THIS LONG CENTURY

The wall in front of my desk at the moment: May 2013 in Church Hill, Richmond, VA., a somewhat arbitrary collection of things that comfort me, posted in 2011 in the hasty (and often failed) effort to make a home of a room.

& on a nearby wall…

1. Postcard from C. Bowles.
2. Quote (“What was my crime, and when was the time, that I should live to see this day”) and illustration that had lingered around the house for years.
3. THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE, Jessie Willcox Smith illustration for Robert Louis Stevenson poem (“When I was sick and lay a-bed / I had two pillows on my head / And all my toys beside me lay / to keep me happy all the day…”)
4. Memorialized grocery list, from an old kitchen C. and I shared on Cherry St. in Oregon Hill.
5. Photograph of my mother, Regina Alverson (b. 1928), age 13 & bell from E. Rex.
6. A photograph of me and my sister, Kathryn Alverson, on the day of my christening, 1971, Spokane, WA. She is 3 yrs 10 months old. I am 3 months.
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Rick Alverson is a filmmaker, he was born in 1971, in Richmond, Virginia. His dramatic feature THE COMEDY (2012) premiered in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was released that year by Tribeca Film. His other films include THE BUILDER (2010) and NEW JERUSALEM (2011), the latter of which premiered at the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam and SXSW in 2011. That year he was awarded a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He also has directed videos for Sharon Van Etten and Bonny “Prince” Billy. In addition to his directorial work he has released 9 records on Jagjaguwar, most recently with his band Spokane in 2007.

www.jagjaguwar.com

DAD’S STICK

My dad always decorated his own house. When he repaired any damaged paintwork he would pour a few drops of paint into this cup. It is made from pink bone china and is very delicate. It was part of my grandparents’ best tea service.

This is a cross-section of the wooden stick that dad used to stir his paint. A few months before he died he cut the end off with a saw, so that he could look back at all the rooms he had painted over the years. I can see the greyish green of our kitchen cupboards in the 1950s and the bright orange of our hallway in the 60s.

This is the new camera card I bought last week. It holds no memories.
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John Smith was born in 1952, in Walthamstow, East London. Smith is a British film and video artist known for his playful subversion of documentary imagery. Drawing upon the raw material of everyday life and frequently looking at issues of memory and history, his films explore and expose the language and manipulative power of cinema. Since 1972 Smith has made over fifty film, video and installation works that have been shown in art galleries and independent cinemas around the world and awarded major prizes at many international film festivals. His recent solo exhibitions include Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2013, 2012 and 2010); Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2012); Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, Bremen (2012); Uppsala Art Museum, Sweden (2011); PEER Gallery, London (2011). John Smith’s films are distributed by LUX, London and Video Data Bank, Chicago. He is represented by Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin.

www.johnsmithfilms.com
www.lux.org.uk
www.vdb.org
www.tanyaleighton.com

— Of course I must explain what “malandro” means, since it is a local term. Malandro is a guy that is at the same time smart, bohemian and streetwise. He can see and build good opportunities to get an advantage when dealing with people… I always wanted to know who was the cool looking fried-chick with sunglasses on the back seat of the bus.

On the contrary since I can remember my mother has always worked in a candy factory.

Happy birthday!

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Oscar Murillo was born in 1986, in La Paila, Colombia and lives and works in London. Murillo’s performances, paintings, videos and installations utilise opposites to explore commonality. Using vocabulary from everyday advertising in his canvases, he explores the functionality of displaced and reconfigured words, recalling a 1960s Neo-Concrete approach to language.

www.carlosishikawa.com
www.bortolozzi.com

— These are two images of Untitled (I just have to say), a wall drawing that I made for the Tel Aviv CCA as part of the exhibition MUTE: The Politics of No Sound, in July 2010.

The text comes from a remark by Susan Howe during a public conversation that we had at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When we received the transcript of the talk, we were both surprised to find the following phrase attributed to Susan: “Bartleby is my favorite male villain.” We checked the recording and what she in fact had said was “‘Bartleby’ is my favorite Melville.”

Besides Tel Aviv, the only other place that Untitled (I just have to say) has been exhibited is in Abu Dhabi, where Jennifer McCoy executed the drawing.


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David Grubbs was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1967. He has released an even dozen solo albums, the most recent of which is, THE PLAIN WHERE THE PALACE STOOD (Drag City). He was a founding member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and is the author of the forthcoming book RECORDS RUIN THE LANDSCAPE: JOHN CAGE, THE SIXTIES, AND SOUND RECORDING (Duke University Press).

www.dragcity.com

ZÄUNE UND MAUERN

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Martin Fengel is a Munich-based artist.

www.martinfengel.com
www.yesterday.martinfengel.com