Podcasts about Sandow Birk

In this episode, Jason spoke with Sandow Birk over the phone. Sandow approaches his themes and subject matter like gang violence, war, political and social issues through his painting, drawing, printmaking, film and sculpture. They talk about his humble beginnings in art, what his work says about his ideas and what challenges he faces doing socially conscious art? Huge thanks to Sandow for taking the time to do the interview. To learn more about Sandow and his work, go to his website at SandowBirk.com. He's also on Instagram at SandowBirk. To hear past episodes of ArtBoxDMV head on over to the website at ArtBoxDMV.com. So, until next time, thank you for listening and enjoy the interview!

Artist Sandow Birk joins us to discuss his work on the Divine Comedy and the American Qur'an.

I've always struggled, since I went to art school, with the question of: What is the career of making paintings in the twenty-first century? Of sitting alone in a room and painting in a way people did 500 years ago, in the world of technology and movies and stuff. So I always wanted to make works that are about now, but then show that they're coming out of the history of art and are tied to art history… And to say, look, see how the history of art keeps moving forward, and it's still connected… It's sort of a way to try to prove that painting matters.Sandow Birk is an artist whose works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety, exploring themes such as inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. Some of his work specifically engages with the kinds of “great books” that we explore here at the Spouter-Inn, including an illustrated version of Dante's Divine Comedy, reworked with Marcus Sanders, from 2005, as well as the American Qur'an, published in 2016.Sandow joins us to discuss these two projects and the impulse of reading a centuries-old text and saying: What if this were here and now? What would that look like?SHOW NOTES.Sandow Birk's website includes illustrations from the Divine Comedy, the American Qur'an, and other works we discuss.The Divine Comedy. [Bookshop.]American Qur'an. [Bookshop.]A talk Sandow gave about the American Qur'an (introduced by Karla Mallette, who spoke with us about Purgatorio!)Gustave Doré's illustrations for the Divine Comedy.Matthew Collins, ed.: Reading Dante with Images.Dante's Inferno, the animated film.Kent Monkman.The Chester Beatty. Arion Press and their editions of The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde and Moby-Dick.Machado de Assis: The Posthumous Memories of Brás Cubas.Roberto Bolaño: 2666.Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic, on Patreon! Thanks.

At this point I admit my defeat; no poet, comic or tragic, ever was more outdone by his theme than I am nowfor, as sunlight does to the weakest eyes, so did the mere thought of her lovely smile strike every recognition from my mind.From the first day that I beheld her face in this life till the vision of her now, I could trust in my poems to sing her praise,but now I must stop trying to pursue her beauty in my verse, for I have done as much as any artist at his best.Dante's Divine Comedy comes to an end with Paradiso, as Beatrice guides him through the nine spheres of Heaven to his ultimate encounter with God. But how does Dante approach describing a place filled with people who are satisfied basking in God's indescribable glory? And how does he reconcile his obsession with measuring out time while also trying to contend with timelessness? Suzanne and Chris think through endings and puddings.SHOW NOTES.Dante: Paradiso. [Bookshop.]That's the Mark Musa translation; see also the Singleton and the Sanders/Birk versions.Our episodes on Inferno and Purgatorio.Also by Dante: De Vulgari Eloquentia; La Vita Nuova; Convivio; De Monarchia.Sandow Birk's Dante illustrations, including the Rose.Our episodes on Paradise Lost and the Confessions.Rare audio of Erich Auerbach giving a lecture on “The Three Traits of Dante's Poetry” in March 1948.Robert Heinlein: The Door into Summer.The relevent episode on Chris's other podcast will be out in a few days.Jorge Luis Borges: Labyrinths.William Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale.Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife.Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War.The Seven Sleepers.Walter Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz.Next: Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway. [Bookshop.]Support The Spouter-Inn and our network, Megaphonic. Thanks!

01:11 - We speak with artist Sandow Birk about his large and diverse body of work that utilizes art history and classical techniques to examine contemporary themes of social and political consequence. Birk has completed a host of public art projects across California and his work is included in the collections of institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, SFMOMA, the Getty, LACMA, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.35:04 - The week's top art headlines.

