desi gonzalez

on folklore and fellowships.

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:11:47 -0400

I am happy and honored to report that, for the past month, I’ve served as Recess’ Critical Writing Fellow. Recess is a fantastic organization that selects artists to use their Soho and Red Hook spaces as a hybrid exhibition and work space. Recess invites Critical Writing Fellows to work alongside these artists, producing a piece of writing that tackles an underlying issue or theory informing the project.

For my tenure as a Recess writer, I had the chance to delve into Eyes as Big as Plates, a fascinating project by Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth, which turned into a deep dive into the wonderful world of [contemporary] folklore. Check it out.

Eyes as Big as Plates began in 2011 as an exploration of classic Norwegian folk tales. (The project’s title itself is a reference to folklore, borrowed from Asbjørnsen and Moe’s 1840s tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” featuring a troll living under the bridge that has “eyes as big as tin plates”; a few years earlier, Hans Christian Andersen had published the “The Tinderbox” in which the Danish fairy tale master describes a dog as having “eyes as big as saucers.”) Ikonen and Hjorth invited senior citizens from southwest Norway to be the subject of their photographs, often identifying a character from local lore and clothing them in wearable sculpture that synthesized the tales and the Norwegian landscape. In 2012 in Finland, and now in 2013 working with seniors such as Bob in New York City, the artists phased out this emphasis, in part because of the participants’ discomfort with folklore. But as Ikonen and Hjorth move away from folklore, I’m inclined to move toward it.

how can artists learn from their public?

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:18:00 -0400

In 1999, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota invited Ligon to lead a family workshop during a residency at the museum. The artist, whose work often explores his identity and the larger politics around being black and gay, brought copies of coloring books for African American children from the 1960s and 1970s. A black girl in a graduation gown, singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes, bell-bottom clad figures with the word “soul” printed under them: these images had originally been made with the intention of fostering pride in African American culture.

When Ligon presented the coloring books to the group of young children, the message of empowerment morphed into one of absurdity. Stemming from a range of ethnic backgrounds, the middle class kids at the Walker Art Center were oblivious to the cultural references they scribbled upon. Hayes was given peach skin and a blond beard, Malcolm X was gussied up in pink lipstick and blue eye shadow, reminiscent of a drag queen. Intrigued by how the images in these coloring books meant something different to kids in Minneapolis at the turn of the millennium, Ligon used the resulting drawings as the foundation for his silkscreen-on-canvas Coloring series.

What Ligon’s project demonstrates is that an artist can have new, profound experiences by working directly with the audience. With this is mind, I talked to artists Las Hermanas Iglesias and Kara Hearn about how they include the public in their artmaking practices, both in developing projects and how they evaluate the projects afterwards.

Over at A Blade of Grass, I explore how artists can learn from their audiences.

(image via)

last pictures? more like last words

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:00:41 -0500

Over at the Brooklyn Rail, I wrote about how Trevor Paglen’s Last Pictures project, in which the artist launched over 200 images into orbit via satellite as an artifact for whatever beings may find it billions of years from now, is a lot more about words than it is about pictures.

Paglen is the first to admit that The Last Pictures is an absurd gesture, one that questions the fundamentals of vision and communication. Can we properly represent life on Earth in only a couple hundred photos? Or perhaps more importantly, does it even matter which images we choose, or who does the choosing?

(The answer to everything is no.)

not really, but sort of, in defense of "panties"

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:57:15 -0500

As a linguist, feminist, and a rabid media consumer, I like it when people point out the misogyny entrenched in language, and I’m all about correcting linguistic usage when it is derogatory and hurtful. But panties is not the bellwether of the oppression of women everywhere, and pretending so (“’panties’ forces us to call our underwear something sexy, when really we decide for ourselves whether our underwear is sexy”) is more harmful than helpful.

Over at the Bygone Bureau, I wrote about language, feminism, and undergarments.

(image via)

comparative imagery: player pianos and prepared pianos.

