oblations

Thursday, July 11, 2013

charles dickens | on declining an invitation from a friend

‘It is only half an hour’ — ‘It is only an afternoon’ — ‘It is only an evening,’ people say to me over and over again; but they don’t know that it is impossible to command one’s self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes — or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometime worry a whole day. Who ever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. I am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but I can’t help it; I must go in my way whether or no.

Sunday, July 07, 2013

ruschka | every week, alone, for two or three days

We went back to Culver City and looked at photographs of the small, concrete-block house that Ruscha has owned for forty years in the California High Desert, near Joshua Tree National Monument. he designed it himself, with blueprints provided by his friend Frank Gehry in 1976. The property has an outdoor painting studio, a wind-powered generator, solar panels for heating, and plenty of wildlife, including rattlesnakes. Ruscha tries to go there every week, alone, for two or three days; he paints, takes long walks, watches baseball on TV (the Dodgers or the Red Sox), does maintenance work on the house, and reads. I have periods when I feel frustrated living in Los Angeles, when the traffic bothers me and I hate the place. But then I feel differently and I want to come back."

from "Ed Ruscha's L.A." by Calvin Tomkins

The New Yorker, July 1, 2013

Friday, February 22, 2013

rutherford chang | we buy white albums

"We Buy White Albums" is Rutherford Chang's current show at New York's Recess Gallery. Set up like a record store which sells only the White Album, it's more like an anti-store: the LPs aren't for sale, but the artist is eager to purchase additional copies of the album's numbered first pressing – provided the price is right. He has paid $1 - $20 for the seven hundred copies currently in the collection, which excludes the sort of pristine, mint condition examples most collectors seek. That's fine with Chang: "I’m most interested in the albums as objects and observing how they have aged. In fact I often find the poorer condition albums more interesting."

Q. So how did you get familiar with the Beatles?
A. They are the biggest band.

Q. Are you a vinyl collector?
A. Yes, I collect White Albums.

Q. Why just White Album?
A. The White Album has the best cover.

Q. Do you listen to vinyl records on a regular basis?
A. I listen to the White Album every day.

Q. You play it every day, non-stop. What are you trying to achieve?
A. While at the Recess Gallery, I'm listening to and recording the albums and documenting the covers. The albums I listen to get put up on the "staff picks' wall. At the end of the exhibition, I will press a new double-LP made from all the recordings layered upon each other. It will be like playing a few hundred copies of the White Album at once, each scratched and warped in its own way.