Nina Katchadourian

May 17, 2007 9:42 AM

Nina Katchadourian's work includes mended spiderwebs, renovated mushrooms, a color-coded car park, and talking popcorn. Sadly the video for "a 10-minute excerpt from an archival film of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to the South Pole on the ship Endurance, projected onto my front tooth" is not yet online. [via]
posted by Armitage Shanks (27 comments total)

OK, I love the cars sorted by color.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:46 AM on May 17, 2007

The car thing was hilarious, but I was disappointed when I read that it wasn't a prank but rather a project with significant official approval and participation.
posted by grobstein at 9:47 AM on May 17, 2007

A bicycle tire patching kit found in the tool shed was used to patch up a group of mushrooms that had small tears on the caps.

Travesty.
posted by prostyle at 9:47 AM on May 17, 2007

It wasn't a prank when she did it, but Pandora's box has now been opened.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:50 AM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure I'd want to watch a Shackleton film being projected onto a tooth, but the others are clever.
posted by srobbin at 9:53 AM on May 17, 2007

I've seen her stuff several times and I really like it. I've never been much for this kind of art, but she really pulls it off. One thing I enjoyed was an installation with a recording of all the verbal tics (uhs, ahs, ums) of the Apollo astronauts on the moon with all the speech edited out.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:54 AM on May 17, 2007

that's pretty great.
posted by shmegegge at 9:58 AM on May 17, 2007

Great. I love the Charlotte's Web classified ad. charlotteslist?
posted by Rock Steady at 10:03 AM on May 17, 2007

Genealogy of the Supermarket is brill.
posted by DU at 10:08 AM on May 17, 2007

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
posted by moonbird at 10:10 AM on May 17, 2007

This is great.
posted by billypilgrim at 10:11 AM on May 17, 2007

The Gerber baby is the adopted child of the Brawny man and Mr. Clean. I love it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:18 AM on May 17, 2007

"a 10-minute excerpt from an archival film of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to the South Pole on the ship Endurance, projected onto my front tooth"

Sublime.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 10:19 AM on May 17, 2007

I like this a lot. Especially the webs.
posted by Artw at 10:28 AM on May 17, 2007

Great post Armitage Shanks! Thanks! If I could favorite it a bunch of times I would.

omg, Nina Katchadourian's art is wonderful! I love her art! what a delightfully intelligent sense of humor. Her Uninvited Collaborations With Nature really are sublimely fun. I feel my life has changed for the better seeing her art. The world will look different now in small, playful ways and can imagine her name becoming a word in my thoughts to describe amicably unlikely, delicate or subtle connections or unions. "Ah, that's so NinaKatchadourian."
posted by nickyskye at 10:34 AM on May 17, 2007

"a 10-minute excerpt from an archival film of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to the South Pole on the ship Endurance, projected onto my front tooth"

Sublime.

I've seen this! Vancouver? Shit, I can't remember where. Maybe NY. It was fairly captivating, and looked profoundly uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as, you know, going to the south pole - but we all have our crosses to bear.
posted by metaculpa at 11:07 AM on May 17, 2007

Yeah, I think nickyskye nails it - it's her sense of humor, coupled with lack of pretense. Clever, thought-provoking, inventive, witty, and yet still "serious" enough that her installations are recognizably art and not, say, just a prank.

Great stuff.
posted by kcds at 11:17 AM on May 17, 2007

Related: Chris Cobb arranges bookstore by color.
posted by serazin at 12:00 PM on May 17, 2007

and on NPR
posted by serazin at 12:08 PM on May 17, 2007

[this is good]
posted by Devidicus at 12:52 PM on May 17, 2007

Wow, this is wonderful work. Startlingly cheerful and funny without falling into any of the usual traps. Most of all, beautiful. Thanks for the link.
posted by fake at 1:18 PM on May 17, 2007

A local radio program did a piece on a sound installation of hers. The piece is part of a larger half-hour program on birds in New York City. The story is at about 23:40...
posted by jtajta at 1:23 PM on May 17, 2007

Fabulous!
posted by dejah420 at 2:26 PM on May 17, 2007

I was at Wave Hill last year and heard her Please, Please, Pleased to Meet'cha. Delightful is the perfect word for it. Walking along in the park and then just barely hearing what for all the world sounded like adults mimicing bird calls ... then getting closer to a random tree and swearing that I could hear grown-up voices imitating bird calls! ... then seeing a speaker, a solar panel and an explanatory sign. So much fun.
posted by minervous at 3:47 PM on May 17, 2007

Popcorn's first word was "we"? This could be a problem.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:14 PM on May 17, 2007

I like this, it's good. I love the parking lot (TAKE THAT! commonwealth countries) idea, and the whole idea of arranging things by color. Almost makes me want to go do something with my life. Almost.
posted by !Jim at 5:02 PM on May 17, 2007

The car thing is kind of neat, mainly because of how little variation there actually was in the colors. I mean it makes sense; I'd just never thought about it before.

It would be such a pain to try to find your car afterwards, though.
posted by Many bubbles at 6:11 PM on May 17, 2007