fontaine capel

newark

2012-02-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

leap, mixed media on paper, 2011

p. 307 chaste-cheap, mixed media, 2012

untitled (face studies), mixed media, 2012

these pieces were exhibited at "what's in it for me" at baron gallery in oberlin, oh. here they are on the internet, framed & photographed. more newark soon!

gordon square arts district

2011-11-25T12:26:00.001-05:00

oberlin college & cleveland's gordon square arts district have partnered up and thrown a gala. also an exhibition of student art. here are some pictures! below is one of me & my two pieces featured in the show.

photo by the talented & lovely m.j. robinson

top: p. 307 chaste-cheap, mixed & found media, collection of don harvey
bottom: untitled, mixed & found media

better documentation of these & other works to come soon! also, perhaps, a portfolio website? stay tuned!

bison bison

2011-11-06T20:22:00.003-05:00

art rental

2011-10-25T12:59:00.000-04:00

lorna simpson on my dresser

my art rental bounty. once a semester we camp out, wake up & raid the museum five-by-five. then we get to live with works of art for the rest of the semester at five bucks a pop. in years past i've had, among others, roy lichtenstein, keith haring, alberto giaccometti, jasper johns & andy warhol. this semester, i have some of lorna simpson's wishbones & sol lewitt's (what else) lines. i also have a bunch of my peers' work from my time abroad at the pont-aven school of contemporary art. i thought larsen husby's went particularly well with s.l.

hanging sol lewitt & larsen husby

sadly, my sol lewitt isn't personally dedicated.

mid-terms

2011-10-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

a common cultural heritage

2011-09-25T19:51:00.000-04:00

back from a summer-long hiatus. i've an honors-track, a new, huge-windowed second-floor corner studio, a coffee maker & a set of 1960's high school illustrated encyclopedias.

watch out, here i come.

disposable

2011-08-07T15:36:00.001-04:00

newly developed. pont-aven & paris.

siendobstruyendo

2011-07-20T00:39:00.000-04:00

pressure

2011-07-14T23:22:00.001-04:00

on another note,

i'm just a kid

numbers

2011-06-27T13:16:00.000-04:00

i've been noticing numbers in maine

studio bathroom, watershed center for ceramic arts, maine

and oxford

the oxford loop

lady margaret hall, oxofrd, oxfordshire

and brooklyn, though i'm momentarily camera-less. to be remedied.
i've been, as sometimes happens, interacting with inspiring art while making none of my own. to be remedied?

more about the inspiring art & artists with which n' with whom i've been interacting later. alligator.

lick piece

2011-06-10T01:12:00.004-04:00

“My body is the intention, my body is the event, my body is the result.”
-Otto Muhl, 1964

PASCA critical studies final performance. a response to—among others—klein, the vienna actionists, & fluxus artist benjamin pattinson's 1964 licking piece ("cover shapely female in whipped cream. lick... topping of chopped nuts and cherries is optional")

performance documentation: lick piece, maliya travers-crumb (left) & allison fontaine-capel (tongue out), may 2011 Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art

sitting, knees touching, we took turns using our tongues to transfer gesso out of mugs and on to each other's faces. when our faces were covered we scraped our tongues, rinsed our mouths, and spat into a champagne flute.

gesso is poison. & tastes like it, too. endurance art.
cherries optional.

alias

2011-05-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

some snapshots of my open studio during pasca's end-of-semester show that opened on friday at the centre international d'art contemprain here in pont-aven.

my studio. cluttered but (mostly) clean.

the evidence of my process toward my final project.

aforementioned project in the gallery space during the opening.

sometimes i put my used teabags on this branch above my radiator.

this is a chandelier.

top left you'll notice a can phone we tried to sell for ten euros during the open studios. the can phone is still hanging in my atelier.

daryl seitchik, comic-maker extraordinaire (whose 24-hour comic was on sale at the opening) et moi.

there is a little french boy in our studio.

this is a stranger in my studio. weird.

an explanation of my final project to come. now it's time to start cleaning out my studio and prepping for the final, all-school critique tomorrow. surreal.

rhythm 0: a participant-fueled installation & social experiment

2011-05-05T20:36:00.002-04:00

this is not my ass. let me explain.

