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Category: landscape

  • the human form self-records its age while becoming a metaphor for external landscapes

    Seung Ah Paik (b. 1979, Seoul, Korea) lives and works in Pittsburgh, USA. Gratin. Rubell Museum.

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    Body Cartography represents skin and the human body as tangible, living records–each blemish, wrinkle, or callous signifying the passage of time. These topographical markers connect moments in time to physical sites of transformation, transfiguring skin into what Paik terms “emotional terrain.” Paik is by no means new to the practice of morphing body and landscape, however. Her paintings serve as testament to the inextricable bond between nature and humanity, gradually eroding this barrier until her paintings become physical maps. With wrinkles as trajectories charting growth and defined lines suggestive of boundaries, the human form self-records its age while becoming a metaphor for external landscapes.

    […]

    Paik seamlessly transforms that which is internal into external corporeal maps, meant to be followed and understood as one’s own. She does exactly that by painting entangled limbs and sloping breasts from obscure perspectives, presenting the illusion of looking down on one’s own body to establish a sense of familiarity. Paik reconstructs her body as a collection of objects observed from disjointed angles, complicating relationships between artist, viewer, and the created image.

  • foto-verde-1.jpg or and such are daffodils

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    foto-verde-1.jpg via Luz y Tierra (August 2020)

    […]

    Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
    From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
    Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
    For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
    With the green world they live in; and clear rills
    That for themselves a cooling covert make
    ‘Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
    Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
    And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
    We have imagined for the mighty dead;
    All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
    An endless fountain of immortal drink,
    Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

    Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever], John Keats

  • a container to hold our stuff

    Moyra Davey, 2HB
    October 3 — December 13, 2025
    Simian

    Installation views.

    Moyra Davey was interviewed by Astrid Agnes Hald in October 2025 in connection to her solo exhibition ‘2HB’ at Simian in Copenhagen, Denmark.

    Camera: Simon Weyhe Edited by: Astrid Agnes Hald Produced by: Astrid Agnes Hald Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2025 Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond and Ny Carlsbergfondet.

    There’s this idea that it’s a very old idea that I’ve always loved. It’s been articulated by many different people over the years. The idea that, the more particular you are, the more personal you can be with your storytelling, for instance, the greater number of people you will reach. […] it’s about … the sort of specificity of those details that um I guess you can resonate with an audience.

    The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction – Ursula K. Le Guin. 1988. Tenderbooks. “a container to hold” cited in this blog.

