By comparing bushes and trees, a scholar figured out the precise location of John Constable's 1814-15 painting The Stour Valley.

It will be more of a challenge to pin down the barren real-life venues of Michael Brophy's South of Twenty series, showing this month at G. Gibson. They're from the southeast corner of Oregon, on the eastern side of the Cascades.

But surely somebody's up to the task.

^{*Or this will be hanging this weekend at the Seattle Print Fair at Davidson Galleries.}

This one's for Charles. Some people are city people, some people are country people. City people and country people have very different feelings about trains. They also, presumably, have very different feelings about Daumier.

• Daumier, First train ride, series: Les Beaux Jours de la Vie for Le Charivari, 1846

^{Except, probably, by Gertrude Stein...and actually maybe many others. And yet.}

Picasso is coming to SAM. In the fall.

That's fine.

It's no big deal.

JK! Whenever Picasso paintings travel in groups of 75, it counts. However, this is all coming from the Paris Picasso Museum, which doesn't have the ones you can't think about Picasso without. Still—it's another SAM blockbuster.

Press release after the jump. These paintings are coming (and more paintings that are coming on the jump!).

Seattle-based artist Aaron Gustafson recently completed a series of large-format landscape photographs that he shot while freefalling through the skies of New York and Washington State. He became the first person to take large-format photographs while skydiving.

“I wanted to upend the norms by making a [large-format] camera to be used in a wildly different way,” Gustafson said. “This is what you’d get if you threw Ansel Adams out of a plane.”

Gustafson designed a helmet-mounted 4x5-inch film camera, and during the period of several months he made one photograph per jump while skydiving at speeds greater than 130 miles per hour.

“There is a long history between photography and adventure,” artist-photographer Arthur Ou said of the project. “Gustafson's work … continues on this lineage, though not without a sense of wit and sincere irony.”

Artist Miranda Lichtenstein added, “Gustafson contemplates the sublime by jumping into it—literally … Picture [Dutch conceptual artist] Bas Jan Ader working for the [US] Geological Survey.”

Gustafson specially designed the camera that he used for the series. He made a prototype and then worked with a machinist and a plastics specialist to realize the final design. The camera is a cube-shaped acrylic and aluminum box that contains a wide-angle lens and houses a single sheet of 4x5-inch film at a time.

After learning to solo skydive, Gustafson made approximately 25 photo-dedicated jumps in New York and Washington State. The photographs show expansive aerial views of the Shawangunk Ridge in New York, and the Cascade Range and Puget Sound in Washington State. Subtle blur in the images alludes to how they were made.

“Photography is in a strange place now where everyone is taking camera-phone snapshots and posting them online,” Gustafson said. “But photography can still be grand and larger-than-life. This project came out of a desire for that. It’s a hybrid of new and old, calm and chaos.”

In other news, unnamed videographer becomes first videographer to shoot video of photographer taking large-format photographs while in freefall.

Meet Matthew Cooke, a Stranger reader who has vowed to do everything The Stranger suggests for the entire month of February. Look for his reports daily on Slog. —Eds.

Before I start, I’m tempted to apologize for certain aspects of the last post covering the reading on Saturday. I was annoyed about being inside on a sunny day, and I may have described a scenario involving The Stranger having carnal relations with itself, or something to that effect.

I blame the growing pressure of this task. In fact, it’s probably smart to withhold my apology as I will almost certainly get even pissier as the month goes on (to the delight of Slog commenters, no doubt…vultures!). You can only apologize so much; may as well wait until I say something truly vicious.

My mood was better on Sunday, but there was a problem: I’m not a fan of video art. When it comes to film, I’ve been trained to expect some level of story to emerge. Video art, however, is conceptual and often bereft of narrative (that I can discern, at least). Watching it, I tend to be vaguely disturbed or, worse, openly derisive.

But how do I evaluate the recommendation? It seems unfair to call it a bad one, since I’m not really a good judge. However, The Stranger’s audience has biases of their own, so why should mine not count?

Hence, I will respectfully say that personally, I didn’t approve. If you’re a student at the university (or you work there) the Henry is free, so go and see what you think. Everyone else: I would wait for another show. Ms. Graves can take solace in my glowing review of the last visual arts recommendation—Tim Rollins at the Frye, which you should see immediately.