in 1974 marina abromović ("the grandmother of performance art") stood emotionless while a stranger held a loaded pistol to her head. the piece was titled rhythm 0. the following is an excerpt from abromović's wikipedia page:

Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, scissors, a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.

inspired by abromović's ability to yield total control, i designed a contemporary take on rhythm 0, replacing the artist's physical presence with her digital one.

rhythm 0 2.0
each participant was afforded ten minutes in a small, dark room with my laptop, whose background offered these instructions (an adaptation of abromović's originals):

followed by a list of my usernames and passwords. participants were not, however, informed that the computer was not only capturing each action on screen, but recording their faces as well.

a sample of the results: a craigslist ad was taken out in my name, my profile picture was changed to a bare ass, my picture files and photobooth were rifled through, my oldest emails were read, facebook friends were deleted and contacted out of the blue, my browser history was scoured... and some people just sat on their hands and stared at the screen.

this is what

2011-04-28T23:26:00.000-04:00

an all-nighter looks like dans mon atelier.

drinking earl grey. chugging through the fourth season of next generation.
it is five-twenty five in the morning.
good day.

to get something

2011-04-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

back in

2011-04-25T19:20:00.000-04:00

in all their right-angled glory.

the studio, the bones are all cut (96 total, 24 painted, 72 not at all) & the frames are cut & nailed & hung on my studio wall.

a reminder: next time plan a project with fewer parts. next time work slow & steady. until then, watch my mad progress before the show (the shows!) this weekend and next.

to the finish line!

from paris

2011-04-16T14:08:00.000-04:00

there has been little art making and much art viewing this week, as PASCA sent us off to experience life & art in berlin.

one of these life/art experiences was berlin's boros collection. it is a private collection housed in a refurbished nazi bunker. the password to the online collection is "GOLDFINGER". apparently the billionaire collector is a james bond fan. it houses some (most?) of the biggest names in contemporary art. it also offers its visitors sparkling water in thick glasses.

on a separate note, i've been working on my final piece for my figure drawing/material practice classes. it involves many bones and many secrets. here are some shots my studio & of the process:

the strips of bones, my cutting mat & my scalpel are with me here in paris. PASCA spring break, 2011.

senses & issues

2011-04-01T14:17:00.002-04:00

stills from my latest installation. it's still untitled.

the assignment was to choose an issue about which i feel strongly and illustrate, through installation, a point of personal ambiguity/ambivalence in relation to that topic.

video below. the audio (betty friedan & cyndi lauper) is here.
the smell of the moldy bathroom is, unfortunately, not transferable via the internet.

girls just from Fontaine Capel on Vimeo.

girls just want to have

2011-03-31T16:44:00.002-04:00

a performance/installation. more were this came from (& a video?) soon enough.

in which the young artist's

2011-03-29T15:50:00.000-04:00

concentration floundered over the course of her five-hour figure drawing session.

SIMPLICITÉ

2011-03-26T10:04:00.001-04:00

a show i'm co-curating at galerie izart in pont-aven. above is a draft of our show card. below is a draft of our exhibition statement.

SIMPLICITY

“The line of beauty is the line of perfect economy.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Endemic to contemporary culture, sensory overstimulation has forced us to adopt a superficial relationship to visual art. Society has been desensitized. We have been stripped of the opportunity for quiet contemplation. In the words of Susan Sontag, “ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience… What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.”

SIMPLICITY affords the viewer the opportunity to contemplate a body of work that rejects artifice. The works presented are a step away from an overstimulated culture and towards a new visual clarity, allowing viewers to establish a more intimate connection with their consciousness.

SIMPLICITÉ 

"La ligne de beauté est la ligne de l'économie parfaite." 
-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Endémique à la culture contemporaine, une surstimulation sensorielle nous a obligés à adopter une relation superficielle à l'art visuel. La société a été désensibilisée. Nous avons été dépouillés de la contemplation tranquille. Dans les paroles de Susan Sontag, «nous avons une culture fondée sur l'excédent, sur la surproduction, le résultat est une perte régulière de netteté dans notre expérience sensorielle... Ce qui est important maintenant est de récupérer nos sens. Nous devons apprendre à voir plus, pour entendre plus, à se sentir plus.» 

