Keep My Real Life Shining

Keep My Real Life Shining

Cloud Gate, aka The Bean, a favorite subject of tourists and photographers.

(click to embiggen)

  • Nikon D80
  • Lens 18.0-135.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
  • ƒ/8.0
  • 28.0 mm
  • 1/250
  • 100 ISO

I took this photo February 4th, 2007, and processed it in my digital darkroom in July, 2023. I remember it being a very cold day, and that my iPod battery died from being too cold, and then so did my Nikon D80 battery. Still took a bunch of photos before this happened though.

Random Acts of Malevolence Against the Haymarket Riot Memorial was uploaded to Flickr

Pointless destruction.

Does the orange paint symbolize anything? The only orange thing I can think of is the current resident of the White House. This did happen after Trump promised that Saturday night was going to be MAGA Night, whatever that means.

embiggen by clicking
https://flic.kr/p/2j7QBQz

I took Random Acts of Malevolence Against the Haymarket Riot Memorial on June 01, 2020 at 03:35AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on June 01, 2020 at 10:34AM

Installation – Cildo Meireles – How to Build Cathedrals

Cildo Meireles -How to Build Cathedrals

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1948 –
Missão/Missões [Mission/Missions] (How to Build Cathedrals), 1987
600,000 coins, 800 communion wafers, 2,000 cattle bones, 80 paving stones, and black cloth

Cildo Meireles’s installation was first commissioned for an exhibition about the history of the Jesuits in southern Brazil. The artist created a contemplative space that functions as a critique of Jesuit missions established during colonial times to contain the indigenous Tupi-Guaraní people and convert them to Catholicism. The work’s symbolic elements reveal the complicit relationship between material power (coins), spiritual power (communion wafers), and tragedy (bones), while the black shroud and overhead lighting evoke ideas of life and death. Meireles’ use of cattle bones references the importance of ranching within the region’s colonial economy. Yet the bones’ physical resemblance to the human femur also alludes to the human losses associated with forced acculturation.

Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX

I took this photo April 2nd, 2017, and processed it in my digital darkroom on January 15, 2020.

I tried a few different versions of this photo (in my darkroom), one version brought up the mom’s visibility from the shadows, but I liked this one the best. The green of the background window added some additional color contrasts.

To Goethe The Master Mind of The German People was uploaded to Flickr

This is how most authors looked, and dressed, before the invention of Social Media

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https://flic.kr/p/2aM3M4h

I took To Goethe The Master Mind of The German People on October 11, 2018 at 06:26AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on December 13, 2018 at 11:47AM

Iron Cock Head was uploaded to Flickr

Rooster, whatever.

Toronto’s City Hall

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http://flic.kr/p/SAK4RE

I took Iron Cock Head on September 09, 2013 at 06:07AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on March 10, 2017 at 05:28PM

Our Lady of Perpetual Decay was uploaded to Flickr

Shrine, northside of Chicago somewhere (near Broadway, I think)

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http://flic.kr/p/H9MBFo

I took Our Lady of Perpetual Decay on June 08, 2013 at 12:57PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on May 27, 2016 at 08:56AM

El Ray – Giant Olmec Head was uploaded to Flickr

Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin

In November 2008, LLILAS celebrated the arrival of a special work of art on campus. The Universidad Veracruzana, one of Mexico’s most prominent universities, presented the institute with a colossal Olmec head, a replica of the iconic sculpture known as San Lorenzo Monument 1, or El Rey.

The original, now housed in the Museo de Antropología in Xalapa, Veracruz, is considered a signature piece of pre-Columbian Olmec culture and a world-class art object that represents New World civilization as emblematically as the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán or the ruins of Machu Picchu. One of seventeen colossal heads still in existence, San Lorenzo Monument 1 was found by noted archaeologist Matthew Stirling in the 1940s. His discoveries, and those of other archaeologists in Mexico during this time, unearthed for the world the culture of the Olmec, an ancient civilization that flourished in southern Mexico 1500-400 BCE and significantly influenced later cultures such as the Maya and Aztec.

The replica that now sits at the entry to LLILAS and the Benson Latin American Collection is made of solid stone and weighs 36,000 pounds. It was sculpted by Ignacio Pérez Solano, a Xalapa-based artist, who has spent his career exploring the history of the Gulf Coast and Mesoamerica. Pérez Solano meticulously reproduced San Lorenzo Monument 1 inch by inch, recreating the powerful lines and imposing features of the original work.

