About Grinnell
July 23, 2010 - 3:08pm
This fall, the Faulconer Gallery will be presenting an exhibition made with and about the community of Grinnell. Entitled Culturing Community: Projects about Place, the show tries to get at aspects of our little town that are not apparent on the surface. The artists involved use art and culture as a means to inspire participation by those who might not otherwise see themselves as a part of the constituency around the gallery. The show includes projects that focus on a cemetery... Read More...
June 26, 2010 - 10:19pm
Shanghai was our last stop in China, and I was unable to post a blog about our experiences before we flew home. As the largest city in China, Shanghai (the city) is home to as many people as Florida (the state). Not only do about 20 million people call the city home, but Shanghai is currently hosting World Expo 2010, which is averaging about 500,000 visitors A DAY. Needless-to-say, Shanghai was crowded, particularly in the places which tourists frequent. We made our pilgrimages to... Read More...
June 17, 2010 - 3:51pm
Television is a funny medium. It brings us together through shared viewing experiences, and it isolates us in a pool of light in a darkened room. We look to the ubiquitous box for information, forgetting that what we see is produced and edited to fit a format. What we receive is someone’s creation.
How fitting, then, for artists to create art from the created reality of television. The four summer exhibitions at the Faulconer Gallery (Grinnell College) delve into the least scripted... Read More...
June 14, 2010 - 8:35pm
In a few hours, we will be boarding our flight in Shanghai for the nonstop flight to Chicago. We are eager to be home, but not yet ready to leave China. Here are some final impressions.
The images we will retain (like these two pictures) span the unimaginable scale of everything, and the precision of small meticulous details. Cities, buildings, spaces, and projects of all kinds are huge, remarkable, and almost beyond imagining. Architectural detail, finish, landscaping, historic sites are often... Read More...
June 14, 2010 - 1:44am
Nanjing is not one of the biggest cities in China. Despite a population of over 7 million, it has a modesty about it. The traffic though congested, flows along in a civilized way, a sort of ballet between cars, bikes, scooters and pedestrians. There are flashy shopping areas, but they aren’t enormous. Most everything is on a reasonable level, a human scale. Anything edgy or provocative is kept under wraps.
Given our interest in art, we have been perplexed by the lack of a contemporary art... Read More...
June 10, 2010 - 5:37am
Anyone who saw the Olympics may have gotten a sense of the sophistication of Beijing. Whatever TV can show, it’s nothing compared to the lived experience in China’s capitol city. From its wide boulevards, to trendy shopping areas seemingly without end, to skyscrapers that appear to spring up overnight, Beijing is a city relentlessly on the move. Compared to Nanjing, everything is bigger, wider, fancier, though Nanjing has the edge in pedestrian, bike and motor scooter traffic.... Read More...
June 7, 2010 - 8:17pm
Here's a slide show of images around Nanjing. We hope it gives you some of the flavor of the city.
Click on the image to view image gallery, then follow the directions to start the slide show. Read More...
June 3, 2010 - 1:27am
In the past week, we've had the chance to visit two places where the focus is on preserving and maintaining the ancient tradition of Chinese woodblock printing. Since at least the Tang dynasty (almost 2000 years ago), the Chinese have used woodblocks to print documents, books, posters and images--a much more efficient process than hand-drawn calligraphy for producing multiple copies. While the creation of the woodblocks themselves is just as laborious, the block can then be... Read More...
June 1, 2010 - 5:49pm
For all of you out there faithfully following my blog, you may have noticed that some older posts have just reappeared as new posts. I am working with wonderful advisors back at Grinnell on sorting out some issues with the blog, and as either of us goes back in to an old post and makes edits or adjustments, that post then becomes a "new" post. I apologize for the confusion!
We are working on trying to get a slide show of images I created of scenes around Nanjing to appear in... Read More...
June 1, 2010 - 5:28pm
On days when we aren't teaching, we set off to explore an area of the city. Sometimes we walk along wide boulevards lined with sycamore trees. The businesses on these avenues are upscale, glitzy and very polished. They might be selling Italian design, Bentleys, or high end cosmetics. We can usually read the shop signs and brand names, though there are sometimes just enough difference from what we are used to that we suspect that the goods aren't quite the real thing (Polo Villae... Read More...