SIMPLICITÉ donne au spectateur l'occasion de contempler une œuvre qui rejette l'artifice. Les œuvres présentées sont à deux pas d'une culture surexcitée et vers une nouvelle clarté visuelle, permettant aux téléspectateurs d'établir un lien plus intime avec leur conscience.

painting is

2011-03-25T14:35:00.000-04:00

many things. my forte, however, it is not. two examples:

exhibit a): a sketch for composition for a painting that may never be realized.

exhibit b): a live model.

i have a lot of

2011-03-20T09:05:00.000-04:00

assignments to work on. this isn't one of them.

nesting nesting: one, two, three.

2011-03-18T19:03:00.002-04:00

an installation: a nest.

above the nest: comforters, pillows, blankets. (people, sometimes.)
inside the nest: 24 articles of my clothing and a recording of 25 of my breaths on loop (also people sometimes. up to three of them.)
in front of the nest: one pair of wool socks & a sign that read "leave your shoes here. wear these. replace them back here when you've finished."

(the assignment asked for 25 representations of my interior & 25 of my exterior.)

in the dark

with flash


the inside was too dark to capture without flash. it was also warm from body heat & breath.

the installation's installation (& installation preparation):

i began by sweeping and scrubbing. the sculpture studio is far too sawdusty and gritty for a proper nest.

goodbye, blue stain.

(a secret: the nest is really the model stand scrubbed & disguised.)

this nest is, i think, the first of many.
nestifesto to come soon?

it was not a day for figure drawing.

2011-03-16T18:17:00.000-04:00

additional doodles courtesy danielle dillon & larson husby

nesting pictures soon.

wherein the artist sticks her head

2011-03-07T17:45:00.004-05:00

in various projected artworks at the reina sofia in madrid, espagne. (for the sake of performance art.)

Siendo/Obstruyendo

Performance, 2011

Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid

in the five minutes when i was dead to the world

2011-03-06T16:12:00.003-05:00

these colors are off. fancy cameras intimidate me.

cut paper, ink

oil and graphite on paper. 5 in by 5 in each.

ink on paper

scream team, or some miscellany from my studio

2011-03-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

face studies, oil, 2in by 2in each

from welcome, ink, paper, big notecard size

arco pictures soon enough.

cicada cicada

2011-03-01T17:47:00.000-05:00

it's in the flesh! the first step in an illustrious tattoo designing career, i'm sure.

the louvre

2011-03-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

overwhelmed me. so i sat with winged victory for a while.

a tattoo

2011-02-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

for jules:

go figure

2011-02-08T15:37:00.001-05:00

first class (in years). one, two, five, ten & twenty minute poses.

some stills

2011-02-06T15:00:00.002-05:00

from this weekend's performance art workshop. tophat & keds.

this man got over the string all right. i wonder if he realized he was art.

some images. week the first.

2011-02-06T12:03:00.001-05:00

found at the beach

studio

grinding, chewing pigments

studio, orange peel

my gray hair

for jules (ink)

bottom is home, top is not

my studio is crowding

left is home, right is not (installation class)

(pencil)

production polaroid from a performance piece today

me, geese

some colors

2011-02-02T14:45:00.000-05:00

the colors are off a little here in bretagne. gauguin said something once about the quality of light in this town. the sun rarely comes out, but when it does, it's really something.

test roll test roll

2011-01-24T16:50:00.000-05:00

a test roll on my nikon em. proof i am not a photographer? perhaps. the rest here.

paring down my supplies (wire? 1950's germany? ziploc bags?) in preparation. t-2 days.

is it is it

2011-01-08T21:39:00.000-05:00

i've been going through old notebooks (instead of filling new ones).

2007-ish.

no windows are breaking

2011-01-08T20:42:00.001-05:00

the smithsonian has digitized the archives of late great oil painter moses soyer (grandfather of the great living oil painter, nancy soyer. the above is a signed dictation sent to moses by the young ms. soyer. i think it's phenomenal.)

see the whole thing (studio & family photos, sketches, correspondence) here.

and the men usually wear beards

2011-01-04T02:06:00.008-05:00

"it seems a word of insult usually applied to people

interested in the arts, at this point."

