Shomei Tomatsu and other multimedia at SFMOMA

If I hadn't known that the Shomei Tomatsu online exhibit, Skin of the Nation, existed somewhere on the SFMOMA site I would never have found it again. All the URLs I'd saved back in 2007 are now pretty well useless. The one link I found to the exhibit has no hint that there is multimedia still present for this exhibition.

I found the way there by doing a search  for Tomatsu on the main SFMOMA page and then clicking on 'Multimedia'. The interactive feature is the first item on the list. Once you find it, the online exhibit is very good, although it's easy to lose your place. Images can be magnified and there are little audiovisual popups for many of  them. There are also links on the first page to podcasts relating to this artist.

I finally figured out that there was a link to Mulitimedia under the "Explore Modern Art" tab on the main SFMOMA page. Once you click on that site, you can explore and find a wealth of resources. Interactive features go back to 1998, video to 1995, and audio with still images to 2000. Most (maybe all) videos have accompanying text as well, so you can follow along with the spoken word. And there are usually links to other pages about the artists you're interested in.

Radical Software

http://www.radicalsoftware.org/e/index.html

Check a few of the entries and blog about them as well as the whole journal.

Found out about it through Art21 http://blog.art21.org/2010/04/23/beryl-korot-radical-software-1970-74/
and then Googled the magazine.

Watch the video again, it is more about TV than computer

Just a little vector art

I've promised myself that if I ever get around to using the many computer graphics programs I've bought over the years, I'll post the results, no matter how amateur they are.

The following vector art started out as a photograph of an hibiscus plant in my front yard.

First I imported it into CorelDraw X5 (I started buying the program back at version 4) and then I used the Trace tool for my first attempt at making a vector graphic from the photo, using the clip art setting.

I deleted the background bit by bit and did some serious editing to get rid of a bunch of lines that were created in the tracing process. Then I started thinking that I should be able to make a graphic that looked a bit more like the flower in the picture. So I tried the higher quality trace setting, deleted the background again after finding out how to do it more quickly, and then finally figured out how to get rid of the lines without too much fiddling.

Don't know what I'm going to do with the flower yet, except use it as a profile photo on Facebook, but I'm happy with the results.

On another subject, the Nova Scotia Archives has put the Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers online. The images are of newspapers from 1769 to 1991. It's sort of neat to read news from so long ago (or not so long ago) and see how little or how much things have changed.

KCRW, Podcasts, and Edward Goldman

According to their 'about' webpage "KCRW, a community service of Santa Monica College, is Southern California's leading National Public Radio affiliate, featuring an eclectic mix of music, news, information and cultural programming." I'm listening to 'Morning Becomes Eclectic" right now, the "Mad Professor" show from April 14, 2010 (not my thing so I switched to "The Low Anthem" from March 25). What's good about this show is that the music choices are eclectic as the title says so you get to find something you might like. On the main KCRW website, you can also choose to listen to whatever is currently playing.

What is really great is that most of KCRW's programs are offered as podcasts. One of the shows I subscribe to from iTunes is ArtTalk, hosted by Edward Goldman. What is bliss to me is that the shows are available back to April 22, 1997 in RealAudio from the website, although the site seems to indicate an earlier start date of January 1, 1990. Sadly, iTunes carries only the latest 10 episodes.

On the website archive, there are transcripts going back around nine years. Links to outside websites start late in 2001 but they are not always reliable, given that art museums and galleries update their sites without always providing forward linking from old URLs. I found at least one that pointed to another type of site altogether, so proceed with care.

As time went on, the linkage got much better, including images of the art work discussed, so that you can listen to the podcast, read the transcript, and take side trips to see the art. What I like about Edward Goldman is that he actually likes art, and he's a pretty good critic with definite opinions on what he likes and dislikes. And the podcast pages allow viewers to discuss his reviews.

Computer Art

Gallant Apparatus http://gallantapparatus.com/
If it still exists, explain how it works - three windows or doors to go through. Look up Yayoi Kusama and Mitch Trale, the artist http://mitchtrale.com/

MOCA | The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

MOCA | The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

MOCA's First Thirty Years

Can be explored from the home page by image/artist or from the list at the bottom of the page

MoMA | Interactives | Exhibitions | 2010 | Henri Cartier-Bresson

MoMA Interactives Exhibitions 2010 Henri Cartier-Bresson

Did I already enter?
Probably don't need the # in the URL

Musée du Louvre

Check past exhibitions - earliest one I found with full site was from 2005 - Romanesque France at the time of the First Capetians (987-1152)  The text is not in English and the site has some problems - no back button, but the images are great. Main English site 

Site of exhibit that brought me here Holy Russian exhibition

Haunted at the Guggenheim

Haunted is a web exhibit. How do they show their regular exhibits - past and present? And why is their no link back to the main Guggenheim site.

Mention their Facebook page.

Chinese art

ArtSpeak China

Through their Facebook page I won a Sotheby's "China Rising" catalogue for correctly identifying one of the artists, Wang Xieda, at StudioDoor China as being compared to Giacometti.

Link to his page, if I can. Find out more about him and also Giacometti. And describe the book.