San Francisco artist/coder Robert Hodgin has only one memory of the time he lived in Japan from age 3 to 5. When Lele Barnett (formerly of McLeod Residence) asked him to create a work of art for the show Cultural Transcendence at Wing Luke Asian Museum, he made a piece out of this memory.

The piece is called Infinite Views of Mount Fuji. It is a video tour through a foggy landscape of bamboo forests and balls of fire, and it operates not like a movie (which would loop) but like a video game that is playing itself in real time. You never see the same view twice, but it feels like you're circling something. All of Japanese art, in fact, is haunted by endless circlings of Fuji.

The label on the wall next to the projection reads:

His mother, from Japan, and his father, many times removed from Scotland, led him along a path in thick fog. The path was paved, and there was no one around. Eventually they stopped at a little stand so his dad could buy a walking stick shaped like a samurai practice sword.

Recently, Hodgin asked his mother about that day. It turns out it never happened. They were never on Mount Fuji, there was no path, no fog, and no quaint shack for tourists.

An early test version.

Randy McCoy's paintings used to have cars right in the middle of them. Now, the cars have exploded. Disappeared.

It's 2010: You can't help thinking of car bombs (and in-your-face art about car bombs), and the goings-up-in-smoke of car companies.

But that comes later. First is simply color, texture, and composition. The little ones are poems, the big ones hilly topographies that seem both aerial in perspective, and underfoot somehow. They aren't flat; they're all made from irregular pools of cast acrylic arranged like unruly mosaic pieces on the painted surface of the canvas.

My favorites are two small works: C9 and C10. I don't have large images of those, unfortunately. But I do have an image of the big painting at the center of the show, which is up through tomorrow at Fetherston—followed by a car piece, so you can see the scene of the disappearance. (This car painting, aptly, is called Party Wagon. Party over? New party?)

Somehow this new show escaped our print-edition listings, but I don't want to let it go here. Today is opening day for Big Is Better (Or Some Claim): Big, flashy 1960s/70s/80s paintings at the Wright Exhibition Space, culled from the stellar Wright collection.

This 1973 Stella, Brzozdowce II, is what I can't wait to see. (This and a blue-and-chrome Judd stack.)

Note: The space has weird hours. 10-2 Thursdays and Fridays only.

It's a powerhouse of women.

Anne Siems at Grover/Thurston

Mary Henry at Howard House

Mandy Greer at OHGE Ltd.

Claire Johnson at SOIL

And if you haven't seen it yet, Claudia Fitch just opened last Friday at Suyama Space. The gallery hours are during the day (9-5 M-F), so it's not officially open during Artwalk, but if you get started early...

And more.

But the weather was fair when I arrived in late afternoon, and my cynicism melted in the warmth of an El Nino embrace. I’d never been to the Frye, and I loved how the sun’s angle made the water feature blaze in refracted light along the entrance ramp. The whole thing put me in a good mood, and maybe that’s why I found the art inside so ass-kickingly awesome.

Jen called it a “literary” show, and she’s not kidding; the paintings incorporate actual book pages, using them as fluid backdrops for confrontational, balls-out concepts. It’s true that some were a bit on-the-nosey for my taste, but gleefully impolite works like “Animal Farm,” which puts a Jesse Helms head on a mangy dog body, were satisfyingly meaty and muscular.

The only thing I didn’t like was the emphasis on the show’s back story. So what if the art had humble beginnings; isn’t that true of most art? I respect what Tim Rollins has done and all, but the up-with-people angle felt like filler. The creative juice was the real nourishment.

I definitely approve of this recommendation, and I urge you to see this sucker at your earliest convenience. It’s a small show—only a dozen pieces or so—so you can get in and out of there fast. Go on a lunch break, even. Just be sure you go.

• Courtesy Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs

According to Hipple's blog and conversations I had with Hipple and Mackie yesterday, Hipple submitted the photo to a stock agency around 1999/2000. When Mackie heard about the photo being sold, he got his lawyer to send Hipple a letter asking for the photo to be removed. According to Hipple, that happened within two days of when he received the letter.

But then, Hipple says, Mackie filed suit against Hipple a year later—even though the photograph no longer exists. Hipple says neither he nor the agency even have a copy of it anymore.

