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from the economist.com

This remarkable exhibition at the California Science Museum might amaze, intrigue, shock or horrify you—but it will not leave you unmoved. More than 200 people donated their cadavers to the project's director, Gunther Von Hagens, so that he could variously skin or dissect them before preserving the results by a process he calls “plastination”: replacing body fluids with clear, flexible plastic. One of the more shocking displays is the corpse of a woman who was eight months pregnant, her belly cut away to reveal the fetus. Another features a family group showing just their blood vessels. A third shows a man playing basketball with his skin removed, revealing the extraordinary interplay of muscle and sinew. More pointed is a cadaver with a cigarette and a blackened lung on full view. Mr von Hagens claims a genuine scientific purpose; his critics call him a morbid and ghoulish showman. Either way, his project has apparently persuaded several thousand people to promise him their corpses.


Until January, 2005 @ the Science Centre

@ MoCA Cleveland until April 25, 2004

Spencer Tunick has been documenting the live nude figure in public, with both photography and video since 1992. His temporary, site-related installations combine sculpture, performance and land art and often encompass thousands of nude volunteers, grouped together in public spaces. Creating an experience that is at once a challenge to culturally held views of nudity and privacy, Spencer Tunick�s installations are also an opportunity to re-examine social, political and legal issues surrounding art in the public sphere. Spencer Tunick: Manmade and Natural features photographic prints of several past nude installations in cities such as Melbourne, Barcelona, Santa Fe and New York City

spencertunick.com

banksy


Interesting site about the art of graffiti


This revolution is for display purposes only

The Art of Romare Bearden


@ SF MoMA until May 16,2004

Romare Bearden's vibrant work was inspired by both personal experience and the culture of his surroundings. The rural South, Pittsburgh, Harlem � these places not only served as home for Bearden but also as rich sources of artistic inspiration. The themes of society became the themes of his work, where jazz culture, ritual practice, religion, history, and literature all figure prominently. His complex, imaginative oeuvre offers an invaluable view of mid-twentieth-century African American experience. This exhibition features some 140 of Bearden's collages, photomontages, watercolors, and monotypes from the 1940s to the 1980s. more

Visit the online interactive multi-media program that explores Romare Bearden's life and work, his roots in the Harlem Renaissance, his relationship to jazz and blues music, and how his art expressed a unique fusion of diverse traditions.

@ the Anacostia Museum & Center for African-American History and Culture through Feb. 29th, 2004

Photography by Michael Cunningham

Based on the best-selling book by the same name, this exhibition celebrates �hattitude,� the Black woman�s boundless passion for keeping The Sabbath both Holy and Glamorous. Cunningham�s 30 black and white photographs explore that rich cultural tradition of heading to worship in hats ranging from the simple to the simply out-of-this world. Marberry�s interviews capture the stories of generations of Hat Ladies � from high glamour college students to serene and stylish grandmothers. Together they provide a look into this captivating marriage of faith and fashion. This exhibition is presented in conjunction with The Arena Stage presentation of �Crowns,� a gospel-driven musical written and directed by Regina Taylor.

CNN.com

JERUSALEM-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has praised his country's ambassador to Sweden for damaging an art exhibit depicting a Palestinian suicide bomber.

Zvi Mazel disconnected the cables of a mounted spotlight at Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities on Friday causing it to crash into the work, the artist Dror Feiler told CNN Sunday.

Mazel told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that he did not cut or rip the electrical wires but unplugged electrical projectors that provided lighting to the display. He told Haaretz it was an act of protest.

The exhibit consists of a boat floating in a rectangular basin filled with red water, carrying a portrait of Palestinian suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat and "Snovit" (Snow White in Swedish) written on the side. more

Currently @ The Met until April 24th, 2004.

The subjects of the prints by renowned contemporary artist Chuck Close, like those of his large paintings, are the faces of relatives and fellow artists, as well as self-portraits. This retrospective presents more than 100 images, ranging from Close's first print, Keith, a mezzotint made in 1972, to the 120-color Japanese-style ukiyo-e woodcut Emma, completed in 2002. Also displayed are other intaglios and woodcuts, lithographs, silk-screen prints, linoleum cuts, and selected print matrixes, such as woodblocks and etching plates. The exhibition includes a number of progressive proofs and state proofs of certain images to illuminate Close's working methods. more

indystar.com

Indiana fourth-grade students can submit original artwork for the state's fifth annual "What's So Great About Indiana?" Screen Saver Contest through April 5.

The top entries will be featured on the state's Web portal, AccessIndiana. The public will be encouraged to vote for their favorite. The top five entries will be compiled into a downloadable screen saver.

check out the website

economist.com

Eriko Horiki is a Japanese artist who is gaining an international reputation for her works in washi: an ancient medium. The history of this traditional thin, hand-made paper dates back to the fifth century AD. It originated in China and continues to be made in Japan. more




artist's website

At the Tate | Modern, London, UK

In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape. more

The news said that we just had a 6.5 earthquake about 200 miles north of here, but I didn't feel it. I was outside walking my dog.

(By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD--New York Times)

Three small figurines carved of ivory from mammoth tusks have been found in a cave in southwestern Germany, providing stronger evidence that human ancestors were already adept at figurative art more than 30,000 years ago, an archaeologist is reporting today.

