luke kurtis, Author at bd-studios.com

New Zine: marie was an artist by luke kurtis

marie-snow-painting

My latest zine is marie was an artist. It’s a fully illustrated but handheld size zine featuring a single poem. The zine format is well suited to this type of intensely focused yet concise content. The idea behind this particular zine was to tell the story of my Aunt Marie, who died of cancer in 1987, through her own paintings.

Marie is a special figure in my life. Though she died before I was even ten years old, she somehow went on to influence me a great deal as I began to build my own creative path. She was the only member of my family that was an artist. Her paintings hung on the walls of my parents and other family members growing up. She watched over me in this way, making me keenly aware of how an artist’s presence radiates from her work and becomes part of something much larger. Looking at Marie’s paintings as a kid always made me wonder… could I be an artist one day?

Even now Marie still inspires me. With this zine I hope maybe I’ve inspired her—wherever she may be—a little bit too.

See the zine in the bd Library.

bd website redesign 2015

Welcome to the new bd website! I’m so excited about this new design. The bd web presence had become a bit fragmented over the years. This new design not only brings things up to date and presents our work better than ever before, but it brings the different aspects of the studio together, consolidating all our activity under one virtual roof. When you arrive at bd-studios.com you’re greeted with a lovely slideshow that highlights who we are and some of our recent projects. From there you can access the Portfolio, the Blog, and the Library. These three main sections are the core of the site. But you’ll find other areas as projects and needs evolve. For instance, there’s the Press Room. For the first time, we’ve collected the press releases about our various projects all in one easy-to-access location. The site is also more accessible than ever before. The last major revision of the site was in 2011–and my what a different landscape the Internet is today. We browse the web at more screen sizes and resolutions than ever before–a situation that presents a big challenge for us artists trying to show our work in the best way possible! But not to worry, the bd site is fully responsive and looks great on whatever device you’re viewing it from.

So, please, have a look around and make yourself at home. I’d love to hear what you think, so leave a comment below! And, of course, don’t forget to check us out beyond this website too. You can follow us over on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

the woods are watching, video diary parts 1 & 2

I’ve released two short video diary clips leading up to a more formal video which I’ll be releasing about the woods are watching, a brand new work that I am very excited about. Tune in to Michael Harren’s podcast this Thursday, 17 September, to learn about the work. In the meantime, watch these two clips and subscribe to my YouTube channel—it really helps if you subscribe—so you don’t miss the new video when it comes out!

UPDATE: The full video is out now!

journey meditation walk

I first performed my journey meditation walk in 2011. I was deeply enmeshed in the Jordan’s Journey project at the time and the meditation walk video was a one-off creative experiment that I did while I was working on the Jordan’s Journey videos. In fact, the meditation walk video clip ended up being part of that trailer. I sat aside the footage and in 2012 first created the standalone journey video both as documentation of the original performance and as original video art.

Yoko Ono’s Conceptual Photography from Flying Tiger

In 2013, OR Books released Yoko Ono’s Acorn, a sort of spiritual follow-up to her landmark Grapefruit, which was first published in 1964. As a Yoko Ono collector, I was particularly excited about the special edition OR published alongside the standard edition. I was so excited, in fact, I made an unboxing video upon receiving it! It was something I did on a whim that turned out to be an important moment for me. Not only did OR love the video (they feature it on their main product page for Acorn to this very day), Yoko herself loved it and shared it on all her social media. That meant a lot to me! I see the video as a work of art in and of itself. If you’re at all familiar with Internet unboxing videos, you’ll notice how mine’s a bit different from the run of the mill fare. In particular I focus on hand gesture as I open and show the book on screen. It’s about a simple, everyday action (opening a package you receive in the mail) and elevating it to something visually interesting with formal properties that extend beyond then object itself and into a different realm of object-as-performance.

Latest News from luke kurtis (Spring 2015)

It’s been a while since I’ve shared news about what’s going on in the world of luke kurtis. Here’s a quick update…

After an insane 2014 with projects including my own INTERSECTION and The Language of History, my collaborations with Michael Harren for Tentative Armor, numerous New Lit Salon Press projects, and lots of little here-and-there-and-inbetween stuff like one-off group shows, random publications, and more… I was happy to take a bit of a break around the holidays. After all, a little bit of boredom is good for the creative mind.

