Yesterday was a fairly kind day. My most recent arts-post went up on DCist (Addison/Ripley) and got a thumbs up from James W. Bailey and Lenny Campello.
Frankly, I think the editors did it more justice than I. They have the eye to move things around and make it flow with better grace. They've been doing it longer. So, kudos to Heather and Sommer.
Now, if I could only manage to use the following correctly: burrow, borough, borrow, burro, burrito, Borghese.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Things Present Things Past
Geez. I've been bad with this toy. About three weeks ago I submitted the following article (later than I wanted) to my editor at DCist and it was eventually rejected (because it was too late). So here it was,... a review of the last show at Glenview Mansion...
As a note, my latest review of the exhibition at the Sackler can be found here.
Currently, on display at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, Maryland are the works of three artists: Michael Baltzer, Margaret Paris, and Lisa Aerianna Tayerle.
The Glenview Mansion Art Gallery, in casual discussion, is an often forgotten or unknown arts place – known to some in Rockville, but more obscure to those living south of the Beltway. This is probably due to the complications of finding the venue off of I-270, after the 4A Exit, past Viers Mill Road, resting on the corner of Edmonston Drive and Baltimore Road. It is a sprawling 150 acre estate, run by the city, and nestled amid a bumper crop of post World War II housing. In the evenings it is not uncommon to see deer wandering about nibbling on clover. Unless a person lives in the neighborhood, it is not a destination a anyone might think to go out of the way to see. However, every four weeks there is something new as the Mansion has a steady rotation of two and three person exhibitions for (nearly) each month of the year.
Greeting the visitor up the stairs and in the hall is the work of Michael Baltzer whose mixture of paint on various layers of Plexi-glass teeters on the line between grotesque and eloquent. The work could be labeled as sloppy or highly methodical. They are not pretty, nor do they aim to be. The paints drip and flow, puckered and piled like pustules. Melted plastic and acrylic clings like flesh to the surface of its support. Compositions are overlapped to exercise the property of transparency, punctured with rods and nails, sewn and sutured together, or held by industrial staples. Medical tubing peaks out from some. The major impetus for this work stems from a relationship with the body. If that association is overlooked in his handling of paint, the astute observer will at least notice the illustrations from old medical texts that are used as the ground for some of the paintings.
The works of lesser strength by Lisa Aerianna Tayerle are the many small drawings throughout the gallery. They encounter a number of problems, some stemming from a sense of preciousness. Most of their compositions are static with objects and illustrations placed in a manner that nullifies their potential dynamism. Some colors are muddied or arbitrary. Granted, this is not true for all of them, and they are the ones marked with little red dots. Where the drawings have strength is as food for thought – a sandbox for exercise and moving ideas around until they form monumental castles: her altarpieces. Here, the preciousness works to her advantage in her reliquaries and shrines to nature’s objects. The hinged boxes contain wonderful illustrations and gold leafing, echoing Catholicism, for the worship of the custodians of fertility, decomposition and inertia: bees, tiny rodents, and corals – the creatures that hold nature in the balance. And it seems that preciousness is befitting for these subjects. With a population of bees on the decline, the price of corn is not only going to be affected by its use as biofuel, but by its scarcity in Midwestern fields.
The Polaroid transfers of Margaret Paris – consisting of sepia toned images of the Florida Everglades – are nothing spectacular, but they are pleasant and easy to live with. Branches and grasses weave together in abstract geometries much like any glade. Each photograph, roughly 5” x 6.5” inches in size, possess the intimacy of a family snapshot: a work to be viewed on a leisurely stroll from the den to the kitchen. Still, without this work, the thematic context of these three artists assembled together would not feel as apparent. Paris’ directness is counter to Baltzer’s subjectivity.
Exhibited together, they give a sense of faculty and awareness of interior and exterior environment, and on a subtle level question what is sacred and profane. This is something our politicians have backwards as they discuss about God rather than environment in their pre-election debates, a discussion better left to Mullahs and Cardinals than legislators. Such an argument is an abase profanity in the presence of code orange afternoons and corporate-sponsored fast-food school lunches. This is not to confuse the art for the argument; that would be conjecture. But, seeing as how art can function for critical commentary, it would seem that if it is not the position of the artists it is the position of the jury to place these three artists together and create a form of dialog that illustrates the fragility of the body and the world it inhabits.
As a note, my latest review of the exhibition at the Sackler can be found here.
Currently, on display at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, Maryland are the works of three artists: Michael Baltzer, Margaret Paris, and Lisa Aerianna Tayerle.
The Glenview Mansion Art Gallery, in casual discussion, is an often forgotten or unknown arts place – known to some in Rockville, but more obscure to those living south of the Beltway. This is probably due to the complications of finding the venue off of I-270, after the 4A Exit, past Viers Mill Road, resting on the corner of Edmonston Drive and Baltimore Road. It is a sprawling 150 acre estate, run by the city, and nestled amid a bumper crop of post World War II housing. In the evenings it is not uncommon to see deer wandering about nibbling on clover. Unless a person lives in the neighborhood, it is not a destination a anyone might think to go out of the way to see. However, every four weeks there is something new as the Mansion has a steady rotation of two and three person exhibitions for (nearly) each month of the year.
Greeting the visitor up the stairs and in the hall is the work of Michael Baltzer whose mixture of paint on various layers of Plexi-glass teeters on the line between grotesque and eloquent. The work could be labeled as sloppy or highly methodical. They are not pretty, nor do they aim to be. The paints drip and flow, puckered and piled like pustules. Melted plastic and acrylic clings like flesh to the surface of its support. Compositions are overlapped to exercise the property of transparency, punctured with rods and nails, sewn and sutured together, or held by industrial staples. Medical tubing peaks out from some. The major impetus for this work stems from a relationship with the body. If that association is overlooked in his handling of paint, the astute observer will at least notice the illustrations from old medical texts that are used as the ground for some of the paintings.
The works of lesser strength by Lisa Aerianna Tayerle are the many small drawings throughout the gallery. They encounter a number of problems, some stemming from a sense of preciousness. Most of their compositions are static with objects and illustrations placed in a manner that nullifies their potential dynamism. Some colors are muddied or arbitrary. Granted, this is not true for all of them, and they are the ones marked with little red dots. Where the drawings have strength is as food for thought – a sandbox for exercise and moving ideas around until they form monumental castles: her altarpieces. Here, the preciousness works to her advantage in her reliquaries and shrines to nature’s objects. The hinged boxes contain wonderful illustrations and gold leafing, echoing Catholicism, for the worship of the custodians of fertility, decomposition and inertia: bees, tiny rodents, and corals – the creatures that hold nature in the balance. And it seems that preciousness is befitting for these subjects. With a population of bees on the decline, the price of corn is not only going to be affected by its use as biofuel, but by its scarcity in Midwestern fields.
The Polaroid transfers of Margaret Paris – consisting of sepia toned images of the Florida Everglades – are nothing spectacular, but they are pleasant and easy to live with. Branches and grasses weave together in abstract geometries much like any glade. Each photograph, roughly 5” x 6.5” inches in size, possess the intimacy of a family snapshot: a work to be viewed on a leisurely stroll from the den to the kitchen. Still, without this work, the thematic context of these three artists assembled together would not feel as apparent. Paris’ directness is counter to Baltzer’s subjectivity.
Exhibited together, they give a sense of faculty and awareness of interior and exterior environment, and on a subtle level question what is sacred and profane. This is something our politicians have backwards as they discuss about God rather than environment in their pre-election debates, a discussion better left to Mullahs and Cardinals than legislators. Such an argument is an abase profanity in the presence of code orange afternoons and corporate-sponsored fast-food school lunches. This is not to confuse the art for the argument; that would be conjecture. But, seeing as how art can function for critical commentary, it would seem that if it is not the position of the artists it is the position of the jury to place these three artists together and create a form of dialog that illustrates the fragility of the body and the world it inhabits.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
PRESSing
Wednesday I had the opportunity to experience the Press Preview Day at The Arthur M. Sackler for DCist. Sackler's new exhibition, opening the 24th, is entitled Encompassing the Globe, Portugal and the World of the 16th and 17th Centuries (tune into DCist for the full report).
I'd never been to a Press Preview Day, and this was certainly overwhelming. Any event where there are a lot of people and general confusion, I get a little skittish. Regardless, I had a wonderful time and walked away feeling smarter - one of the signs of a great show.
The first hour or so was a brief introduction of the major players who brought the exhibition together, and a lot of thanks were extended to the major financial donors and object lenders
who are making this exhibition possible. There was some mention about the content of the work being viewed (I did manage 3 pages of notes) and how the exhibition was divided.
But, the most entertaining thing of all: the cell phones. I don't know if it is because I have Sprint, but I seldom can get reception if I am wrapped too tightly in a cocoon of cheese cloth (no, it's not a hobby). So, how the bulk of Portuguese in attendance were able to get cellular reception is beyond me, let alone calls. And there were many. When one of the Ministers from Portugal was speaking there were unanswered telephone calls galore followed by a chorus of individuals, trying to be discrete, quickly lowering their ring-tones to vibrate. Eyes were audibly rolling. I simply exhaled a giggle through my nose.
The other thing I couldn't understand were all the photographs. This is simply from an aesthetic observation. How important is it to take a picture of any person standing in front of a Power Point Presentation? Later on, museum assistants were telling camera crews that their lights were too bright for the objects on display. Good times.
I'd never been to a Press Preview Day, and this was certainly overwhelming. Any event where there are a lot of people and general confusion, I get a little skittish. Regardless, I had a wonderful time and walked away feeling smarter - one of the signs of a great show.
The first hour or so was a brief introduction of the major players who brought the exhibition together, and a lot of thanks were extended to the major financial donors and object lenders
who are making this exhibition possible. There was some mention about the content of the work being viewed (I did manage 3 pages of notes) and how the exhibition was divided.
But, the most entertaining thing of all: the cell phones. I don't know if it is because I have Sprint, but I seldom can get reception if I am wrapped too tightly in a cocoon of cheese cloth (no, it's not a hobby). So, how the bulk of Portuguese in attendance were able to get cellular reception is beyond me, let alone calls. And there were many. When one of the Ministers from Portugal was speaking there were unanswered telephone calls galore followed by a chorus of individuals, trying to be discrete, quickly lowering their ring-tones to vibrate. Eyes were audibly rolling. I simply exhaled a giggle through my nose.
The other thing I couldn't understand were all the photographs. This is simply from an aesthetic observation. How important is it to take a picture of any person standing in front of a Power Point Presentation? Later on, museum assistants were telling camera crews that their lights were too bright for the objects on display. Good times.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Recent Work
The above work might be going into a show at Re'Frame It - A People's Gallery (2015 Lord Baltimore Driv) in Baltimore at the end of the month, along with some other pieces. And, by might, I mean if I don't go back into it this weekend. This coincides with my involvement in the Strictly Painting show in McLean, VA - also at the end of the month.Considering much of what I did through graduate school involved collage, this work is a bit of a shift. However, I was doing this work too, secretly, in a closet. Fortunately, since DC is in a panic of color school stuff, I can bring them out of hiding, make a few more, and maybe get them out of my system. But I don't think I want to.
Background: my first year of graduate school I knew nothing about the "Washington Color School." This is ironic because I was attending American University at the time. However, I was enrolled in the (now defunct) Italy program. Italy is not DC, though much of the driving style is the same.
I'm from an industrial town on the Mississippi River. The only color there is the color of John Deere and the leaves when they turn in October. Otherwise, it's kinda grey. Alcoa. Case. The Arsenal. Even the river is called the Muddy Mississip. Then I moved to Italy. Color everywhere. Beautiful stucco. It had an effect. I spent part of my summer at the Vermont Studio Center doing this kind of work.
Did I know anything about WCS in Iowa? No. Did I know anything about WCS in Vermont? No. I knew Rothko and Frankenthaler. I didn't even know the names Morris Louis or Ken Noland until I came here. There are about thirty people in Iowa who know about them... they're called art professors. As for Gene Davis? He draws that cartoon, right? That cat's real funny! Creepy though, how they all have the same ey...what?
Oh! That's Jim Davis? Uhm...
Never mind.
