Everyday: 1/8/16

(Parachute Survival bracelets)

Everyday: 12/16/15

2 in 1 intervention

 (parachute survival bracelet)

(wrist-watch face)

Everyday: 9/1/15

Unintentional Sculpture Made by the Mail Carrier (mail for 2017 S. Hoyne Ave, Chicago, IL) 2015

Everyday: 8/18/15

Coat Hanger and Spoiled Cucumber (intervention and photograph)

where else can we intervene?

Matthieu Laurette - Apparition (Jaques Ranciere is So Cool) Today Show, NBC, 30 October 2009 (video still) 2009 

Matthieu Laurette - Apparition (Guy Debord is So Cool) The Today Show, NBC, 31 December 2004 (video still) 2004

Christine Blizard - Nothing's Wasted (performance, The Today Show) 2014 - ongoing

Christine Blizard - I Am Not A Ghost (performance, Good Morning America) 2014 - ongoing

Everyday: 7/20/15

Forever Traveling
an object secretly and securely left on a Bolt Bus
2015

Everyday: 6/17/15

Gathland State Park / Appalachian Trail, MD (intervention and photograph)

Everyday: 5/9/15

found-object intervention I made at Midas in Winter Park while I waited for my tire to be patched

Everyday: 4/14/15

(intervention: Atlanta airport)

post

a dead coyote on a fence near Lipan, TX, via http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenkuhl/95172104/

a photo I took of some catfish heads I found nailed to a post outside Mazon, IL, circa 2001

Recently, I came across this photo of catfish heads I took in high school, which spurred my investigation into the practice of putting dead things on fences. In the case of the coyote, the carcass is supposed to ward off other coyotes that might kill a farmer's cows - in a similar function as Vlad the Impaler's use of impaled enemies to warn off invading armies.

In the case of the catfish heads there are two possible explanations: 1. as a way of displaying your catches (trophies), or 2. a functional and easy way of cleaning a catfish evidently involves nailing the fish's head to a post to hold it in place while it is cleaned - the head is then cut off and left on the post afterward.

Thinking of these references I decided to take to task these odd bits of yellow expanding foam that I keep finding on the train tracks outside my apartment. The intervention is in a large empty lot (almost a whole block large) in my neighborhood.

Adam Farcus - Horns (intervention and photograph) 2011

So, I hope Horns is at once a trophy, a totem, and an (mythical) omen. What is a trophy or totem for is up for debate - fungus, dicks, disease, industry, abject objects...

John Rainbow

John Rainbow - Nov. 26, 2005

I've been looking back at the work I made with the collaborative group, John Rainbow. At the time (2004-2007) we considered what we were doing to be involved with (juvenile) humor, populist ideals, narrative, and a lack of heavy or serious content. I can say that maybe our goal was to be philosophically set up against the Avant-Garde, and the exclusive nature of art. Maybe we were shooting for kitsch and didn't know it?

 John Rainbow - Hot Shit

 Unfortunately we were still dependent on the academic and exhibition system to disseminate our drawings, sculptures, and performances. But, this was and still is a base line that flows through my work... and the work of the other people that were involved in the group: Neil Vine (Gavin Bunner), Mr. Pine (Dan Mrva), Richard Maple (me), and Lane Woodbridge (Stephanie Lebak). (Our names are made through the "porn name" process of taking your middle name for given name, and the name of the street you grew up on as the surname.)

 

John Rainbow - Boop, Bop, Bleep

How has John Rainbow effected my growth? I think I employ some of the tactics form John Rainbow, but in more subtle ways. It can be seen more in my Interventions. There is a lot of play, pleasure, and humor in these works; but most of all, they are made for the everyday public - not an art audience. I understand that through the few times I have exhibited these as photographs (and at least me posting them here) I am putting them into the "art world". I guess a question here is, how do I want to present myself? Meaning, how do my intentions as an artist align themselves with this problem of audience and access?

Adam Farcus - Menards, Joliet, IL (store intervention and digital photograph) 2009

The group is still together (with only me, Mrva, and Bunner)... but on hiatus till we figure out how to collaborate between Chicago, L.A., and Bloomington, IN.

phone books and a new mayor

6pm walk home from work, in the cold, interventions

phone books that have been stacked outside our apartment door for 3 weeks now - placed on the poles of an ad hoc fence

Chicago 2011 mayoral election posters and tape - on two posts in a vacant lot

reseach and sketching

sketch for Feed Forms - part of the collaborative project proposal (between myself, Madeleine Bailey, Erik Peterson, & Alexander Stewart) for the forthcoming ACRE exhibition at Columbia College's A & D Gallery

sketch for Duck It - part of the collaborative project proposal (between myself, Madeleine Bailey, Erik Peterson, & Alexander Stewart) for the forthcoming ACRE exhibition at Columbia College's A & D Gallery

sketch for Duck It - part of the collaborative project proposal (between myself, Madeleine Bailey, Erik Peterson, & Alexander Stewart) for the forthcoming ACRE exhibition at Columbia College's A & D Gallery

test for a drawing - lines made by fingers on a fleece blanket

a snow face, found on a big metal ball (sculpture?) on the U of C campus

when it is too cold to go outside

in Beloit

Stump and Walnuts, Beloit, WI (photograph) 2010

Outer Space (digital photograph) 2010

* * * * *

Ill-Starred

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play, rocks, and the lake

me and a group of guys on the beach of Lake Michigan at Sheboygan, WI. stacks by me and Brian Biskie. smiley rocks by me.

flag / marker

i went for a walk today and found this brilliantly red plastic in a vacant lot (my new favorite place to explore). i made this sculpture on a fence from a long-gone building or property, and left it there. Curating National (two works from the show follow my piece) has led me to further consider cultural markers of many sorts - in respect to the exhibition, it seems that flags are the most ubiquitous forms. so i've gather a few of my favorite pieces of artwork that involve flags (this is not an exhaustive list at all).

Adam Farcus - Marker (intervention and digital photograph) 2010

Allison Yasukawa - Eclipsing a Sun (ladder, light, thread, altered Japanese flag, daughter [absent]) 2010

Rebecca Mir - Flag for the Nation of Rubaccaquon (green, silver, and purple fabric, flag pole, and flag mount) 2010

Rebecca Mir

Tobia Blaise - This is not a flag, 1990

Mark Wallinger - Easter (flagpoles, woven fabric) 2005

Vince Dermody - Altered City Flag (for D.M.) 2005

Gardar Eide Einarsson - Burnt Black Flag (cotton and grommets) 2005

David Hammons - African-American Flag (dyed cotton) 1990

Jasper Johns - White Flag (encaustic and collage on canvas) 1955