Andrew Schroeder

My life is exceptionally simple. I think most people that are saddled with a lack of creativity and enormous student loans have similar arrangements with the world around them? While other people go to movies, go shopping, party, or enjoy being part of the social sphere, I wander.

During my wanderings I find amazing things. Tidbits of life that may or may not prove that other human beings exist, do things, ruin other people’s lives and so and and so forth… It is refreshing.

When I saw this on the ground it was just too good to pass up. I do not know what could possibly indicate that this young man, who cannot control his nearly forked tongue could be responsible for all those things scrawled in Crayola marker around his likeness.

PROTOPURGE

As I was dragging my rather sorry ass to work this morning with a pharmaceutical and red wine hangover, I finally had the chance to whip out a camera and photograph. It has been quite some time since I’ve been able to see something + have a camera around to document it. I’m not sure if any other photographers out there have this question from time to time: Which is better: to experience and not create or to create and therefore lose your first-person experience of a place/object/subject? (more…)

Book: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Author: Tom Wolfe Publication Date: 1968

Just to make the morning I’m having a bit better… my friendly librarian, Steve Liska, has sent me a link to one of his blog projects. Steve meticulously catalogs the objects/images/things he finds inside of library books. Its beautiful. Fiendish even. I can’t seem to get enough of this blog… and… it just made me squeal!

I’m just plain giddy to make the connection to the artist Sophie Calle,  who also documents human presence through observation and collection. Her series of images in which she posed as a hotel chambermaid in Venice to document the possessions of guests comes to mind. Here is a great interview with her…

I’m constantly trying to find evidence of human presence with my own work… and I think it has just made my day to take a look at this blog.

Thank you, Steve!

Colleean Mullins 2009

It almost slipped my mind! But in all my thinking of the world of everyday life… I forgot to mention how engaging I find the concept of knowing everyday life only indirectly. What does this mean? Well, if we can never actually experience everyday life as a discrete subject, we can only bear witness to its presence through the objects/forms/interactions that are secreted from it.

Connected with this thought… over at Colleen Mullins’ blog, Elysium, she has written a great post about excavating her family home, making art, and moving through the layers of personal history that become concrete after an everyday life has been lived. The materials she finds are amazing (I’ve seen a few… including some authentic, vintage books on Modernist architecture). Colleen is also examining what constitutes being a “Mid-Career Artist”.

I think just maybe, we are on the same page as artists… going back through the images we have produced in the past, sorting through the layers of history and finding unexpected depth and discovery. But then again… I could just be caffeine hallucinating.

Either way… Definitely check it out!

Justin Lentz

During the avalanche of work yesterday, my friend in Los Angeles – Justin Lentz, sent me this great photograph from a photo shoot he was conducting. I’m excited to see the actual photographs that will emerge from his working process… but this iPhone image has me captivated right now. This little juicy tidbit reminds me of a recent blog post about photography as a lifestyle vs. photography as a strict, project based discipline. Personally, I love it when artists using photography are able to blend it into their practices as a human being… not simply running through the parameters of a project outline. (I will photograph X in X style until someone pays attention to how great thousands of images of X are)

It is only Wednesday and I feel completely drained. This week has been an energy vampire of unrivaled proportions. (Speaking of vampires, I find this article about fried blood on the menu in Chad really disturbing).

*****

On a separate note: I am finally going to break down and check out the “Quick and the Dead” exhibition at the Walker Art Center this weekend. Perhaps then, I will finally be able to see which ideas in conceptual art are officially DEAD and which ones the Walker has decided are ALIVE. Remember – ideas are just objects.

Actually Evening in Brooklyn... But Today Feels This Good

All mornings are not created equal. This morning in particular has been exceptionally sublime… for reasons that usually go unnoticed. Listening to someone take a shower… putting the perfect amount of butter on a slice of baguette. These are the things that are outweighing all the stress, chaos, and financial burdens that have been pulling me under. On this fine, sunny Friday, I woke up, showered (ignoring my newly bald head) and decided to linger around Curtis’ place for breakfast. Absolutely perfect.

To make things even better, my first email of the day was a message informing me my friend and colleague Eireann had blogged about my work and linked to my Etsy store. Eireann is an incredibly talented visual artist, poet, writer, printmaker, and conversation partner. I remember sitting on the curb outside of the art building @ the U of M during my first weeks of grad school with her.  I had just finished my first “real” critique with a faculty member and was completely thrashed… Eireann and I started discussing what makes art a place for possibility, not just a place for production. Looking back, that conversation was one of the things that now offsets all my student loan debt (another being… running around the winding streets of Istanbul @ 1:00 AM with two German girls looking for lemon soda and vodkas).

Check out Eireann’s portfolio and site here: http://www.ohbara.com/
Her blog is also great! http://www.ohbara.com/weblog.html

London 2012, Diving

More HERE

Reminds me of the graphics from the Munich 1972 Olympics…

Munich 1972

Two great quotes from Baudrillard’s “The Conspiracy of Art”:

In a way, it {art} is worse than nothing, because it means nothing and nonetheless exists, providing itself with all the right reasons to exist.

Montesquieu once said that “the people can become so enlightened that they are no longer indifferent to anything.” Well, it seems that the people are just enlightened enough to choose to remain indifferent to certain things and to avoid the moral danger of being concerned by anything.

I’m actually going to be good about selling work again! Please check out my Etsy shop for books, prints, photographs, and drawings from my overflowing flat-files. I need to keep clearing out all the work that I’ve produced over the years…

LINK TO STORE

From Artist Fiona Gardner and writer Amy Zimmer

My point exactly: there are places where shared assets like public transit are considered valuable (even a source of pride). Such is the case in New York with the Miss Subways Pageant. LINK.
(Via Infrastructurist)