When I write pigment on canvas, that's what it is. There is no painting involved. I won't go into detail about how it is painted. And, despite the chaotic method in which they are painted, I don't dwel on the ideas of order and disorder. I think about the pigment like a pixel. It's enough to get a graduate student worked up into a lather about this stuff, but look upon it like a hobby. Strange to think that my hobby away from making art is making art.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Artomatic Pitfalls
Yesterday I meandered through the offices of Artomatic, and walked away exhausted. There is too much to take in at one time. And, by too much, I mean there is a lot of crap. For all intended purposes, I'll count my stuff amongst that kitty. I count a lot of colleagues and friends among the kitty of crap, and they have great work.
When it comes down to it, part of what can make Artomatic successful is presentation. But, in a building that is being rehabilitated, it's going to be difficult. Things that should be considered are the following.
Spend money on a couple of gallons of paint:
The walls are most likely going to be beat up. Get some real Spackle (maybe invest in 20 minute... but not that chintzy stuff that's like cake frosting) and some tape. Sand and paint. Sand and paint again. Even those that did a lousy job still managed to make a warmer environment. In some cases, the wall painting was better than the art ON the wall.
Less is more:
Curate your room. Don't throw in the kitchen sink. Unless the kitchen sink is your piece.
Of course, it is impossible to escape that this Artomatic is in an old government office building that is built like an oppressive maze. Since it is an old office building, the ubiquitous florescent lighting is everywhere, and for many pieces it isn't helping.
But I think what took away from the work the most was the carpet. There was this peripheral thing that kept irritating me in many of the rooms while looking at work that was decent and it was this drab carpet that was bugging me. There were a couple of exhibitors that tried their best by putting in Afghan rugs. No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig it is still a pig. Which is to say, that if that was your studio it didn't help - nor did the waterfalls, inspirational music or incense.
Artomatic is a necessary evil. What other opportunity is there for a whole bunch of artists to buy a space and show off or possibly sell their goods? It gives exposure for some of the hopeful, and a chance to have some fun for others. Maybe it is an opportunity to even be taken seriously.
The organization needs a little tweaking. Specifically, there are three realms that would seem appropriate for people when applying for a space.
1) The Sunday Painters: This is for those who spend about a couple of hours a week moving paint around a canvas to make pretty objects. These are the people who paint from photographs of their friends and postcards of landscapes.
2) Gallery Hopefulls: Those recent MFA grads and dedicated artists who just want a nod from any of the dozens of galleries in and around the area to maybe get in a group show or have a solo in the next year or two.
3) Lab Rats: Those who want to treat Artomatic as a laboratory for trying or displaying conceptual practices involved with or related to the plastic and performing arts. A chance to try something different. A chance to see who the Bob Irwin, Bruce Nauman, Lorna Simpson, or Judy Pfaff of DC is.
When it comes down to it, part of what can make Artomatic successful is presentation. But, in a building that is being rehabilitated, it's going to be difficult. Things that should be considered are the following.
Spend money on a couple of gallons of paint:
The walls are most likely going to be beat up. Get some real Spackle (maybe invest in 20 minute... but not that chintzy stuff that's like cake frosting) and some tape. Sand and paint. Sand and paint again. Even those that did a lousy job still managed to make a warmer environment. In some cases, the wall painting was better than the art ON the wall.
Less is more:
Curate your room. Don't throw in the kitchen sink. Unless the kitchen sink is your piece.
Of course, it is impossible to escape that this Artomatic is in an old government office building that is built like an oppressive maze. Since it is an old office building, the ubiquitous florescent lighting is everywhere, and for many pieces it isn't helping.
But I think what took away from the work the most was the carpet. There was this peripheral thing that kept irritating me in many of the rooms while looking at work that was decent and it was this drab carpet that was bugging me. There were a couple of exhibitors that tried their best by putting in Afghan rugs. No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig it is still a pig. Which is to say, that if that was your studio it didn't help - nor did the waterfalls, inspirational music or incense.
Artomatic is a necessary evil. What other opportunity is there for a whole bunch of artists to buy a space and show off or possibly sell their goods? It gives exposure for some of the hopeful, and a chance to have some fun for others. Maybe it is an opportunity to even be taken seriously.
The organization needs a little tweaking. Specifically, there are three realms that would seem appropriate for people when applying for a space.
1) The Sunday Painters: This is for those who spend about a couple of hours a week moving paint around a canvas to make pretty objects. These are the people who paint from photographs of their friends and postcards of landscapes.
2) Gallery Hopefulls: Those recent MFA grads and dedicated artists who just want a nod from any of the dozens of galleries in and around the area to maybe get in a group show or have a solo in the next year or two.
3) Lab Rats: Those who want to treat Artomatic as a laboratory for trying or displaying conceptual practices involved with or related to the plastic and performing arts. A chance to try something different. A chance to see who the Bob Irwin, Bruce Nauman, Lorna Simpson, or Judy Pfaff of DC is.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Multimediale Commercial Bloopers
When shooting a one minute commercial over the course of an hour (of footage), there are bound to be scraps that are not bad enough for the cutting room floor. Things that are inherently funny to the context of the piece. The above footage is a compilation of such footage.
To say the least, since we shot this footage over the course of four hours and covered about five or six miles walking around the various locations, Niels got a little nutty at times. And so, it is preserved here in the mediated remains of digital video.
Friday, May 11, 2007
DCist part Deux
Review Number Two at DCist
It has been an interesting exchange of late. This post went through four revisions. Four. I was given a reminder that I need to be less academic with my writing and to cater to the DCist audience because DCist is not an arts journal. That's a good thing to keep in mind. I guess this means I need to be a little less academic and a little more crass. I like crass, because, afterall, you can't spell crass without cr.
Update 05/13
I noticed yesterday, when I was browsing the DCist site, that the thumbnail of Wondimu's work has all of these faces within it. Genius! (both descriptor of the work and sarcasm regarding my post) If any of you have been to the ramp gallery at McLean Project for the Arts, it is exactly that: a ramp designed for gradual escalation, for wheel-chaired and elderly individuals, wrapping up into the atrium and gallery spaces. Picture a wide hallway with a switchback; in short, there is not a lot of room to step back and admire work. Which is why the faces went unnoticed in my critique. The thumbnail, which is only several inches in width, represents a painting that is between 15 and 25 feet in width. 'Nuff said.
It has been an interesting exchange of late. This post went through four revisions. Four. I was given a reminder that I need to be less academic with my writing and to cater to the DCist audience because DCist is not an arts journal. That's a good thing to keep in mind. I guess this means I need to be a little less academic and a little more crass. I like crass, because, afterall, you can't spell crass without cr.
Update 05/13
I noticed yesterday, when I was browsing the DCist site, that the thumbnail of Wondimu's work has all of these faces within it. Genius! (both descriptor of the work and sarcasm regarding my post) If any of you have been to the ramp gallery at McLean Project for the Arts, it is exactly that: a ramp designed for gradual escalation, for wheel-chaired and elderly individuals, wrapping up into the atrium and gallery spaces. Picture a wide hallway with a switchback; in short, there is not a lot of room to step back and admire work. Which is why the faces went unnoticed in my critique. The thumbnail, which is only several inches in width, represents a painting that is between 15 and 25 feet in width. 'Nuff said.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Odds of winning: fifty – fifty.
I used to say this a lot when I was a carpenter’s assistant shortly after finishing my MFA. At first it drove the foreman bonkers because the statement denies larger calculable factors of winning which some people call statistics. But, really, when you get down to it, you either win or you don’t. And, as Mike Pace of the Iowa Lottery used to say, “you can’t win if you don’t play.”
Yesterday I came home to discover a manila envelope sitting in my mailbox, which can only mean one thing: returned work from a juried art show submission. Inside were four slides. That’s it. No letter. I had to look at the slides to figure out from which jury I was getting my SASE. Thanks, Trawick.
This morning I learned which regional artists were selected for the Trawick Prize courtesy of dcartnews, and noticed my name not among them; this might be what my cryptic slide-return indicated. And, really, that’s not a problem. I entered this year as a last-ditch effort for the young artist award. Even though the statistics were more favorable of winning, my loss would have been better invested in a lotto ticket, which also has a better rate of return.
On the other hand, my work was accepted to Strictly Painting in McLean, unless there was a typo on the MPA website.
Seriously, if I can find all this stuff out online, instead of through SASE, what good is the post office?
Yesterday I came home to discover a manila envelope sitting in my mailbox, which can only mean one thing: returned work from a juried art show submission. Inside were four slides. That’s it. No letter. I had to look at the slides to figure out from which jury I was getting my SASE. Thanks, Trawick.
This morning I learned which regional artists were selected for the Trawick Prize courtesy of dcartnews, and noticed my name not among them; this might be what my cryptic slide-return indicated. And, really, that’s not a problem. I entered this year as a last-ditch effort for the young artist award. Even though the statistics were more favorable of winning, my loss would have been better invested in a lotto ticket, which also has a better rate of return.
On the other hand, my work was accepted to Strictly Painting in McLean, unless there was a typo on the MPA website.
Seriously, if I can find all this stuff out online, instead of through SASE, what good is the post office?
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Spring Solos 2007 @ Arlington Arts Center
You can check out my post over at DCist
on the subject.
Up on deck:
Interview with Adrian Parsons on his recent performance at The Warehouse Gallery.
Video walk through of Artomatic with Lenny
More reviews for DCist
And grading. Lots of grading. Three classes end at GMU, one class at AU. This means I have a couple hundred papers to finish reading before next week, and about 90 student websites respectively.
Time to brew some coffee.
Updates 5/10/2007:
The Parsons thing never happened because he never got back to me on my questions. Bloggers... he's probably busy healing. Shame. I thought it could be an interesting interview. And I was only going to poke a tiny bit of fun at him because, afterall, he did circumcise himself in front of people with a pocket knife. It was the pocket knife that got me.
Lenny hasn't gotten back to me either. I'm guessing that project is dead. Another time.
Woo's comment in response to the above article is awesome!
on the subject.
Up on deck:
Interview with Adrian Parsons on his recent performance at The Warehouse Gallery.
Video walk through of Artomatic with Lenny
More reviews for DCist
And grading. Lots of grading. Three classes end at GMU, one class at AU. This means I have a couple hundred papers to finish reading before next week, and about 90 student websites respectively.
Time to brew some coffee.
Updates 5/10/2007:
The Parsons thing never happened because he never got back to me on my questions. Bloggers... he's probably busy healing. Shame. I thought it could be an interesting interview. And I was only going to poke a tiny bit of fun at him because, afterall, he did circumcise himself in front of people with a pocket knife. It was the pocket knife that got me.
Lenny hasn't gotten back to me either. I'm guessing that project is dead. Another time.
Woo's comment in response to the above article is awesome!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Stenvall - Finnish Embassy
Below is a rejected submission to DCist. They thought it was too serious for a show about paintings of Donald Duck. Which is kind of my point. There are enough frivolous things in the world; why should paintings also be? Isn't the Washington Color School enough? Not that painting (or art) should (always) be serious. But, I'm guessing these duck paintings are the equivalent of Sanjaya.
Okay... they aren't that bad. You get my drift.
Okay... they aren't that bad. You get my drift.
The banner hanging at the Finnish Embassy depicts what Kaj Stenvall’s website labels as a “very familiar duck,” and is, indeed, a direct representation of Donald Duck. The duck is seen seated in a chair overlooking the water, a brown libation in his hand. The Finnish Embassy so often exhibits the work of Modern Architecture typical of Scandinavia, with an emphasis on wood and curved forms. Such exhibits are reminiscent of the giants Alvar Aalto or Eliel and Eero Saarinen (Eero’s work can be seen in the St. Louis Arch and Dulles International Airport). So, it’s not out of line to say that this duck, this iconic symbol of American kitsch since the mid 1930s, seemed out of place.