Why did Mackie file suit, then? Mackie declined to talk about specifics of the case, but said he has to defend the copyright on the work because this happens all the time—and he has felt it has become egregious before. A few years ago Seattle Symphony used a picture of the steps on their brochures and posters and programs to promote their Broadway showtunes pop series. In each case of copyright, Mackie says, he has to prove that he's protected the copyright before—otherwise his laxity in small cases will count against him in more egregious cases. (In the case against the Seattle Symphony, Mackie won the point of his copyright but not damages from the money made from its use by the Symphony. News story here.) Hipple says he made "a grand total of $60" on sales of the photograph.

Both Hipple and Mackie said repeatedly that they hate dealing with this.

Barbara Luecke, longtime Seattle public art administrator, explains some of the complications:

Copyright is an interesting topic, particularly in the age of the internet, the information glut and the accompanying free usage debates.

Jack's enforcement of the copyright he holds on the Broadway "Dance Steps" is nationally well-established, with multiple actions and settlements.

The line with Jack, and with most artists who actively enforce their copyright, is with commercial use of the artist's artwork. People are free to take pictures of themselves dancing fon the steps for their scrapbooks and Christmas cards. If someone, like a stock photographer or advertising agency, is making money off the artwork they need to have some kind of license agreement, even if that amounts to permission with no compensation.

Ironically, people in the stock photography business are usually avid enforcers of people not using their photographs without compensation or permission.

Fair use would apply if this was a photograph for a newspaper or a travel story about Capitol Hill. "The Fremont Troll" artists are also nationally known for enforcing their copyright, and helping set precedent for any artist who also wants to control how the image of their artwork is used into the future, especially in selling a product they don't want to be associated with.

In one of the Troll artists' claims, People magazine took a picture of a local fantasy author in front of the Troll, which resulted in a settlement with the magazine. The image didn't constitute Fair Use because People was using the Troll as a prop rather than a location. The magazine recognized that, and settled quickly for a small amount.

As I understand it, in order for copyright cases to be enforceable artists, or whoever holds a copyright, have to be diligent about enforcing all cases they come across. That means not letting small uses slide that might seem insignificant to a casual observer.

Like most agencies that commissions public art work, Sound Transit's artist contracts include clear language that states the artists retain ownership of their copyright.

I'm waiting to hear back from some legal minds on the matter. What a mess.

Local artist is a casualty in disagreement between local fake Starbucks management and corporate real Starbucks management.

• 'I have this thing, and I really want to keep it, but the reason I want to keep it is that it might leave.'

Spies has never seen it and never had it in his house—and he may never.

Last night, A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter put itself back up for sale.

This morning I talked to Spies about his newfound lust for the object actively trying to get away from him. "I’m the only person in the world who can’t buy it—I own it, but I’m the only person in the world who can’t buy it," he says, a little mournfully.

How did you hear about it? Are you an art collector?

Yeah, I’m an art collector. I actually lived in Seattle for about 12 years until I moved down to Palo Alto to work for the company I work for, in 2002. So I’ve done quite a bit of collecting from guys like James Harris and Greg Kucera, who Scott [Lawrimore] used to work for. I can’t recall how I heard about it because it just sort of hit the blogosphere, and I just saw it all over the internet, and was not even really aware it was in Scott’s gallery until I tracked it back and did some Googling.

It was one of these things that was immediately appealing. The interesting thing was that I’ve had discussions with people who never had opinions about art before, and you tell them about this and they immediately have an opinion. Which in my view is a pretty good test of a piece, actually.

What do people say?

It sort of uniformly falls into two categories: either, That’s an enormously appealing, thought-provoking piece of art, or the other thing is, That’s the most foolish thing I’ve ever seen. They’re really defensive about it.

I hang out with a bunch of computer security people because I’m a computer security person myself, so they want to know, are you going to hack the box? Is there some way to put it behind a firewall to slow it down so it can’t sell itself? Which really adds a whole other dimension because you buy the box and the box immediately starts trying to escape from you. So part of the impulse is, is there a way I can subvert the process of it trying to escape from me? By doing that, you’d in some ways be removing the reason it’s interesting.

