Monday 31 January 2011

Charles Loupot, Voisin Automobiles, 1923



Voisin Automobiles 1923, originally uploaded by paul.malon.

Sunday 30 January 2011

Party On The Roof, 1934


Friday 28 January 2011

Chicos Spanish Peanuts, 1929


Chicos Spanish Peanuts, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 674 x 868 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Thursday 27 January 2011

C And C Ginger Ale, 1923


C And C Ginger Ale, 1923, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 669 x 870 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Wednesday 26 January 2011

British Ovaltine advert, 1936


Tuesday 25 January 2011

Buick Marquette, 1929


Buick Marquette, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 649 x 878 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Monday 24 January 2011

Ruth Harriet Louise, Greta Garbo, Wild Orchids, 1928


Sunday 23 January 2011

Buck's Ranges, 1921


Buck's Ranges, 1921, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 638 x 882 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Saturday 22 January 2011

Coles Philips, Blabon Linoleums, 1921

Click image for 1344 x 1813 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Friday 21 January 2011

Auburn 8-88 Roadster, 1927


Auburn 8-88 Roadster, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1284 x 872 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Thursday 20 January 2011

Canadian Pacific Cruise Line, 1925

Click image for 1000 x 1342 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Certain-Teed, 1926


Certain-Teed, 1926, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1296 x 858 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Coty (detail), 1929


Coty, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 754 x 1000 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Monday 17 January 2011

Ipswich Hosiery, 1927


Ipswich Hosiery, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1000 x 1366 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Sunday 16 January 2011

Johns-Manville Shingles, 1927


Johns-Manville Shingles, 1927, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 669 x 864 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Friday 14 January 2011

Lincoln Coupe, 1928


Lincoln Coupe, 1928, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 744 x 1000 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Thursday 13 January 2011

Marmon, 1920


Marmon, 1920, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 591 x 869 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Pierce-Arrow, 1926


Pierce-Arrow, 1926, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1000 x 1379 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Pierce-Arrow Dual-Valve Six, 1925


Pierce-Arrow Dual-Valve Six, 1925, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 676 x 872 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Monday 10 January 2011

Neyret washable gloves, 1930s


Sunday 9 January 2011

Saxon Motor Car, 1920


Saxon Motor Car, 1920, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 1000 x 1356 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Saturday 8 January 2011

Frances Lee, 1927



Frances Lee, originally uploaded by Ernie Uszniewicz.

Friday 7 January 2011

Willys-Knight, 1929


Willys-Knight, 1929, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Click image for 670 x 876 size. Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Thursday 6 January 2011

Child Life, June 1926 - cover

Child Life, June 1926 - cover
Child Life, June 1926 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Liberty, October 27, 1926 - cover


Liberty, October 27, 1926 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Sunset, May 1929 - cover

Sunset, May 1929 - cover
Sunset, May 1929 - cover, originally uploaded by Gatochy.

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Monday 3 January 2011

The AP Tattle Tale, No. 10, October 1925 - cover

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Sunday 2 January 2011

Touring Topics, November 1925 - cover

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Saturday 1 January 2011

Woman's Home Companion, May 1927 - cover

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

Four Propositions Concerning Art Blogging


My first proposition is: Blogging is about being stupid.
It is accepting that I do not know what I should know before starting to write. But wait! "Should know"? Let me rephrase that: blogging is accepting that there is no required knowledge to write. In part, it is accepting Beuys' affirmation that everyone is an artist. Everyone is an art-writer. Everyone is a potential member of the art milieu. And this everyone also means different aspects of me. Suddenly, the quickness of the form, it's simplicity, encourages me to move forward. To take risks. To dare write something I am not sure of. One could say this is the continuation of the beautiful tradition of Montaigne's Essays (which translates into Attempts). Yet here, the very way it is created and shared encourages the risk, encourages the attempting to see where the thoughts, the words, took me, take me, might take me. But that is just the first step. Because the consequences are quite far-going.