Birdhouse, the title of the exhibit, consists of over 30 small and medium sized oil paintings by Kaj Stenvall. Created over the course of the last ten years, these wonderfully drawn but thinly painted illustrations take the figure of Donald Duck into a series of anecdotes with reminiscent tones of Hopper, Magritte, or Whistler. They capture the duck bathing, swaddled in bed linens, and urinating from the passenger side of a classic automobile. The paintings touch on the surreal: his head stored in a bell jar or constructed from the petals of a flower. Then there are the witty strains of puns masquerading as irony: the duck as a Roman Catholic Cardinal, or the duck as a swan. All of these have a dose of allegory, but not in the Classical sense where Pagan mythological themes stand in line for Catholic virtues. Instead, their allegory is the rich history of previously painted subjects within art’s cannon: art about art.
This is, perhaps, what the catalogue alludes to when it suggests that the paintings are, "jumping off points… to draw the viewer deep inside." But, at best, this is a farce. Because, if it is art about art, then it would give us greater information on still life, or portraiture, or a reflection on contemporary culture. His best bet on the later is the mixed identity of the duck. It ages between youth and the elderly. It stands in for male and female figures. And, periodically, the duck has had its white down replaced with black. But, so what? If it is an effort to interpret human emotions, why not simply use humans?
The above applies to only some of the paintings. The rest are insipid replacements for sappy inspirational posters that middle management might hang in the office above the photocopier to encourage the lower staff to "go the distance." It is the only appropriate analogy to be made of a duck ballerina dancing on the beach at sunset. But, if all you need on an afternoon out is an opportunity to get away from all the color field stuff that is rampant throughout the District, this may be the place. The paintings do serve as a wonderful laugh even if they are, at best, one-liners.
Birdhouse runs through May 13th at the Embassy of Finland, 3301 Massachusetts Avenue, NW.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Gestalt Newsstands Hit the Street
On April 16th, between 3:30 and 5:00, two newsstands for Gestalt hit the street in conjunction with Multimediale. The contents of the periodical consist of interviews with the artists involved in the event and discussions about the significance of individual works and the exhibition as a whole. One newsstand will be placed in the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition and the other shall remain on the street. After April 23rd, they will no longer exist in the public sphere.
The process for putting them there has not been easy. Earlier I reported how I went through a circle of bureaucracy to determine with whom I should speak regarding the placement of the newsstands. This circle began and ended with Jose Colon.
I finally got a hold of Matthew Marcou of the Department of Transportation (DOT), in early February, and he was very prompt, helpful and receptive to at least determine with which agency within the DC government I was supposed to speak. And, indeed, it was in the jurisdiction of Sam Williams. I no longer remember why I had to speak with the DOT. It probably had something to do with the intention to place the newsstand near the Dupont Circle Metro stop. In the crazy circle of DC politics, for some reason it made sense at the time.
When I first spoke with Mr. Williams it was in early March. Apparently his phone had been broken throughout the month of February. (And, possibly his e-mail, too). He said I should just get permission from the ANC (Which stands for Advisory Neighborhood Commission, I would later learn. ANC 2B to be precise - he never said which one, or what ANC meant.) But, since he wasn't certain with whom in the ANC I should speak, he thought it best to speak with Ed Grandis of Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association (DC MAP). DC MAP acts like an advisory board with no real say on anything in Dupont Circle. But, Mr. Williams assured me, that if the ANC did not approve of the newsstands that I could then apply for a permit to the tune of fifty cents.
Mr. Grandis is a lawyer and was very cut and dry when we spoke in the early part of mid March. He informed me the ANC meets once a month. And, to get on the itinerary I had to contact them one week prior to their meeting. Mr. Grandis and I spoke six days before the ANC meeting, and the itinerary had already been set. We did not speak again until after the ANC met. The newsstands were not on the itinerary and he advised me to contact them.
Them is a void. An e-mail that was never returned, to an inbox I gather is seldom checked. Them consist of nine names and six phone numbers. Since I am teaching five classes this semester between three schools, and was prepping for two shows, I decide to sidestep a phone call. Phone calls that, from my experience with Mr. Williams, never get returned.
I called Mr. Williams and, after several messages, got a hold of him in the beginning of April. I asked to proceed with the permit process. He said they were done selling permits this year - that they had finished selling permits in the beginning of March (incidentally, before I spoke with him in the beginning of March). But, I should go ahead and put them outside anyway. He suspected there would be little concern raised over the newsstands.
We shall see.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Refract, Reflect, Project
Were I to be the type to indicate my top ten favorite shows at the end of a blogging season I can declare with certainty that number one has come and gone. Refract, Reflect, Project: Light Works from the Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum ended its exhibition on April 8.
While there were several pieces that might otherwise be declared lemons, concepts that fell apart both aesthetically and conceptually, there were three pieces that compensated for anything else that faltered.
Olafur Eliasson Round Rainbow; Robert Irwin, Untitled; and James Turrell, Milk Run.
The first time I encountered Eliasson's work was at the 2003 Venice Biennale where an incarnation of Room for One Color was being exhibited. Simply described, it is a room of such intense yellow lighting that optically cancels out all color within the space. Passers by glimpse into a yellow space where the occupants are blanched of color, reduced to a grey-scale. Occupants within the space capable of looking out of their yellow shroud notice the world still passes them by, filled with color. It is more than an effect on the rods and cones of the eye, it is also visible in 35mm and digital photography.
Round Rainbow is much less shocking, but is certainly meditative. Rotating slowly from the ceiling above, an acrylic disc arcs intense white light like a prism onto the surrounding walls. It is from both the deprivation of light as much as it is from the rotating rainbow of colors that is soothing. The piece, while easy to figure out, none-the-less is admirable for its capactiy to splinter the spectrum.
Robert Irwin's Untitled has this quiet intensity that at first is so casual that people pass it by with the assumption to not give it a second thought. But, the work is capable of doing something to the eye, even in periffery. It's ability to dissolve, both the piece and the wall behind it, is the captivating force that inspires a second glance. If the eye focuses on it too long, at the proper distance, the only other thing it inspires is vertigo. What is lost, thanks to the grey band that stretches across the middle, is comprehending where the piece ends and the shadows begin. Or, if there is even a piece there at all.
Turrell and Irwin both participated in light deprivation experiments early in their artistic careers, and the effects have been most vivid in Turrell's installations. Intended for just a few people at a time, he has been quoted as saying that his pieces should "become a record of how you see, so that you see yourself seeing." As critic Robert Hughes has emphasized in the text and video American Visions, "Turrell's work doesn't happen in front of your eyes, it happens behind them." While he has several dozn pieces with the title Milk Run, the particular piece that was deinstalled at the Hirshhorn was the essence of light deprivation, with a single beam of yellow, red and blue light emitted from a crevice in the wall. Opposed to the multiple images you may find on Google Images with the same title, The Hirshhorn's Milk Run's lack of light transformed the materiality of the room, expanding the walls infinitely beyond their natural boundary. This caused the visitor to constantly clutch for the wall, often grasping nothing. Those visiting on weekends to the space would tread with caution, careful not to bump into another person as they tip-toed through the space. Those who visited during the weekdays would tread with caution, convinced the floor no longer existed.
Though the three examples above could be reduced to smoke and mirrors, what part of art isn't? The Renaissance Window we so conveniently recognize as painting today was bound to astound the first viewers of its convention in the Renaissance. We know the figures of the frescoes in Italy are painted, but what is difficult to determine still is where the real architecture ends and the painted architecture begins. The great difference is that the Renaissance Fresco is an image, and its careful execution is the dependent factor of its success or failure. While the three works of art mentioned above still deal with issues of perception, they do not deal with an image.
While there were several pieces that might otherwise be declared lemons, concepts that fell apart both aesthetically and conceptually, there were three pieces that compensated for anything else that faltered.
Olafur Eliasson Round Rainbow; Robert Irwin, Untitled; and James Turrell, Milk Run.
The first time I encountered Eliasson's work was at the 2003 Venice Biennale where an incarnation of Room for One Color was being exhibited. Simply described, it is a room of such intense yellow lighting that optically cancels out all color within the space. Passers by glimpse into a yellow space where the occupants are blanched of color, reduced to a grey-scale. Occupants within the space capable of looking out of their yellow shroud notice the world still passes them by, filled with color. It is more than an effect on the rods and cones of the eye, it is also visible in 35mm and digital photography.
Round Rainbow is much less shocking, but is certainly meditative. Rotating slowly from the ceiling above, an acrylic disc arcs intense white light like a prism onto the surrounding walls. It is from both the deprivation of light as much as it is from the rotating rainbow of colors that is soothing. The piece, while easy to figure out, none-the-less is admirable for its capactiy to splinter the spectrum.
Robert Irwin's Untitled has this quiet intensity that at first is so casual that people pass it by with the assumption to not give it a second thought. But, the work is capable of doing something to the eye, even in periffery. It's ability to dissolve, both the piece and the wall behind it, is the captivating force that inspires a second glance. If the eye focuses on it too long, at the proper distance, the only other thing it inspires is vertigo. What is lost, thanks to the grey band that stretches across the middle, is comprehending where the piece ends and the shadows begin. Or, if there is even a piece there at all.
Turrell and Irwin both participated in light deprivation experiments early in their artistic careers, and the effects have been most vivid in Turrell's installations. Intended for just a few people at a time, he has been quoted as saying that his pieces should "become a record of how you see, so that you see yourself seeing." As critic Robert Hughes has emphasized in the text and video American Visions, "Turrell's work doesn't happen in front of your eyes, it happens behind them." While he has several dozn pieces with the title Milk Run, the particular piece that was deinstalled at the Hirshhorn was the essence of light deprivation, with a single beam of yellow, red and blue light emitted from a crevice in the wall. Opposed to the multiple images you may find on Google Images with the same title, The Hirshhorn's Milk Run's lack of light transformed the materiality of the room, expanding the walls infinitely beyond their natural boundary. This caused the visitor to constantly clutch for the wall, often grasping nothing. Those visiting on weekends to the space would tread with caution, careful not to bump into another person as they tip-toed through the space. Those who visited during the weekdays would tread with caution, convinced the floor no longer existed.
Though the three examples above could be reduced to smoke and mirrors, what part of art isn't? The Renaissance Window we so conveniently recognize as painting today was bound to astound the first viewers of its convention in the Renaissance. We know the figures of the frescoes in Italy are painted, but what is difficult to determine still is where the real architecture ends and the painted architecture begins. The great difference is that the Renaissance Fresco is an image, and its careful execution is the dependent factor of its success or failure. While the three works of art mentioned above still deal with issues of perception, they do not deal with an image.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Mr. Smith Would Hate Washington
At this time last week I was discussing intimate details with two congressional staffers about their occupations and freshman boss (from a state that shall remain unnamed).
It's a little creepy. The truth.
They were exhausted from a day on The Hill when roughly 70 amendments were made to a spending bill. To paraphrase their paraphrase, it went something like this: Republicans would get up and say, "let's cut (insert name) taxes." Then it would be voted down. Democrats would get up and say, "let's find a way to fund (insert cause)." Then it would be voted down.
The other impressive thing they've noticed is in two parts. The first is the alarming absence of any senator on the senate floor during "the speeches." Seriously, watch CSPAN some time, you'll see what I mean. They are never there. Where are they? Meeting with constituents and lobbyists and attending committee and sub-committee hearings. Two, and no big shock, they don't write their own speeches. They are written by twenty-somethings who paw through old speeches and pull quotes. At least, hat is what this twenty-something told me, who spent the better part of the day pawing through old speeches and pulling quotes. What I found more interesting is that the senator (maybe it was a congressman) didn't even see the speech until 15 minutes before curtain. Strange.
Those speeches are aimed not at influencing the other senators or congressmen (because they aren't in the chamber), but instead to look good for the small-town paper "back home."
This explains why so many speeches are dispassionate before the latest catch phrase that toes the party line: because the twenty-something does not want to be fired. The greatest show on earth, folks. Democrazy in action.
It's a little creepy. The truth.
They were exhausted from a day on The Hill when roughly 70 amendments were made to a spending bill. To paraphrase their paraphrase, it went something like this: Republicans would get up and say, "let's cut (insert name) taxes." Then it would be voted down. Democrats would get up and say, "let's find a way to fund (insert cause)." Then it would be voted down.
