Radio Tania

Art Basel Miami

Art Basel Miami is like a mini city of artists, designers, photographers, curators, journalists and collectors that just springs up in the middle of Balmy Miami for a week, and it's extraordinary. A couple of the pieces shown here are works that I especially appreciated from the show (particularly Charles Guice's Gallery and Josee Bienvenu) except for one, the one of the boat on the water. I just happened to fall upon it because it's by fellow journalist and Armenian, Nubar Alexanian (who also shares his name with that of my Grandpa, Noubar).

spiders in the mist

Today I was spraying water on one of my plants and I noticed a tiny little spider scurrying under his tiny little web, as a sudden downpour of water came to surpirse him under the morning sunlight. A few years back, I did a story on massive sculptures, bigger than life, that accentuated the more mundane aspects of our experience. A large squrrel made of collected images of squirrels, a ship made out of manila envelopes.  Questions of sapce and  the relativity come to mind,  like being a child in a place and revisiting that same place and thinking how small everything now seems. The little spider's world is so much smaller than mine and yet I can easily place myself into his experience, knowing what small felt like to me before.

Mexico is somewhere down there

This week I am doing an interview about the photographs of (and love affair between) Edward Weston and Tina Modotti. The images were taken during the several years they lived together in Mexico. They're very pretty, very quintessential Mexico. And an insightful friend asked, "What are these images NOT showing?"

What happens when you fuck up the environment?

A few years back, artist Brandon Ballengee was dedicated to exploring the wetlands in America. He would find malformed amphibians and bring their decline to our attention through beautiful photographs....but the beauty is just so distracting.

A whole new world

When you go to see an exhibit of Thomas Hirschhorn's work, you are entering an entirely re-constructed space. In fact, it almost feels like you are stepping into his brain and it's almost difficult to navigate. He lends meaning to the term, a new way of seeing.

Listen to all the sounds around you

Aaron Ximm has been collectiing sounds from his environment (technically called Field Recordings) for several years now. He has a plethora of indistinguishable and yet ubiquitous noise to choose from and through this creates a sonic experience, one that we can experience in our own minds if we take a moment to pay attention. Along with sound, he collects images, every few moments, all day long.