Thursday, September 25, 2008

cloud atlas + SlowART

In October Counsel Langley presents Cloud Atlas, a series of new paintings inspired by David Mitchell's novel of the same name. The book consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to the far future after a nuclear apocalypse. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next. Mitchell has said of the book: "All of the [leading] characters except one are reincarnations of the same soul ... identified by a birthmark. ... The "cloud" refers to the ever-changing manifestations of the "atlas", which is the fixed human nature."

And, heldover by popular demand, Harold Nelson's SlowART. Art is catching up with food in it's need to step back, slow down and be conscious. Robert Hughes puts it this way "We have had a gutful of fast art and fast food. What we need more of is slow art: art that holds time as a vase holds water; art that grows out of modes of perception and whose skill and doggedness make you think and feel; art that isn't merely sensational, that doesn't get its message across in 10 seconds, that isn't falsely iconic, that hooks onto something deep-running in our natures. In a word, art that is the very opposite of mass media." Nelsons are is literally slow to creat, handmade, not digitized or mechanized. Its message is layered with complexity, both visual and emotional. Take your time.