I was shopping at IKEA the other day, and I saw the “Wrapping Table” below. The strips hanging from the ceiling are ribbons that you can use to wrap the packages on the table on the right.

It reminded me of the “Wall” piece by Rachel Welty, currently displayed at the ICA. A series of128,000 silver twist ties hangs from the ceiling in a 2 foot by 4 foot block, to create a sculpture that looks impressive but is made of cheap material; it seems like a solid silver mass, but yields with the slightest wind.

It makes a nice contrast with “two page spread,” one of a series of walls using twist-ties she’s collected over the years. The same material of twist ties, formed into two very different pieces of contemporary art.

More of Rachel Perry Welty’s can be found at her web site, at www.rachelperrywelty.com. She seems to specialize in taking everyday items and transforming them into works of art, using an almost obsessive manner of assembling them. Just observe “208,896 loaves,” made of individual bread tags.

As a final note on the Foster Prize – looks like the four finalists have a friendly relationship that extends to karaoke sessions, which reflects itself when they’re interviewed together.

For the ICA’s Foster Prize finalists, it’s all about camaraderie, not competition
They aren’t the Go-Go’s, but the four finalists for the Institute of Contemporary Art’s James and Audrey Foster Prize have got the beat.

Kelly Sherman , Sheila Gallagher , Jane D. Marsching, and Rachel Perry Welty — plus a couple of friends for moral support — have gathered behind two microphones onstage at All Star Karaoke in the Milky Way Lounge . The Nickel and Dime Band strikes up “We Got the Beat.”

I must say I’m glad I attended the Foster Prize presentation at the ICA – it gave me new eyes to view contemporary art.  Hopefully the next time I visit, there will be some presentation that could be equally as interesting.

After the letdown of Lost, I figured I’d blog about a TV show that’s only improving – Heroes.  Watching it on Tivo so I can skip a few commercials.

9:01 – Mr. Muggles the dog gets a little too much screen time.

9:02 – Alright, nice tie in to last week.

9:04 – NO WAY – the invisible guy was once the secret agent’s partner???  That’s a surprise done right – it fits in perfectly with everything we know so far and it adds depth to the scenes we’ve seen.

9:05 – The secret’s out.  On any other show I’d be worried about the mind-wiping “Hero” coming in and wiping everyone’s memory at the end of the show, but Heroes has a nice way of letting actions have repercussions.

9:07 – Another nice thing about Heroes – it uses relatively small special effects (like a glowing hand) but uses them well.  Battlestar Galactica used to do a similar thing but it seems to have gone off the rails in season 3.

9:12 – Kind of neat to see the Heroes interacting, and figuring things out. 

9:13 – who’s holding the baby – could it be George Takei, Hiro’s father?!?!?  It is!!!!!  And yet another piece of the puzzle we can’t see yet falls into place…

So nice to be catching up with a show that reveals the larger story and answers questions, instead of the endless tease of Lost.

9:16 – Can you really think in Japanese?  It’s a nice plot point and fits in well with the previous scene.

9:16 – This is a well written show; well acted too.  Ted (the seemingly psycho firestarter) adds a lot of dynamic tension.

9:17 – Shoot the cheerleader, save the world.

9:22 – “Right hook coming” and Bennet’s ability to adapt to the situation is fantastic.  Establishes him as a smart character who can regain control of the situation and make allies.  Clearly this guy has worked with superheroes before.

9:23 – Que?  “The people I work for don’t know about you?”  What happened between the flashbacks and now to make the George Takei corporation forget about Claire?

9:27 – Haitian: The Early Years.

9:28 – Fantastic Four?  yeah, I’ll see it.

9:32 – Haitian – answer to someone who supercedes?  Someone looking out for Claire?  Neato.

9:34 – The “us” and “you” conversation is interesting.  A bit of the Magneto mentality.

9:43 – Only a truly excellent writer could Claire’s mom add something to the show.

9:44 – Uh-oh – the bad guy has figured out the deception and only 15 minutes are in the show.  This show’s revealed a lot, but I could use a few more answers.

9:46 – Exuent Mr. Muggles.

9:46 – What the – the old partner guy is back?  And he’s Eric Roberts?

9:47 – These effects could be a bit cooler, but they get the job done. 

9:48 – Luckily the trailer included the “There has to be another way” line, so you know Claire’s going to survice.

9:49 – I take it back, the effects are getting the job done.  The burning face and shockwave explosions, and door blown off the hinges sell the drama of the moment.  And wow – the ghostly apparition of a Crispy Claire walking out of the house is fantastic.

9:54 – Forgot – tonight is the premiere of The Depahted comes to television The Black Donnellys.

9:55 – Ehhh, how long was who hiding Claire?  Ted’s still alive?  Pretty neat way to end that story.  Also, with the Haitian gone there’s no way to wipe memories.

