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Rene Wanner’s Poster Page / Street posters in Berlin.

My friend and studio-mate Christopher dela Pole and I have been investing heavily in letterpress technology lately. We’ve both got the itch to make some new, dare I say, amazing text art projects in the very near future. One of our Ebay treasures has arrived today: this beautiful 72pt Sans Serif font. I can’t wait to get some ink on these…

Josef Albers. Shielded from Homage to the Square: Ten Works by Josef Albers. 1962

I am searching for inspiration this morning. Luckily, I didn’t have to look too far. Checkout this brief video about printmaker Karen Kunc’s work. I was exceptionally lucky to be an undergrad at the University of Nebraska and to be given the opportunity to both take classes with her and study abroad under her guidance. Her work is amazing and I have one of her small intaglio prints from my archives on display in my home. She has definitely influenced me – from my love of “printedness” to the way I see and understand the spatial properties of my surroundings.

Karen Kunc Print

From Printeresting.org

josh_3020_P003 ® Geotypografika

There seems to be a relationship unfolding in my art and work life. When I’m actually engaged in what I’m doing/making I have absolutely nothing to write about. Hence, I haven’t updated this thing for awhile. At the moment, I am just reading and researching for my trip to Montreal next week. My reading list is topped off by books concerned with architecture/space/place/modernism-as-utopia. The question I’ve been asking myself this week: what exactly is my relationship with utopia? As a person that has grown up in the “post-utopian” age of postmodernism, is there any reason for me to be interested in lofty and impossible things like utopian thought?

According to Yi Fu Tuan in Space and Place “such places had to exist because they were key elements in complex systems of belief. To discard the idea of terrestrial paradise would have threatened a whole way of looking at the world.”  It is my hope with the new series of photographs I am undertaking I will be able to better understand/visualize that “whole way of looking at the world”.

In the meantime:

Check out the Flickr photostream of Geotypografika aka Erik Brandt. (CLICK IMAGE ABOVE FOR LINK) I find his work in Amsterdam particularly amazing… and his MCAD GD student’s work… fantastic. Cheers.

From Ex - Posed © ASBJØRN HOLLERUD

One of the great things about the post-MFA world is watching how far all of my colleagues have been able to travel in the last year. Printmaker, photographer, and friend David Stordahl has been living and working in Norway since January. Through him I have been introduced to the outstanding work of Asbjørn Hollerud. His portfolio site can be viewed HERE.

I am particularly interested in his MA work: EX – POSED. He describes the project:

For the exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, I exhibited 108 colorful silkscreen printed stainless steel plates next to a small monitor displaying Japanese commercials from the 1980′s. The printed part of the installation started from a photograph I shot of a rusted wall on a trip to Japan. I got a micro macro experience at the moment I photographed the wall. Visually it was as if I was flying high above the ground and at the same time I was close up against the wall. The finished photograph was then turned into a very rough half tone pattern. A small pixelated half tone fragment was taken out of the image. This fragment went through a long journey back and forth between the analogue and digital processes. In the end the fragment was enlarged and printed in different color combinations.

A small monitor played a loop of romantic Japanese commercials with American pop icons. Michael Jackson is in a commercial for a scooter named “Love”. Andy Warhol says the primary colors in Japanese while holding a tv monitor and come to the conclusion that “it is beautiful”. Mike Tyson is in a “super strong” hybrid with Toyota trucks. Eddie Murphy is nuts about the new “sexy” Toyota sportscar. An Isuzu commercial shows cars dancing in rows as if it was a human ballet.

The remixing, blending, and collisions of personal identity and mass-mediated image keep pulling me back to his project. I think his work expresses the need to play, explore, and recreate from the images that, on some level, have created our own identity. On a more personal note, I have memories of my own childhood… and a very embarrassing video tape of me signing various commercials from the 1980s. Does anyone else remember the “Molly McButter” jingle?