#62 Dessa vez a rota transatlântica do Boia, parou no meio do oceano pra pegar uma carona nos Açores e jogar a âncora em Sagres. João Rei, criador. Idealizador e concretizador do Sagres Surf Culture, junta as margens atlânticas de Júlio Adler e João Valente, para recordar o mais insólito, improvável e honesto evento de cultura do surfe já realizado. Andrew Kidman, Chris Hines, Wolfgang Bloch, e Sandow Birk deixaram seus testemunhos. Rusty Miller deixou seu abraço. E o Boia deixou a conversa correr solta sobre uma ocasião tão irrepetível como inesquecível. Para ouvir e repetir! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/boia/message

Is painting a silly way to communicate? Why is the Qu'ran is so relevant to everyday America? And what does Bruegel have to do with mass shootings? Born in Detroit but raised in the OC Birk is well travelled, and his subjects are as wideranging as his world wide adventures. Images of gang violence, graffiti culture, prisons, surfing, skateboarding, Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Iraq war, and the Qur’an are all treated with an eye toward social justice and historical contexts. Birk has exhibited in dozens of museum and galleries, and his work is in many public and museum collections including: SF MOMA the LACMA, The Getty Center in Los Angeles; the Met; and the Harvard University Art Museum as well as several renown European museums. Birk has received an NEA grant, and Fellowships from the Guggenheim, Fulbright, the Getty and the City of Los Angeles. AND There are no less than seven books devoted to his various projects - which obviously is one of the reasons, I'm excited to have him on the show.

Episode 3 of The Print Cast features an interview with painter Sandow Birk and ceramicist Elyse Pignolet; two artists who collaborate in marriage and in art. We talk about their numerous large scale printmaking projects over the years. Working with Master Printer workshops they execute intaglio, relief and lithographic editions delving into political topics ranging from war, democracy, to the constitution. By appropriating formats, compositions, and production methods from historical artists and printmakers, they manage to create art that is poignant and contemporary while also being timeless. We discuss projects like their woodcut Depravities of War, Imaginary Monuments, and their recent project American Procession. It's a great interview and gives a lot of perspective on the Master Printer and artist relationship from the artist's point of view. They also demonstrate the power of collaboration in art and in a marriage where two creatives are making powerful work for themselves and as a unit. Follow the show on Instagram@theprintcastFollow the artists@sandowbirk@epignolet

Paul Madonna's popular comic, "All Over Coffee" had been running for twelve years in the San Francisco Chronicle when he was evicted from his longtime home and studio in the Mission District, ground-zero in the "tech wars" transforming the city. Suddenly finding himself yet another victim of San Francisco's overheated boomtown housing market, with its soaring prices and rampant evictions, Madonna decided to use his comic as a cathartic public platform to explore the experience, and to capture the complex, highly charged atmosphere of a city—and a life—being forced through a painful transition. In a series of drawings and stories, Madonna evokes the sense of vertigo induced by being forced from his home, and the roil of emotions that ensue as he enters into the city's brutal competition for a place to live. The line between reality and surreality begins to blur almost immediately, in real life and in his comic. Absurd, maddening, and all-too-poignant, these drawings and stories capture the spirit of not just San Francisco, but a cultural epidemic that has now spread to cities around the world. Praise for On to the Next Dream: "For years I've been intrigued and charmed by Paul Madonna's careful and thoughtful drawings of overlooked nooks and by-ways of San Francisco. In his new book he now combines them with manic, delirious, and increasingly paranoid writings as he struggles with the all-consuming City dilemma of gentrification; of who came first, who gets to stay, which wave of usurpers is more 'real' and deserving than the next, and finally, what happens when someone decides it's your turn to go. Beautiful and engaging."—Sandow Birk, visual artist "Madonna has created a kind of San Francisco Realism, details so absurd, cruel, and beautiful that they can only come from our infuriating home. If Charlie Kaufman squatted in an illegal sublet in Armistead Maupin's mind, this would be the lovely tenant."—Joshua Mohr, author of All This Life "Paul Madonna's On to the Next Dream is bleak, terrifying, hilarious and lovely."—MariNaomi, author and illustrator of Turning Japanese "Simply delightful. I really don't like much out there, I really don't, but On to the Next Dream I couldn't put down. It was sharp, clever, honest, and maybe the funniest book on eviction ever written."—New Yorker cartoonist and New York Times bestselling author, Bob Eckstein, Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores Paul Madonna is a San Francisco-based artist and writer. He is the creator of the comic series "All Over Coffee" and the author of two books, All Over Coffee and Everything is its own reward. His drawings and stories have appeared in numerous books and journals as well as galleries and museums, including the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum and the Oakland Museum of California. Event date:  Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - 7:30pm