The other impressive thing they've noticed is in two parts. The first is the alarming absence of any senator on the senate floor during "the speeches." Seriously, watch CSPAN some time, you'll see what I mean. They are never there. Where are they? Meeting with constituents and lobbyists and attending committee and sub-committee hearings. Two, and no big shock, they don't write their own speeches. They are written by twenty-somethings who paw through old speeches and pull quotes. At least, hat is what this twenty-something told me, who spent the better part of the day pawing through old speeches and pulling quotes. What I found more interesting is that the senator (maybe it was a congressman) didn't even see the speech until 15 minutes before curtain. Strange.
Those speeches are aimed not at influencing the other senators or congressmen (because they aren't in the chamber), but instead to look good for the small-town paper "back home."
This explains why so many speeches are dispassionate before the latest catch phrase that toes the party line: because the twenty-something does not want to be fired. The greatest show on earth, folks. Democrazy in action.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The Definition of Failure: Democrazy
Not to get on a rant here, but prior to the House passing a bill that would bring the troops home by Sept '08, Tony Snow mouthed to the press how that was a recipe for failure... Has this administration defined failure?
Defining THEY as the administration who propagated this war:
1 - They failed on the intelligence which got us into the bloody thing.
2 - They failed to maintain the Iraqi army after "gaining control" of the country.
3 - They failed to maintain public utilities.
4 - They failed to secure the borders.
5 - They have failed to prevent the looting of precious and priceless cultural artifacts from Iraqi institutions that reflect the culture of Iraq, the cultures of Islam, and the culture of human civilization.
6 - They failed to hire adequate staff members to get the ball rolling and instead chose party-loyal cronies.
7 - They failed to hire local labor, contracting it out to American Big Businesses (also party-loyal), which lead to:
8 - Failure to maintain or improve the Iraqi economy, which has been spiraling south.
9 - They have failed to maintain order within daily civil discourse.
10 - They have failed to maintain a police department in several major cities.
11 - They fail to prevent the violent deaths of about 30 Iraqis a day.
12 - They fail to prevent the deaths of about 8 American soldiers a week.
13 - They fail to prevent the kidnappings of about one journalist or foreign aid worker a week.
14 - They have failed to work with the neighbors of the Iraq.
15 - They have failed to work with the International Community to gather support for the war.
16 - They have failed to establish and maintain a stable government within the country.
17 - They have failed to understand the differences
a - between Shiite and Sunni,
b - between Al Queda and Saddam,
c - between Radical Islamic Jihadi Fundamentalism and Soviet-Era Cold War aggression.
18 - They have failed to really determine the source(s) of the insurgency and how to communicate with them.
19 - They have failed to maintain quality intelligence.
In the film The Fog of War, Robert McNamara underlines the fact that the war in Vietnam, prior to heavy US involvement, was a Civil War between the North and South Vietnamese and not a war of Chinese Communist Aggression. We did not know this because no one was directly communicating with the North Vietnamese.
Maybe I am missing something. How else can we possibly fail? How can we pull victory from the jaws of defeat? George Will stated in a June Newsweek op ed how Iraq is the result of lines drawn in the sand at the end of the First World War, and that the clumsy shaping of that country then has beeen partly the cause of a century of strife in that neck of the woods.
I'll define what failure means to this administration: It is the realization that it is impossible to bring a country Democracy by force. Democracy is an act of the people, by the people, and for the people. To impose it, like some Crusading Christian Conquistador, is democrazy.
Defining THEY as the administration who propagated this war:
1 - They failed on the intelligence which got us into the bloody thing.
2 - They failed to maintain the Iraqi army after "gaining control" of the country.
3 - They failed to maintain public utilities.
4 - They failed to secure the borders.
5 - They have failed to prevent the looting of precious and priceless cultural artifacts from Iraqi institutions that reflect the culture of Iraq, the cultures of Islam, and the culture of human civilization.
6 - They failed to hire adequate staff members to get the ball rolling and instead chose party-loyal cronies.
7 - They failed to hire local labor, contracting it out to American Big Businesses (also party-loyal), which lead to:
8 - Failure to maintain or improve the Iraqi economy, which has been spiraling south.
9 - They have failed to maintain order within daily civil discourse.
10 - They have failed to maintain a police department in several major cities.
11 - They fail to prevent the violent deaths of about 30 Iraqis a day.
12 - They fail to prevent the deaths of about 8 American soldiers a week.
13 - They fail to prevent the kidnappings of about one journalist or foreign aid worker a week.
14 - They have failed to work with the neighbors of the Iraq.
15 - They have failed to work with the International Community to gather support for the war.
16 - They have failed to establish and maintain a stable government within the country.
17 - They have failed to understand the differences
a - between Shiite and Sunni,
b - between Al Queda and Saddam,
c - between Radical Islamic Jihadi Fundamentalism and Soviet-Era Cold War aggression.
18 - They have failed to really determine the source(s) of the insurgency and how to communicate with them.
19 - They have failed to maintain quality intelligence.
In the film The Fog of War, Robert McNamara underlines the fact that the war in Vietnam, prior to heavy US involvement, was a Civil War between the North and South Vietnamese and not a war of Chinese Communist Aggression. We did not know this because no one was directly communicating with the North Vietnamese.
Maybe I am missing something. How else can we possibly fail? How can we pull victory from the jaws of defeat? George Will stated in a June Newsweek op ed how Iraq is the result of lines drawn in the sand at the end of the First World War, and that the clumsy shaping of that country then has beeen partly the cause of a century of strife in that neck of the woods.
I'll define what failure means to this administration: It is the realization that it is impossible to bring a country Democracy by force. Democracy is an act of the people, by the people, and for the people. To impose it, like some Crusading Christian Conquistador, is democrazy.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Words Written on Leaves...
...and leaves of paper.
As this semester has progressed I am firmly beginning to believe that my best writing has been contained to one and two sentences reactions written when evaluating student assignments. [Come May, I will have read approximately 1500 pages of student writing between two sections of the Aesthetics course I teach at George Mason University and evaluated 90 web pages crafted in the Visual Literacy course I teach at American. This says nothing for the other two courses I teach]. If I were disciplined and conscientious, I would copy some of these various scribbles down in a journal… a blog seems as good a place as any.
As this semester has progressed I am firmly beginning to believe that my best writing has been contained to one and two sentences reactions written when evaluating student assignments. [Come May, I will have read approximately 1500 pages of student writing between two sections of the Aesthetics course I teach at George Mason University and evaluated 90 web pages crafted in the Visual Literacy course I teach at American. This says nothing for the other two courses I teach]. If I were disciplined and conscientious, I would copy some of these various scribbles down in a journal… a blog seems as good a place as any.
Food for Thought
Yesterday in a class I teach at George Mason I referenced the work of Mary Coble's performance at Connor Contemporary in late 2005. That performance was titled "Note to Self." Last March I produced a piece with 3000 PostIt Notes stuck to a bus stop titled "Note 2 Self." I should double check the titles I assign to my pieces. Apologies, Mary.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Terms of Art Criticism in DC
This was penned in response to a News and Features response on City Paper's City Desk. Some of it is a response to the whole thing. Some of it is in response to a post on ARTifice
This discourse enumerates a couple of great facts about the terms of arts criticism in DC.
1) The blog is now an established forum in which to write, and to paraphrase Andy Warhol, “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.” Any review, be it on a blog or in a newspaper, possesses value. It is up to the artist who is clipping those criticisms to determine that value, but even the most ignorant and poorly written blog can shed a bit of light for the artist about the public response to his work. This has nothing to say for blog-savvy-ness or the death of print.
2) Though many are shabby, there are a fair majority of blogs that serve to inform those surfing the blogosphere of an assortment of events and happenings that never or rarely appear in “print.” If The Post (or any other paper in the region) can take the time to articulately and briefly respond to something as interesting and fleeting as Tapeman’s recent Cirque de Thomas Circle – the traffic-go-round of tapecast jungle-gym horses he installed in Thomas Circle - that would be of greater benefit and inspiration to many more in the Nation’s Capital (and beyond) than the trite scribbles of TomKat’s rumored move to Maryland or the latest Fashion Trends in Milan. Alas, such reporting, or at least informing, is left to the blogs; this function is similar to the birth of newspapers, wherein the source of news might spring from a rumor floating about. Ethical standards for quality blogs will soon follow.
3) There are many blogs out there that go through some professional rigor. Consider the blog at SAAM, which goes through a whole system of checks and balances before being published. True, this is a professional blog, and not half-cocked like ARTifice or even my own blog. Spell check only gets so much; it wouldn’t get the Sculpture typo that Glenn Dixon writes about, but a solid proof-read may. As such, the web log only holds so much water. If I were to write on economics and public policy that would be one thing. But I would still much rather read Robert Reich’s blog because the 22nd Secretary of Labor is going to be more informed and have a more acute perspective than my ramblings. However, if I were to aspire to be a Secretary of Labor, or, more specifically a critic for (insert print publication here), maybe the practice of keeping that log would better inform my style and development, warts and all. Dixon’s points on proofreading and follow up are absolutely necessary, even at the pedestrian and novice level for those with serious aspirations of turning the hobby into something more astute. This will become the ethics of blogging, and it is already happening. So, though “A blog entry is subject to little of the effort and none of the rigor afforded even the most lighthearted graf of printed copy,” (Dixon) there is no reason to suspect that for some it won’t – it’ll just be without all the yelling of the higher-ups.
Print is not going to die. Ever. The proof of which rests on every bookshelf and coffee table across the nation. And while blogs will persist, there are statistics available illustrating that the number of blogs being created and maintained is starting to drop - the honeymoon is over. What the blog may be capable of doing is scuttling some of the lesser content-driven magazines and killing the lesser content-crafting art sections. But, the truest litmus test for the arts critic will rest within the content, and as per Darwin, many blogs and columns will shrink and fade away into extinction. Content needs to be driven to a goal beyond advertising, beyond the squalid information of “this show is happening here and this is what it looks like.” The content needs to have an agenda. We all cannot stand Gopnik, but there is no arguing that he has an agenda, and therefore 3,000 words with which to dispel that agenda (“for bad video” - Bailey). And if not an agenda, it needs to set a tone for a broader discourse that is of greater interest to a general populous.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Capturing the Capital
Tuesday, March 13th, Niels Van Tomme and I set out to Capture the Capital! with roughly 60 minutes of footage to be compressed into a 1 minute commercial promoting the event, Multimediale. Versions coming to a YouTube near you.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Devil's Advocate
I produced this piece in 2005 during the sensationalism surrounding Terri Schiavo and I tried to comprehend both sides of the argument as best as I could. My grandfather was dying at the time - a drawn out fight with bone cancer - and this was the last piece of art he saw prior to his passing... unless you count Lawrence Welk.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Obamania!
Unfortunately I'll be missing Wait-Wait Don't Tell Me for the next several weeks. Joe Biden... God Bless Him.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Round and Round
With crossed fingers, a grant from DCCAH, and assistance from a school of architects in Charlotte, NC I am hoping to embark upon the construction of a few receptacles for the second installment of Gestalt, which will cover the event Multimediale. I have been trying to ascertain from whom I should ask for a permit from the city government so I can place these "vending machines" in the public sphere.
I called Surface Permits and they directed me to Jose Colon. However, Mr. Colon tells me he deals with driveways and retaining walls. He told me to call Sam Williams who deals with special events and vending for the Department of Consumer Regulatory Affairs. He's a little tough to get a hold of, so I dialed his assistant, Curtis Wise who deals specifically with vending. He told me to call the Department of Transportation for permission.
This afternoon I called DC DOT and spoke with Bill. He told me the person I need to speak with is Jose Colon...
I called Surface Permits and they directed me to Jose Colon. However, Mr. Colon tells me he deals with driveways and retaining walls. He told me to call Sam Williams who deals with special events and vending for the Department of Consumer Regulatory Affairs. He's a little tough to get a hold of, so I dialed his assistant, Curtis Wise who deals specifically with vending. He told me to call the Department of Transportation for permission.
This afternoon I called DC DOT and spoke with Bill. He told me the person I need to speak with is Jose Colon...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Rhyolite
I'd never been to California or Nevada before the beginning of the month. And while I'll shy away from those reflections of the world's fifth largest economy, for now, I will state one thing about about Nevada. There are a lot of bored people there. Evidence - every road sign we crossed had been pock-marked by buckshot and the shoulders are paved with a menagerie of broken bottles.
