2 Humans, 1 Paper (2013, 10MB, 3:38 min)

I first stumbled across Osvaldo Cibils and his marvellously eclectic and well..simply marvellous work
on Flickr but he seems to have all sorts of things going.
So simple but so, so telling. Kind of Buster Keaton meets Bruce Nauman meets something hard to pin down but lyrical, grotesque and smart all at once.
My kind of artist.
+++
2 humans 1 paper
video art/soundart.
performance with plotter paper 200 x 107 centimeters.
performers: fiorella alberti architect and osvaldo cibils artist.
place: artist’s studio. Via della Cervara, 55 – 38121 – Trento (TN) Italia
22 march 2013, 20 hours

The Caretaker (2013, 397MB, 7:24 min)

We’ve been following Morrisa Maltz‘s work since just about the beginning and we’re delighted to show here her first longer, narrative (well, if you count fever dream as narrative), piece.
Quite a lot of firepower (lots of collaborators) deployed here, happily to excellent effect ( In fact the piece actually directed by Lauren Lillie although the look of it is pure & vintage MM). It all retains in buckets the goose-bump factor of earlier work but embeds it into a very satisfyingly rounded whole.
This is great work; it deserves to be seen widely.

Blindness (1971/1991/2011/2012, 37MB, 3:18 min)

I’m a huge fan of Curt Cloninger’s work, especially his virtuosic but often profoundly moving ( and how often do you hear that word in connection with new media*?) Playdamage sequence.

Here he simply mashes up a section of a 1971 Acconci video with a Jack White cover of a U2 song.
Actually to say mashes up is making it more complex than it is which is – visuals – Acconci; sound – U2 through White. Genius – Cloninger.

*except of course for the ridiculous Bill Viola, where it’s so clearly used by the very easily pleased.

I Don’t Want Your Lasagne Furnace (2009, 41.4MB, 2:23 min)

Artists I really care for tend to fall into two distinct categories.
The first is the extensive or Picasso category – refusing to be
bound by stylistic limitations or boxes they constantly
reinvent themselves, often seeming like ten artists in one skin.
The other might be called the Giacometti or Morandi model, where
the best part of a lifetime is devoted to an intensive, deep,
exploration of a limited set of themes and content.
They have in common more than would at first appear to be the case.
They are both led by a kind of shamanistic passion, a surrender to
the unconscious, to whim, to a playfulness which can be either infantile
or deadly serious, and they reject the most common practice which is the
dull conformity of making work which attempts to guess the market,
or follow fashion or whatever.
If Sondheim is the net exemplar of the first way then Donna Kuhn
must typify the second.
Small miracles of freshness & originality mined and chiselled from
a tiny pallette! Wit and sadness both! Wonder! Delight!

Only Shallow (37.1MB, 3:40 min.)

To Here Knows When (47.7MB, 4:43 min.)

Soon (32.9MB, 3:15 min.)

Swallow (19MB, 3:25 min.)

My Bloody Valentine videos from the rare & wonderful – Story of Creation.

Curt Cloninger.

Morse Gestures (2009, 28.6MB, 2:54 min)

Floating Cup (2009, 1.35MB, 28 secs, silent)

Suitcase in a Box (2009, 59.6MB, 1:00 min)

Assured & smart domestic surrealism from Ben Pranger.

Caitlin Berrigan – Transfers (Clip) (2009, 8.7MB, 3:21)

Beautifully choreographed piece by Caitlin Berrigan.

dudeboat (2012, 2 MB, 11 secs)

misteriosoxxx (2012, 4 MB, 41 secs)

Slightly traducing the spirit of the project where
the two artists mix, hack and otherwise mutate
and abut up to 9 videos simutaneously in the same web page
as a (very welcome) online adjunct to the current Drawing Surrealism
show at LACMA, we’re featuring a couple of the component parts.
(Because we love both these artists and we want to publicise
everything they do, which is never, ever, dull.)
To view it properly go (and keep on going back) to the
project page and to learn more go here.

Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #1 (2008, 119MB, 7:49 min)

Paisajes del placer y de la culpa #2 (2008, 74MB, 4:52 min)

José M. Sánchez-Verdú is a Spanish composer who creates richly textured and
sensuous music in an uncompromisingly contemporary idiom.
His richness is no frippery but properly fought for and won.
Here is a short movie, in two parts, made by David Olmos, about whom I can find
no information whatsoever, which blends a fictional narrative with footage of
an orchestral performance of one of Sánchez-Verdú’s works
Paisajes del placer y de la culpa – Landscapes
of Pleasure and Guilt.
The film is undoubtedly skillfully made but I remain slightly agnostic
about its premise or even necessity; however no such doubts about some
of the most extraordinary music of recent years.
I grabbed the film from YouTube and as you can see the image quality isn’t great
although in some ways the graininess appeals and seems apposite to the subject.

Quadrat I + II (1981, 4.3MB, 1:04 sec.)

Quad (Play), by Samuel Beckett.