I am also thinking of importing everything from my blogger account to wordpress…just a bit nervous about messing something up.

Other valuable comments on his part included: the tension in digital media and art being a sense of faithful, accurate reproduction (colors are perhaps closer than ever, compared to older media) and innovation (manipulatable, ephemeral). Also, he pointed out that the manipulatable aspects of digital happen in two ways: the purposeful (the exciting innovation part) and accidental (when the accuracy is compromised by mistake).

We also took a look at the new 6th edition of Janson’s History of Art, complete with cd-rom of over 1000 images. A new feature is a glossary of terms: each entry has a pronounciation audio file that reads the term in an appropiate voice, i.e. “chiarascurro” is a female Italian voice, “rune tablet” a male British/Irish voice. Things like “composition” are in an American male voice. So the vocabulary of art history is explicitly divided into national or regional language identities.

When I read Benjamin the first time I was too focused on his “withering” of the aura, which I immediately took as a negative response to art in reproduction, which I then, again all too easily, contrasted with Malraux’s high praise for photography as a reproductive medium that elevates art. Simple polarity are so handy, but so false.

So, Doty and I discussed the book that Samantha Krukowski suggested to me, S/Z by Barthes. Doty read it quite awhile ago, but it was determined that she probably recommended it as a gateway to hermeneutics. Specifically, Doty wanted me to find out what a hermeneutic circle is: “The circle arises because the meaning expressed by a cultural artefact does not depend simply on its creator’s intention; it also depends on the whole system of which the artefact is a part, much as the meaning of a sentence depends on the language to which it belongs or the meaning of a part of a painting depends on the whole work of art of which it is a part. To understand each part, therefore, implies an understanding of the whole. Yet there is no way of understanding the whole independently of its parts” (in the words of Grove Art Online).

While I have been thinking about all the ways digital images are different from photographs, along comes Martin Lister in his introductory essay to “The Photographic Image in Digital Culture” explaining how creating the digital/analog dichotomy is too simplistic because cultural conventions and expectations do not suddenly change when faced with a new technology. I think the transition from the scribal form of book production to the printing press is a good example of this. The printers continued many of the conventions of the hand-produced book in the printed book (wide margins for notations, illuminated letters to mark new chapters). The printing press did not re-invent the book…perhaps digital image technology is not re-inventing photography, or at least not in the radical way that some have thought (William Mitchell for one).

Kay Logan Solo Exhibition
Recent Etchings & Woodblock Prints
Tuesday August 3rd to Saturday August 28th
PAN Gallery
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Kay Logan’s Recent Etchings & Woodblock Prints exhibition.

It may not be fragrant, but it is the world we live in…In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. — Raymond Chandler.

Kay Logan’s work truly exemplifies this idea, confronting the world we live in and the brevity of our lives in it with haunting etchings that explore the western iconography of death and dying. In the process, Logan reclaims and redefines the images we use, calling us into a further examination of our relationship with these processes. PAN Gallery, Tuesday-Saturday, 11 :30 a.m.-5 :30 p.m.

As she mentioned, we went to the Ray Johnson documentary “How to Draw a Bunny” at the Alamo downtown. Favorite moments left out of her list are the difficulties in purchasing a work from Johnson. RJ encouraged haggling over prices, indeed it seemed very much part of the artist process for him. One patron exchanged price haggling letters with RJ for at least a year. By the time the price was settled upon, RJ had altered the portrait series of the buyer to portraits of Paloma Picasso. Another friend bought a piece of RJ’s at 1/4 less than the initial price. RJ cut out 1/4 of the collage.

My thesis related thoughts are in some sort of stasis. Reading induces sleep too easily. At least I have been drawing again a little bit (not that it’s school related activity).

Yesterday I started thinking about sea urchins. They are good at self protection, but cute enough to cuddle.

As others have commented, Letscher’s use of old printed materials provide a kind of nostalgic color palette that you knew from going through your grandmother’s attic or the bins at Goodwill.

Austin’s d. berman gallery also has newer work by Letscher up.

The thickly textured surfaces of Letscher’s collages is another easy example of the limitations of reproductive mediums. Like the loss of dimension and color in Ensor’s painting, Letscher’s surfaces cannot be displayed through reproductive printing or digital images. Some of the thicker pieces can be shot from a side angle to give an impression of the sculptural quality of the work.

It is interesting how different reproductive media might give more or less primacy to the original work. The viewing audience of digital artists need not worry as much about the differences original versus copy.

My little reproductive print is a mnemonic device that recalls the generalities of the original and my experience of seeing the original. I was compelled to purchase it despite all its flaws.

Los Angeles turned out to be a much friendlier and more attractive city than I had imagined. It probably helped significantly that I stayed in the cozy West Hollywood neighborhood (Locally known as WeHo, I think) and didn’t venture far.

Thankfully, I did venture to the Getty. I had no idea what to expect from the Getty, just that it was considered worth going to. I knew a bit about the gardens, since a few years before I attended a lecture by Robert Irwin, the creator.

My day at the Getty was awesome, and I highly recommend going if one is anywhere in the vicinity. The location, the architecture, and the gardens are impressive, perhaps dangerously so, the exhibitions seemed almost secondary attractions.

The big moment for me at the Getty, and the reason I am writing about any of this, was seeing “Christ’s Entry into Brussels” by James Ensor.

I have looked at this painting many times before, printed in books, displayed on monitors. I considered myself familiar with how this painting looks. The most exciting thing about seeing it at the Getty was how wrong I was. The painting is take-up-the-entire-wall-huge and bright; the crowd with its ghoulish and farcical characters seems to spill over the frame. I laughed out loud at the shock and pleasure of the sight and, for a while, I was happier than I had been in a long time.

p.s. Even though I had seen reproductions of Ensor’s painting, I hadn’t read anything about it, making it quite easy to miss discussions of its size. In my opinion, those little dimension notes found at the bottom of most book plates don’t count.