9:56 – I missed something.  He hid Claire from them, but now they know, so he’s going to bring her in (i.e. tearfully let her go)?

9:58 – Sadly, I used to have that exact same rugby shirt.  In about 12 different colors.

This is a nice way of showing the link between an everyday human interaction and the superheroic nature of the show.  Bennett’s not a secret human agent looking over a superhero, he’s just a dad with an adopted daughter.

Ahhh – Bennett putting on his glasses provides a wonderful visual link between the flashbacks and the present day.  The return to the bridge is a nice link as well.

Wow – this is a great ending, and a great payoff to the “Got to be a better way”.  Possibly the best episode of an already excellent show.

The Haitian moves in for the forgetting.  move.

1:01  – THIS is it – the episode to the final chapters?  Lindeman (the man behind it all) looks like the Architect.

1:02 – AND a look at Spider-man 3???  Must see TV, indeed.

Now THAT’S how you do great television.  On to the Black Donnellys!

Captain N.

The Game Master.

Has come out on DVD.

Truly, there is no cultural artifact too obscure, no 80s cartoon so relatively unknown that cannot be collected and burned onto DVD and sold for over $20 on Amazon.com.  Click image on left to buy today!

Not familiar with this classic of Saturday morning cartoondom? Check out Wikipedia., or even better, Captainn.net (“by N-fans, for N-fans”).

Reed Elsevier is selling its Harcourt division.  Information World Review asks:

Has Reed handed Thomson an Education bonus?

The rush to exit the Education publishing market – once so lucrative but now so uncertain and volatile – has turned into a stampede.

…maybe Davis [Reed's CEO] is inadvertently putting around an idea that will have great appeal to private equity firms – two significant players in the same market will have lots of potential overhead overlap. Bring the two assets together, ruthlessly strip out overhead costs, and sweat the business for the two or three good years it has ahead of it (by Davis’ own calculations, by the way)…

…by entering the market now, Reed Elsevier may have, in effect, helped drive up the price of the Thomson Learning business.

Unless, of course, insiders at Reed know that Thomson is too advanced with negotiations to benefit from the latest development. Then, Davis’ words would be like daggers.

The rest of this post can be found at the IWR blog.  The idea of a “volatile” education publishing market seems like a prophecy coming true – is the market really moving away from high-priced print textbooks?

CNN This Is Money adds: “From Einstein’s publisher to the the horse-racing ‘bible’ and lads’ magazines, publishing assets are flooding on to the market.”  It discusses the sale of Springer Science (a “specialist publisher of science and business media”) but I wonder if it’d affect the price of the Science & Math side of Thomson Higher Ed.

I recall an exchange between me and a coworker, when we heard of the sale:

Me: “I’m reminded of the Chinese proverb: ‘May you live in interesting times.’”
Him: “I believe that’s a curse, not a proverb.”

In a Globe article about the ICA, Ken Johnson wrote the following about the Foster Prize exhibit:

More complicated questions arise with an exhibition of nominees for the biennial ICA Artist Prize, now called the James and Audrey Foster Prize, which awards $25,000 to a promising Boston-area artist. This year’s four finalists, all women, are not impressive. Each is given her own sizable space, and all four shows look like MFA degree thesis exhibitions, as each artist offers several disconnected, mildly clever conceptual projects.

Sheila Gallagher creates pastiches of romantic landscape paintings using smoke and soot instead of paint, and she built into a gallery wall a large “painting” of clouds in the sky made entirely of live, variously colored flowers that are watered by a hidden irrigation system…

Pondering such earnest but routinely academic work, I wonder, can it be that there are not more ambitious, original, and daring artists working in the Boston area? If there are, the ICA needs to reconsider its nominating process.

Read the full article here (requires free registration).

Johnson’s review interests me because the Sheila Gallagher’s work (no relation) provoked the most positive reaction from ICA patrons.

Her wall of “variously colored flowers” is in the far corner of the exhibit, and as patrons rounded the corner and saw and smelled the fresh violet and blue flowers, they let out simple “ah”s of delight.

The smoke-formed waterfall paintings she created provoked interest as well – during her presentation she explained that she hung the canvas overhead and used candles to burn the image of the waterfalls into the cloth.  She even used custom-cut metal pieces to “draw” the sharp lines in the composition.

When asked why she didn’t just paint it, she explained that the contemporary artist’s choice of method and materials can be as important as the work produced.  The flyer that accompanies the Foster exhibit notes that her work is inspired by the “cloud of unknowing,” and so she chose to use materials that were physical (the cloth canvas) and impermanent (the smoke).

The “12 Frogs” blog enjoyed her exhibit as well.  Although a more trained eye may find the work “academic,” I think most people would find it uplifting.