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The image above (click it for a larger size) is an advanced draft of a new artwork of mine. I will be presenting it in a collective work of Israeli portraits by Ehrlich Contemporary Art Gallery in the Florentin Biennale in Tel-Aviv, this coming May.

Format: Digital print
Dimensions: 210mm x 297mm
Name: Undetermined as of now. Possible names in descending order of probability include

• I Was a (Already?) Cliché at Age 14
• cliche93
• Xerox-uality

Technique: The work is made out entirely out of digital-age found objects, that is, readymade images that were found on the Internet and were not photographed by me. The 12 images are all self portraits of 14 year old Israeli girls, each one published at Bona.co.il, an Israeli social networking website for high school students. The text below each image is the stats that appear in each of the online profiles correspondingly (stats were accurate when gathered, but may have changed since).
Theme: While the complete artwork stands by itself, it is the first of a series of planned works, all of which present my commentary on the role and image of contemporary women as reflected by the online presence of the next emerging crop.

Feel free to check out the online profiles, by clicking the link that corresponds with each photo’s location.

As always, I welcome your comments and observations. Oh, I forgot to mention I am toying with the idea of sending a personal invitation to the exhibit to each of the girls.

NBC’s Today Show had a segment today on Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a network of volunteer professional photographers who create portraits of terminally ill newborns at the family’s request and free of charge:

Eytan Shouker, photographer, activist, and a former teacher of mine, notes that most of the people making a living from art are not artists themselves: museum staff, municipal and governmental culture department clerks, freelance curators, art critiques – all of them receive payments for their art-related work – while the artist usually settles for a stroke of his ego, and a couple of extra copies from the exhibit catalog. In his 2006 manifesto Shouker describes the common practice of offering artists nothing more than acknowledgement and credit, and sometimes reimbursement for their material expenses. The artists, feeling indebted to the powers that be for singling them out as worthy of an exhibit, accept these terms without ever thinking they deserve better.

This month, Shouker has embarked on a project which aims to turn that art pyramid on its head, and help artists take charge of their future. He is arranging a group exhibit which will be funded by small amounts of money donated by individual artists. Based on the Million Dollar Homepage concept, he created a website, in which artists are invited to purchase pixels to fund the project, creating a Million Dollar Art Pyramid, so to speak.

The Pyramid Game exhibit will open March 15, 2008 at the Artists House in Tel-Aviv. Visit the official website for more information.

Quentin Tarantino’s trademarked the trunk shot camera angle and used it in every movie he directed. For your viewing pleasure, here is the visual proof, including 4 trunk shots, 3 reverse trunk shots, 1 hood shot and 1 reverse hood shot.