Art historian Erika Doss presents on artists’ use of memory throughout history, sparking a larger conversation with artists Sandow Birk and Michael Waugh about the role memory plays in art and how it is often at odds with social reality.

The crocuses are popping up, and this week's show blossoms with new music, new technology, dazzling comics, and so much more!Artists Will Transform Your World with Virtual Reality - 1:20Imagine a gallery where you can step into a painting, fly through the ceiling to the heaven’s above, or learn a dance from a virtual flamingo. It’s not a world far off. Virtual and augmented reality stand to transform the art world, and the tech incubator Oregon Story Board is on the front lines. We scoped out a new artists residency they jump-started to give artists a chance to play with the newest cutting-edge technology.The Last Artful Dodgr Cranks Up the Volume on Portland Hip-Hop - 8:34The Last Artful Dodgr (nee Alana Chenevert) initially planned to be an anthropologist, perhaps unearthing fossils instead of rhymes. Instead she found her voice in singing and rapping about the realities of life as millennial, and left Los Angeles for Portland. Newly signed to startup local label Eyrst (a project of former Trail Blazer Martell Webster), The Last Artful, Dodgr has just released her debut record, "Bone Music," and joined us in the studio with producer Neill Von Tally to perform a trio of spare, artful song. Leila Del Duca and the Ultimate Adventurer - 21:34Portland artist Leila Del Duca has been drawing an Image Comics series called “Shutter” since 2014. It’s the story of a hard-charging young adventurer named Kate Christopher whose travelers take her around the world and into space. Her companions include talking animals, mid-century knick-knacks sprung to life, and a most genteel undead butler. In March, Image will publish a new graphic novel by Del Duca called "AFAR" that's a YA fantasy set in an Afro-futurist society.Former Portlander Steps Up as the First Film Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture - 29:21The National Museum of African American History and Culture is like the "Hamilton" of museums: telling a story that goes back centuries, it's a ticket you have to get months in advance, if you can get them at all. Rhea Combs, the museum’s curator of film and photography and a former Portlander, was in town recently to participate in talks on housing issues and equity, and she stopped by Think Out Loud to talk about life at the museum and how Portland has changed. Sandow Birk Brings the Quran into Daily American Life - 38:37Eugene’s Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum is exhibiting a colossal series by LA-based painter Sandow Birk designed to reset mainstream American’s misconceptions about Islam’s holy book. Birk spent nine years transcribing every page of the Quran onto illustrations of daily American life. Called "American Quran,” the show is on view at through March 19. opbmusic Session with Balto - 45:41Portland band Balto took a long road to get where they are. Frontman and songwriter Daniel Sheron wrote most of his first record while living in Siberia, inspired by the people and remote landscapes he encountered there. Fleshed out with mandolin, banjo and piano, those songs were recorded back in New York, and released as October Road in 2011. After relocating to the Pacific Northwest, and now plugged in, Balto released a series of increasingly soulful rock EPs and singles, and since last summer Sheron and the group have teased their upcoming full-length release, Strangers.