-a. ginsberg on the "beat generation"

whilst perusing (procrastinating) the world wide web i came across this: a list of flavorwire's eleven cultural resolutions for two-thousand-eleven. i thought many of them silly, but this one caught my eye: "Young artists will find a positive way to describe their culture."

At the beginning of 2010, the word “hipster” was everywhere — and we have been as guilty of using and abusing it as anyone. This fall, though, the conversation turned to the end of the hipster era. While we don’t believe things are as clear-cut as all that, we are sick of seeing young, creative people lumped in with do-nothing trustafarians and yuppies with ironic mustaches. After a year when 20-somethings constantly under attack — as many of us struggled to find jobs and make lives for ourselves amid an economic disaster our parents’ generation caused — we need to find better ways to celebrate our art and culture so that we aren’t ashamed to defend it.

(the emphasis is mine.) this conversation has happened before. and, sure, i agree—but are our art and culture really worthy of defense? not all of it, certainly. how, then, to sieve out art & culture of the apathetic, the privileged "trustafarians" from those hard-working twenty-somethings whose output demands celebration?

i don't know. where does the distinction lie? not in the output. nor, i think, in the input: not in the music listened to, the movies watched, the books read or the thrift-store clothes worn.

where is this subculture (is it really a subculture? between oberlin and brooklyn, it's difficult for me to fathom) heading? are posts like the one above (the eleventh in the eleven item list: the cherry on top? the sword in the stone? maybe a keystone, cornerstone.) a rumble before the great chasm widens before us? will those demanding respect & distinction begin to distance themselves from an aesthetic synonymous with apathy & sloth?

it would follow, wouldn't it?

here's a bit of allen ginsberg discussing the beat generation with some academics. it's been floating around on my itunes for a while. take it. listen to it.

where do we all fit, do you think? i haven't a clue. nor do i particularly want to be an ambassador for my generation. i'm not ready to trumpet my accomplishments. i'm going to wait until i've made some.

also,

2010-12-22T01:27:00.001-05:00

the fruits of our labor have been delivered unto us.

to quote my dear editor-in-chief:

Covered in this issue: Freewheeling Guidos, Stuxnet, shaving, postal art, the peak-oil apocalypse, the internet as the apotheosis of oral culture, death and Facebook, a father's escape from Cuba, the ethical dilemmas of non-lethal weapons, Jewish identity and Israel - Palestine at Oberlin, the OCOPE - College labor dispute (in which Wilder Voice pisses off, you know, everyone involved), the rise of the neoliberal arts college, and a healthy dose of fiction, memoir, and poetry.

i've had dreams about you, v6i10. nightmares, even. (blank pages around the fold-out. chills down my spine.) but now you're here, and everything is going to be all right.

shelby lee adams

2010-12-22T00:27:00.001-05:00

generally, i file away my inspiration here, but rules are made to be broken, no?

while (procrastinating by) snooping around the list of guggenheim fellows, i stumbled upon this phenomenal phellow: 2010-11 guggenheim photography fellow shelby lee adams.

here is his blog.

here he is:

here is his work:

he practices the art of portraiture: he rembrandts. to me, at least.

(i'm in one of my appalachia phases. music, not mountaintops.)

how to be a successful artist

2010-12-16T17:43:00.000-05:00

ART THOUGHTZ: How To Be A Successful Artist from Hennessy Youngman on Vimeo.

the government knows best

2010-12-16T17:39:00.001-05:00

one:
the uk government has decided that the works of dan flavin and bill viola are not art.

The reasons given by the European Commission for classifying works by Bill Viola and Dan Flavin as, eg ‘projectors’ and ‘wall light fittings’, are extraordinary. To suggest, for example, that a work by Dan Flavin is a work of art only when it is switched on, is comical. The national courts of two member states (the UK and the Netherlands) have considered the classification of video and light installations and both have concurred that they should be classified as art under Chapter 97 of the Common Customs Tariff. One is entitled to ask if the Commission has made a judicious use of its powers when overruling these judicial decisions. The reasons given in the regulation in support of the classification are absurd, and the regulation conflicts with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice.

how about urinals, uk tax tribunal?

two:
an art stock exchange? cementing art as pure commodity.

three:
bruce nauman, he owns hands.

