cavetocanvas:

Cildo Meireles, Insertions into Ideological Circuits 2: Banknote Project, 1970

From the Tate Collection:

For the Banknote Project Meireles stamped subversive messages onto banknotes before returning them to normal circulation. The twenty-seven banknotes presented to Tate by the artist include varying denominations of cruzeiro notes – the Brazilian currency of the time – as well as US dollar bills. The messages, appearing in both English and Portuguese, include such anti-American slogans as ‘Yankees Go Home’ as well as calls for democracy and political freedom – ‘Straight Elections’ – and the words ‘Quem Matou Herzog?’ or ‘Who Killed Herzog?’, referring to a journalist who died in police custody under suspicious circumstances. Meireles stamped the banknotes on both sides – his message appearing on one side and the work’s title and the artist’s statement of purpose: ‘To register informations and critical opinions on bottles and return them to circulation’ – appearing on the other. The Coca-Cola Project follows a similar format: Meireles attached transparent labels with his slogans and the work’s title and purpose to the sides of Coca-Cola bottles which, once emptied of Coca-Cola, would be returned to the factory to be reused. Thus the artist’s messages circulated invisibly within Brazilian society. 

10:26 am  •  2 June 2012  •  62 notes

kartemquin:

This month, Chicago will be treated to not one, but TWO exhibits of photographer Dawoud Bey’s work. The first, which opened yesterday at the Art Institute, features Bey’s first series from the mid-70s, “Harlem, USA”. The second, a career survey, opens May 13th at Hyde Park’s Renaissance Society. 

WBEZ’S Allison Cuddy interviews the artist. 

11:22 am  •  28 May 2012  •  1 note

Professor Joseph Grigley leads a section of “Research & Production” with the first-year MAVCS cohort.

11:32 pm  •  13 May 2012

blackcontemporaryart:

Rashid Johnson

Souls of Black Folk, 2011

Johnson has an amazing exhibition open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

1:00 pm  •  12 May 2012  •  94 notes

eduardo-:

Bioluminescence in the Gippsland Lakes

Noctiluca scintillans doing what it does best in the Gippsland Lakes, a small chain of inland lakes in Victoria, Australia.

The events that transpired to make this happen are quite miraculous; firstly there was widespread fires in Victoria that burned pretty intensely for quite some time. Then, they were followed by intense flooding that inundated many areas of Gippsland amongst others. The basic effect was that floodwaters carried nutrient-rich soil and ash from the higher reaches into the Gippsland basin, leading to a eutrophic condition in which algae and bacteria can thrive.

This gave rise to a particularly prolific cyanobacteria getting a foothold, Synechococcus. Essentially smothering the lake in cellular life, it gave an opportunity for some pretty special creatures to breed prolifically given an abundant food source - Noctiluca scintillans, a bioluminescent Dinoflagellate.

And so, you end up with photographs like this. A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, captured for all to share.

Photo source: http://philhart.com/content/bioluminescence-gippsland-lakes

11:36 am  •  10 May 2012  •  2,431 notes

“The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loathe to disappoint them … A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

(Source: tanya77, via wreckandsalvage)

11:34 am  •  10 May 2012  •  19 notes

slantedshanty:

Aram Saroyan, from Aram Saroyan

9:31 am  •  10 May 2012  •  1,858 notes

nishijoichiro:

I found an essay about Matsuko deluxe on the 2nd floor. Whoever wrote this, I want to be your friend

2:17 pm  •  9 May 2012  •  8 notes