Pérez Solano began creating replicas of Olmec heads under the initiative of Miguel Alemán Velasco, who as governor of Veracruz from 1998 to 2004 endeavored to make Olmec culture better known beyond the borders of Mexico. Reproductions of other colossal heads can be found at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Field Museum in Chicago, among other locations. Miguel Alemán Velasco was present for the dedication ceremony at LLILAS on November 19, 2008, which also featured remarks by UT President William Powers and his counterpart, Raul Arias Lovillo of the Universidad Veracruzana. Fidel Herrera Beltrán, current Governor of Veracruz, also spoke, as did Olmec scholars from the U.S. and Mexico.
more
http://ift.tt/1WmBbw1

embiggen by clicking
http://flic.kr/p/FfbPs2

I took El Ray – Giant Olmec Head on July 20, 2014 at 08:41AM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on April 10, 2016 at 10:25PM

La Folie Des Grandeurs (Delusions of Grandeur) – René Magritte was uploaded to Flickr

Getty Museum, LA.

I can relate.

more info:
http://ift.tt/1L3LI8B…

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http://flic.kr/p/ziGzM2

I took La Folie Des Grandeurs (Delusions of Grandeur) – René Magritte on February 02, 2013 at 05:19PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on October 09, 2015 at 04:56AM

One Chromosome Too Many was uploaded to Flickr

Actual artist and title unknown.

On the corner of Barry and Broadway, Lakeview, Chicago.

Accidental over-exposure due to cameraman error (my Nikon dial often gets bumped when I walk for a while, but in this case, I liked the result)

embiggen by clicking
http://flic.kr/p/u2zD1r

I took One Chromosome Too Many on June 06, 2015 at 05:20PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on June 08, 2015 at 02:04AM

One Chromosome Too Many was uploaded to Flickr

Actual artist and title unknown.

On the corner of Barry and Broadway, Lakeview, Chicago.

Accidental over-exposure due to cameraman error (my Nikon dial often gets bumped when I walk for a while, but in this case, I liked the result)

embiggen by clicking
http://flic.kr/p/u2zD1r

I took One Chromosome Too Many on June 06, 2015 at 05:20PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on June 08, 2015 at 02:04AM

Sit Down And Be Counted was uploaded to Flickr

Borders

A few of Steinunn Thorarinsdottir “Borders” sculptures in Grant Park.

“Borders” — hosted by the Chicago Park District in conjunction with the Grant Park Conservancy and the Icelandic Ministry of Culture, and sponsored by Bloomberg — will remain through spring, the sculptures looming with pupil-less gazes over park visitors. (Each aluminum piece weighs 180 pounds; each iron piece weighs 440 pounds.) Thorarinsdottir, who sometimes “stands and peeks” at passers-by, said she enjoys watching her art evoke different reactions from people.

And that’s the fundamental idea of this exhibition: Viewers make what they will of it. The pieces can be poked, stroked, cuddled — so long as the art stimulates some kind of mental and physical response, Thorarinsdottir said she considers her mission accomplished.

Her artwork, which took two years to complete, was first installed in 2011 at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Thorarinsdottir said she consciously placed her figures in that socially and politically charged environment, and her choice to install them in Chicago’s Solti Garden was just as careful and deliberate.

Days before “Borders” was installed, she sat on one of the garden’s benches for hours considering how her sculptures would fit into her surroundings. She recalled listening to the languages spoken by people of all sizes and colors, and she knew she had found her gallery space.

“I wanted the installation to relate to people that wherever we come from, whatever our life experiences, we’re all connected in shape and spirit,” she said. “This garden was my first choice, a natural choice.”

The park, situated just south of the Art Institute of Chicago, provides the intimacy of an enclosed room in an area heavy with foot traffic. The lattice of tree trunks forms the walls, brambly branches netting up into a leafy canopy.

“Some sites are too big, but this garden had a nice body. I like that it forms a natural ‘border’ that the viewer can cross and connect,” Thorarinsdottir said.

Thorarinsdottir purposely left her androgynous figures “neutral.” Some may be sitting, a couple kneeling, others standing, but their faces are left enigmatic. Her Icelandic background influenced her philosophy, she said: “In Iceland, it’s an island with lots of space, very few people, tons of organic nature. So everyone in Iceland gives this feeling that what you are, what you do, matters. We are individuals, but we are also all connected, we are all part of humanity.”

more: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-07/entertainment/ct-ent-0808-borders-sculpture-20130808_1_art-institute-sculptures-exhibition…

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http://flic.kr/p/oAJasz

I took Sit Down And Be Counted on June 26, 2014 at 07:17PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on August 05, 2014 at 02:38PM