One of the pieces is the oldest known representation of a bird, which resembles a cormorant or a duck. The others appear to be the head of a horse and a figure half-man, half-animal. None is longer than an inch. more

I keep having this recurring dream that I'm on stage in the middle of a performance when the director will stop the show to hold rehearsal-- in front of the audience. The audience is confused and I'm embarrassed that the illusion of our performance is broken. I have this dream almost every night! Hmmm.

Chris is famous for the Holy Virgin Mary, Lightning-rod canvas with elephant dung, exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Summer -- Fall 1999.

A gorgeous, sweet and respectful treatment of the subject, rendering her as a sternly hieratic African personage in petal-like blue robes. Much of the painting's surface shimmers ecstatically with glitter in yellow resin. Tiny collaged cutouts of bare bottoms from porn magazines evoke putti, and allude to the element of fertility in Mary's symbology, which Ofili did not invent. As for the pachyderm product, it is one smallish, attached lump, capped with what appears to be black-and-white beadwork (in reality pushpin heads) in a design of concentric circles. Elephant poop turns out to be innocuous-looking stuff, not unpleasant in color and almost decorative in texture (lots of straw).

Frank O. Gehry's architecture is on display at the Museum of Comtemporary Art at California Plaza in Los Angeles until 1.26.04



Best known for the fluid metal-clad forms of the Guggenheim Bilbao and Los Angeles�s own Walt Disney Concert Hall, Frank Gehry (b. 1929) has exploded architectural traditions to create legendary buildings. To coincide with the October completion of the neighboring Concert Hall, MOCA presents an exhibition that...more

visit MoCA

(Ananova.com) A Chilean artist has persuaded a dwarf to live inside a glass box for a month as part of a new exhibition.

Roberto Avendano will live inside the one cubic metre glass box, eight hours a day, for a month.

Artist Luis Guerra told Las Ultimas Noticias online: "It might be disturbing for some people but I believe that this is one of the objectives of art." more

(Ananova.com) A transvestite potter who decorates vases with images of sex and child abuse has won the Turner Prize.

Grayson Perry, 43, collected the �20,000 prize at a ceremony at Tate Britain in London, dressed as his alter ego Claire.

The artist, who is married with a daughter, wore a �2,500 embroidered frock...(more)

Visit the Tate Gallery | Britain

(The Telegraph) A 425-million-year-old fossilised penis, the oldest one yet recorded, has been discovered by scientists.

It belongs to an ostrocod, a tiny animal like a water-flea which is still common today, even in suburban ponds.

The fossil was found preserved in volcanic ash at an undisclosed site in...(more)

[i]I would never, ever bank with B of A and this is one reason why...[/i]

(ClarkHoward.com) Clark is appalled once again by the behavior of Bank of America. The company stepped up to the plate recently when it was discovered that the BOA was involved in a mutual fund scandal. But now the company is involved in another scandalous affair, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. BOA has been sending $2.50 �ghost checks� to credit card customers, telling them to cash the checks immediately! The envelope says �check enclosed� and inside... (more)

(ClarkHoward.com) You would never guess it, but the most profitable retailer in the country is the �99 Cents Only Store.� Most people have never even heard of the �99 Cents Only� stores because they only exist in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. This chain is the granddaddy of having $1 items only in stores. And the man who created the... (more)

The trust that others place in you is your grace.

[i](Found on the piece of paper that's stapled to the string of a Yogi Tea teabag)[/i]

[i]An unknown poet penned this verse about builders and wreckers:[/i]

I watched them tearing a building down, a gang of men in a busy town. With a ho, heave, ho and a lusty yell, they swung a beam and a wall fell. I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled? Like the men you'd hire if you had to build?"

He laughed as he replied, "No, indeed. Just common labor is all I need. I can easily wreck in a day or two what builders have taken years to do."

I asked myself as I went away Which of these roles have I tried to play? Am I a builder who works with care, measuring life by rule and square? Or am I a wrecker who walks the town, content with the labor of tearing down?

Why is it so many of us find it easier to be a wrecker than a builder? Why do so many of us find it perversely gratifying to be sideline cynics, smothering ideas in a relentless barrage of "what ifs"?

Sure, it can be helpful to point out all the things that can go wrong. But too often we claim the role of constructive critic, even when there isn't much that's constructive in our criticism. Often we try to mask negativism by claiming we are just being realistic, but the end result is to deflate balloons rather than help launch them.

[i]A builder sees problems as challenges and seeks solutions; a dismantler sees problems in every solution. A builder sees flaws and tries to fix them; the dismantler sees flaws in every fix."[/i]

How annoying! I was at the gym on the treadmill, listening to P!nk's "There You Go", when my iPod just froze and wouldn't do anything! And it wasn't in the lock position. It wouldn't turn off, skip--nothing. So, no more music = no more gym b/c working out is boring without music. I came home, went to iPod's help, and, as they suggested, held down the Menu and Play keys simultaneously for 5 seconds while iPod was plugged into my laptop and it reset itself without losing any music and all is fine. Hmmm. Learned something new.

In the process, I found this great iPod hacks & help site!

(BBC) Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades - but is still in perfect health.

Prahlad Jani, a holy man, or fakir, who is over 70 years old, has just spent 10 days under constant observation in... (more)

(Fox News) A new controversey has erupted around the issue of gay marriage, as some black leaders have been outraged by comparisons being drawn between the civil rights movement and the right of homosexuals to marry.

Observers have been drawing similarities between the two movements since... (more)