foot floor offers selected artists space to complete proposed projects in the visual arts. With sweeping views of the East River, New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and the office buildings of the Insurance District, 77 Water Street serves the Swing Space program’s goal to place artists in uncommon and unique environments in Lower Manhattan.

We love the strangemaps blog, so coming across MAPCO (via the always-excellent Metafilter) really brightened up our Monday. The archive has high-res scans of historical maps, mostly of Australia and the UK. We’re looking forward to an upcoming release of the 1772 (pre-Haussmann) Paris map.

Yaaaaaayyyyyyyy

Artist Cheryl Donegan’s recent comment exposes her opinion on the Bible as static: “Modernism should not be seen as Biblical; it should be seen as Talmudic,” the written record of an oral tradition.  As the previously noted Jerry Saltz article notes, Talmudic tradition is inherently collaborative, involving “thousands of people making comments in the margins, debating issues and ideas, shaping tradition, changing it, and keeping it alive.”

Prodigal Suns started their collaborative work with Genesis, a series of 10 pieces, which established a language later refined in The Kansas Group, a series that focused on the deconstruction and reconstruction of Family.

Too much self-reference?… “At first inspired by Louise Bourgeois, Carl and Russell oddly attached themselves to the Book of Acts, borrowing from the character Stephen to rebuild the birthing canal, the loss of innocence, death, reincarnation and the revelation that comes from the stoning of innocents.  In depth it became an opus for the discrimination of homosexuals in the 21st Century.”  …I promise, it wasn’t planned.

The two haven’t stopped collaborating, even though the dates on this website may give that impression (copyright 2005).  Their store is a living “wonderland of vintage finds,” a product that the two of them have nurtured into its own personality.

MUSEUMS

American Society of Hot Air: An exhibition of of of popcorn poppers, dry steamers, and blow-dryers.  A show that burns with nothingness.

Beagle Society: Featuring the brown-and-black spotted, howling, and mischievous “Lucy” along with her paler and chubbier collaborator “Scout.”

Cash-Only Museum of Art Decay: “Permanent Collection,” featuring the leftover scraps from many of today’s favorite artists: Richard Tuttle’s snapped wire, Donald Judd’s broken wood, and Tony Oursler’s leftover stuffing (fabric that is not cornbread).

Drool Museum: Remember that you have golashes.

Eyebrow Hall-of-Fame: *Vintage tweezers currently on display. Must not miss the retrospective of eyebrow hall-of-fame’s new favorite trick:  threading. A shoelace donation is requested.

Gourmand Institute: *Don’t miss the exhibition of burned pots, tentatively titled, “The Rice that Wouldn’t Let Go.”

Insomniacs-R-Us: Only open from 12 AM unitl 5 AM. A “hands-on” exhibition currently on display. Participate in “The Next Great American Novel.”

about these listings: written with ‘Le Pen’ –wonderful and overpriced.  Morningside Heights/ October minus a few days, 2006.

Leaving his exhibit on the first floor of the Brooklyn Museum, I felt a bit cheated. I didn’t expect the majority of Shonibare’s survey to be film. But the map revealed there was more –the large-scale game of hide and seek brought me through other galleries to find those little figures in their clothes of “patterned Dutch wax fabric produced in Europe for a West African market” inside rooms that could easily have belonged to colonists.  According to the exhibition’s website, another site-specific installation, Party Time—Re-Imagine America: A Centennial Commission by Yinka Shonibare MBE,  will be on view at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, from July 1, 2009, to January 3, 2010, in the dining room of the museum’s 1885 Ballantine House.  Would it be cheating to use 20th century transportation?

Definitely best viewed in full screen Google Earth mode, but you can also check out some of these massive images in Google Maps.

Featuring:
45 RPM
The Butchers of Fort Greene Place
Let’s Eat

and more!

More museum panoramas? How about the Panorama Museum (German). Or a real life Panorama, of NYC, at the Queens Museum (we’ll be visiting this summer in combination with a Mets game at Debit’s Field).