Rhyolite served as a mining town at the beginning of the last century. The town bloomed to about 10,000 around 1905, and by 1910 it was a memory. The mines bore less fruit than were hoped, the people packed up and moved on. Few houses remain. Oddly one new house existed, with paint and furniture that was held ransome by the hope of housing a tour guide for this region of decaying shelter.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Hot off the Press
Late this morning I took a drive into Maryland to begin working with printmaker Katja Oxman on a new edition of a print she had been working on. This was my first experience as her press assistant.
The last exhibition of her work I saw was in 2005 at the Chautauqua Center for the Visual Arts, where I was working for the summer (she has exhibited several times since). The gallery director, Tom Ranesses, had been a student of hers at American University and had been her press assistant on and off since the mid 1980s. The show was a mix of her prints and her husband, Mark’s, sculpture. For the better part of a year I had familiarized myself with what Katja’s work looked like on the catalogue hanging from Mark’s sculpture studio door when I was his TA during my third semester of graduate study at American, but never had I seen one in person. Then I got to install what ostensibly could be considered a retrospective (of sorts).
Katja generally completes between two and three prints in a year (size depending) and as a result the work has not changed a great deal in the last thirty years: aquatints of still life consisting of ornate carpets, museum postcards, and jewelry boxes – keepsakes if you will. Evolution within the work has consisted of the addition of insects, plants, and most recently windows. There are also variations in size and compositions involving diptychs and triptychs. After working in the studio with her today, running three prints through the press, I can see why the change has been slight and gradual.
The process of printing the piece (for example the work above) consists of inking three plates - yellow, red, and blue (the above would take nine, three for each section). This also creates an isssue of registration so all three plates align. Where wiping the plates is concerned, the copper plates can be handled much more aggressively than a zinc-alloy plate I first worked on in graduate school - copper is more forgiving and flexible. Though, this still does not give credence to rush through the process. One print took me around 45 minutes to (help) create. Maybe it’ll get faster in the coming weeks as I continue to assist her on the press to the point where accomplishing five to six in my three to four hour window of time seems possible.
What is truly certain is how enjoyable it is to be in a print studio again: watching the ink bead and roll across the surface of the plate as the ink is applied; the texture of the tarlatan in hand to wipe the plate; the reveal of the plate as the ink is removed and the luster of it returns to the surface; the give of the press as the plate rolls along the bed. I may quickly tire of the repetition in several months, but the return is welcoming.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Corcoran: Faculty Exhibition II
This evening’s opening at the Corcoran’s Second Installment of Faculty Work was interesting. It served as a good opportunity to view the work of many of my colleagues I teach alongside – only a couple of them I have met.
What I wanted to really engage was the public response to a work that I do not think would otherwise be accepted into any of the calls for entry that I could participate. The documentation of Note 2 Self made its debut this evening, along with the opportunity for individuals to participate, and many people were.
Earlier this week I bumped into Mark Cameron Boyd at the Katzen, reworking his installation outside the museum. He currently has three of his chalkboards available for people to fill in. And some have in rather obscene ways. We talked about that briefly and he mentioned how he has to accept that some people are going to interpret his work differently than his intentions, and if he is inviting people to contribute to the piece he has to except and accept that. This is the polite and academic way to state that there are those who will vandalize.
So, I was not surprised to see someone write “imposter” on a Post-It, or to actually write on the wall. Such defiance I was expecting. People were defiant the first time this was exhibited in a bus stop in late March. As for the imposter, I might have egged that on.
This piece I naturally assumed would have a relationship to Frank Warren’s Post Secret for two reasons: the public participation of personal/private (though innocuous) information, and because the material – a Post-It Note – has a relationship to the first word in Warren’s title. Anticipating that, and in a lousy hope to avoid that I have prefaced both the installation and the documentation by requesting that not be what is added in my piece. In fact, this time I explicitly requested participants to reserve all secrets for Warren’s piece.
HISTORY -- Note 2 Self was a piece conceived a little over one year ago waiting to commute to work when I was considering all of the chores I had to get done in the gallery, and what was left undone at home. And, judging the way people stared off into space waiting around me, I figured I wasn’t the only one. Even when my nose was in a book I was thinking but things to get done.
The Post-It Note has been a regular convention of my upbringing, and from the age of seven I remember that was how we communicated with one another about phone messages, groceries to get, and if I was going to the park to play basketball. (It’s only coincidence that my cousin art is one of the inventors; I’ve never met him to my knowledge, but I am told he is rather pleasant and humble.) I wanted to cover that bus stop in Post-It Notes, but hadn’t figured out how.
Fast forward nearly two months and I saw Frank Warren’s brilliant project in the old Georgetown Staples. I’d heard about it on Kojo, I’d been sent the link by a friend, and I even recalled the article in the Post. What I did not do was think about my little piece. Sometime later I thought there could be a relationship between the two, it is plausible that all the media attention of Warren’s work had primed my consciousness to conceive this piece, and I was willing to credit that plausibility. But, Post Secret starts with what is a seemingly profound and private secret and turns it into something more universal. I’m beginning with the universal and the banal, but highlighting the monumentality of an act of disposable authorship. Post cards we keep, and Warren publishes on a blog and in a couple of books. Post It Notes lay to waste in litter baskets and city dumps. Both contain something written and important. Both are organisms and public spectacles.
For a moment I had a bit of injured pride when I read the word “imposter.” But there is something empowering about that. I have inspired someone to publicly, and anonymously, heckle my work in an effort to humiliate me. When all is said and done that Post-It Note will be framed alongside the Post-It from the original installation – the Post It Note also anonymously authored that says “I love this piece.”
What I wanted to really engage was the public response to a work that I do not think would otherwise be accepted into any of the calls for entry that I could participate. The documentation of Note 2 Self made its debut this evening, along with the opportunity for individuals to participate, and many people were.
Earlier this week I bumped into Mark Cameron Boyd at the Katzen, reworking his installation outside the museum. He currently has three of his chalkboards available for people to fill in. And some have in rather obscene ways. We talked about that briefly and he mentioned how he has to accept that some people are going to interpret his work differently than his intentions, and if he is inviting people to contribute to the piece he has to except and accept that. This is the polite and academic way to state that there are those who will vandalize.
So, I was not surprised to see someone write “imposter” on a Post-It, or to actually write on the wall. Such defiance I was expecting. People were defiant the first time this was exhibited in a bus stop in late March. As for the imposter, I might have egged that on.
This piece I naturally assumed would have a relationship to Frank Warren’s Post Secret for two reasons: the public participation of personal/private (though innocuous) information, and because the material – a Post-It Note – has a relationship to the first word in Warren’s title. Anticipating that, and in a lousy hope to avoid that I have prefaced both the installation and the documentation by requesting that not be what is added in my piece. In fact, this time I explicitly requested participants to reserve all secrets for Warren’s piece.
HISTORY -- Note 2 Self was a piece conceived a little over one year ago waiting to commute to work when I was considering all of the chores I had to get done in the gallery, and what was left undone at home. And, judging the way people stared off into space waiting around me, I figured I wasn’t the only one. Even when my nose was in a book I was thinking but things to get done.
The Post-It Note has been a regular convention of my upbringing, and from the age of seven I remember that was how we communicated with one another about phone messages, groceries to get, and if I was going to the park to play basketball. (It’s only coincidence that my cousin art is one of the inventors; I’ve never met him to my knowledge, but I am told he is rather pleasant and humble.) I wanted to cover that bus stop in Post-It Notes, but hadn’t figured out how.
Fast forward nearly two months and I saw Frank Warren’s brilliant project in the old Georgetown Staples. I’d heard about it on Kojo, I’d been sent the link by a friend, and I even recalled the article in the Post. What I did not do was think about my little piece. Sometime later I thought there could be a relationship between the two, it is plausible that all the media attention of Warren’s work had primed my consciousness to conceive this piece, and I was willing to credit that plausibility. But, Post Secret starts with what is a seemingly profound and private secret and turns it into something more universal. I’m beginning with the universal and the banal, but highlighting the monumentality of an act of disposable authorship. Post cards we keep, and Warren publishes on a blog and in a couple of books. Post It Notes lay to waste in litter baskets and city dumps. Both contain something written and important. Both are organisms and public spectacles.
For a moment I had a bit of injured pride when I read the word “imposter.” But there is something empowering about that. I have inspired someone to publicly, and anonymously, heckle my work in an effort to humiliate me. When all is said and done that Post-It Note will be framed alongside the Post-It from the original installation – the Post It Note also anonymously authored that says “I love this piece.”
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Caution: Rhetoric Ahead - SIlver Wings
I had the spare time to make it down to the Corcoran this evening for the third installation of the new and experimental media series juried by Paul Roth and Peggy Parsons this evening, and I am rather thankful I did. Granted, few if any of the pieces chosen really challenged new and experimental media that had not already been laid in the foundations we can collectively call the 1960s, but this does not mean the vivid and sometimes wonderful abstractions of film were not worth watching. Quite the contrary: I enjoyed nearly all the videos. Granted, I have a new-found fear of pigeons, and a pang of curiosity why Gene Kelly was juxtaposed with Bobby Kennedy, but if you weren’t there, I’m not going to go into detail.
There were two flaws with the production of the evening. The first was the obvious problem of failing media. Two discs failed, which, while shortening the length of the evening by 20 minutes was acceptable, watching the struggle was not. Compounded by the stop, play and reading of discs, it should be ne3cessary for the WPA/Corcoran to realize that they need to consolidate all media onto one disc, submission into the exhibition is consent by the artist for this to occur. Since this is series is in its beginnings, this flaw is quite forgivable. Five years from now, people might still overlook it, but only with chagrin.
Flaw two has a relationship to a Frank Lloyd Wright criticism of architecture of the early industrial age recapitulating architecture of antiquity and the ancients. Consider: if film is an extension of theatre, erecting the fourth wall to distance the actor from the audience, why are we exposed only to movies in an experimental media series. There was little experimental with tonight’s work. Overlapped film/video goes back to (S) Einstein… maybe further. The combination of live music and video in psychedelic tones (even if it is T2 and Total Recall mashed and symmetrical) invokes The Velvet Underground at the Factory. Meditations on film projectors, dancing Egyptian girls at a wedding, or Monarch butterflies migrating, even with funky Final Cut and After Effects tweaks, does not inspire anything more than a film of a man sleeping or of clouds passing the Empire State Building. Pigeons in slow motion… hi, Bill Viola! I take nothing away from the artists on exhibit this evening, but I want to punctuate one thing: there was nothing experimental… except maybe to the artists… and some of the people watching. If I throw paint on the canvas I am experimenting. But Pollock has already done it, and hundreds of thousands of others since.
I also object to the label of new media for this series. Media represents the display of several medium(s). This was new video, and only new in the same sense that Déjà Vu or Deck the Halls is new, and even then only kinda. Let’s be willing to call a spade a spade.
There were two flaws with the production of the evening. The first was the obvious problem of failing media. Two discs failed, which, while shortening the length of the evening by 20 minutes was acceptable, watching the struggle was not. Compounded by the stop, play and reading of discs, it should be ne3cessary for the WPA/Corcoran to realize that they need to consolidate all media onto one disc, submission into the exhibition is consent by the artist for this to occur. Since this is series is in its beginnings, this flaw is quite forgivable. Five years from now, people might still overlook it, but only with chagrin.
Flaw two has a relationship to a Frank Lloyd Wright criticism of architecture of the early industrial age recapitulating architecture of antiquity and the ancients. Consider: if film is an extension of theatre, erecting the fourth wall to distance the actor from the audience, why are we exposed only to movies in an experimental media series. There was little experimental with tonight’s work. Overlapped film/video goes back to (S) Einstein… maybe further. The combination of live music and video in psychedelic tones (even if it is T2 and Total Recall mashed and symmetrical) invokes The Velvet Underground at the Factory. Meditations on film projectors, dancing Egyptian girls at a wedding, or Monarch butterflies migrating, even with funky Final Cut and After Effects tweaks, does not inspire anything more than a film of a man sleeping or of clouds passing the Empire State Building. Pigeons in slow motion… hi, Bill Viola! I take nothing away from the artists on exhibit this evening, but I want to punctuate one thing: there was nothing experimental… except maybe to the artists… and some of the people watching. If I throw paint on the canvas I am experimenting. But Pollock has already done it, and hundreds of thousands of others since.
