Walker Art Center “Ordinary Pictures” Exhibition: Steven Baldi’s “Branded Light” photographs

Steven Baldi (American, b. 1983)
Branded Light (Canon) 2014 (second piece in the series)
gelatin silver print; ed. 2/3 + 2 AP
Courtesy the artist and Thomas Duncan Gallery, Los Angeles
photoraph by versluis 2016
From the Walker Art Center exhibition: Ordinary Pictures is on view until October 9, 2016.

The following is taken from the label that accompanies this piece:

Steven Baldi’s series of Branded Light photographs reveal the familiar yet distorted logos of camera manufacturers and imaging corporations such as Fuji, Kodak, Canon, and Sony. Though his fractured compositions may suggest digital manipulation, the artist creates his pictures entirely in-camera. Abstract as they may seem, the images nevertheless trigger our recognition of these ever-present global brands.

Baldi’s works often address the materials and systems that support both art and imaging. This series in particular draws attention to ways that corporate conglomerates exert invisible control over the images we make and consume. Baldi reminds us of the branded character of the medium's most fundamental aspects: the materials-film and a camera-required to produce an image.

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Taliesin West: Garden Room Folding Divider (Eugene Masselink— “…There was no conflict between his faith and his work.”)

The Garden Room folding divider with Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Taliesin West Planview Motif.” The folding divider has the look and feel of a piece designed and painted by Wright’s executive secretary, Eugene Masselink. Olgivanna Lloyd Wright dedicated her book The Roots of Life (published in 1963) to the memory of Eugene Masselink (1911-1962, originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan with Dutch Calvinist roots). She wrote an affectionate epitaph honoring Masselink: “…There was no conflict between his faith and his work.”
 
Taliesin West, The Garden Room, Scottsdale, Arizona. May 2016.
A harrow disk golden bowl sits on a side table and flanked by Taliesin origami chairs. The folding divider stands in the corner.

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The James J. Versluis, a 90-foot icebreaking tug owned by Chicago’s Water Department

The James J. Versluis, a 90-foot icebreaking tug owned by Chicago’s Water Department, can move through 18 inches of ice. (Photo by ©John Fecile). Caption (italics) and photograph courtesy of WBEZ.

To my knowledge there’s no relation, however it’s uncanny that my great-grand father’s name was James (Jacobus in Dutch).

Census records indicate that James J. Versluis was a civil engineer for the City of Chicago in the first half of the 20th century and was responsible for the City of Chicago water works construction. The city water vessel named in his honor in the 1950s is still in service.

The Art Institute of Chicago records indicate that Mrs. James J. Versluis was a contributor in the 1920s.

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Chicago Design Archive aficionados: Susan Jackson Keig

To Chicago Design Archive aficionados:
This is a photo of Susan Jackson Keig talking with reference librarian, Janis Versluis at the Society of Typographic Arts 85th Anniversary Celebration held at Wright in Chicago on 26 October 2012. This was the event that also featured: “Carl Regher: The Lost Journals.”

Keig is a Fellow and past-president of the STA. R. Roger Remington’s Graphic Design History Resource lists Susan Jackson Keig as a woman pioneer in design and a key individual in the development of American design.

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Ossip Zadkine: (re)considering the artist’s empathetic work — searching for “a true reality and a real truth”

Prometheus (1956), Bronze
Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967), Sculptor
Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris
photograph by © versluis 2010

Traditionally, Prometheus was ridiculed as the purveyor of good gifts to humankind — Zadkine’s Prometheus (in a beautifully subtle contrapposto pose) asks whether humankind is using the gift of fire for good or for ill. The consideration of Zadkine’s artworks again seem relevant in these disconcerting times.

One of the best reflections of Zadkine’s work was by Dutch artist, Henk Krijger (1913-1979). The following excerpt, subtitled, A christian style, is from Jan de Bree’s fine article, “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art / Patmos, 1969-1973”:

Krijger in his article Drie Overwegingen, discussed the christian artist and the development of a christian style. In his considerations he turned to the Russian sculptor, Ossip Zadkine, and showed how Zadkine’s work was important for the christian artist. According to Krijger, Zadkine, like so many other modern artists, experienced a cultural crisis. In his distress he searched for a ‘true reality and a real truth’ and broke through to the deepest deep, ‘the primordial state in which horror, fear and lostness were the characteristic emotions.’ Like Zadkine, the christian artist also was to break through to the deepest deep. The Christian had to break through the ‘schriftge­ leerden-wet or leer’ (the law or doctrine of Bible scholars) to the depths where prayer, the cry to God (an existential outburst) broke forth and a conversion took place. Going against the certainty of human knowledge and casting oneself upon God made the christian artist not a rebel against God, but a witness of the Word. He would be a witness of the Word in his own language, his christian art, with a true style. That is conversion.

The turning away from a kind of academic knowledge or dogma, as Krijger later called it, to an intuitive, emotional knowing was one of his main points in his view of art. …(1)

1. de Bree, Jan. “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art/Patmos, 1969-1973.” Hommage `a Senggih: A Retrospective of Henk Krijger in North America. Ed. Jan de Bree. Toronto: Patmos Gallery, 1988. 25-26. Print.

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Dordt College graphic design and printmaking student: Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia

Christina Chahyadinata
Courage
Linocut 2016
9" x 12"

Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) is a sophomore student from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia. Crissy has the heart of a christian servant. This is her first linocut print and indicates her dexterity of hand-lettering and her ability to orchestrate the integrality of text and image. A Polynesian image of tropical and verdant flora…

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Dordt College printmaking student: Lance Wunderink, Lima, Peru

Lance Wunderink
Hidden Mystery
Linocut 2016
24" x 24"

Wunderink is a senior and graduating with a double major in graphic design and digital media production.

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