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 11:13:44 -0500

Sanford Biggers, Blossom, 2007 (source)

Lucy Raven, What Manchester Does Today, the Rest of the World Does Tomorrow, 2012 (source)

Erica Baum, “The Melody Indicator,” Triple Canopy, May 17, 2012 (source)

“Going to Pieces—Player Piano Nervous Breakdown”

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on “Ode to Joy” for a Prepared Piano, 2008 (source)

John Cage, First Interlude for Prepared Piano

“John Cage’s Prepared Piano with Stephen Drury”

downton abbey and museums.

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:50:00 -0500

Since the first season, we’ve witnessed social unrest brewing among the lower classes. Meanwhile, the aristocratic protagonists try to protect their riches and traditions, all, supposedly, in the name of social responsibility. As Lord Grantham once explained to his eldest daughter, Mary: “I am a custodian, my dear, not an owner.”

That’s a fascinating word, custodian. It’s one I heard just the other day, but in reference to the role of museums. Just as the Crawleys are responsible for maintaining the honorable grandeur of Downton Abbey, so museums are custodians of the past.

Over at Hyperallergic, I wrote about how Downton Abbey and museums aren’t so different—but maybe they should be.

(image source)

comparative imagery: dominoes.

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 15:45:00 -0500

Duron Jackson’s Rumination installation, part of the Raw/Cooked series at the Brooklyn Museum, on view through February 1. Chair made of pine and dominoes.

Men playing dominoes in Brooklyn.

comparative imagery: knots.

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:44:00 -0500

Celtic knot (source)

Sherrie Levine, Lead Knot: 7, 1988 (source)

Etsy necklace (source)

Eva Hesse, No title, 1970 (source)

Wade Guyton, Untitled (Edition for Parkett 83), 2008 (source)

grassroots art history, or, what can katy perry teach us about contemporary art?

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:31:59 -0500

I published my first piece on Hyperallergic.com. A bit o’ feminism, a bit o’ museum ed.

comparative imagery: art that leans on walls.

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:29:27 -0500

John McCracken, The Absolutely Naked Fragrance, 1967 (source)

Wade Guyton, Untitled (Edition for Parkett 83), 2008 (source)

comparative imagery: kupka & francis.

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:34:03 -0500

František Kupka, Mme Kupka among Verticals, 1910-1911

Sam Francis, Big Red, 1953

(Both from moma.org)

Hey, I made a podcast! I’ve decided to start a new podcast...

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:59:19 -0500

Hey, I made a podcast! I’ve decided to start a new podcast series called That Awful Dynne in which I invite a few others to join me in a conversation on a topic of choice. For my very first podcast, I’m joined by Ishita Singh and Helen Goldberg to discuss the allergy-free lunch kit you can buy for your American Girl doll.

I’ve learned a lot during this first very rough attempt at podcasting. For one thing, it is amazing (amazingly horrific) to see a visualization of and to have to edit the fluctuations of my volume. Apologies in advance for the sound quality and awkward intro/outro. Next time, I think I’ll add a music track at the end—things are gettin’ crazy here! I’d love any feedback on this endeavor, so feel free to send comments my way via Twitter or on my Soundcloud page.

the language of the language of art.

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:35:00 -0500

A few weeks ago, A Blade of Grass published my second post in a blog series on the intersection of contemporary art, education, and social justice. This time I wrote about how the language we use to talk about art—an often convoluted, unnecessarily pretentious variety that has been called at times artspeak—is problematic in that it perpetuates the inequalities already at play in the art world. I took as my point of departure Triple Canopy’s International Art English, an essay that attempts to outline a dialect specific to the art world, complete with its own syntax and lexicon.

In response to my blog post, my friend E wrote to me:

I wondered if it was hard to write about language and not become hyper-conscious of the language you were using in writing it? It’s always crazy to me how levels of language never stop - in writing about language you must use language and someone could write about the language you chose to use to talk about language, etc etc

I think about language and art all the time, for fun and for my job. And yes, I’m super conscious about the language I use. I think about language so much that I’m used to this hyperawareness (and am a bit surprised when I realize that not everyone is so conscious about the language we use).

