March 2022
In early March, I closed up the workspace I'd kept for just about 10 years in eastern Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
February 2020
A publication – a long time in the making – drops as a book early 2020.
Brought into being with help from Sonia Yoon in the design and project management departments, and several other masters in the critical and editorial arenas. Description below.
– – –
The group of page-length docs collected here tease together what is usually seen as non-fiction (journalism, technical writing) and a more interior voice (prose, travel writing) by pushing around the language of those familiar forms – and by playing with the boundaries between those different authorities – not to alter the truth or to make up an alternative set of facts, but to reassess what is meant by 'information'.
(Midsummer 2019).
(Winter 2018)
(Winter 2017)
At Pilot Projects in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philip von Zweck has mounted a solo show to which I have made a very small contribution, in the form of a to-be-endlessly-photocopied text work of Terms, under the banner of his recurring work A Project By Philip von Zweck. For this project, he receives works from artists before the event, that are then photocopied at the request of anyone who may stop by and given away, free.
Around noon tomorrow – Friday December 2, 2016 – I'll have a few words pulled along by a plane far above, visible from South Beach Miami, Florida.
In summer of 2015, an intervention by Anthony Elms, Philip von Zweck, and myself - using words written by Sam Melville - was published in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard as part of A Revolution A Day. Made possible by the efforts of Lorenzo Benedetti, Patrick Ronse, Hilde Teerlinck, and Philip Van den Bossche. Just got the image and info now, so a bit of a delay in this News Bulletin.
(Midsummer 2016)
(Spring 2016)
(Early Winter 2015)
Freshly plucked from the digital realm, here's "part one of an unending series" from John Wanzel - his new project How To Kill A Yeti.
Made At Work 2
in the office of Threewalls
11/7/15-12/12/15
Artists deserve to get paid for making work. To insure that all of the artists in this show were compensated, all of the works in this show were made by artists while on the clock at their day job, generally using materials supplied by work.
Now some 16 years later von Zweck’s D Gallery (located in his office) presents the sequel in the office of Threewalls as part of Brandon Alvendia’s exhibition The Great Good Place.
Artists include:
Holly Cahill, Greg Cook, Jacob C. Hammes, Kevin Jennings, Andy Moore, Will Staples, Shannon Stratton, Brian Taylor, Olivia Swider, and Erik Wenzel
One of my neon dots - a red one - will be installed in the window of MS BARBERS, a new little joint on Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles, as of August 2015 as a long-term installation. Not sure what 'long-term' will end up meaning, but I'm excited.
(May 2015)
The next mold for the carillon - and the second Ringing-Rock-Mold - made in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, just over the Delaware. The rubber mold, and some sound recordings, made on a quick field outing with John Wanzel setting out from Harlem on a balmy Wednesday in May. Then a couple bitter beers at the Ship Inn; a very Colonial American day (but with none of the attendant Horrors).
Two new pieces in a group show in Atlantis, opening this Friday . . .
A group show in Santa Barbara, California, organized by Robert Wechsler. Here's a snippet from his press release:
The show features works by James Anderson, Sarah Awad, Craig Drennen, Victoria Fu, Gregory Michael Hernandez, Anton Lieberman, Katja Mater, Anne McGuire, Yi Sheng, Brian Taylor, and Ariane Vielmetter.
Our show title, AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, is about the importance of practice; the value of trial and error, and the role of failure in the service of eventual success. The title reflects the reality of a professional studio artist, where success is the result of dogged persistence.
The College of Creative Studies stands on the corner of Ucen Road and Channel Islands Road on the UCSB campus. Ordinary gallery hours are 10 – 5, M-F, weekends by appointment. "
At the LA Book Fair very soon, I'll have a print at the Projekt Papier table ...
(September 2014)
One week drive to Montana to make a mold, shoot some film, record some sound, and hammer out some copper. In and around Butte and at the Ringing Rocks there.
- - -
UPDATE October 6:
Just got back to California, after 3,524.3 mile drive in a sort-of circle in the CRV... sifting through the work from 9/27 to 10/6 – a polyurethane mold of a lithophonic rock, recorded sound, Super-8mm film, 35mm still film, digital images and a copper gong.