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artist Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an (Liveright, 2015) raises these questions and many more. The groundbreaking and subversive project draws on multiple English translations, which Birk synthesizes to produce his own hand-written American graffiti-style translation. On top of that, every single page of the over-sized coffee table book contains meticulous illustrations of everyday American life, ranging from celebration to tragedy. As a commentary on both the Qur’an as well as American culture, moreover, the provocative visuals offer the reader a way to connect a book from 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century American cities, landscapes, challenges, and humanity. Given the herculean task that Birk accomplishes, it perhaps comes as no surprise that it took him nearly a decade to complete. Beyond the illustrations and translation, American Qur’an also contains essays from Reza Aslan (UC Riverside), Zareena Grewal (Yale), and Iftikhar Dadi (Cornell), which help to contextualize the project. As for Birk himself, he offers no commentary aside from a brief acknowledgements section; this lack of explanation thus challenges the reader to draw conclusions based on the primary source itself. Additionally, because many of the illustrations have no ostensibly straightforward connection to the text, readers have the opportunity to search for meaning in the pictures, which typical translations of the Qur’an cannot present. At the end of the day, American Qur’an is sure to spark conversations and make waves among a wide variety of people, including artists and academics (within Islamic studies and beyond), as well as other curious minds wishing to know more about the Qur’an. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artist Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an (Liveright, 2015) raises these questions and many more. The groundbreaking and subversive project draws on multiple English translations, which Birk synthesizes to produce his own hand-written American graffiti-style translation. On top of that, every single page of the over-sized coffee table book contains meticulous illustrations of everyday American life, ranging from celebration to tragedy. As a commentary on both the Qur’an as well as American culture, moreover, the provocative visuals offer the reader a way to connect a book from 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century American cities, landscapes, challenges, and humanity. Given the herculean task that Birk accomplishes, it perhaps comes as no surprise that it took him nearly a decade to complete. Beyond the illustrations and translation, American Qur’an also contains essays from Reza Aslan (UC Riverside), Zareena Grewal (Yale), and Iftikhar Dadi (Cornell), which help to contextualize the project. As for Birk himself, he offers no commentary aside from a brief acknowledgements section; this lack of explanation thus challenges the reader to draw conclusions based on the primary source itself. Additionally, because many of the illustrations have no ostensibly straightforward connection to the text, readers have the opportunity to search for meaning in the pictures, which typical translations of the Qur’an cannot present. At the end of the day, American Qur’an is sure to spark conversations and make waves among a wide variety of people, including artists and academics (within Islamic studies and beyond), as well as other curious minds wishing to know more about the Qur’an. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artist Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an (Liveright, 2015) raises these questions and many more. The groundbreaking and subversive project draws on multiple English translations, which Birk synthesizes to produce his own hand-written American graffiti-style translation. On top of that, every single page of the over-sized coffee table book contains meticulous illustrations of everyday American life, ranging from celebration to tragedy. As a commentary on both the Qur’an as well as American culture, moreover, the provocative visuals offer the reader a way to connect a book from 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century American cities, landscapes, challenges, and humanity. Given the herculean task that Birk accomplishes, it perhaps comes as no surprise that it took him nearly a decade to complete. Beyond the illustrations and translation, American Qur’an also contains essays from Reza Aslan (UC Riverside), Zareena Grewal (Yale), and Iftikhar Dadi (Cornell), which help to contextualize the project. As for Birk himself, he offers no commentary aside from a brief acknowledgements section; this lack of explanation thus challenges the reader to draw conclusions based on the primary source itself. Additionally, because many of the illustrations have no ostensibly straightforward connection to the text, readers have the opportunity to search for meaning in the pictures, which typical translations of the Qur’an cannot present. At the end of the day, American Qur’an is sure to spark conversations and make waves among a wide variety of people, including artists and academics (within Islamic studies and beyond), as well as other curious minds wishing to know more about the Qur’an. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artist Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an (Liveright, 2015) raises these questions and many more. The groundbreaking and subversive project draws on multiple English translations, which Birk synthesizes to produce his own hand-written American graffiti-style translation. On top of that, every single page of the over-sized coffee table book contains meticulous illustrations of everyday American life, ranging from celebration to tragedy. As a commentary on both the Qur’an as well as American culture, moreover, the provocative visuals offer the reader a way to connect a book from 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century American cities, landscapes, challenges, and humanity. Given the herculean task that Birk accomplishes, it perhaps comes as no surprise that it took him nearly a decade to complete. Beyond the illustrations and translation, American Qur’an also contains essays from Reza Aslan (UC Riverside), Zareena Grewal (Yale), and Iftikhar Dadi (Cornell), which help to contextualize the project. As for Birk himself, he offers no commentary aside from a brief acknowledgements section; this lack of explanation thus challenges the reader to draw conclusions based on the primary source itself. Additionally, because many of the illustrations have no ostensibly straightforward connection to the text, readers have the opportunity to search for meaning in the pictures, which typical translations of the Qur’an cannot present. At the end of the day, American Qur’an is sure to spark conversations and make waves among a wide variety of people, including artists and academics (within Islamic studies and beyond), as well as other curious minds wishing to know more about the Qur’an. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artist Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an (Liveright, 2015) raises these questions and many more. The groundbreaking and subversive project draws on multiple English translations, which Birk synthesizes to produce his own hand-written American graffiti-style translation. On top of that, every single page of the over-sized coffee table book contains meticulous illustrations of everyday American life, ranging from celebration to tragedy. As a commentary on both the Qur’an as well as American culture, moreover, the provocative visuals offer the reader a way to connect a book from 7th-century Arabia to 21st-century American cities, landscapes, challenges, and humanity. Given the herculean task that Birk accomplishes, it perhaps comes as no surprise that it took him nearly a decade to complete. Beyond the illustrations and translation, American Qur’an also contains essays from Reza Aslan (UC Riverside), Zareena Grewal (Yale), and Iftikhar Dadi (Cornell), which help to contextualize the project. As for Birk himself, he offers no commentary aside from a brief acknowledgements section; this lack of explanation thus challenges the reader to draw conclusions based on the primary source itself. Additionally, because many of the illustrations have no ostensibly straightforward connection to the text, readers have the opportunity to search for meaning in the pictures, which typical translations of the Qur’an cannot present. At the end of the day, American Qur’an is sure to spark conversations and make waves among a wide variety of people, including artists and academics (within Islamic studies and beyond), as well as other curious minds wishing to know more about the Qur’an. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This video is about BIRK_SANDOW_03152016