    Minerai noir

    Quand la sueur de l’Indien se trouva brusquement tarie par le soleil 

    Quand la frénésie de l’or draina au marché la dernière goutte de sang indien 

    De sorte qu’il ne resta plus un seul Indien aux alentours des mines d’or 

    On se tourna vers le fleuve musculaire de l’Afrique 

    Pour assurer la relève du désespoir 

    Alors commença la ruée vers l’inépuisable 

    Trésorerie de la chair noire 

    Alors commença la bousculade échevelée 

    Vers le rayonnant midi du corps noir 

    Et toute la terre retentit du vacarme des pioches 

    Dans l’épaisseur du minerai noir 

    Et tout juste si des chimistes ne pensèrent 

    Au moyen d’obtenir quelque alliage précieux 

    Avec le métal noir tout juste si des dames ne 

    Rêvèrent d’une batterie de cuisine 

    En nègre du Sénégal d’un service à thé 

    En massif négrillon des Antilles 

    Tout juste si quelque curé 

    Ne promit à sa paroisse 

    Une cloche coulée dans la sonorité du sang noir 

    Ou encore si un brave Père Noël ne songea

     Pour sa visite annuelle 

    A des petits soldats de plomb noir 

    Ou si quelque vaillant capitaine 

    Ne tailla son épée dans l’ébène minéral 

    Toute la terre retentit de la secousse des foreuses 

    Dans les entrailles de ma race 

    Dans le gisement musculaire de l’homme noir 

    Voilà de nombreux siècles que dure l’extraction 

    Des merveilles de cette race 

    O couches métalliques de mon peuple

     Minerai inépuisable de rosée humaine 

    Combien de pirates ont exploré de leurs armes 

    Les profondeurs obscures de ta chair 

    Combien de flibustiers se sont frayé leur chemin 

    A travers la riche végétation des clartés de ton corps    

    Jonchant tes années de tiges mortes                                      

    Et de flaques de larmes 

    Peuple dévalisé peuple de fond en comble retourné 

    Comme une terre en labours 

    Peuple défriché pour l’enrichissement 

    Des grandes foires du monde 

    Mûris ton grisou dans le secret de ta nuit corporelle 

    Nul n’osera plus couler des canons et des pièces d’or 

    Dans le noir métal de ta colère en crues. 

    René Depestre, Minerai noir, 
    Editions Présence africaine, 1956.

  • batch of grainy residue

    the soaring dust of the mortal realm by Fei Ming ??

    Translated By Yilin Wang, Translated from the Chinese

    not to speak of timely rain falling wondrously upon ethereal mountains,

    nor to dwell on footsteps echoing through hollow illusory valleys,

    here’s yet another predictable batch of grainy residue,

    still the mortal dust of the vast universe—

    beyond the eaves, the lone call of a sparrow.

    alas, pages of poetry, please become ashes taking flight.

    the empty void is a speck of the heart that cherishes deeply.

    the universe is a particle of unbroken dust drifting in the air.

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    Charlotte Day Wilson – Work

  • AG2025_1200812a or so very distant

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    When night comes,
                    I am so flushed with wine,
    I undo my hair slowly:
                    a plum calyx is
            stuck on a damaged branch.
    I wake dazed when smoke
            breaks my spring sleep.
    The dream distant,
                    so very distant;
            and it is quiet, so very quiet.
    The moon spins and spins.
    The kingfisher blinds are drawn;
                    and yet I rub the injured bud,
            and yet I twist in my fingers this fragrance,
            and yet I possess these moments of time!

     Poem by Li Ch’ing-chao, translated by Arthur Sze

  • Present

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    Bakehouse at Forty: Past, Present, Future, November 8, 2025 – April 17, 2026.

    Present offers a dynamic glimpse of the creative life of Bakehouse today, foregrounding the multiplicity of voices and modes of expression by which artists both reflect and reimagine the world around us. Against the backdrop of great precarity for cultural producers everywhere, Bakehouse artists have forged their own systems of support– not only through shared resources, but through daily acts of showing up for one another. Across this space, ideas flow beyond studio walls, conversations spill into hallways, and countless gestures of kinship and collaboration become integral to the artists’ practice. Representing a microcosm within a broader cultural ecosystem, these fusions– whether intentional, intuitive, or incidental– embody the transformative possibilities of collective care and community building.

    Featuring work by 28 current resident and associate artists, Present reflects the breadth of perspectives, disciplines, and identities that define Bakehouse and, by extension, Miami’s cultural landscape. Rather than advancing a singular theme, the exhibition traces various shared touchpoints, highlighting a strong sense of place rooted in the specificity of South Florida; generational connections and divergences; and an emphasis on the here and now that resonates as both timely and timeless.

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  • The reach of peace

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    Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
       I look far out into the pregnant night,
    Where I can hear a solemn booming gun
       And catch the gleaming of a random light,
    That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.

    My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing;
       For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
    I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
       My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips,
    And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.

    O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
       O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
    Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
       That I may sight and check that speeding bark
    Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?

    Ships That Pass in the Night , Paul Laurence Dunbar

    The reach of peace, the sky, the pines,
    Leave me no more perplexed,
    In which a memory divines
    That bodies, buried, yet arise
    Across the reach of all the skies,
    Unburied and unvexed.
    As arisen are the grass, the pines.
    In upward-grown, delighted lines —
    As a swimmer with one wave declines 
    And rises with the next.

    The Swimmer, Witter Bynner