anselm kiefer

Schwarze Flocken - Für Paul Celan Artist Book, Germany

2005, Acrylic, charcoal and branches on photograph, mounted on cardboard, 62.5 x 42 x 15 cm

Courtesy of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris

Salzburg Photograph by Charles Duprat

Kiefer is a personal favorite. I had the opportunity to delve into his work at a fairly early age, discovering him roughly six years ago now. I love the gloomy nature of his work, the blacks and blues being an aesthetic that attests to my natural projections of beauty; an "innate" sense of despair and suffering. I was blessed to stumble upon his work in 2009 while in Palma de Mallorca at the Museu d'art modern i contemporani. I remember being in a state of pure bliss as I stumbled in with a friend - amazed - that Kiefer's work was there. There were giant pieces of convoluted constellations doused in gloom that leaped of the canvases. It was a lovely experience. In fact, another favorite Am Anfang (origin or beginning in German) is still in permanent residence in Palma. If you ever decide to go to the Balearic Islands make sure you stop by the museum on your way to Ibiza.

dennis oppenheim

dennis oppenheim
reading position for a second degree burn (1970)

third piece from roma's contemporary art exhibit. this is me every time i go to the beach, especially last summer in lisboa. i used sunscreen but was still so read that people stopped at intersections when they had the right-away. they assumed i was a stop sign, of course.

gina pane

gina pane
azione sentimentale (1973)

another piece from roma in 2009. miss pane's work may seem grotesque to some, but is very intense. it is what the spanish refer to as "morboso," something wrong yet has an essence that keeps pulling it back to attention.

hema upadhyay

hema padhyay
where the bees suck, there suck i (2008)

a great piece i saw in the museo d'arte contemporanea roma in august 2009.

richard hamilton.i'm dreaming of a white christmas

Richard Hamilton - I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas (1967). Screenprint, Sheet 30 1/4 x 40 15/16" (76.8 x 104.0 cm) Comp. 22 1/8 x 33 7/8" (56.2 x 86.0 cm)(irreg.). Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation Fund. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London

rauschenberg.black.market.1961

Robert Rauschenberg
Black Market, 1961
Combine painting: Oil, paper, wood, metal, rope on canvas, plus four metal clipboards and valise with rubber stamps and variable objects.
49 x 59 in. (124.5 x 150 cm)
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany.

lush.2011.(no photoshop).

in the midst of the humid andalusian sunrise, this baby moth passed away from alcohol poisoning. i wasn't there to witness it, so i can only suppose what torture ensued as a result of his irrevocable decision to indulge in such monstrous behavior. may this be a lesson to us all that we are nothing but slaves to nature and it's hegemonic chaos, especially when we're young and naïve. don't drink and fly. amen. 

Brandon Lee Kramer © 2011