by Christopher Hutchinson

“Liz Linden presents viewers with simple, straightforward imagery that unfolds into multiple, often contradictory readings of everyday objects. Over the past seven years Linden has created striking readings of images from The New York Times in her Cartoons (2006-2013) by enlarging and re-captioning selected photographs with text from the articles they illustrate: drawing attention to commentary in the article that broadens the meaning of the image.”
http://www.hfgallery.org/exhibitions.html

Liz Linden
Cartoon (04/09/06, from text by Anthony Tommasini, photo by Stephen Crowley), 2006
Archival pigment print on plexi mount
13.25” x 9.25” http://www.lizlinden.com/Cartoons.html

Semiotics & Pop

se·mi·ot·ics
n. (used with a sing. verb)
The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/semiotics

Linden’s artist talk at the Hagedorn foundation Gallery on January 9, 2013 was full of the artspeak terminology, especially that of semiotics, to explain and validiate her work. While Linden rationalized her work behind an academic vocabulary, upon examining the work itself, the context of semiotics is not quite accurate.What we have here is a literal definition of theory projected as art. Does this literal definition art qualify as art or artifact?

There is a common misconception of the definition of conceptual art, where one thinks that by executing a specific concept one has achieved conceptual praxis. This is not conceptual art; rather it is an illustration of a narrative. True conceptual art requires no physical making; it’s not interested in illustrations. In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. “When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive …”-Sol Lewitt http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah188/sol_lewitt/paragraphs%20on%20conceptual%20art.htm

Joseph Kosuth. 1965. “Box, Cube, Empty, Clear, Glass – A Description
http://nsmn1.uh.edu/dgraur/Research.html

Linden claims the use of the random text already present in the newspaper juxtaposed beside the image printed creates the system necessary for the recognition of semiotics at work. Juxtaposing the Image and Text, only allows for one possible conclusion. The issue present in Linden’s Cartoons is the iconography present in its illustration of concept. Pop would be a more accurate term for Linden’s work. There was a familiarity with her Cartoons that brought to mind Warhol’s disaster series. Warhol did not use art speak to elevate Pop art to become more than what it was, 15 minutes only to be easily digested then forgotten.

Andy Warhol, “A boy for Meg,” 1962
http://gloriajoh.wordpress.com/tour/

Pop & Authenticity

“In the suite of collaged images, exotic domestic (2013), Linden resituates photographs of archetypal houseplants culled from the pages of interior design and lifestyle magazines in groups on blank pages to create surprising and quirky relationships through the plants anthropomorphic abstractions. These houseplants are the cornerstone of Linden’s third body of work in the exhibition—a hypothetical installation for which she will place a live and artificial Phalaenopsis orchid side by side for the duration of the exhibition. With this coupling Linden presents a compelling tautology that presses on questions of representation, signification, and what the artist calls the plant’s “oxymoronic status as minimalist decoration.” These works shed light on the social and political context we consciously or unconsciously bring to our perception of images and objects, challenging the received epistemology and learned affective responses ubiquitous in contemporary western culture.” http://www.hfgallery.org/exhibitions.html

Liz Linden.   exotic domestic no. 1
Paper on denril
17”x14″
http://www.lizlinden.com/exotic_domestic.html

Linden led a discourse on the strange habits of humans that bring exotic plants into their homes and how in catalogues the only objects that are not for sale are the plants. Of Linden’s exotic domestic series (not pictured) the most interesting was the Orchid sculptures exhibited side by side on two pedestals. One orchid was real and the other fake.

The viewer was asked to question, which was the authentic? One of the main components of Pop art was to purposely challenge the value of authentic art, to use mass media production as the cheapest way to level the all that the art world values. Linden’s work repeats these same dated goals, which would not be a problem if these works were presented as artifacts. Does Linden’s exotic domestic orchid challenge authenticity more successfully than Warhol’s brillo boxes?

The values of artifacts are judged based on the civilization present when created. Roman sculpture considered less in comparison to Greece. Linden’s artifacts do not succeed in contributing a new dialogue Pop, much less semiotics.

Andy Warhol,
A brillo box from the Moderna Museet
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Warhol+Brillo+boxes+downgraded+to+%E2%80%9Ccopies%E2%80%9D/21573

Christopher Hutchinson is an Assistant Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and Archetype Art Gallery Owner in Atlanta, Ga. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama. He lived in Alabama for 10 years before moving to Atlanta in 2008.

