14 May 2015

Emil Alzamora - Mind Sculptures by Sabin Bors

Photo from Alzamora's facebook page


 In a 2010 article titled "Emil Alzamora's Sleek Metaphors," Benjamin Sutton says these sculptures "are like numerous cautionary anecdotes encapsulated in one human figure, however deformed."

The author remarks Alzamora’s “uncanny aesthetic” as “a fusion of classical sculpture and Surrealism, with occasional shades of Minimalism and Expressionism,” and that “each bust, body and hybrid organism has a striking presence and tangible mass. Most forms are creepily, intentionally lifeless, calling to mind ancient Greek sculptures, but also the imposing, enigmatic object-hood of a Robert Smithson installation. Other works still bare traces of the artist’s hand, calling to mind the stretched-out bodies of Alberto Giacometti.” (Benjamin Sutton, Emil Alzamora’s Sleek Metaphors) Mention of the “primordial chasm between body and mind” and the visual commentaries on contemporary body image issues “reflecting the idea of being fundamentally estranged from one’s body” avert the viewer to the artist’s manifest intention to denature conventional representations of the human form. Lyle Rexer too thinks that in Alzamora’s sculpture, “concept meets craft at a very high level,” and sees this in contrast with “the general de-skilling of art and the rise of conceptual strategies, which have gone hand-in-hand since the early 1960s,” amounting “to an old-fashioned, Henry-Fordish division of labor” that has taken over in the art world. Rexer adds Alzamora to a list of sculptors such as Cemin, Kiki Smith, Pier Consagra, Martin Puryear, or embroidery artist Angelo Filomeno, who “demonstrate that knowledge of materials, and, more importantly, of techniques, opens doors to imagery that can’t simply be ‘conceived’ out of the cultural ether.” (Lyle Rexer, Emil Alzamora: Random Mutations That Work) The author addresses not only the artist’s “virtuosic performances,” to mark the line between fairy tale and allegory, which – as in the case of Kiki Smith – is always “in danger of veering into literalness, an art that speaks too much for itself,” but also the psychological and political character of the distortions of the human “that work only as expressions of a distorted society.”


More from this article by Sabin Bors at Anti-Utopias.


9 May 2015

Hanna Hasse Bergström
















Hanna Hasse Bergström is rocking my world this week. I painted sheep skulls for quite a while but I never really got a handle on the surfaces. They are quite tricky and the areas broken up by the shapes and joins really are a difficult mistress. Give it a go if you dare. Check out Bergström's carved skulls and more of her work here.


1 May 2015

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I feel a bit like a stranger here at the minute. I know ya hip to stuff. Well, stuffs a bit busy on my end and I've kinda tapped out a bit. Not like "I'm not doing any more stuff" but more like, "I've gotta cut back on stuff here and there to try and get the ends to stretch a bit closer". Well, I've trimmed here are there, I've budgeted and evaluated. I've made lists and memos and sent apologises in advance. I'm doing it right and I think good but there is a ways to go. It's not how many push ups you can do but how many you can do after it starts to hurts and that's where I'm at. A bit jelly in the arms but I'm grunting and swearing like a (K)noxious sailor and the complications are not extraordinary. Just processes, apart from a dirty wee flu, hopefully not passed on, and as processes, will be processed.

Anyway, today has been a goodun. For a reason I'll never be or deserve to be privy to, the universe has sent a few kind words. Some short catch ups, messages and well wishes. Sweet tags like butterflies and moments of serendipity, played out like Lynch on ecstasy. The timing of so many today could not be coincidence could it? Perfect like? Fresh clay. I could go on and on tonight, I'm gushing, so before a make an ass of myself, Cheers! I'm doing everything I hope you expect me to be doing and some more, there's also a healthy dose of stuff on top too. New stuff soon, old stuff still and soon more old stuff and new stuff but with more catching up.

Beep