I also object to the label of new media for this series. Media represents the display of several medium(s). This was new video, and only new in the same sense that Déjà Vu or Deck the Halls is new, and even then only kinda. Let’s be willing to call a spade a spade.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
An Open Letter to Claudia Rousseau
I am writing this with the full intent of explaining a question that Claudia Rousseau raised within her review of the current exhibition at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery, which contains an installation of mine. In her article in the Rockville Gazette, she mentioned how surprised she was to see that in neither my artist statement nor my newspaper did I give any mention or credit to Mimmo Rotella. For this there are several good explanations to dissuade such conjecture.
The first is an issue of avoidance. Not so much skirting the work of others for the sake to appear original, but more for the sake of not watching people’s eyes glaze over. The learned artist, critic, gallerist, or historian, interested in contemporary art and with a wide knowledge of Pop-like movements that occurred across the pond, might know the name of Mimmo Rotella. He is/was well-known in Italy since the mid to late 1950s in and outside of the art circles. But, for a pedestrian, American audience that might scarcely know the name of Tom Wesselman or James Rosenquist (and there are many… don’t kid yourselves oh learned minority, because three years ago I was a member of that audience), Mimmo Rotella first requires a double take to first discern the pronunciation and then a definition to follow.
The second issue can be summarized by the early career of Jacques Villegle. To define: Rotella and Villegle both veered into collage and decollage about the same time in the late 1950s. Because Villegle was in Paris and Rotella in Rome, neither knew well of the other’s interest of this method of working at first – which, to be specific and simple, involved ripping down full street posters and gluing them to canvases. Forty plus years later I came to Rome for a second time, knew nothing of the work of either man, and began tearing down whole stinking and bug infested posters only to dissect them like an archaeologist so I could reassemble them through means I thought might be more archival or at least solvent. I was thinking of Schwitters, and the street was my dustbin. Then, these collages became studies for paintings.
Now, I can’t fault my art history teacher, Terry Kirk*, for setting foot in the studios for the first time AT THE END of the semester, AT THE END of my first year of graduate school, to inform me of Mimmo Rotella’s work when I was studying in Rome. Nor can I justify his incredulity toward my ignorance of the man. All I can say is sorry. The state of Iowa kind of stops at Grant Wood in public art school education. Ana Mendieta doesn’t even get a nod (or club OJ candidate Carl Andre, for that matter).
I returned to the States to complete my second year of graduate study, which is an additional hamstring. Finding scholarship on either Rotella or Villegle is difficult, let alone one in a language I can read. And, to be faithful to my initial inclinations of interest in those smelly posters, it was the halftone, color, typography, and play between representational and abstract that were of greater interests. Process became a second, because it played as a rich analogy for the history of Rome and Roman architecture: built up over time, stripped away by vandals, and built up again. Only in the States did I begin thinking about new narratives and the meaning of the words, critique on culture, economy, or politics. And the only reason I can think it took so damn long is because I was forced into an environment with adequate ventilation where I wasn’t huffing turps for a couple months.
In short, Rotella is incidental. So is Villegle. Two guys I’d never heard of before, on a continent that isn’t mine, speaking languages I can scarcely speak, doing work that is a novelty to this Midwesterner. After all, there aren’t a lot of posters plastered in the cornfields (though I am certain Monsanto has thought of it) – just baseball diamonds. Be that as it may, even with my recent scholarship, he still remains incidental. His work, as he has stated, was a rebellion, “…the only way of protesting against a society that has lost the taste for change and fantastic transformations.” (Hentschel; Mimmo Rotella) On the other hand, I don’t have much rebellion in me, just sarcasm.
Rotella’s work now remains as a document, a record, an archive, an objet d’arte, instead of a painting (not painted). I can nod to him as someone who has done similar work. But I hope to take it somewhere different. That stated, I am certain there are tens of people who have done likewise before me. I’ll never know of it – I’ll probably never meet them – and it doesn’t invalidate my work anymore than Caravaggio invalidates de la Tour (despite the difference that what I’ve done is mostly a priori).
So, that’s why I don’t mention Rotella. Because it takes me seven paragraphs (not including this one), and eight hundred words to do so. And that is without going into the sordid history of growing up in a test-market, studying graphic design, mentioning Hannah Hoch, and on, and on, and on. The end.
*note: Terry Kirk is still the best damn and most entertaining art history professor I have had the pleasure to learn from and in his defense he had too much on his plate that semester in Rome. And, no, that link was not a picture of John Waters
The first is an issue of avoidance. Not so much skirting the work of others for the sake to appear original, but more for the sake of not watching people’s eyes glaze over. The learned artist, critic, gallerist, or historian, interested in contemporary art and with a wide knowledge of Pop-like movements that occurred across the pond, might know the name of Mimmo Rotella. He is/was well-known in Italy since the mid to late 1950s in and outside of the art circles. But, for a pedestrian, American audience that might scarcely know the name of Tom Wesselman or James Rosenquist (and there are many… don’t kid yourselves oh learned minority, because three years ago I was a member of that audience), Mimmo Rotella first requires a double take to first discern the pronunciation and then a definition to follow.
The second issue can be summarized by the early career of Jacques Villegle. To define: Rotella and Villegle both veered into collage and decollage about the same time in the late 1950s. Because Villegle was in Paris and Rotella in Rome, neither knew well of the other’s interest of this method of working at first – which, to be specific and simple, involved ripping down full street posters and gluing them to canvases. Forty plus years later I came to Rome for a second time, knew nothing of the work of either man, and began tearing down whole stinking and bug infested posters only to dissect them like an archaeologist so I could reassemble them through means I thought might be more archival or at least solvent. I was thinking of Schwitters, and the street was my dustbin. Then, these collages became studies for paintings.
Now, I can’t fault my art history teacher, Terry Kirk*, for setting foot in the studios for the first time AT THE END of the semester, AT THE END of my first year of graduate school, to inform me of Mimmo Rotella’s work when I was studying in Rome. Nor can I justify his incredulity toward my ignorance of the man. All I can say is sorry. The state of Iowa kind of stops at Grant Wood in public art school education. Ana Mendieta doesn’t even get a nod (or club OJ candidate Carl Andre, for that matter).
I returned to the States to complete my second year of graduate study, which is an additional hamstring. Finding scholarship on either Rotella or Villegle is difficult, let alone one in a language I can read. And, to be faithful to my initial inclinations of interest in those smelly posters, it was the halftone, color, typography, and play between representational and abstract that were of greater interests. Process became a second, because it played as a rich analogy for the history of Rome and Roman architecture: built up over time, stripped away by vandals, and built up again. Only in the States did I begin thinking about new narratives and the meaning of the words, critique on culture, economy, or politics. And the only reason I can think it took so damn long is because I was forced into an environment with adequate ventilation where I wasn’t huffing turps for a couple months.
In short, Rotella is incidental. So is Villegle. Two guys I’d never heard of before, on a continent that isn’t mine, speaking languages I can scarcely speak, doing work that is a novelty to this Midwesterner. After all, there aren’t a lot of posters plastered in the cornfields (though I am certain Monsanto has thought of it) – just baseball diamonds. Be that as it may, even with my recent scholarship, he still remains incidental. His work, as he has stated, was a rebellion, “…the only way of protesting against a society that has lost the taste for change and fantastic transformations.” (Hentschel; Mimmo Rotella) On the other hand, I don’t have much rebellion in me, just sarcasm.
Rotella’s work now remains as a document, a record, an archive, an objet d’arte, instead of a painting (not painted). I can nod to him as someone who has done similar work. But I hope to take it somewhere different. That stated, I am certain there are tens of people who have done likewise before me. I’ll never know of it – I’ll probably never meet them – and it doesn’t invalidate my work anymore than Caravaggio invalidates de la Tour (despite the difference that what I’ve done is mostly a priori).
So, that’s why I don’t mention Rotella. Because it takes me seven paragraphs (not including this one), and eight hundred words to do so. And that is without going into the sordid history of growing up in a test-market, studying graphic design, mentioning Hannah Hoch, and on, and on, and on. The end.
*note: Terry Kirk is still the best damn and most entertaining art history professor I have had the pleasure to learn from and in his defense he had too much on his plate that semester in Rome. And, no, that link was not a picture of John Waters
Friday, November 17, 2006
Website Up
In the past week I have been tweaking a design for a website and it is finally up. Granted, it is hosted by American University, so please forgive me for not boring you with a long title. For the mean time, this will be my website
Meanwhile, the following is a link to a recent review of the work at Glenview Mansion. Which means I'll need to update the bibliography on my resume and repost it to my website. Management...
Meanwhile, the following is a link to a recent review of the work at Glenview Mansion. Which means I'll need to update the bibliography on my resume and repost it to my website. Management...
A Conversation with Alice
The following entry, a conversation with Alice Denney, is taken from the first issue of Gestalt, published shortly before the first of November. Copies can be found at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery and DCCAH.
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Discussing ideas on how to bolster the arts scene in Washington, DC through collaboration and the exhibition of multi-media seemed an appropriate subject with Alice Denney. She has seen it all, and her influence would only require a glimpse through her CV. In 1958 she opened The Jefferson Place Gallery. In 1962 she was instrumental with the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in DC. She took a leave of absence from the museum to work as the United States Vice Commissioner for the Venice Biennale under Alan Solomon in 1964. There were the happenings she organized in the mid 1960s with Rauschenberg and Cage and Oldenberg. Finally there was her stint with the WPA between 1975, when she helped found the organization, until her “retirement” in 1980.
The conversation, however, focused less on collaboration and multi-media, and more on the challenges of the greater Washington arts scene as she has experienced and observed. Five recurrent themes were expressed.
1. More venues for experimental arts.
“Galleries are important. But they need to take chances!” Alice Denney understood that from the moment she opened The Jefferson Place Gallery. In 1958 she opened the gallery with the express interest of providing artists in Washington a venue to exhibit the work they wanted to exhibit. She exhibited artists from American University - Ben Summerford and Robert Gates - as well as the DC colorists like Kenneth Noland. The differences in styles were evident as were their differences in where painting should go next. In order to advance the ideas of art and how art functions, a gallery must be willing to take chances for the sake of the artists. Ironically in order for a gallery to stay in business it must sell those chances to a buyer. She observed the many exhibitions of her good friend Annie Gawlik at G-Fine Art and recognized Annie's exhibitions as some of the gutsiest. Alice then pointed across her living room to a Luis Silva toadstool, “that show got no attention. A lot of Annie's shows don't get any attention. Luis's exhibition was genius! It was exactly the sort of thing DC needs more of. But, who wrote about it? Working in galleries is tough business.”
Observing the model of the 14th street, where in a given hour a person can observe the work in Transformer, Irvine, G, Adamson, and Hemphill. “At the very least there needs to be some sort of core for experimental and emerging arts. If The WPA, and Transformer and The Warehouse Gallery and a couple of other galleries were to get together you would have a center. One space. So that you know when you are going there you have something new and exciting (to see). And it can be a learning process, so that when people are curious it doesn't have to take so much time (driving from place to place).”
2. Nurture an audience interested not just in collecting, but also learning about the work.
It was this idea, learning about the art, that Alice continually emphasized about her experiences. “There was an audience who wanted to learn. That was the interesting thing. It wasn't Bohemian. In my day there were crowds of people who went around to the gallery openings. Oldenburg had his group. Andy (Warhol) had his group. And it was the groups that would flow between the scenes. Now it's just a mob,” This kind of mob is sometimes observed at most openings where the audience is mixed between the willing acolytes, the mad collectors, and the people who are simply there to be seen in rhinestone studded designer Yankees t-shirts sipping white wine.
“You have to understand, I've never been a collector.” She said. “I mean, sure, I bought a couple of pieces.” She pointed to her paintings and sculpture. “But I think of this like my scrap board. I mean, I wasn't a saint about it, but it helped those artists out. They were young and no one knew who they were. But, I was also interested in their work!” Collectors she defined as the people who would harass Leo Castelli and insistent that they would do anything to buy the next Jasper Johns, to pay any price above the other collectors situated on the list, also demanding the same attention.