My second proposition is: Thanks to the internet, writing about art can become closer to making art.
The problem with writing is what is usually considered it's greatest advantage: it stays. Letters form words which form sentences which are a pest - they do not let go. So anything you write can and will be used against you, be it literally or metaphorically, by someone, or by yourself, reading what you wrote many years ago.
Writing, then, must become serious. You have to weigh your words. You become responsible. Meaning, what you write needs to pass the test of an imaginary future reading.
The internet may not seem different, because here things also stay (you can find all the internet publications from the past at archives.org). However, there is so much happening, and what you publish has so little apparent weight (you don't feel it, hold it in your hand, share it physically), that even the concept of a "virtual" world seems logical. And yet the beauty is that "virtual", here, is quite real. The letters still turn into meaning - and practically instantly, they turn into social meaning.
But maybe because of the lack of weight, as opposed to other circumstances, when writing the blog, I don't feel obliged to anything. My distance to what I write about can change. I can be a distant observer, and then suddenly move close, challenge the work, ask it questions, see where it takes my thinking. This limit of private/public allows me to think to myself, but in a way that creates a new type of space, a new type of relation. Am I still writing about the work, or am I writing myself into the work? After all, I have no obligation to be a critic. Because I define what the blog is, I do not need to correspond to any criteria - and so the writing can become more personal, more experiential - sharing the experience I am living. And, as my experience is often related to creating new works, the limit becomes blurred - the work I write "about" (or "from" or "out of") is working its way into the one I am (sometimes unconsciously) thinking about or preparing.

My third proposition is: The models of participation in art change because of the internet.
This new type of sharing has other consequences. As opposed to most art writing, it becomes difficult to define what exactly is my position in the (traditional) world of art. Am I reviewing, creating, alluding? It is up to the reader to define what role my text plays in his experience of the art/world.
But also on the scale of the art milieu, the situation becomes more fun.
Am I a big, important fish, or an insignificant lost fish? Reading the blog it is hard to say. And that is, because it really is hard to say. The art market tries to establish market rules - artists have values that either go up or down, and if the art businesspeople had it their way, art would really be an extension of the art market. But this model is greatly inadequate for art, and I am the proof. After a few years writing the blog, I had more and more people contact me. One of them was a curator at the Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art. He wanted to link to me on the Centre's online (and sometimes offline) review called Obieg. Suddenly, people from the milieu now considered me as an insider. Several people asked me "How did you manage to convince them?". Apparently, they were not used to a model which goes beyond traditional, linear processes. Of course, these new models are far more complex, which can be quite exciting: I can participate in a review and be written about, my work can be the subject of my own analysis picked up by someone from another site, the blog could potentially be published in a paper edition, it becomes a sort of a one-man-show that keeps evolving. Galleries start considering the blog as a serious partner, they become interested in the person, other artists contact me, first as a publisher, then as a person, new unexpected projects come up... All this has been happening. And every time it does, it seems the definition of what I do shifts.

My fourth and last proposition is: Blogging about art can be an exercise in moving.
The great and crazy composer Cornelius Cardew once wrote: "Notation is a way of making people move. If you lack others, like aggression or persuasion. The notation should do it. This is the most rewarding aspect of work in a notation. Trouble is: just as you find your sounds are too alien, intended for a 'different culture', you make the same discovery about your beautiful notation: no one is willing to understand it. No one moves."
A similar thing happens with writing my art blog. This is one way of changing the conditions of living, or appreciating, art. When it works, you feel how it takes you elsewhere. "You" meaning me, but also you, the potential reader. And yet, every once in a while, you, no, I discover that the reading remains on a level I am not satisfied with. It becomes a reading of another text, and so, once again, I have written a different text to the one I was writing. This happens, of course, with every creation. However, the blog, the internet, has this wonderful capacity of allowing for the exercise to be constantly exercised. I go back, I rewrite, I answer myself. I enter dialogues. Exercise. Yes, that is what blogging is for me - an exercise in moving.

The above text first appeared (in a Russian translation) in the Korydor online magazine, as part of the Kyiv Offline project.
The picture is Seeing Got Us Here (A Bunch of Leaves), 2010, by Wojtek Ziemilski.