ART THOUGHTZ: Bruce Nauman from Hennessy Youngman on Vimeo.

for treasure

2010-12-14T01:55:00.000-05:00

pix et els

2010-12-12T14:20:00.000-05:00

onesie

2010-12-10T01:06:00.001-05:00

on having a low-fi camera at my beck & call:

the mystery is worth it, i think. when one takes a high resolution image and fucks with it in photoshop to achieve grains, it isn't organic. the details (the information containing them) are still there. this camera (built into my laptop) is unable to faithfully record reality. in its omission/distortion of detail, the computer makes its own reality. these images include much more frantic textures than those one's eye accepts.

something should be done. maybe this is a statement of intention.

so long, jasper

2010-12-09T16:38:00.003-05:00

i returned my art rental today (a day late, i'm short ten dollars). we showed up around 5 or 6 am & grabbed what we could.

here's the brilliant, adorable, deceased, ellen johnson (in whose frank lloyd wright house we debauched during commencement) explaining, briefly:

i grabbed the jasper johns i'd ogled in someone's room my freshman year, and the alberto giacometti-- apparently a new addition to the collection.

here are some pictures. i regret not having taken better (more active?) ones. they were originally intended to impress my family and to fill my artist friends with jealousy. now they are being posted for posterity. here, posterity:

i'm with alberto.

apparently less enthused about jasper.

my walls are a little bear, but i'm otherwise no worse for the wear. hairs, heirs, errs.

on another note, wilder voice has sucked away my soul. i happily let it sip.
this is going to be a great issue. (a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, a courtesy of straws.)

i remain faithfully yrs, &ct..
a.f.c.

human beings are beautiful

2010-12-02T09:19:00.000-05:00

are bared

2010-12-01T00:41:00.008-05:00

some old, some new.


listening to baroque recorder & poetry

carps not art

2010-11-22T19:50:00.001-05:00

a scrap; parcs; carps

this isn't about art, but it's important.

“I served a tour in Afghanistan followed by a tour in Iraq. I have been hardened by war and in the past week I am slowly being broken by the constant diatribe of hateful comments being lobbed at me. While many just see a uniform with gloves feeling them for concealed items I am a person, I am a person who has feelings. I am a person who has served this country. I am a person who wants to continue serving his country. The constant run of hateful comments while I perform my job will break me down faster and harder than anything I encountered while in combat in the Army.”

read the rest of the interviews here.

mail art

2010-11-19T10:44:00.002-05:00

i spent this past month (to the utter neglect of my academics) organizing a very large gallery show.
this was difficult. let me tell you why.

i have no experience:
-organizing things (big things.)
-being in charge of people
-rallying
-inspiring enthusiasm
-working as a liaison
-facilitating cooperation between members of two organizations

the show was a collaboration between plum creek review (an arts and literary magazine for which i am the arts editor) and the exhibition initiative (with which i am not formally affiliated. perhaps next year i will be. ojalá inshallah weather permitting.)

it happened, though. gallery talks by reid wood (an important mail artist, benefactor of oberlin's collection, oberlin grad and all-around nice guy), barb prior (clarence ward art librarian extraordinaire), pcr's mail art "creation space" (in which visitors were invited to make their own mail art), and an all-out, hundreds of humans, wine & cheese friday night gallery opening.

pics or it didn't happen.

this is not silkscreen. this is several sharpies.

my parents were in town. they are little people.

reid wood, martha moldovan (president of the exhibition initiative, curator of the show) & me. (jay psych: this image isn't mine. it's from facebook.)

something new

2010-11-18T20:06:00.000-05:00

this blog is new.

here are the purposes i hope it will serve:

-a separate space from the tumblr where i collect other people's inspiring things.
-an outlet for ideas
-a home for half-baked thoughts, projects & miscellany

-a place to post things like this:

these are some things i keep on my windowsill. i think they are beautiful.

let's see, shall we?