So I’m a character in this book, and I’m in this movie, and I’m in this band, and I keep this here blog (amongst other art projects), and they’re all kind of intertwined, and here’s an excerpt from an interview I (along with the other folk who made the book and the movie and the band) did that’s going to be published in a magazine called One Hour Empire. Enjoy!
A lovely feature on me in the new issue of Plaid Magazine (print only, sorry kids) that focuses on the Lurking drawings! Even though I cringe every time I read the words “Krishtalka says,” I am nevertheless quite chuffed.
My drawings have been included in a lovely zine called Mind-Thoughts, by the lovely Adam J Kurtz!
As I’ve written elsewhere, I had no expectations when I began this Tumblr blog. I had an idea for a project that had a web-based component, and someone said “Tumblr,” and I said “Okay.” A year and a half later, this blog has brought many amazing and unexpected things, among which are the people it has introduced me to; people who I doubt I would have met under normal circumstances (Mr Kurtz being a very good example).
Even though I take great joy in them, I am vaguely suspicious of internet-friendships. I am very much a face-to-face kind of fellow. I am quite chuffed to know some of the people in this zine, and to have my work share the same space. This zine, then, for me at least, concretizes these somewhat vague, somewhat tenuous friendships and acquaintances in its own small way; if we can’t all be in a room together, then at least our work can sit between the same two (beautifully designed) covers, shake hands and converse.
All this to say, you should buy it.
So I haven’t posted in a little bit (I’m working on it, I’m working on it, I promise), so to bide my time until the next drawings are up, I thought I’d share a snippet of exactly what’s going on here.
The man with the baby is Ragnar Kjartansson, one of the (ring)leaders of my residency. This was taken at the top of Tunnel Mountain. We hiked there in order to smoke cigars, listen to Wagner and make watercolours.
That’s just about as good a description as any of what the past month of my life has been like.
So my show of the Lurking drawings opens in less than a week, and I have to arrange them into a pile of favorites so that the gallerist has an easier time of selecting which ones he’s going to show. Sifting through them all is a strange business, and I thought I might share some observations with you, my captive audience.
1. The first drawing was made January 28, 2010. So these drawings represent a year and half of more-or-less solid work. In a year and a half, I have averaged out to a drawing every 3 days.
2. I number, sign and date each one of them. It’s deeply amusing to me that my handwriting on the back of the very first drawing is small and tidy; as the drawings have progressed, my handwriting has gotten larger and more fluid.
3. I spend so long looking at them as 640 x 480 web-resolution JPEGs, I’ve forgotten what they look like “live.” And once I scan them, they go into their storage drawer, so I basically never look at them. Obviously, they look really different “in person”; they have a presence, what Benjamin calls an aura. It’s nice to be reminded of that.
4. The stack of now 206 drawings no longer fits in the shelf that I have allotted for them.
5. My favorites almost never match Tumblr favorites: some drawings that I think are excellent (and this is not self-congratulation — I have enough of a critical eye about my art practice to know what works and what doesn’t) have gotten no Tumblr notice (likes, reblogs, whatnot); some drawings that I think are misses have gotten a great deal of attention.
6. I make a fairly big deal of not using this blog as a means of personal confession; of course, all of these drawings are confessional in one way or other. Some of them are deeply personal. Some of them represent defining moments in and/or people central to my life. Some of them have become retrospectively painful to look at; and some of them have become perfect little mementos of beautiful experiences.
New show!
The Lurking drawings are going to be in this group show at MKG127 in Toronto. It’s a fantastic gallery, and I’m super excited not just to be in the show, but to have the Lurking drawings shown in Toronto for the first time.
It opens in two weeks. If you live here, consider this a personal invitation; if you don’t live here, consider this a personal invitation. I would love to see you. All the details are in the image, but these things always bear repeating:
Go Figure
August 6-September 3
Opening reception Aug 6, 2pm-5pm
MKG127
127 Ossington Ave.
My friend Sheila Heti is polling people about (their) aesthetics. She asked me to respond and I did because Sheila’s ideas (the ones she lets see the light of day, that is) are almost always good ones. And I thought that my responses have a place on this blog. So there they are.
