Today I went to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin to meet with Swedish artist, Jacob Dahlgren. Despite the fact that our GPS system led us to the middle of the mountains (literally, we went down a barely-there dirt road and it told us we "reached our destination" once we got halfway up the mountain), it was wonderful. Jacob is a fantastically personable and charming person; a pleasure to have a studio visit with.
He told me about his T-shirt collection of about 1,000 striped shirts. He said that 10 years ago, he made a contract with himself that he'd wear a new one everyday and paint each of them, as replicas of his shirts. What a fun idea! He is totally intriguied by geometry and color. Another interesting project from the Venice Biennial was a wall of dart boards -- this creates an illusion to the viewer and participant throwing the darts, which actually makes it harder to get a bullseye (ironic, since it's a wall of dartboards...). All in all, it was great fun to spend the afternoon in the beautiful headlands and talk with the new artist in residence...here are some photos of his previous work...
(from top to bottom: "I, the world, things, life" interactive dart board installation 52nd Venice Biennale; painting from T-shirt collection; "Front art to life to art" food cans, steel and podium, 2008; "coulour reading and contexture" Malmö Konsthall 2005) photos from his website!
