A Free-Wheeling City

Reinventing America



"Across the country, the number of bicyclists has exploded. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of American bike commuters increased 38%. Yet many of these riders are forced onto dangerously crowded streets and roads designed for motorists, not bicyclists. In fact, in 2007, 698 cyclists nationwide were killed and more than 44,000 were injured in collisions with motor vehicles."

Article

City/community involvement is an integral part of the bike culture of America. If a city or community actually wants to make a difference on America's dependence on foreign oil they should take a tip from Columbia, Missouri Mayor Darwin Hindman, a 76 cancer survivor. The city use to be just like most other Midwestern cities, then it realized that investing money into infrastructure for the city to become less vehicle centric was a way to combat obesity, foreign oil, and pollution. The project to renovate the city's streets was a success and raised the biking population 71% from 2007 - 2008. If more cities can take from what Columbia, MO did, America might be taking a right step in their greener ways of thinking.

Donahue, Bill. "A Free-Wheeling City." Parade 27 Sept. 2009: 18-19. Print.

John Latham

God is Great (#4), 2005, Dimensions Variable, (Glass, Silicon, Books)


Philosophy and the Practice of. 1960. Signed and painted books, metal rust, clips, copper tubes, electric wires, wire-mesh, electric instrument panel, plaster on canvas on hardboard. 76 x 96 x 23 cm


Time Base and the Universe (detail) exhibition


Time Base and The Universe (detail) exhibition

John Latham was a conceptual artist that founded his work in his ethical, personal, and scientific beliefs. Born in 1921, in Rhodesia, (now Zambia) and died in 2006 in London. His work revolved around the collaboration between art and science and routinely referenced many scientific theories in his works. Throughout his life and art career, he believed that the traditional idea of physics was wrong (i.e. being a particle based) and felt that life was the "Least Event,"

Using a can of black spray paint, Latham produced a single burst of dots on a white surface. Latham realised that this could be used as a visual description of how a least-event (the spray burst) produced action (the dots) in a pre-existing, a-temporal omnipresent (the white wall). Latham later declared this idea as I054 (idiom 54).

What I really enjoy about his work were his one second paintings, of abstract forms with the use of spray paint to convey his theory of "Least Event" but also his "God is Great" work. Where, within a shroud of broken glass, lay sacred texts (Bible, Qur'an, and Talmud). Showing his ideas that violence and conflict is the result of ideological differences in societies.

Interview/Review
Gallery
No Official Website

Tetsumi Kudo

String Game of Memory (Juex de fils de la memoire), 1980


Your Portrait (Votre Portrait), 1965-66


Cultivation - For Nostalgic Purpose - For your Living Room, 1967-68



Tetsumi Kudo is a Japanese artist that worked primarily in painting and sculpture. Born in 1935, he was best described as an abstract expressionist, most of the work he created was a comment on japan's post apocalyptic aesthetic after WWII, dealing with many phallic, mutated, transformed, and caged subjects. He worked primarily in mixed media was commenting on industrialization, modernism, and the social malaise of Japan during his lifetime, and was never really well know in the United States. He didn't even have a Solo Exhibition in the US until after his death in 1990. He primarily exhibited in Japan and France during his life and it wasn't until his Garden of Metamorphosis solo exhibition in 2008, at the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, did the US realize what a talent he was. His education was at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan in 1958.

Review
Gallery
no website

Will Kwan

Canaries (the bank and the treasury), 2007

3-channel video projection, 20 chromira prints on dibond, 10 drawings with ash on paper

digital study



Canaries (the bank and the treasury), 2007

3-channel video projection, 20 chromira prints on dibond, 10 drawings with ash on paper

videostill



Canaries (the bank and the treasury), 2007

3-channel video projection, 20 chromira prints on dibond, 10 drawings with ash on paper

videostill



Canaries (the bank and the treasury), 2007

3-channel video projection, 20 chromira prints on dibond, 10 drawings with ash on paper

chromira print, 48" x 30"

Will Kwan is an artist/writer who was born in Hong Kong. He currently is residing in Maastricht, Holland. He received a BA from the University of Toronto (Scarborough, 2002) and his MFA from Columbia University (2004). He has presented work at the Venice Biennale (2003) and the PS1 in New York (2005). His artworks named "Canaries (the bank and the treasury) is a project that proposes a narrative link between multinational banking, Taoist funerary rituals, and overseas communities originating from Hong Kong" (www.studiowillkwan.com). Much of his work comments on the colonial forces that have established and sustained the city of Hong Kong. It also explores issues of social conditioning behind cultural identity.

