Photographer Guillermo Monteleone: [click for the entire mural]
Very sad news that Salon Canning has apparently decided to take down photographer Monteleone Tango's mural. That mural, for me, *is* Salon Canning.
Post by [Guillermo] Monteleone Tango:
"Los administradores del Salon Canning han decidido unilateralmente bajar el mural Milonga que desde 2006 ha representado a la sala. Quiero dejar claro que no he sido yo, que no he sido consultado y que no autorice la manipulacion de la obra de mi autoria y propiedad. La semana pasada solo he recibido un pedido de retirar la muestra del pasillo dado el interes de alquilar el espacio como galeria de arte. Accion que lleve adelante el martes 15 como fue de publico conocimiento.
Salon Canning managers have unilaterally decided to take down the Milonga mural that has represented the hall since 2006. I want to make it clear that it wasn't me, that I wasn't consulted and that I don't allow the manipulation of the work of my authorship and property. Last week I only received a request to remove the sample hallway given the interest in renting the space as an art gallery. Action that goes ahead on Tuesday 15th as it was public knowledge. I don't know the motives that led them to such behaviors. "
He uploads wonderful images to his Facebook profile, mostly Salon Canning/Milonga Parakultural...
So. I feel like this may be the most important thing I have ever or will ever post. I had heard the story of Vivian Maier a while back - I think it might have been this story from 2011 in Mother Jones - http://goo.gl/ORvpzz. At the time, I read the article and looked at the photos and thought "cool" and shared it on Facebook, and then promptly forgot about it.
My darlin' heart Ginny told me about this documentary just last night. I thought about it all day, and then started watching it a little while ago on Netflix. I've only watched about 10 minutes of it, and I've now stopped to write this.
I barely have the words to describe how monumentally important this documentary is, how important this woman's work is (it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I was seeing a few of the images again), how important the story of the discovery of this woman's work (and life) are.
Monumentally important, amazing, Thesaurus dot com lists synonyms for important as: valuable, substantial big critical crucial decisive essential extensive far-reaching great imperative influential large meaningful necessary paramount relevant serious significant urgent vital big-league chief considerable conspicuous determining earnest esteemed exceptional exigent foremost front-page grave heavy importunate marked material mattering much momentous of moment of note of substance ponderous pressing primary principal salient signal something standout weighty. There. I think that about covers it. All of that.
There is also the happenstance, no, the serendipity, of this discovery. *This discovery, by *this particular individual - John Maloof.
I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll stop here. It's available on Netflix and iTunes - perhaps others. There's also at least one book, and I'm sure we'll be hearing more.
I may be over-reacting a bit, I suppose. It's rare that I get this excited about something. Too rare.
Exciting. That's another appropriate descriptive.
Have a good evening, y'all. And thanks to Ginny. Big-time, big thank you. xo darlin'...
When Earthly vexations vex, something like this comes along to put me in my place and give me new perspective.
Up in Buffalo, New York, Alan Friedman makes greeting cards by day, and is an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer by night.
Greeting card maker, amateur astronomer and astrophotographer.
Seems to me to be a gross understatement, when one man, of the seven plus billion on the face of the planet, can bring us images such as these to gaze upon and ponder in wonderment.
Note that you can buy blank cards with some of his amazing images on them.
Out of many, one. This Latin phrase is the unofficial motto of The United States of America. Originally it was based on the thirteen colonies becoming one country. Now it seems to mean the many peoples of the U.S., of the entire world really, all coming together as one. The melting pot theory. "Can't we all just get along?" kinda thing.
This post stems from a recurring memory over the past several months - perhaps even a year. A recurring memory of something forgotten. Someone forgotten. Not so much a memory but a nagging "the damn thing keeps popping into my head and I keep trying to remember but to no avail" kinda thing. All the while, it was right here buried in the archives of this blog - posted almost two years ago in June of 2008.
Yesterday, I Googled for almost an hour - "photographer who illustrates large quantities" ... "photographs that conceptualize large values" ... and many variations ... illustrative ... photograph/s/er/y ... "how much in a millon/billion/trillion?".
I was beginning to get frustrated, drawing upon nothing, not getting big numbers, not getting any meaningful returns in my searches. I almost gave up. (I wish I could remember the successful search string, but I can't now.)
I found the post from before a few minutes ago - on whim entering his name to search my blog. And there it was. Chris Jordan.
Chris Jordan. A UT [University of Texas] alum - UT, right here in Austin. Small world.
So Chris is an activist artist. Or activist photographer. Or activist/artist/photographer. He lets the image tell the story. He lets the viewer begin to get their head around the numbers that his images represent. The numbers they represent, and the world issue that they represent.
In this case, his 2009 work titled "E Pluribus Unum" is a five story high (I would say 4 stories) 45 foot x 45 foot mandala. That's 13.7 meters x 13.7 meters. The lines of the mandala are actually the names of 1,000,000 [one million] "organizations around the world that are devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture". In 10 point font.
If you were able to cut out all the names and lay them end to end, they would stretch 27 miles, or 142,560 feet or 43km. In 10 point font.
Lots of organizations - the total number is unknown. Jordan's work is based on Paul Hawken's estimation [in his book "Blessed Unrest" on the "movement movement"] that there are between one million and two million such organizations. Paul Hawken is named as a collaborator on the piece.
Chris Jordan is prolific. The TED talk I posted two years ago in 2008 was titled "Picturing Excess", and is based, I think, on his project "Running the Numbers :: An American Self-Portrait".
He came out with "Running the Numbers II :: Portraits of Global Mass Culture" in 2009. He has one from 2005 on Hurricane Katrina's aftermath titled "In Katrina's Wake :: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster". And "Intolerable Beauty :: Portraits of American Mass Consumption 2003-2005".
They are all on his website at www.chrisjordan.com. I would have given the individual links to each work, but his website is not set up that way. You'll have to go clicking and reading and viewing on your own.
The post I did before was on his TED Talk - the "Picturing Excess" one. I included this quote which I lifted from the lecture:
"I have this fear that we aren't feeling enough in our culture today . There is this kind of anesthesia in America at the moment. We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger, and our grief about what is going on in our culture right now, what is going on in our country, the atrocities that are going on in our names around the world....they've gone missing, these feelings have gone missing..." [Chris Jordan]
Here it is - from February of 2008:
Be sure to check out his website and look at the all of the "Running the Numbers" works.
Here is the E Pluribus Unum work:
E pluribus unum. We are many, but we are one. Many peoples. Many nations. Many beliefs. Many forms of governance. We are one with the earth, and we have only one earth.
Until we start acting like it, acting like we have to take care of this planet we all live on - until we do that - we're in trouble. Once we do that, well, that's when the hard work begins.
This is a self portrait of me and a friend dancing tango...I farted around with photoshop to make it look grainy and scratched and in theory, old. I took it a while back and uploaded it to my flickr account, but kept it private/hidden for whatever reason.
Here it is now, for all the world to see. Okay, maybe not all the world, but at least you guys.
I was just having dinner with friends, we were talking about what incredible athletes dancers are, and I was telling them about this video. Actually I suppose it is a video composite of high speed photography at 1,000 frames per second. The high definition version is better, but I can't find it on the Apple/MacPro site. You can read more about it here.
Ah, found it. Here is the high-res version from the MacPro site, without the bizarre but cool audio of the YouTube version.
