michael kenna
there is a terrible beauty to this work. the soundtrack in my mind when i look at them is white noise. it looks like a neutron bomb went off here; the kind that saves buildings and neutralizes people. and the painterly quality to the manipulation of value and light is exquisite. best find today.
at robert mann gallery
Labels: art, city, michael kenna, photography
posted by sparringK9 at 5:51 PM
31 Comments:
It will only take nature about 50 years to reclaim it.
Well, maybe a hundred being as some of it has gotten so huge.
But what is a hundred years to nature and spirit?
visited the link. love this guys work. my favourite is Gabriel's Tower.
white noise ... visual white noise.
bbc: kind of like science fiction theater isnt it? 100 years is a blink.
frizzy: did you happen to see the photograph of Mont St. Michel? it was perfection. the white noise for me was that weird thing when your ear kind of zones out and it muffles everything down to a interior buzz.
does that make sense?
oh yea ..
these are the best!
I took a visit
really great quiert
photos.
Tnx
Good God these are gorgeous. Your comment reminds me of my first visit to Paris. When I got back, everyone asked how I liked it. My response: Paris would be a fine city indeed if it weren't for the rude ass Parisiennes.
But I don't feel the same way about NYC. It's a living organism, the greatest city on earth.
foamy: they really are. i wish i could afford one. just luscious rich tones. mmmmmmm
analys: quiet and still and frozen in time.
moi: i love new york too. i dont know if i am cut to live there full time, i like the woods too much, but just walking around! the street art! the museums! the cool warehouses of vintagey clothing! cheap good food! nice clubs! but these photos are somehow about and not about that place -more about civilization and fragility to me.
You live just eight feet from a creek? Well I hope the creek don't rise. You got that creek doing any work for you? I would if I had a creek on my place.
But I wouldn't put my home quite that close to it.
This is some incredible work. The first is like man's metal sheathed hand reaching into the sky to touch the face of god.
Your white noise comment is interesting. During a very bad time in my life my calm inner eye was over run with a constant stream of images. Call it technicolor visual noise. Calming it was not. But I understand your point. Stripping away until the basic form is revealed. Sort of like swimming underwater when all you can hear is your own breathing.
Or the theme to Jaws.
You can buy or make a ram pump that operates on low water volumes.
I wouldn't expect one to push water 500 feet but it wouldn't have to. It would only have to push it up ten or so (above the level of the garden) feet to a barrel and the barrel water can feed the line to the garden.
It wouldn't deliver a lot but it would deliver it 24 hours a day and that would add up.
RAM PUMP
bbc: thank you! i might see if i can find a ram on ebay. problem with that is it could be broken and i wouldnt even know. grrrrrrrr
shamu: what a great comment. you get what i mean about the buzz! i like what you said about the sheathed hand. very nice.
Makes NY seem cold, sharp. And while I couldn't live there full time either, there is a beat that calls me... a different kind of jungle. NOT the kind that L.A. has.
the first two, put together is/are genius.
ANd, not quite yet re: the leech, although it gets pretty clear cut once someone starts to shit on you that they are no longer welcome in your home environment.
anyway
we will go to ny someday and find the Jesus mosaic that spans the entire wall in Spanish Harlem and also find the cobblestone streets that take you back to 1880...by this one small indy theater somewhere on the cusp of both East and West Villages. These are two places I have only seen once and while lost wandering through.
I would like to come to visit you I like Georgians.
I am sitting here with headphones on. Do you or have you ever liked the band "the cure"?
It's an either love em or hate em kind of band. i figure you for a hate em, but I thought I'd ask.
You don't like Greenday do you?
Yesterday I was forced to listen to Greenday while on the way to purchase gifts for the kids of boyfriend, and then to the most hated place that is called chuck e cheese.
It could have been fun. COULD being the operative word.
Please see second sentence in this comment for reasoning behind that word.
So, the Cure?, Greenday? yes or no?
Sterile.
Beautiful but sterile. Would like to see what he would do wif' Sagrada Familia.
All in all, better than suckers on chandeliers.
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The funny thing about Kenna's work is that even though it is really simple it is impossible to recreate his photos. He captures light and shadow in a wholly original way.
Grand Central! Awesome photo, low contrast but keeps the sense of volume. Looks more silver than graytones so that other worldly coldness is palpable. This is one of my all time most respected USA buildings. GCS and the Flatiron are my NYC favorites. Good job! Happy Mute Monday.
New post at my place.
K9,
I love the genius of the FlatIron building, thanks for the pic directive...AWESOME photograph!
Say, I some photography the other day I really keyed in on...nice little publishing lady has a Dining Room chock full of her collection of ecclesiastical architecture photography. I went down the row saying, British, Spanish, Italian, French .... I blew it on the Flemmish so I guess I better get my nose back into some architecture books!
Sure, his works are nice, but my "find" from this post is your phrase "painterly quality", which I plan to inflict on anyone moving forward who foolishly opts to visit an art show with me.
Wow k9! These pics are beautiful!
Thanks for posting them!
Thank you for ornament you sent home with Mayden! That cat is simply adorable!
-Da Pixie
Hey K9!
Awesome pictures! They are simply beautiful.
Thank you soooo much for the skull ornament, and the Blow-up guitar! (Mayden says it gives a whole new meaning to Air Guitar!)
~Timmeh
AHH! I love love tis guys stuff. I did not know you were a fan also. How cool does he make cities and landscapes look?
I love the second one.
K-9, we're hosting a live chat tonight for the Top Chef NYC premiere - hope you'll join us! The link will be posted at 9 p.m. eastern...all are welcome!
wow...my city never looked so good. ;)
It appears that you moved this post up, why would you do that?
I wouldn't suggest that you buy a used ram pump, just buy a new one, or make your own, they are not that hard to make and there are plans all over the web for making them.
And I'm sure at the Mother Earth News website.
MAKE YOUR OWN RAM PUMP
I just love black and white. There is nothing like it.
Cracker vs redneck on Front porch--yore viewpoint is solicited.
K9,
send me a good art fish for my pond
very very cool!
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