Les Joynes: New Paintings [140]

Les Joynes, who contributed work to A Book About Death, shows his paintings in New York through March 7 at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaekel.

Joynes' heavenly bodies and floating archeo-cognitive elements work as fused artifacts of memory collected from imagined topographies. The ring paintings, like Spring (2011), left, are baroque and rococo gateways inspired by Alain Resnais’ 1961 film Last Year in Marienbad, says Les. “They are like structures that floated to the surface in my memory like life preservers floating in after a storm at sea.”

See Les Joynes contribution to the original NYC ABAD exhibition here.

Joynes is recipient of the Nordic Artist Center Fellowship in Norway; Kolleg Artist Fellow, Bauhaus Foundation Dessau Germany; Edwin Austin Abbey Mural Fellowship and was Japanese Ministry of Education and Culture (MEXT) Scholar Japan 1997-2001.

The artist is a graduate of the MA Fine Art Program at Goldsmiths College, London; and possesses a B.A. (Hons) Fine Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London; M.A. Sculpture from Musashino Art University, Tokyo. He was Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, New York (2008-2010) where he has been researching contemporary art, memory and artifact.  Les Joynes web site.

Dennis Oppenheim 1938 - 2011 [139]

Dennis Oppenheim died at age 72 of liver cancer on January 22, 2011.

Jerry Saltz obituary and farewell.

Image:  “Reading Position for Second Degree Burn,” 1970. Jones Beach, New York. Duration of exposure: 5 hours.

Seeking Kali Ray Johnson Flip Book for ABAD Italia [138]

Kali Ray Flip Book from William Evertson on Vimeo.

A Book About Death: Life [137]

Curated by Ann Stoddard, this exhibition takes place at the Elizabeth Stone Harper Gallery, located in the Harper Center for the Arts at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Exhibition dates: January 20 - February 25, 2011  URL: http://abookaboutdeathlife.blogspot.com/.

The archival set of the original ABAD exhibition is provided by Thérèse and Adam Zaid, of New York.

E. Sherman Hayman's Little Coffins [136]

E. Sherman Hayman, one of the many artists in the ABAD project who focused on the objects of death in a somewhat humorous way, has produced a video about The Final Frontier.  It's terrific as are her small art-centric coffins.