In reading International Art English, I was impressed by how authors Alix Rule and David Levine were very clearly co-opting the language of linguistics studies (something I know well) for their fake language study. Specialized language like “analysis of the corpus,” “syntactical behavior,” and “adverbial phrases” indicates that they’ve not only identified the language of the artworld, but also the language of the people that talk about language. They realize that how we write about something, not just what we write, says something in itself.

comparative imagery: swings.

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:04:48 -0500

Ann Hamilton’s the event of a thread, on view until January 6, 2012, at the Park Avenue Armory.

“The fires of a hundred thousand ovens were twinkling in the distance,” illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. From A City in Winter by Mark Helprin.

mickalene thomas: origins of the universe.

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:53:18 -0500

In her work, Thomas excavates the history of Western portraiture—with a dollop of irreverence and a generous serving of African-American culture. The lounging subjects are now replaced by black women, sometimes nude and other times adorned in couture redolent of a disco-era sensibility (after all, Thomas grew up in the ’70s).

I wrote about Mickalene Thomas: Origins of the Universe, on view at the Brooklyn Museum until January 30.

i've never been prouder.

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:14:00 -0500

First time a U.S. state votes for same-sex marriage via referendum, and in my home state no less. Never been prouder of Maryland. Or this country.

comparative imagery: machines at MoMA.

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:16:00 -0400

Andy Warhol, Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, 1963

Sam Lucente, Diagram of Logic Chip, 1986

Vija Celmins, Flying Fortress, 1966

(source)

trade school, the public school, and the interwebs.

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:07:00 -0400

Last week A Blade of Grass published my very first piece for their blog, which covers all things socially-engaged art. In my post, I discuss two models of non-hierarchical learning, Trade School and The Public School New York, exploring their relationship to art and the art world.

Trade School’s Drawing for Pleasure and Relaxation class. Photo by Alex Mallis and TradeSchool.coop

Since then, I’ve been thinking about Trade School and TPSNY in another light: their reliance on the digital. These two organizations depend on sophisticated websites that allow users to connect, propose curriculum topics, and register for classes. While learning takes place in the real world, the classes are organized via the interwebs.

A new and improved website serves the larger Public School network, which, in addition to the New York chapter, serves folks in cities such as San Juan, Brussels, and the founding site, Los Angeles. On the newly-launched site, a proposal for a class in one city can become a launching point for a class in any other city—local roots that ultimately lead to a global exchange of ideas.

Trade School is based on the idea of bartering for education, and its website supports such a mission. Online registration includes a section to indicate what you can bring in exchange for the knowledge and experience gained from participating in a Trade School class.

That organizations like Trade School and TPS are able to Do Good by using the internet isn’t earth-shattering news. The internet has long since allowed people to share, even before the so-called web 2.0/social media revolution. And it’s not like a community-driven or barter-based system of education wouldn’t have been possible pre-world wide web. But at the core of Trade School and TPS is the creation of an inclusive community that reaches a broad audience covering a wide range of wacky and thoughtful topics, and the internet is instrumental to making this a success for these organizations. In fact, the rise of the educational turn in curating and in art, which includes the development of crowd-sourced, non-hierarchical learning, seems to coincide with that of the internet—and that, my friends, seems like something worth noting.

interview with Las Hermanas Iglesias.

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 08:48:31 -0400

Sisters and artists Lisa and Janelle Iglesias collaborate under the moniker Las Hermanas Iglesias, mining their family history and shared experiences to create multimedia and often performance-based works. Their art considers issues such as cultural heritage, the body, and competition, often with a hint of absurdity folded in. Riot of Perfume sat down with the siblings to discuss their work.

I interviewed Las Hermanas Iglesias for Riot of Perfume.

comparative imagery: fragmentation.

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 20:21:09 -0400

Mickalene Thomas, Interior: Two Chairs and Fireplace, 2011 (source)

Pablo Picasso, Woman with Pears, 1909 (source)

Robert Smithson, Map of Broken Glass (Atlantis), 1969 (source)