3. Criticism.
“There is nobody who is reviewing the work (in print), just a little bit. Artists need critical feedback to know that, 'well, maybe this isn't working.'” This has been the biggest criticism on the blogosphere, of late, and judging by Alice's comments, perhaps the largest criticism before the internet. DC possesses no constant printed criticism, as was pointed out in a December 20, 2005 posting on Lenny Campello's dcartnews.blogspot.com. He pointed out that, in a given month, the Washington Post might have four articles critiquing the art around DC, and that The Arts section of The Post is inappropriately named. For example, sometime after the interview with Alice, pop celebrity Ashton Kutcher's transformation, from little-screen bozo to big-screen action star, recently graced the front of the Arts section. Being neither from Washington, nor an artist, this observation epitomizes the commentaries by Campello and Ms. Denney. “DC has never had an arts writer. Gopnik is trying to report on world-class art in London. Who really cares about art in London? Who here is going to go see it? Richards was pulled from the sports section. Jessica Dawson is taking art classes to learn more about it. So at least she is trying!”
It was that effort she appreciated most. In the hey-day of Alice Denney, when she was bringing experimental theatre to Washington, DC there was one critic who got it. A critic for DC must have the flexibility to understand and critique not only the popular but the experimental theatre, dance, the plastic arts, and multi media as well as the courage to say what is or is not working and why.
4. Politicians need to stay in politics.
When a politician, politician's spouse, or potential judicial nominee to the higher courts gets on the boards of arts organizations, more often will they make decisions that do less damage to their careers. “Politicians aren't real,” she said. “They have to appeal to a constituency back home so they can get re-elected.” Art has taken much the same route. She described an incident from the early days of the Museum of Modern Art in DC, wherein a Tom Wesselman All-American Nude was rejected from an exhibition, at the insistence of a member of the museum board - the wife of a senator from Pennsylvania - because the likeness of Jack Kennedy was also in the painting. “Almost all of the Pop Artists were willing to pull their work out in support of Tom,” she finished.
Alice cited the Mapplethorpe Show as another example. “The Corcoran never would have had a problem with the Mapplethorpe exhibition.” The irony of the Mapplethorpe exhibition is in the many years that have followed, the show has had a near legendary infamy more for the fact that the Corcoran chose not to exhibit the work rather than the content of the work. After the Corcoran dropped the show, the WPA picked it up after Alice prodded the board. “It turned out to be one of the best shows at the WPA! Granted, everyone was nervous with the reputation that was built up over the thing, and they decided to place the most sensitive work in one room. But, that room was packed! That's where everyone wanted to go!”
5. Koons = Bad Porn.
“I hate to sound terrible. I feel like I've seen it all. Even multi-media. That doesn't move me. It seems so mechanical. It seems easy. I watched those artists (in the 1960s) struggle using such rudimentary materials. And the beauty that came out was just spectacular. When we were doing happenings we were doing them on tennis courts and skating rinks. Our equipment was not that sophisticated.” She gestured approximating the volume of a reel-to-reel projector with her hands. “We'd show this (equipment) to the audience and they'd laugh! But then we would show this beautiful performance. When I see some of the video things (today), it just goes back to old Andy Warhol. (It was interesting) then because he was in the groove; it was the first time.”
Amid the rinse and repeat of some forms of art since the beginning of the 1970s, Denney mentioned the work of Hirst and Koons who were polluting the environment. “(Koons) was selling stocks before he got into art. All he did was know how to market and publicize himself. Even his version of pornography was bad porn.”
Sadly, Koons's and Hirst's versions of art are not reflections of art or culture, but of a market that caters to collectors and the idea that art is more about shock and awe and less about an intelligent and sometimes emotional perceptual cognition. But if there is safety in numbers, then it is groups of artists who can collaborate and spearhead these five initiatives.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussing ideas on how to bolster the arts scene in Washington, DC through collaboration and the exhibition of multi-media seemed an appropriate subject with Alice Denney. She has seen it all, and her influence would only require a glimpse through her CV. In 1958 she opened The Jefferson Place Gallery. In 1962 she was instrumental with the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in DC. She took a leave of absence from the museum to work as the United States Vice Commissioner for the Venice Biennale under Alan Solomon in 1964. There were the happenings she organized in the mid 1960s with Rauschenberg and Cage and Oldenberg. Finally there was her stint with the WPA between 1975, when she helped found the organization, until her “retirement” in 1980.
The conversation, however, focused less on collaboration and multi-media, and more on the challenges of the greater Washington arts scene as she has experienced and observed. Five recurrent themes were expressed.
1. More venues for experimental arts.
“Galleries are important. But they need to take chances!” Alice Denney understood that from the moment she opened The Jefferson Place Gallery. In 1958 she opened the gallery with the express interest of providing artists in Washington a venue to exhibit the work they wanted to exhibit. She exhibited artists from American University - Ben Summerford and Robert Gates - as well as the DC colorists like Kenneth Noland. The differences in styles were evident as were their differences in where painting should go next. In order to advance the ideas of art and how art functions, a gallery must be willing to take chances for the sake of the artists. Ironically in order for a gallery to stay in business it must sell those chances to a buyer. She observed the many exhibitions of her good friend Annie Gawlik at G-Fine Art and recognized Annie's exhibitions as some of the gutsiest. Alice then pointed across her living room to a Luis Silva toadstool, “that show got no attention. A lot of Annie's shows don't get any attention. Luis's exhibition was genius! It was exactly the sort of thing DC needs more of. But, who wrote about it? Working in galleries is tough business.”
Observing the model of the 14th street, where in a given hour a person can observe the work in Transformer, Irvine, G, Adamson, and Hemphill. “At the very least there needs to be some sort of core for experimental and emerging arts. If The WPA, and Transformer and The Warehouse Gallery and a couple of other galleries were to get together you would have a center. One space. So that you know when you are going there you have something new and exciting (to see). And it can be a learning process, so that when people are curious it doesn't have to take so much time (driving from place to place).”
2. Nurture an audience interested not just in collecting, but also learning about the work.
It was this idea, learning about the art, that Alice continually emphasized about her experiences. “There was an audience who wanted to learn. That was the interesting thing. It wasn't Bohemian. In my day there were crowds of people who went around to the gallery openings. Oldenburg had his group. Andy (Warhol) had his group. And it was the groups that would flow between the scenes. Now it's just a mob,” This kind of mob is sometimes observed at most openings where the audience is mixed between the willing acolytes, the mad collectors, and the people who are simply there to be seen in rhinestone studded designer Yankees t-shirts sipping white wine.
“You have to understand, I've never been a collector.” She said. “I mean, sure, I bought a couple of pieces.” She pointed to her paintings and sculpture. “But I think of this like my scrap board. I mean, I wasn't a saint about it, but it helped those artists out. They were young and no one knew who they were. But, I was also interested in their work!” Collectors she defined as the people who would harass Leo Castelli and insistent that they would do anything to buy the next Jasper Johns, to pay any price above the other collectors situated on the list, also demanding the same attention.
3. Criticism.
“There is nobody who is reviewing the work (in print), just a little bit. Artists need critical feedback to know that, 'well, maybe this isn't working.'” This has been the biggest criticism on the blogosphere, of late, and judging by Alice's comments, perhaps the largest criticism before the internet. DC possesses no constant printed criticism, as was pointed out in a December 20, 2005 posting on Lenny Campello's dcartnews.blogspot.com. He pointed out that, in a given month, the Washington Post might have four articles critiquing the art around DC, and that The Arts section of The Post is inappropriately named. For example, sometime after the interview with Alice, pop celebrity Ashton Kutcher's transformation, from little-screen bozo to big-screen action star, recently graced the front of the Arts section. Being neither from Washington, nor an artist, this observation epitomizes the commentaries by Campello and Ms. Denney. “DC has never had an arts writer. Gopnik is trying to report on world-class art in London. Who really cares about art in London? Who here is going to go see it? Richards was pulled from the sports section. Jessica Dawson is taking art classes to learn more about it. So at least she is trying!”
It was that effort she appreciated most. In the hey-day of Alice Denney, when she was bringing experimental theatre to Washington, DC there was one critic who got it. A critic for DC must have the flexibility to understand and critique not only the popular but the experimental theatre, dance, the plastic arts, and multi media as well as the courage to say what is or is not working and why.
4. Politicians need to stay in politics.
When a politician, politician's spouse, or potential judicial nominee to the higher courts gets on the boards of arts organizations, more often will they make decisions that do less damage to their careers. “Politicians aren't real,” she said. “They have to appeal to a constituency back home so they can get re-elected.” Art has taken much the same route. She described an incident from the early days of the Museum of Modern Art in DC, wherein a Tom Wesselman All-American Nude was rejected from an exhibition, at the insistence of a member of the museum board - the wife of a senator from Pennsylvania - because the likeness of Jack Kennedy was also in the painting. “Almost all of the Pop Artists were willing to pull their work out in support of Tom,” she finished.
Alice cited the Mapplethorpe Show as another example. “The Corcoran never would have had a problem with the Mapplethorpe exhibition.” The irony of the Mapplethorpe exhibition is in the many years that have followed, the show has had a near legendary infamy more for the fact that the Corcoran chose not to exhibit the work rather than the content of the work. After the Corcoran dropped the show, the WPA picked it up after Alice prodded the board. “It turned out to be one of the best shows at the WPA! Granted, everyone was nervous with the reputation that was built up over the thing, and they decided to place the most sensitive work in one room. But, that room was packed! That's where everyone wanted to go!”
5. Koons = Bad Porn.
“I hate to sound terrible. I feel like I've seen it all. Even multi-media. That doesn't move me. It seems so mechanical. It seems easy. I watched those artists (in the 1960s) struggle using such rudimentary materials. And the beauty that came out was just spectacular. When we were doing happenings we were doing them on tennis courts and skating rinks. Our equipment was not that sophisticated.” She gestured approximating the volume of a reel-to-reel projector with her hands. “We'd show this (equipment) to the audience and they'd laugh! But then we would show this beautiful performance. When I see some of the video things (today), it just goes back to old Andy Warhol. (It was interesting) then because he was in the groove; it was the first time.”
Amid the rinse and repeat of some forms of art since the beginning of the 1970s, Denney mentioned the work of Hirst and Koons who were polluting the environment. “(Koons) was selling stocks before he got into art. All he did was know how to market and publicize himself. Even his version of pornography was bad porn.”
Sadly, Koons's and Hirst's versions of art are not reflections of art or culture, but of a market that caters to collectors and the idea that art is more about shock and awe and less about an intelligent and sometimes emotional perceptual cognition. But if there is safety in numbers, then it is groups of artists who can collaborate and spearhead these five initiatives.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Grave Digging
It is necessary to stay mentally prepared before embarking on a journey to unearth a mediated grave. But, it is the things I didn't consider that from now on need to be taken into consideration. Taking stuff off a wall and digging stuff up is one thing.
Wednesday
3:30 AM Wake
4:05 AM Board Supershuttle for National
4:15 AM Pray I don't toss my cookies on the winding, bumpy ride to the airport
5:15 AM Arrive at National, normally a 15 min. drive from my apartment in moderate traffic, but I was the second of a five-stop pick-up.
5:30 AM complete check in at the air-port and begin reading a book on managing art as an entity the IRS will look upon as a business (tax deductions) rather than a hobby (out of pocket).
6:30 AM board the plane and sit on a runway for 20 minutes waiting to take-off through the rain.
7:00 AM The baby in the back of the plane begins crying and I thank God for the volume control on the XM Radio in the arm rest.
9:00 AM I am on an escalator in Atlanta's airport and people are camped on both the left and the right side of my escalator, impeding my progress to both a restroom and the Athens bound AAA shuttle. I look over to my right, envious of the man walking up the stairs unencumbered. He beats me, and everyone else, to the top.
9:15 AM, We are on the shuttle to Athens. I phone Iowa for election results because I am tired about hearing the concession squabble alla Webb and Macaca on talk radio. The woman next to me keeps spilling her coffee.
10:45 AM Athens. Picked up by AthICA director Lizzie Z Saltz. We crash a web-geek convention at the University, catered with cranberry juice, coffee, and fine pastries. It is better than the cracker I got with the brown water on the plane.
