The Little Artists – Lick Yourselves

lick yourself
Lick Yourselves (2005, 64MB, 6:27 min, silent)

The Little Artists are a UK collaborative duo, most famous/notorious
for their re-renderings of iconic artworks in the childrens’ construction toy
LEGO.
This brief description doesn’t do them justice – their work is rich & complex
& they make hay, playfully but profoundly too, with all sorts of contemporary
obsessions – remix &appropriation, branding, celebrity & not least the idea of
artistry/creativity itself.

This video stems from their 2005 show based on the work of Mark Quinn, the casting-
his-head-out-of-his-own-frozen-blood guy, and the show featured them dressing
up as ice cream salespeople and flogging fruit flavour ice lolly replicas of
the Quinn piece.
The vid is a minimal, leisurely and ever so slightly disturbing account of
one of these slowly melting.

I must declare an interest – I wrote an essay for their new book, which, if
your appetite is whetted, you can get here.

More Jon Rafman

You, the World and I
You, the World and I (2010, 67MB, 6:10 min)

Another piece from Jon Rafman, and whilst it’s made with the same dexterity,
wit and inventiveness as all his work this one doesn’t quite hit me in the
same place as the others we’ve posted.
(Don’t get me wrong – this piece would garner unstinting praise were
it from most other people – it’s just that Rafman sets the bar high for himself).
It’s something to do with the closure-as-a-story.
It’s a bit too neat. The found material seems deployed as an aid to
story-telling rather than dripping with the glorious uncertainty and
ambiguity that chartacterised some other earlier work.
(An analogy: the difference between a Rauschenberg Combine
and a picture in shells at a seaside gift shop. Not that extreme here, of course)
None of which is meant to imply that it isn’t worth at least 12:20 min of your time…

Sondheim & an Ad…

rilkes tongue
Rilkes Tongue (2006?, 73 MB, 1:44 min)

Alan:
“something to stare at

This is a few years old, but hasn’t been put up; the dancer is Maud
Liardon, either Foofwa or I held the camera and made the video and
effects reminiscent of G. Moreau come to life, the church is in the
Swiss Alps, Rilke was buried behind it, murals of tormented hell,
angelic world of Elegies, we were transported”

PLUS
tether

…Alan Sondheim is one of the artists whose work you can see if
you can get to Nottingham, UK this Thursday – Sunday, 11th-14th Nov, 12-5 pm, in the first offline
appearance by DVblog, where a 45 minute program of work first posted here
will be continuously screened at The Wasp Room, part of Tether Studios.

Details:
Tether Studios,
17a Huntingdon Street
Nottingham
NG1 3JH

tel: 07729124336

mail@tether.org.uk

Artists featured:
Kerry Baldry, Steven Ball, Robert Croma, Rupert Howe, JimPunk, Donna Kuhn, Morrisa Maltz, Millie Niss, Giles Perkins, Sam Renseiw, Alan Sondheim, Nathaniel Stern, Liz Sterry, Eddie Whelan

Also – if you’re reading this & are interested in screening this program -we have both PAL and NTSC
DVDs available. Just mail us!

Eija-Liisa Ahtila – Consolation Service

consolation_service
Consolation Service (1999, 10 MB, 1:43 min.)

“Consolation Service” follows a young Finnish couple, Anni and J-P, as they
make public their decision to divorce. It is set in early spring in Helsinki, with
its frozen landscape on the cusp of thawing.
Consolation service (awarded at the Venice Biennial in 1999) Ahtila also
deconstructs the formation of the narrative and cinematic illusion: as though
in a straight documentary film (Cinéma vérité), both narrator and camera are
shown openly. The illusion of fiction is thus shattered, made visible. The use of
a hand-held shaking camera reminds the group Dogma 95 led by Lars Von Triers.

By Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

Morrisa Maltz – Previous Process

previous process
Previous Process (2010, 15MB, 1:25 min)

New work from Morrisa Maltz, both revisiting and developing
themes, images and ideas from previous work.
Maltz’s work is growing & unfolding at a slightly scary pace.
The piece too, a little bit scary; or, better, unheimlich.
Interesting to compare it even with the last piece of hers we posted here,
bare weeks ago.
I want to say Maltz has a natural feel for image, cut, sound
but I suspect it is actually worked for and worked for hard.
Good. No falling back, then, on glib facility but lots
more change, development and fascinating work to come.