I had really strong reaction right after I won the auction. I have this thing, and I really want to keep it, but the reason I want to keep it is that it might leave. I wasn’t really aware of how strong that reaction would be until I actually owned it. There’s this acquisitive part of my brain that is really bothered by the fact that this thing might leave. The process of the piece really gets to some of the reasons why you might be collecting art in the first place. There’s always the question of why are you paying for a picture or a Sol LeWitt piece—a set of directions—or any of these more conceptual things, but this really exposes your motivations for wanting to own something like that.

As far as I know, the only place this is hanging currently is on Seattle artist Gala Bent's web site, but I wanted to remind you of it.

• Unicorn

As a side note, I feel that the decor at the new bar Unicorn, on Pike, ought to be illegal. Or already is.

Bent's oeuvre is full of images you'll want to return to over and over, but here's just one standout, She Works Hard for the Money. Considering Bent has three young kids (all boys) and two jobs teaching and illustrating in addition to doing her own work, I'd say she does work hard for the money.

• Crucible, papier-mache over wire, acrylic paint, foil, wire, tacks, wood rings

• Hammock, oil on linen

Here's what I've written about Nicholas Nyland, who's making great use of the tiny back space at SOIL through tomorrow (last chance!):

Nyland's ceramic, paper, and papier-mâché sculptures and watercolor/acrylic/spray-painted paintings, by contrast, are sweet messes. Hedge is a pile of pinched and pulled unglazed brown ceramic bits formed into the vague shape of a hedge, an object not trying to be a hedge so much as pointing out the absurdity of anything trying to be like anything else.

Also up are engrossing installations by new members Iole Alessandrini and Julie Alpert (I used to have great images of these, before my hard drive was erased*). Ellen Ziegler's mirrored glass shelves casting shadows hang on the opposite wall from where they were seen just two months ago. (Um, SOIL?)

The gallery is open noon to five tomorrow.

^{*Yes, I will back up in future. Still, I am angry with you, Mac factory.}

• Chandelier, you rule my world.

This was a big deal because it meant there was—gasp!—tracing involved, mucking up the whole absolute-genius complex.

Tuesday night, Falco gave a talk at UW about the science of the Hockney-Falco Thesis, and it was fascinating. (Science jokes also may be the most endearing things in the world.) The demonstrations made very clear that it's actually the distortions in the images that support their reliance on optics—not what we perceive as their perfection relative to flatter pictures from earlier periods.

"Oh, there's no doubt it's true," Seattle painter Joe Park said to me as we walked out. Turns out he's at work on a painting incorporating a distorted version of the Arnolfini chandelier—a Rosetta Stone of the Hockney-Falco Thesis—for the upcoming Armory Show in New York. I've been dreaming about the chandelier ever since.

They're just about the first works of art you see in the Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival exhibition currently at the Frye (my review), right after you pass by a projection of the documentary about K.O.S. that describes that, in order to be members of the studio workshop run by Rollins in the South Bronx, the teenagers had to follow certain rules.

One of those rules was: Don't get your girlfriend pregnant. (Almost all the members were male.) Other rules were more typical—go to class, don't do drugs, typical stuff for a program for poor, difficult kids other teachers have decided can't be taught.

So I wondered when I looked at these two small paintings (which are early and atypical of the Kids' later style), which side do they fall on? The biggest hint comes not from the art itself but from the wall labels, which read "watercolor on anti-abortion legislation."

But just looking at the images, there is nothing politically fixed about them, which I like. Angry Father and Mother—I think the man's on the right and the woman has bigger tears, but I'm not sure—is a simple portrait of divided despair. Angry because they wanted to be a father and a mother and had to get an abortion instead? Or angry because they had to have a child they didn't want? House of the Angel looks like a dream of domestic life that's died and is about to go to heaven. (What are those white shapes in the windows besides eyes that anthropomorphize and sort of trivialize the house? Imagine the picture without them.)

These aren't about politics, they're more direct: They're about the lived experience of abortion and class and gender and pain.

Austria already lost its prized Klimts thanks to that inconvenient Holocaust thing. Now the heirs of a family that sold one of the most famous paintings in the world to Adolf Hitler wants Austria to return their Vermeer. It's this one.

• Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c. 1666-73; oil on canvas, 130 by 110 cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

I mean, did anybody ever sell anything to the Führer not under duress? He paid less than the buyer who was going to take the Vermeer at the time—and, amazingly, the original buyer was supposed to be Andrew Mellon. The Art of Painting would be in this country if it weren't for Hitler!