Nienke Klunder is a Netherlands based artist who works mainly in sequences and series, she often uses self-portraiture to explore themes of identity and transformation. One striking example of her work is her ” The Community” project. In this portrait series she explores the female quest for identity and self expression. The work does strongly remind us of the conceptual portraits by Cindy Sherman. Nienke klunder uses, just like Cindy Sherman, herself as model. In her photographic series she shows that every aspect of our daily choices in hair, make up, clothing and styling does add a layer of recognition from society of the character we are, would like or believe ourselves to be.

Photos by Nienke Klunder | Nienke Klunder website

New York based artist Joseph Moore wrote the software “Permutations” for the currently running exhibition Brion Gysin: Dream Machine on display at The New Museum for Contemporary Art in New York. The Exhibition is a retrospective of the work of the painter, performer, poet, and writer Brion Gysin (born 1916, Taplow, UK–died 1986, Paris). Working simultaneously in a variety of mediums, Gysin was an irrepressible inventor, serial collaborator, and subversive spirit whose considerable innovations continue to influence musicians and writers, as well as visual and new media artists today.

The “Permutations” software by Joseph Moore is a “version” of the program developed by Ian Sommerville and Gysin in 1960 to permute poems. Moore has attempted to create a realization of the work that is sensitive to the original and its process. At the same time, it is a new version, a collaboration done in the spirit of an artist whose work provides a critique of conventional notions of authorship. Moore believes that it is also in the spirit of the work to share copies of it and made his “Permutations” Software avilable to download from Github. The concept and artistic process of this project is fascinating.

Software by Joseph Moore | Brion Gysin: Dream Machine

Mizu Hanabi is the title of a stunning video by Japanese artist Tetsuka Niiyama. for this work he was inspired by and idea of “What would it be like if a water drop explodes like fireworks?”. The result: Water drops in a microgravity space bursts sequentially,imitating the Japanese seasonal tradition, fireworks.

Video directed and animated by Tetsuka Niiyama | Sound Design by Yoshio Matsumoto | Production by Taiyo Kikaku. co. ltd.

Currently the museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany is showing an interesting exhibition from work of American artist Wade Guyton. The monochrome planes, stripes and bars, which Guyton has recently begun using very often, are computer-generated. The colour black and the letter X have become signature motifs in his work. These newer paintings by Wade herald the modernist motif par excellence: the monochrome. The classical monochromes by Alexander Rodchenko or Robert Ryman had already served to reduce painting to its essence: color, canvas, and frame. It can be assumed that Guyton’s monochrome bars, even when they appear in larger complexes, have a similar objective to that of Rodchenko and Ryman, namely self-reflective painting. However where other artists have used brushes, light, sounds or even metaphors to paint, Wade started (ab) using an inkjet printer. As medium he started out with paper but moved to canvas. He prints the elementary geometric forms he uses over and over again by feeding the canvas into the printer again and again. This sometimes causes the print head to lose grip. These errors in the printing process produce elisions and streaks.

Guyton follows a strict plan; it is for instance important that the dimensions of each canvas be adapted to the technical details and the space in question. And although the width of all the artist’s works produced on the printer is the same, the length is oriented to the architecture of the exhibition room.

The exhibition in the museum Ludwig is curated by Dr. Julia Friedrich and will run until  22-08-2010

Photos Wade Guyton Maurice Cox | museum Ludwig

 Silent voice | 300×240×45cm | used white clothes

Japanese artist Naoko Yoshimoto began her career studying psychology at the University of Kyoto but moved gradually after it more into art. Her main medium are clothing and textiles. She creates very interesting and strong conceptual sculptures and installations made from garments like for example dresses, tops and trousers.

In the early days as she began collecting these clothes she saw them a bit as symbols of the people living in the places where she met the clothes. She imagined the histories behind them. Touching these used garments, gave her the idea she gained a feeling for the memories of these people and their everyday lives which the garments used to touch, a feeling that could not be communicated by words. But after while this gave her an uneasy feeling as she realized that she could imagine the people and the everyday life of the place she visited, but that she could not directly touch them. There was a feeling of distance and uncertainties. These thoughts had great influence of her current work and made sure she shifted even more towards a conceptual approach in her work.

In some of her current works like for example ” silent voice”, “shadow portrait” or “history behind clothes” she removes the colour of garments by bleaching or uses white coloured garments and compresses and condenses these “white shaded” clothes and transforms them into building blocks for her conceptual sculptures. These works depict conventional as well as more abstract objects and give an interesting social commentary which is created by the medium and its carrier.

 White coffin | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

 White coffin detail | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

 Shadow portrait | 40×640×12cm | used white clothes

 White coffin | 205×85×65cm | used white shirts

Shadow portrait | 40×640×12cm | used white clothes

 White coffin | 150×130×180cm | used white shirts

 River of oblivion detail | bleached clothes

 River of oblivion | bleached clothes

Photos Naoko Yoshimoto | conceptual clothing sculptures