Review
Gallery
Website

Wang Qingsong

Commercial War, 170 x 300 cm, Photograph, Wang Qingsong, 2004


Follow me, 120x300cm, photograph, Wang Qingsong, 2003


Dream of Migrants, 170x400cm, Photograph, Wang Qingsong, 2005


Dormitory, 170x400cm, Photograph, Wang Qingsong, 2005


China Mansion, 30x300cm / 60x600cm / 120x1200cm, Wang Qingsong, photograph, 2003

Wang Qingsong was born in Heilongjiang Province, China and studied at the Sichuan Academy of Art. His art reflects the issues of Western Modernization of China and its affects on the global and national scales. He doesn't feel that all western influences are bad, but believes in an old Chinese saying, "each carrot should have its own pit." With that said, he feels that China needs its own characteristics of economic and cultural styles. His art has been exhibited internationally and he's a rising star of the Chinese Art scene. He feels that his work is slightly journalistic in its aesthetics, commenting on social, political, and economic policies of the Chinese establishment and western philosophies. He was trained as a painter and then found his niche in the photographic realm, with highly narrative and composed photographs of Chinese cultural issues.

Gallery
Interview
Website

Ashley Bickerton

Abstract Painting for People #4, 1987. Lacquer and acrylic on polymer resin and plywood with anodised aluminum. h: 68 x w: 48 x d: 15 in / h: 172.7 x w: 121.9 x d: 38.1 cm


Tormented Self-Portrait, 1988


Good Painting, 1988. Mixed media construction with neoprene covering. h: 90 x w: 69 x d: 18 in / h: 228.6 x w: 175.3 x d: 45.7 cm


Me Portrait No. 2 (Six Gun), 1987. acrylic on aluminum, plastic, steel cable, hardware. h: 62 x w: 47.5 x d: 42 in / h: 157.5 x w: 120.6 x d: 106.7 cm

Ashley Bickerton was born in 1959 in Barbados, his family traveled to many different places as a child. He began his artistic career after he graduated from the California Institute of Art in 1982 and then moved to New York to be apart of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He exhibited for a few years in New York and then got his big break at a 4 person show at the Sonnabend Gallery in 1986. This exhibition launched 4 artists careers that became known as the "Fantastic Four" which includes Jeff Koons, Peter Halley, and Meyer Vaisman. These four artists became the forefront of the Neo-Geo Movement of art. Ashley has exhibited extensively across the globe and is in many permanent collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern. Many of his works comment on capitalism and the commidification of art itself. The works i have put up are of his early career and are typically assemblages of industrial materials with the use of corporate branding of iconic symbols. He currently lives and works in Bali.

Review
Gallery
No official Website

Allan Sekula

Shipwreck, Istanbul (triptych),
1999-2007, type-c print, 3 framed works, each: 35-1/4 x 49 inches, 89.5 x 124.5 cm, edition of 5,AS135


Percebeiros (Shellfishers) working and army preparing (Tourinan, 12-24-02),
2002-2003, cibachrome diptych, 22 x 80-1/2 inches, edition of 5,AS066


Large and small disasters (Islas Cíes and Bueu, 12-20-02)
2002-2003, cibachrome triptych,
50-3/4 x 27-1/4 inches,
edition of 5,AS080


Disposal pit (Lendo, 12-23-02),
2002-2003, cibachrome diptych, 20-1/2 x 49-1/2 inches, edition of 5,AS081


Volunteer's soup (Isla de Ons, 12-19-02)
2002-2003, cibachrome diptych,
2 parts, each: 64 x 44 inches,
edition of 5,AS064


Allan Sekula is an American artist, writer, and critic that is currently based at CalArts. He was born in 1951 in Erie, Pennsylvania. His works are primarily photography based, but is also know to use film. He works are also heavily based in critical writings of "Late Capitalism" where he makes many critiques of the current systems of production and labor. His art works create critical questions that rise from social reality and globalization and concentrate on what he describes as "the imaginary and material geographies of the advanced capitalist world" (Wikipedia). Sekula has had many international solo exhibitions and is the benefactor to numerous grants and fellowships such as the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Getty Research Institute, the Deutsche Akademischer Austausdienst and the Atelier Calder.


Interview

Gallery

no official website