Slake Issue 4 The editors behind Slake: Los Angeles, A City and Its Stories, clean up with a collection of stories and images inspired by Dirt -- dirty politics, dirty air, dirty gossip, dirty sex, dirty family secrets and the dirt beneath our feet. Slake: Los Angeles is devoted to the endangered art of deeply reported narrative journalism and the kind of polished essay, memoir, fiction, poetry and portrait writing that is disappearing in a world of instant takes and unfiltered opinion. Designed with an artist's eye and published in a full-color, perfect-bound format, Slake: Los Angeles sets a new template for the next generation of print journalism -- collectible, not disposable; destined for the bedside table instead of the recycling bin. Seductive in its looks and content, Slake, created by former LA Weekly editors Joe Donnelly and Laurie Ochoa, marks a return to storytelling. Most important are the voices of Slake, some of the nation's finest writers, photographers and artists who live in Southern California and bring to Slake their own individual visions of Los Angeles and the world beyond. Contributors to Slake's past issues include Jerry Stahl, Luke Davies, Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Gold, Geoff Nicholson, Michael Tolkiin, Michelle Huneven, Dana Goodyear, Sandow Birk, John Albert, John Powers, Judith Lewis, Iris Berry, Steven Kotler, Daniel Hernandez, C.R. Stecyk, Arty Nelson, Yxta Maya Murray and many more.

Catch up with Sandow Birk as he describes several of his recent projects, including a hand-transcribed and illustrated project called American Qur'an, and a large-scale drawing about the American Constitution.

This Educator Guide corresponds to "In the Studio with Sandow Burk" produced by KQED.

This Educator Guide corresponds with the "Sandow Birk: Visual Artist" video from KQED Spark.

See why Sandow Birk believes that San Francisco is the perfect setting for a journey through heaven and hell.

See why Sandow Birk believes that San Francisco is the perfect setting for a journey through heaven and hell. Original air date: June 2006.