Chris Navin

Some cool photos at the link.

‘Each photograph, despite its location, is of some place only recently abandoned, and while the intended social relevance of Beyond Ruin Porn is subtle, each artist captured some ephemeral scene from our recent ruins. The moments in these photographs are likely now gone as the buildings continue their decline, or are destroyed, and like painters of the past considering Roman ruins, mark a fleeting moment in time.’

Beyond Ruin Porn Exhibit.

Meanwhile in Detroit, there’s a little bit of that ‘ruin porn’ aesthetic going on, but it’s also for sound:

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As previously posted:

-Photographer Ben Marcin has a series called ‘Last House Standing.’ Solitary row-homes…the only ones left on the block.

-From Popular Mechanics, ‘Creepy Abandoned Military Sites From Around the World.‘

I love the delivery. Here’s Robert Hughes on Modernism And Politics:

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-Click here to experience ‘The Gobbler.‘

‘If you’re ever wondering what the War Room of “Dr. Strangelove” would look like if the movie had been directed by Prince, here you go.’

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Full post here.

Click through for a Serra-released photo of four metal pillar-forms aligned in the deserts of Qatar, designed to inevitably rust. The piece has a slight ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ feel, but that could just be me.

‘The Qatar Museums Authority is estimated to spend about a billion dollars per year on art. At its head is the young Sheikha al-Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, a sister of the Emir of Qatar and a Duke University graduate, who was recently named the most powerful person in the art world by ArtReview.’

Get while the getting is good, so long as the Sheiks have the dough.

Serra is a quite accomplished modern artist and sculptor often working in the ‘land-art,’ category, or site-specific pieces interacting with the viewer and the natural surroundings. Check out Hyperallergic’s visit to ‘Shift,’ a series of concrete forms he left in an Ontario field.

Here’s Serra during an interview at 21 West Gagosian:

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Serra, I think, more than other land-artists, turns that discussion a little more inwards, towards the abstract, the body moving through a space of his design as he tries to bring something across to the viewer.

Or so says me.

Interview with Serra here.

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Pastoral

When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.