Art Everywhere

Oct 19, 2008
Buenos Aires, Argentina

I think my favorit thing about BA here so far is that there are art everywhere. The city is not colorful per se, but there are street art decordating every block in this city. They are mostly graffitti style "painitngs" - aka street art - but none two are alike and they are rarely graffitti over. Its as if there are more than the handful of street artists coloring the streets and that there is a great amount of respect from all for the art that is on the walls.

Another thing I really enjoyed is at the weekend street markets there are some really beatiful art that is being sold for very reasonable price. Its a relief from other places where all you ever see for sale are crappy toursist trinkets that are mass prouced out of some factory.

The food here, beef, is delicious, yet at the sametime, I wonder about why the cusines is so limited? What is the reason for such limited range

We are heading down south to pargue faunistica peninsula valdes - i dont know if the markets will have much variance once we are out of BA but I sure am interested to see. Its journey and not the destination right?

Beef, beef and more beef

Oct 17, 2008
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Went to 4 different markets today here in the city. The largest one is like a really really clean version of this one market down the street from my mom´s house in Taipei. There are more butcher stalls than you can shake a stick at, yet at the same time, there are not nearly as many as you think there would be.

It seems that here in BA, people shop at small corner stores where you can buy a selection of fresh produce and lots and lots of beef. Meat is sold via the carneria, small shops with refridgerated counters and a butcher, I guess a butcher shop essentially.

What has been the most interesting thing is that although Argentina has an extensive coast line, there is not a lot of fish on offer at the market or on the menu. I guess they take their beef seriously! Boy, is it delicious! But two days of beef diet and I am ready for some vegetables.

Ever after forever and ever

Oct 16, 2008

Buenos aires, argentina



I am in Argentina for the next 10 days. Thinking more about it, I am not quiet sure why I am here. Its a very developed country and certainly very westernized that I am not sure if there will be the kind of markets that I am looking for.



Then again, I think I should photograph what there is since the project is progressing and not worry so much about the expectation or what I hope there would be. Is not discovery part of the process!?



Bellamie, my friend who is traveling with me for the next 10 days, and I went to the cementerio de la recoleta today and saw evita's grave. The tradition of building a family mosolium is so strange to me. I am far more the ashes to ashes dust to dust kind of girl. I believe that we should return to "nothing-ness" once that which animates us is no longer in the physical being. So the thought that you would erect a structure to keep, confine, the physical ---



I understand that it can be of comfort for the loved ones to visit a site, I don't have a problem with that. It is the prevention of decay and rot, of the physical returning to the dirt that we came from that I don't get. It must be that catholic emphasis on the corpus.

Charlie Grosso

www.charliegrosso.com

310-592-0895

The Decisive Moment

October 6, 2008
Los Angeles, CA

I stopped by the gallery yesterday to say hello and thanks to Lydia Takeshita for having taken a chance on me and given me my first solo exhibit opportunity (its only good manners). She wanted to discuss my work and its possibilities which invariably brought up the idea of "the decisive moment" as made famous by Henri Cartier Bresson.

Bresson says "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment...There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative."

The question is natural and is one that is always in the back of my mind, beckoning for an answer - or at least a visit. At what point is the work beyond documentary and becomes art?

Lydia felt that there are images in "Wok the Dog" that is just documentary. But then there are others that goes beyond. The comment is fair. I would say that out of an average of 40 rolls of film, maybe I only end up with an edit of 20 plus images that I think that goes beyond the act of documenting. Yet, some part of me feels that there is value to the document, even if it is just a way to get to images that have more.

Lydia believes that when you have captured that decisive moment then it is art - she then goes on to add that if an additional element is infused to the image, such as humor, for example, when the work is not solo depending on the objects and actions that are rendered / captured - then we have made ART.

This is where it becomes interesting for me. The additional element. This morning, I looked through the 4 of Sabastiao Salgado's books in search images with the decisive moment plus that extra "something." Naturally there are plenty of images that is only a document - but then I found ones that has more.

Now here is the next question: What make one want to own a piece of art?

In the introduction of "Migration," Salgado says " More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are difference of color, language, culture, and opportunities, but people's feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extreme hardship. Everywhere, their individual survival instinct rules. Yet as a race, we seem bent on self-destruction. Perhaps that is where our reflection should begin: that our survival is threatened...We hold the key to humanity's future, but for that we must understand the present...We cannot afford to look away."

We cannot afford to look away.

Dreams of Others

October 3, 2008
Los Angeles, Ca

"Wok the Dog" exhibit has officially come down at the LA ArtCore. I think this is the first week this year that I really did not know what to do with myself. What is next I ask. More grant and fellowship proposals, more contest submissions, more inquiries to galleries for future exhibits, more, more and more.

As I search around for MORE opportunities and I look at conferences and Portfolio Reviews and this and that, I can't help but ponder on the industry that built on the "Dreams of Others." Conventions, conferences and portfolio reviews exists in all creative industries, they charge the creative money so that the creative can have an opportunity to put their work in front of the "Taste Makers" and hope for to be given a chance that will launch them into big time and make the world their oyster.

Is is morally "right" to profit from feeding on others dreams and hopes? Or do we justify it by the pure market logic? There is a need, a market, so the apparatuses is there to fill it and profit from it. Not to mention that it is beneficial to all sides involved, the "Taste Makers" can discover new talent, creatives can be discovered or at least be given helpful criticism that would "improve" their work.

I can't help but wonder if Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, David Hockney and artists of that caliber has ever attend a portfolio review session. I am willing to bet money that Damine Hirst, Takashi Murakami, David Hockney never paid money to people that are feeding on his dreams. He went out and plastered the city with his art and the rest we know.

If you limit the scope in which you participate or involve your art in, does that limit the scope in which you will rise in the world or art? Play big to win big? Or is playing by the rules the only way?