Learn more about Christopher and his work at Black Flight 144.

by Peter Ciccariello

ABOUT THE SERIES

Works in Textual artifacts are created using an array of 2-D and 3-D software programs and take their inspiration from common methods of archeological excavation. Just as ancient artifacts are deciphered through the recovery and examination of the remains of a culture, environmental data and detritus that they leave behind, these image artifacts represent the remains of poems and writings that have been eroded and battered in a digital process. That process attempts to dissect and deconstruct a text and then reconstruct that text as an evolutionary image. The final visual is created by digitally mapping the image with a copy of itself, in a sense, forming an archeological topography of the material essence of the image. This visual topography, created from the value scale of the image, is excavated from within the process revealing the remains, historical marks and gestures from the original source data. In this way, these images become metaphors of themselves, just as the incidental evidence of our human ancestors provide a reflective metaphor for our own lives.

A NOTE ABOUT PROCESS

This art is defined by process, a hybrid of the essential elements of painting, photography and writing. The digital matrix that is created is at the core of this work, provides a new form of plate printing, a virtual digital matrix that functions as the film negative in photography or the copper plate that is the basis of etching, intaglio and engraving printmaking processes. This digital image matrix now provides the possibility to be output from 3-D printers and realized as free-standing sculptures or in this case, sculptured wall hangings. This unprecedented freedom of instantiation provides the artist with the ability to output multiple types of art realized from the same original matrix.

In this sense, every instantiation of the matrix is an original with the unique aura of the artists’ conception. In an age of ever more sophisticated reproductive technologies the image matrix becomes the postmodern link to the artist’s hand. The abstract schema that becomes an imprint is akin to personal writing, instantiated as a new private language – part sign, part symbol and part code, this image surface becomes a non-navigational road map of fragmented and disassembled narratives, disruptive and de-centering yet at the same time oddly imbued with an inner, familiar, and abstracted order.

sister queens

tiny disconnects

map of the kindness of strangers

body as locus

raining tache

blue scrawl poem

homage to brancusi

after tender buttons redux

poem totally destroyed

soft poem after ryder

trash

mushroom

Peter Ciccariello finds his inspiration in the fields and forests of Northeastern Connecticut.

His work explores the fine lines between image and text, and is in constant inquiry about what is and what is not poetry.

Ciccariello’s work has appeared in print & online, in amongst other places, Poetry Magazine, Fogged Clarity, Hesa inprint, Leonardo On-Line, National Gallery of Writing, and also appeared  in the 2013 issue of MAINTENANT 7, A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art.

New work gallery – http://invisiblenotes.blogspot.com/
Poetry and writing – http://poemsfromprovidence.blogspot.com/

You can find my art and writing updates on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ciccariello On Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/peter.ciccariello

by Jenny Wantuch

“The Walker” Digital Imaging, 2013

“The Dreamer I” Digital Imaging, 2013

“The Seeker”, Digital Imaging, 2013

“The Dreamer II” , Digital Imaging, 2013

“The Reader” , Digital Imaging, 2013

Jenny M.L. Wantuch is an artist creating figurative art using traditional media as well as digital media. Inspired by the complexity and beauty of life and nature, and her own imagination, she enjoys exploring her inner and outer world.  In her art, she seeks to find visual harmony and yet allow dynamic movement.  Jenny was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden.  From an early age, she loved to draw, paint and create stories. Her family has for generations worked as farmers, and since the 1600’s lived in the area around Uppsala. During her childhood in Sweden, Jenny spent most of her summers at the farm. She developed a deep interest and appreciation for the beauty of nature. Early influences were her grandfather, a storyteller and draftsman, her aunt, a portrait sculptor and painter, and both her grandmothers whose talents for various crafts seemed to be endless.

Jenny moved to Northern California in 2001. Jenny is a full time artist, working from her studio in Burlingame.  Jenny regularly exhibits her work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has private collectors in USA and in Europe.

For more information please visit: http://jennywantuch.com. You can also follow Jenny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JMLWantuchArt.

by Melissa D. Johnston

What is encounter?

by Melissa D. Johnston

Boredom.

A point and shoot camera.

A sunny November day.

The air grille of a whirring heatpump.

Click.

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About Jaume Jorba:
Born in Barcelona, I arrived to Atlanta sixteen years ago. Little I knew about the journey I was about to embark. Applied research in public health was my first eye opener and I decidedly joined the Polio Eradication project. Sometime later I found in Visual Poetry the stream uniting tributaries long abandoned. Facing loss and grief, Visual Poetry emerged in gratitude. Thus, a new journey began. The one I keep telling my soul: Haven’t met you yet.

See more of Jaume’s work at  Journey to Tallulah Falls.