Stephanie Cardon

The piece "echo's chamber", pictured above, by Stephanie Cardon, was inspired by participating in a workshop on tunnel books. In creating a book-structure that the viewer can enter, Cardon hopes to allow the visitor to become part of the text; a story about "frustration, unrequited love, original creative acts, and mimicry".

Cardon's other work includes photographs, prints, and installations, all of which seem to define a sense of place in different ways...sometimes in the form of an actual structure, sometimes by capturing the essence or defining characteristic of a specific place/time. Read about Stephanie's upcoming projects and upcoming solo shows in Boston, MA on her website, at StephanieCardon.com.

Augusta Wood

yawn...I am so very tired this morning after last night learning the entire series of COSMOS is available on my Netflix for Wii. 13 hours of mind bending science, humanity and the incredible awesomeness that is Carl Sagen and his great space coaster cockpit of enlightenment. My head is still pulsing like the brains of the martins in Mars Attacks...GAK!

So with sleepy eyes I bring Augusta Wood. My teachers in art school always said stray far from sentimentality, not sure why, now in retrospect. It can be very powerful when done right. It also can be a dangerous idea in that it can cloud reality. But that is another story. For now, let us focus on the poetic and heady images of Ms. Wood. In her series "I have only what I remember" she travels to her grandparents old home, now empty and reflects on memory and how place, time and experiences shape who we are. The meticulous method of lining up old family slides project over the places where they happen is the perfect solution to exploring memory. The way you can look at a place and have those visions of all the great dramas played out on a grand stage. The work really resonates with the fleeting and temporariness of existence. The slides fade and distort like memory against the emptiness. It is like the house itself is a picture. The rooms hold secrets and stories, like all buildings do. The work is very poetic, rich in metaphor and resonates with life.

I have only what I remember is on view at Angles Gallery in Los Angeles

-brandon

Contemporary Artists Book Conference at the NY Art Book Fair

I am giddy!!! This is their 5th annual Contemporary Artists Book Conference at the NY Art Book Fair and I am practically salivating. Not only does this negate a trip to PS1 this week, but it is also bunches and bunches and bunches of the sexiest handmade, indie press, editioned, artist-made books, pamphlets, zines...AND the folks that make it all happen.


The Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference is a dynamic, two-day event focused on emerging practices and debates within art-book culture. Full conference tickets, which include a newly commissioned book by Emily Roysdon, are now available online (single-session tickets are also available).

The Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference is organized by Printed Matter, Inc. and The NY Art Book Fair, November 5–7 at MoMA PS1, featuring more than 280 international presses, booksellers, antiquarians, museums, galleries, and artists from twenty-four countries, exhibiting the very best of contemporary art publishing. Admission to the NY Art Book Fair is free, including the preview, Thursday, November 4 from 6-9 p.m. Visit the NY Art Book Fair website and Facebook page for updates as well as a complete list of programs.

Oh, and check out the exhibitors' pages here. You will drool and drool and drool.....

I know it isn't hip to be stuck up about being a New Yorker, but events like this make me really ridiculously happy about it.