themac's posterous

DAZZLE

Eric Eley, the artist who is currently exhibiting in our largest gallery, gave an art talk last week*. 

His exhibit, and site-specific installation is titled " Coincident Disruption." 

One theme of his work, he discussed, was 'camouflage, concealment, avoidance and denial.'

One visual source material he cited was naval camouflage developed in World War I, which he described as dramatic, geometric, obvious and a little bit ridiculous.

I was unfamiliar with this, and went googling. (I googled "wwi naval camouflage" and "dazzle camouflage."

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The  science behind this camouflage technique named "Dazzle" seems unproven, but the theory was that the intense patterning made it difficult for German U-boat submarines, and their range finding periscopes, to correclty judge distance, direction, and speed when aiming their deadly torpedos.

The technique was created by a british naval reserve officer - and artist - named Norman Wilkinson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Wilkinson_(artist)

(While cubism and futurism had been imagined in that same time period, scholars insist there is no direct link!)

Sadly, color photography has not been invented yet, in the nineteen teens, and all original source material are drawings, black and white photographs, some modern renderings and a few period paintings.

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To me it is the most amazing example of creativity finding its place in the most unlikeliest of places.

“Dazzle Ship in Drydock” by Edward Wadsworth, 1919

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The Rhode Island School of Design owns a large collection of original pattern drawings of actual ships:

http://dazzle.risd.edu/

 

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The internet has several excellent blog posts on this historical graphic technique.

http://twistedsifter.com/2010/02/razzle-dazzle-camouflage/

http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html

http://www.found-nyc.com/blog/2009/04/04/a-look-at-modernist-art-in-camouflage/#more-203

http://www.bobolinkbooks.com/Camoupedia/DazzleCamouflage.html

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2007/05/index.html

http://stimulacra.blogspot.com/2010/04/dazzle-camouflage-battleships.html

http://www.laboiteverte.fr/le-dazzle-camouflage-les-bateaux-furtifs-de-la-premiere-guerre-mondiale/

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/11/modernist-art-in-camouflage.html

http://encroach.net/images/razzle_dazzle_camo_bus/razzle_dazzle_bus_art.html

 

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org11-2.htm


And for one last treat, here is Jeff Koon's modern adaptation of Dazzle Camouflage ala Lichtenstein

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*If you missed his art talk, you can

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Its been awhile! This post is about TREES!

Well.. I see its been an entire year and half (+) since the last post!  Think this blog is being neglected!

So I thought I would, perhaps inappropriately for a contemporary art space blog, restart this conversation with a few pics from my weekend trip to the "blockbuster" Caravaggio exhibition at the Kimbell, that just closed this last weekend.

And the pics are not from the Caravaggio exhibit (photos prohibited!) but of the permanent collection.

My three favs: Duccio, Fra Angelico and Cezanne.

But not to ignore Caravaggio, here is the Art This Week interview between The MAC's own Laura Lee Brott and Nancy Edwards

Now back to the Kimbell permanent collection....

 

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Not art, but time to write

We owe you several posts - about Sandow Birk's Depravities of War - 15 large-scale woodcut prints on sekishu /japanese rice-/ paper, each measuring 48 x 96 inches - and Muriel Hasbun's barquitos de papel and other stories. I owe you a post about the current exhibiitons: Ginger Geyer: The Porcelain Reformation, Kenneth J. Hale: Art into Landscape (both curated by Dr. Rick Brettell) and Jacqueline Bishop: Losing Ground: Imaginary Landscapes. But first, to warm up, I am going to write about our jungle next door. 

If you have ever visited The MAC by way of Oak Grove, you know of the cemetery behind us. Greenwood Cemetery is an old cemetery, and I blogged about it last year in Spring when the Flowering 'japonica' Quince was in bloom.

What has been fascinating me for quite awhile are two things about it.

First, that around the cemetery it is always 10 degrees cooler! I notice this because I ride my bicycle to work here at the MAC and ride alongside the south edge of Greenwood. In summer: 10 degrees cooler. In winter: 10 degrees cooler. It is so striking and so obvious that one cannot help but be curious what Dallas would be like without so much concrete!

Second, on the south-east corner, adjacent to perfect grid of north-south and east-west roads, there is a very large.. "jungle." It is completely overgrown with trees, brush and vines and impenetrable. And because it is so secluded, it is home to en entire fauna. I have seen raccoons and I have seen red foxes dart in and out of this wonderful overgrown eden.

It is hard to see. There is a one-way sidestreet down the south side named Clyde Lane, and on the east side, in the State-Thomas neighborhood, is Woodside.

It is not quite Central Park by any means, but the closest thing we have here in Dallas to the Guggenheim Museum or The Met on 5th Avenue.

room of mouths

 

Last night I had the opportunity to help artist Eric Mcgehearty unload and begin to set up his very creative masterpiece. At first, I was caught off guard because all I saw were large square white boards with mouths randomly protruding out of them.  I had no idea where he was going with this, but soon discovered the concept once he started to explain.  All the boards were going to be laying flat with the mouths sticking up so that the visitors will feel as if they are stepping all over someones face.  The goal is that each person will feel uncomfortable when they first enter the room because no one should be at ease walking on a face. He also has several pieces with mouths on the wall, some of them being brightly colored which adds to the almost completely white room. It will be very interesting to see the overall reaction of those who visit.

 

 

posted by The MAC's newest intern/volunteer Neeley Miller

New arts mag in DFW - ARTS+CULTURE

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We are pleased to see the revival of a monthly magazine here in D/FW devoted solely to the arts community.  ARTS+CULTURE  (aka A+C). Many of the same names associated with the wonderful, but short-lived monthly, THE Magazine DFW, and Scot Craig Hart and Kent Villalovos are at the top of the masthead. We are confident that the financial problems of the previous endeavor will not return now that the Dallas magazine is divorced from its previous management/publisher in New Mexico .

Their new A+C website is http://www.artsandculturedfw.com/ and they are also on facebook at "A+C DFW".

aandc new mag 1

The inaugural issue is out on stands now, at many of the same distribution locations as the previous publication, and its great.  Its nice to have a monthly art rag return.

We wish Scot and Kent GREAT SUCCESS.

The old website of the now defunct THE Magazine DFW, http://themagdfw.com/ , seems to still be functioning as an online only concern named ArtDFW, and still posting event information.

(We hear, regrettably, that many writers never received their creative fees from the old mag before it closed.)