7th Annual Rainbow Book Fair

Yesterday was the 7th Annual Rainbow Book Fair here in New York. bd and NLSP partnered this year to set up a table at our very first ever book fair. It was a great experience. If you came out to see us, THANK YOU! And if we met you for the first time, THANK YOU! We loved sharing our work with you and we really appreciate your support. We had the pleasure of Stefanie Masciandaro helping us woman our table all day. This woman rocks! You’ll definitely want to check out her work in Startling Sci-Fi.

“Invocation” music video

Premiered yesterday on The Justin Wayne Show, my video for Michael Harren‘s Invocation (the second single from #TentativeArmor) features my “journey” meditation walk. I documented this performance art piece during my trip to Iceland last year, which is also when I created all the other footage that appears in the video. For me, Michael’s music and the visuals I paired with it are all meditative in nature and reflect the spiritual elements of the Tentative Armor project as a whole.

I’d love to hear what you think! Leave a comment on the video or drop both me and Michael Harren a line on Twitter (@lukekurtis and @MichaelHarren).

Artist Book Fair at BACG

Tonight is my lecture at Bushwick Art Crit Group! It’s also the very first BACG Artist Book Fair. I have pulled together several of my books to take to the fair tonight.

“The Language of History” (with an intro by Christopher Stout)
“singing” postcard set
“INTERSECTION” (exhibition catalog)
“INTERSECTION” (set of zines)
“The Mountain”
“bad skin”(an as-yet-unpublished book work)

Other artists will include Meg Atkinson, Sophia Chizuco, James Morrisson, Drew Van Diest, and Milo Wissig.

For more information about the fair, check out the BACG Tumblr and I hope to see you tonight!

Bushwick Art Crit Group

I’m super excited to announce my appearance at the upcoming Bushwick Art Crit Group session. BACG is an amazing community of creative folks and I couldn’t be more pleased to show my work there. I’ll be giving a short lecture about some of my recent projects… I might even give a preview of an exciting new project too!

Come see me and the other talented artists, including Lauren Britton, Alison Causer, Susan Luss, Matt Jones, Michael Serafino, and Christopher Stout. This is a not-to-be-missed session!

For more information about BACG, see http://bushwickartcritgroup.com/

John Cage at MoMA: There Will Never Be Silence

There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33″ is a small show of work by artists influenced by John Cage’s ”silent” piece. Cage’s influence is no doubt immense. I count him upon my own pantheon of artist ”gods” who guide my way. It’s no surprise then that a certain Cageian influence can be found in my work, ranging from the recently-published “toilandtrouble” text to my photogram sonata for tranquil birds for solo voice in three movements (2001), pictured above. Like many of the works in the show at MoMA, my sonata is both visual art and music/performance score.

“toilandtrouble” in Skin to Skin

Back in December 2013, my piece “toilandtrouble” was published in issue no. 4 of Skin to Skin. I posted about it to social media at the time but I didn’t get a chance to share it here. Though written a number of years ago, this was the first time the work had been published. “toilandtrouble” is a hybrid work that functions simultaneously as a text-as-art piece, a poem, and a flash fiction story. It deals with queer sexuality, gender issues, and feminism. It’s a thrill for it to finally reach a wider audience in Skin to Skin.

bad skin in Exposed: The Contemporary Nude

Saturday, 24 May marked two important milestones for me as an artist. It was both the exhibition debut of my bad skin series and also my Los Angels debut at large. Exposed: The Contemporary Nude opened at 1650 Gallery. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it out for the opening. But I’m glad to show work in LA. And it seems very appropriate that bad skin–a body of work about looking beyond the perceived imperfections of one’s body–had its exhibition debut in a city known for it’s superficiality.

If you’d like to see the full image, as well as all the other work in the show, you can do so on the gallery’s website. But remember that it is a show of artistic nude photography and therefore may be NSFW! They have included two additional photos of mine in the online annex (also NSFW). The limited edition giclée print in the show is available exclusively from 1650 Gallery. If you are interested in other prints from bad skin, you can contact me directly.