Monday, December 29, 2008
New Stuff.
I'm on my way. Kristy agreed, after a bunch of poking, prodding and alcohol, that it would be great to let me hire her to make my art for me. it's actually a little bit better than that, but stay tuned. I'm working on it. I'm going to contract with her to make a photograph to my specifications and she's going to sell me the aesthetic and artistic rights to the picture. Her photograph (a large format photo, no smaller than 20x24) will be displayed along side the contract in which I purchase the artistic and aesthetic rights to the image. I'll tell her what to photograph, which will essentially amount to saying, "get that," and I'll own everything else. Brett has agreed to do the same and I'll have to come up with a contract for him as well. I will then complete the series by making my own photographs (which will doubtless suck compared to theirs), and I will show all of them, including the contracts, together. All this will happen well after Kristy and I get back from Marfa, but I've got a rough draft of the contract done. So far, it is 11 pages long. I may have to edit it up or down, since I want it to be frameable as the same size as the photograph I'm commissioning.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Reading is FUNdamental
My favorite bookstore in Houston, Half Price Books, has an after xmas sale every year and I go and I spend. Here's what I got this time:
Body Art: Performing the Subject, Jones
Illuminating Video: An essential Guide to Video Art, Hall/Fifer
The Object of Performance, Sayre
Unnatural wonders, Danto
After the End of Art, Danto
the Filmmaker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age, Ascher/Pincus
Trainspotting [the script], Hodge
Air Guitar, Hickey
The Texas-Mexican Conjunto, Pena
The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking, Polish Brothers
Second Sight, Mann (this turns out to be a scarce first edition that is available for $450 online but it was $4 at Half Price Books)
Ruth Bernhard: Between Art and Life, Mitchell
Access Rome, Wurman
The Treasures of Venice, Manno/Venchierutti/Codato
Milan and the Lakes, no author given
The last three books are in preparation for the class I hope to take this summer that tours Rome, Milan and Venice, culminating at the Venice Biennale.
The book on conjunto music presents the history of the unique musical form that sprang up in the Rio Grande Valley and which I heard at every wedding I photographed or attended in my teens. It turns out that those amazing musicians were really on to something.
Excerpts of the Danto and Hickey books were assigned reading in some of my classes this last semester and I would like to read the entire thing rather than exerpts.
And the Sally Mann monograph, if sold, would pay for all of them and leave me with a tidy sum of cash to buy more books. I told that to Jane when I was buying these books and she just rolled her eyes and said, "uh huh."