A Risograph machine is like a photocopier, if it was somehow crossed with a little bit of an offset printing process. It's not heat transferred toner, but rather 'real ink' that is pushed through a master screen that's been temporarily heat-spotted with tiny voids through which the ink will be pressed. So maybe a little screenprinting feel to it as well.
I just made an edition at James Anderson's shop on his Riso machine, of a 'score' for a sound field/performance/fantasy. It'll be shown with a group of other people's prints sometime in September.
Just hiked up to the summit of Half Dome, in Yosemite National Park. On Thursday the 12th, Kari Reardon, Clint Campbell, Yi Sheng and I strode out to tackle it, 4,800-foot gain, 16-ish miles, cables and all, and though Yi turned back for other adventures after Little Yosemite Valley, Kari, Clint, and I made it to the top, where we were nearly tricked by a marmot into giving up our summer sausage, beer, apples, cheese and plantain chips. Joined by Ricardo the Dutchman, then Success! 12 hours and 6 minutes. back down to the Valley floor. Made a quick wax press mold up at the dome-top, of the white granite, using the red wax covering from those little babybel cheeses, soon to be cast in tin.
June.12.2014
I will have two pieces in a basement in Chinatown, Los Angeles, California...in a group show (curated by Katrina Umber) called REDS at Charlie James Gallery.
March 15 - April 26 2014
Opens 7-10 pm on The Ides of March
Coming up in a few days:
The second Southwest jaunt looking around at some Earth/Land works (of different kinds):
Through CA-AZ-NM with Yi -- San Diego Zoo, the Mojave Desert, and Walter de Maria's The Lightning Field.
Counterclockwise around The Great Salt Lake, the sound of the Organ at the Mormon Tabernacle, Smithson's Jetty, Holt's Tunnels, CLUI in Wendover, the Bonneville Salt Flats, a cowboy bar and a copper mine, and chasing after elk in the Wasatch Mountains. Collecting Sounds and Images for a Western.
Late November, a meeting in Provincetown, Massachusetts, featuring Hannah Walsh, Nick des Cognets, Ian McMahon, Taylor Baldwin, and the fierce Atlantic. And an old church belfry in Hornell, NY.
Just finished a piece of text, called WINDFUCKER, to be included as part of a printed broadside-paper sort of thing within Philip von Zweck's show in Chicago at 65 Grand. Opens this Friday
http://65grand.com/vonzweck2.php
I've contributed to a group-residency-project-affair in response to my great friend Heather Mekkelson, who solicited a quick something from me, which in turn was solicited from her....you know how these things work. My contribution involves abstraction and Glenn Gould. Hers involves an asteroid and maybe the apocalypse. Below is an excerpt from the way Heather phrases it in an email update of her own:
"...
In the near future, an online piece I developed for my friends Trevor and Rachel Reese of Possible Projects (formerly Philadelphia-based, currently Atlanta-based) will be appearing as part of their "residency" at this address: http://conceptplusobject.net/
..."
Note: my piece ended up being a truncated a little. You can't zoom-in to it. But it's there. Sort of.
A trip to Iceland, in late June, for a week or so with my dad. I'm thinking it'll be some cross between a father/son made-for-tv movie and a travel show with more political disagreements and 'negotiating' about who's gonna drive. Also, some glacier hiking with a sound recorder'll be in there somewhere.
A drive to San Francisco to meet up with Philip and Andreas, and location-scouting for a project later this year. (April 3-6)
February/March: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. With Ben Jurgensen, Ian McMahon, Ali Miharbi.
(From the press release)
D Gallery presents its inaugural exhibition:
Still Life
The subtitle was supposed to be something to do with male artists and alcohol, but then the Bengala signed on and threw off the gender bias, which wasn’t an intentional bias- I mean when I threw out the theme to a pool of artist friends initially only male ones responded… tells ya’ something, doesn’t it. Or not.
“Still Life” is a pun, like thug life but with a dedication to delicious (distilled) spirits rather than trouble making; get it? get it? drunks. The title may have been James’ suggestion, but this show is the happy resolution, hashed out on facebook, to the Sophie’s choice of granting my office a second life as either a speak easy* or a gallery.
Exhibiting artists:
Academy Records, James Barry , The Bengala, Anthony Elms, Industry of the Ordinary, Chris Hammes. Kevin Jennings, Chris Kerr, Scott Speh, Brian Taylor