Associated Artists for Propaganda Research Consumer Products Division Product Registration Card

Here’s a product registration card that I made; It’s based on a card that I found in a Concord Tape Recorder box. I tried to match the fonts as best as I could to mimic the original and used a rolling tool to create a perforation where the stub is. I used an old rubber stamper used to stamp dates to print numbers on it using blue ink as a test. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it but I thought that it would be fun to include with any AAPR products that I ended up giving away or selling.

Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled Isometric Projection Pen Drawings #1, #2, #3 and #4

AAPR’s Strategy is for Street Fighting Vol.1 and Vol. 2

Here are 2 mock-ups from January that I created for a zine that I wanted to make called A Strategy is for Street Fighting for the Associated Artists for Propaganda Research. I came up with this idea sometime in the early 2000’s but never made them. In 2012 I designed the covers for a resume that I created for the AAPR and faked the dates so that it made it seem like I made the zines in 2001 and 2003. I never made a volume 2. The covers were based on 2 old manuals, one for a CB and the other for an instruction booklet on Yo Yoing. I wanted the zines to be a scramble of information that included artwork, anarchist rhetoric, criticism, formalist writing and illustrations that all alluded to rebellion and dissent. I thought that maybe I would make a whole series but create them all together as a collectors companion so that it created the illusion that they were all made between 2001 and 2008. We’ll see I guess.

The cover for volume 1 has 4 “fighters” on it which is an image that I used for a sticker; it is actually an illustration showing different kinds of suits used against chemical weapons. Volume 3 uses an illustration of one of the first portable atomic bomb launchers;I used a similar image for a large drawing from Epicenter City called Davy Crockett (Alternate).

A History of Progress, Violence and the Modern Spectacle: Birmingham, Alabama May 1963

Here’s a new painting that I started last December and finished sometime in January. It’s part of the painting series A History of Progress, Violence and the Modern Spectacle. This one shows a pixilated photo of police officers using dogs on protesters in Birmingham, Alabama during the American Civil Rights Movement. The photo was originally taken by Charles Moore, a photojournalist from Alabama who also later cover the Vietnam War.

I thought it was important to add a fifth painting to this series in order to create a situation where an infinite amount of images could be added over time. I usually like to create closed systems for my series where a set number of pieces is pre-established in order to avoid redundancy; I thought that the subject matter of this series warranted unlimited possibilities for exploration and wanted the option to add to it over time.

This photo is actually doctored. I took the photo with a green background, cropped it and superimposed it over another pixel painting so that it has shadows and looks like it’s hanging on the wall. I also rounded the corners a little because paintings don’t have sharp corners, at least not ones that use canvas.

Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled #1,#2,#3 and #4 Backs

Here are the backsides of Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled #1,#2,#3 and #4. I reshot them when I re-photgraphed the front sides.

The Associated Artists for Propaganda Research Constitution, By-Laws, Charter and Index 2013 and 2014

Here are 2 pamphlets that I made sometime at the end of January. They are based on Mechanical Engineering pamphlets from the 1920’s that I found while working in a corporate office. I’ve been thinking a lot about archival material for an AAPR retrospective and really liked the look of these. I also like the idea of putting them under glass so that nobody knows that there are only blank pages inside. I probably spent the most time re-making one of the stamps from one of the original pamphlets so that it said The American Society of Propaganda Research. The other logo is an image that I’ve been using for a long time on other AAPR propaganda material; It’s supposed to be a corporate building but it’s actually a hospital from the side of a puzzle box for the TV show General Hospital. I also carried these around in my backpack for about a month trying to get them to look worn and used. The last thing I need to do is put on some plastic corners.

2014 NYFA Grant Application for Sculpture/ A Theory of Forms and Ideas and Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled

I just finished my application for the NYFA grant in sculpture. I decided to show 4 pieces from A Theory of Forms and Ideas and all 4 pieces from Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled because they seem to be the most similar. I ended up making a fourth sculpture in Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled to finish the series so that I would have enough for the application. I also ended up re-shooting Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled with a new camera (Canon G15) because the last camera got an annoying scratch on the lens and I needed to shoot them from a farther distance to avoid lens distortion; I found that the lens distortion ruined the effect that I was looking for. Somehow I couldn’t get the same differentiation of shadows with  Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled as I did with A Theory of Forms and Ideas and I’m not sure if that’s because of the camera or because I’m essentially shooting negative space/surfaces instead of positive space/surfaces.

Here’s the statement that I came up with for both series. I had to keep it under 200 words so I cut a bunch of things out. Below that are the 8 slides that I submitted.

My artwork utilizes small-scale models that are simultaneously abstract and reminiscent of 1960s minimalist sculptures. The sculptures inherently create an awareness of scale that shifts the viewer’s relationship away from traditional, monumentalized work and toward a position of enhanced intimacy.

The sculpture series A Theory of Forms and Ideas takes its name from Plato’s concept of idealized form which postulates the existence of a “reality” inhabited by the ideal or archetypal forms of all things and concepts. This series uses fragments of old black and white corporate logos as a basis for creating objects in three dimensions. Each sculpture was first rendered in pencil using traditional three dimensional drawings techniques before being cut out, glued, sanded, primed and painted with flat black spray paint, creating a refined and dullish surface.

Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled references Marcel Duchamp and Vitaly Haberstadt’s book of the same name, which explores and explains various effective strategies for the endgame of chess. In my sculpture series, negative space and isometric perspective are used to deceive the eye into seeing positive forms, further enhancing the perception of form as a malleable and therefore untrustworthy way of truly seeing objects.