11:30 I discover that the lock Penske gave me for the back of my rental truck is too small to lock the truck. I also begin wondering if Geico has more affordable coverage on insurance when renting a moving van.
12:30 PM I wish The Grit had better parking. As in, I wish The Grit had parking. At times I also wish they served meat (though I never really notice it not being on the Rueben, the chicken sandwich or any of their other delectable tofu tasties). Wendy's was also quite popular at the drive throug. I forgo lunch for now.
1:00 PM Deinstall begins. Georgia Red Clay begins to fill the gallery with dust as I unearth the television monitors from America's Grave. I reconsider my M.O. and start taking down artwork from the wall to package. I pity the other artists who did not get to the gallery in time to take their stuff off the wall, or the fact that AthICA is a not for profit arts space that cannot afford to hire workers and by law cannot sell work but rely on the charitable contributions of the artists that sell work within it to "give a little back." But, hey, at least Michael Stipe is paying for their phone. Lizzie chips in to help remove work from the wall. A guest worker doing community service on a DUI charge gets me a sandwich and a coffee around 2:00 at some place a little more Healthy than Dave Thomas' chain of old "fay-shauned" burgers... something organic and without meat. Secretary of the USDAT, Randall Packer calls, en route from a deinstallation in New Orleans. He is crossing Lake Pontchartrain, estimating an 8:00 PM Athens arrival. He forgets about the time change.
5:30 PM Line change on the assistance. Lizzie goes home but Mark arrives. One of the other artists stops by to pick up what remains of his work. He informs me Donnie is no longer Sec. of War and Bad Strategery and that he is being replaced by Bob "Iran Contra" Gates (which is fitting since Ortega is once again president).
8:00 PM Randall calls stuck in a traffic jam outside Mobile. Or was it Montgomery?
8:30 PM 2d work is wrapped, electronic equipment is unearthed from the grave and dusted, surround sound speaker installation is disconnected and removed from the rafters. Time for dinner.
12:00 AM Randall has arrived, the Penske is packed, Mark departs, and Randall and I scrounge the gallery for last minute forgotten items. There are several. We head into college town for celebratory libations. For the first time I am asked if I want my Manhattan dry or sweet. I really want a single malt scotch, but bourbon rules in the south.
1:30 AM, Bed.
Wednesday
3:30 AM Wake
4:05 AM Board Supershuttle for National
4:15 AM Pray I don't toss my cookies on the winding, bumpy ride to the airport
5:15 AM Arrive at National, normally a 15 min. drive from my apartment in moderate traffic, but I was the second of a five-stop pick-up.
5:30 AM complete check in at the air-port and begin reading a book on managing art as an entity the IRS will look upon as a business (tax deductions) rather than a hobby (out of pocket).
6:30 AM board the plane and sit on a runway for 20 minutes waiting to take-off through the rain.
7:00 AM The baby in the back of the plane begins crying and I thank God for the volume control on the XM Radio in the arm rest.
9:00 AM I am on an escalator in Atlanta's airport and people are camped on both the left and the right side of my escalator, impeding my progress to both a restroom and the Athens bound AAA shuttle. I look over to my right, envious of the man walking up the stairs unencumbered. He beats me, and everyone else, to the top.
9:15 AM, We are on the shuttle to Athens. I phone Iowa for election results because I am tired about hearing the concession squabble alla Webb and Macaca on talk radio. The woman next to me keeps spilling her coffee.
10:45 AM Athens. Picked up by AthICA director Lizzie Z Saltz. We crash a web-geek convention at the University, catered with cranberry juice, coffee, and fine pastries. It is better than the cracker I got with the brown water on the plane.
11:30 I discover that the lock Penske gave me for the back of my rental truck is too small to lock the truck. I also begin wondering if Geico has more affordable coverage on insurance when renting a moving van.
12:30 PM I wish The Grit had better parking. As in, I wish The Grit had parking. At times I also wish they served meat (though I never really notice it not being on the Rueben, the chicken sandwich or any of their other delectable tofu tasties). Wendy's was also quite popular at the drive throug. I forgo lunch for now.
1:00 PM Deinstall begins. Georgia Red Clay begins to fill the gallery with dust as I unearth the television monitors from America's Grave. I reconsider my M.O. and start taking down artwork from the wall to package. I pity the other artists who did not get to the gallery in time to take their stuff off the wall, or the fact that AthICA is a not for profit arts space that cannot afford to hire workers and by law cannot sell work but rely on the charitable contributions of the artists that sell work within it to "give a little back." But, hey, at least Michael Stipe is paying for their phone. Lizzie chips in to help remove work from the wall. A guest worker doing community service on a DUI charge gets me a sandwich and a coffee around 2:00 at some place a little more Healthy than Dave Thomas' chain of old "fay-shauned" burgers... something organic and without meat. Secretary of the USDAT, Randall Packer calls, en route from a deinstallation in New Orleans. He is crossing Lake Pontchartrain, estimating an 8:00 PM Athens arrival. He forgets about the time change.
5:30 PM Line change on the assistance. Lizzie goes home but Mark arrives. One of the other artists stops by to pick up what remains of his work. He informs me Donnie is no longer Sec. of War and Bad Strategery and that he is being replaced by Bob "Iran Contra" Gates (which is fitting since Ortega is once again president).
8:00 PM Randall calls stuck in a traffic jam outside Mobile. Or was it Montgomery?
8:30 PM 2d work is wrapped, electronic equipment is unearthed from the grave and dusted, surround sound speaker installation is disconnected and removed from the rafters. Time for dinner.
12:00 AM Randall has arrived, the Penske is packed, Mark departs, and Randall and I scrounge the gallery for last minute forgotten items. There are several. We head into college town for celebratory libations. For the first time I am asked if I want my Manhattan dry or sweet. I really want a single malt scotch, but bourbon rules in the south.
1:30 AM, Bed.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Glenview Mansion Art Gallery
General States of Business
I'm exhausted. The majority of this weekend has been spent holding a fishing pool and directional microphone on a graduate student film (not my own) in order to gain a better understanding of sound recording techniques on video shoots.
Then I went to an opening this evening: my own. I am told there will be a review of the work in The Gazette, a weekly that serves Montgomery, Frederick and Prince George's Counties. Above will be the image I send them. Three pieces sold, much to my delight! This will reduce one of my four students loans by a quarter. To quote Napoleon Dynamite correctly sampling milk deficiency, "YES!"
On the downside, America's Grave in Athens, Georgia met its end last evening, dying one day before the gallery was set to pull the plug on the exhibition. May it rest in peace. Wednesday I fly down early to deinstall the piece, and drive it back to DC in a Penske on Thursday. I am hoping we get to reinstall the work before Thanksgiving so that visiting friends and family can take a look.
In another week I learn the fate of issue two of Gestalt. In the mean time, articles from the first issue will appear in this domain.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
From the Studio
I am sitting in my pajamas, after an hour of working in the studio, having found myself unsuccessful at falling asleep.
This work installs in less than one week now, and it is too big, physically, for me to step back and appropriately assess it. In my minds eye, to be blatant and honest, this is closer to what I wanted my thesis work to resemble, but it is not quite there. Something feels missing. Perhaps it was the shift in media to satisfy a compressed studio space that once resided in the living rooom/office/library/dining room that was in my previous apartment. Perhaps it has suffered from working a majority of near 70 and 80 hour work weeks for the first ear post grad. Perhaps it was from the other projects I invested myself with in the US Dept. of Art and Technology or at American.
Or, maybe it was a loss of interest in the proposal that is now nearly two years old, and the idea of painting it.
12,000 square inches of canvas resides stretched in my studio, with collaged paper glued on top, drawn on in pastel and pencil, and painted over with matte medium. They look like objects and less like paintings. Some portions are highly rendered and others less so. Subtle narratives are existent within them. And they no longer feel like me. They feel like something that once was me - something I've intellectually moved away from for now, but will likely revisit a ways down the road. They look like orphans.
If there is any good that comes out of it, it is the periodical, issue one of Gestalt: a meager 7 pages of content that tilts a tad toward self-indulgent narcissism. But the writing is good. And the sound installation that will accompany the paintings and paper will add a little something - a bit of texture, maybe context.
I'll post images before long, and articles from Gestalt. In the mean time, if you reside in DC, a copy of Gestalt is available at DCCAH, up a ways from the corner of D and 8th. The work will be open for public viewing Nov. 2 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, near the corner of Viers Mill Road and Route 28, off Baltimore Ave.
This work installs in less than one week now, and it is too big, physically, for me to step back and appropriately assess it. In my minds eye, to be blatant and honest, this is closer to what I wanted my thesis work to resemble, but it is not quite there. Something feels missing. Perhaps it was the shift in media to satisfy a compressed studio space that once resided in the living rooom/office/library/dining room that was in my previous apartment. Perhaps it has suffered from working a majority of near 70 and 80 hour work weeks for the first ear post grad. Perhaps it was from the other projects I invested myself with in the US Dept. of Art and Technology or at American.
Or, maybe it was a loss of interest in the proposal that is now nearly two years old, and the idea of painting it.
12,000 square inches of canvas resides stretched in my studio, with collaged paper glued on top, drawn on in pastel and pencil, and painted over with matte medium. They look like objects and less like paintings. Some portions are highly rendered and others less so. Subtle narratives are existent within them. And they no longer feel like me. They feel like something that once was me - something I've intellectually moved away from for now, but will likely revisit a ways down the road. They look like orphans.
If there is any good that comes out of it, it is the periodical, issue one of Gestalt: a meager 7 pages of content that tilts a tad toward self-indulgent narcissism. But the writing is good. And the sound installation that will accompany the paintings and paper will add a little something - a bit of texture, maybe context.
I'll post images before long, and articles from Gestalt. In the mean time, if you reside in DC, a copy of Gestalt is available at DCCAH, up a ways from the corner of D and 8th. The work will be open for public viewing Nov. 2 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, near the corner of Viers Mill Road and Route 28, off Baltimore Ave.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Epiphany
This morning, I was working in the annex of my studio (read that as living room), tones of lollapalooza coming from the CD player, when this dawned on me. The fourth track on The Crow soundtrack, “Dead Souls” by Trent Reznor, is a song about telemarketers. It has to be. For evidence I cite the refrain, “They keep calling me.”
Meanwhile, November is going to be busy: exhibition opening at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery; distribution of Gestalt; dismantling of the grave at AthICA in Athens, GA; learning what happens to a piece in auction, Off the Wall, for VisArt, Rockville, (formerly Rockville Arts Place); artist talk at Glenview; Note 2 Self will be in the Corcoran Faculty Show. Not a bad month.
Meanwhile, November is going to be busy: exhibition opening at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery; distribution of Gestalt; dismantling of the grave at AthICA in Athens, GA; learning what happens to a piece in auction, Off the Wall, for VisArt, Rockville, (formerly Rockville Arts Place); artist talk at Glenview; Note 2 Self will be in the Corcoran Faculty Show. Not a bad month.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Leap Into The Void
With the first, and possibly only issue of Gestalt near completion, the artist practices leaping into the void.
Monday, September 18, 2006
America on the Brink. Pt. Four
Randall Packer and I before the excavation of the grave two weeks ago in Athens. Or, fun with Photoshop. It's amazing what 20-25 minutes will get you between five snapss and reducing the image to 72dpi. Call it a draft.
Now before people e-mail in protest that I am ripping off Inigo Navarro Davilla at Irvine Contemporary Art, I'd just like to preface I've seen his kind of work before from a guy in New York a few years back by the name of Anthony Goicolea.
It's not the medium; it's what you choose to say with it.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
America on the Brink: pt. Three
This has been my summer project. The extension of America’s Grave, which was first exhibited Jan 20th, 2006, one year after “the inauguration of death,” as my colleague and the creative director of the piece, Randall Packer, puts it. This is the piece as it went on display Sept. 9th, 2006, in Athens, GA.
The piece is fairly text heavy, between Randall’s blog chronicles
and my transcription of the cosmology of hell. We debated how attentive an audience would be to work that is so didactic. But they came in droves, stood, and read. The background on the piece, or how I don’t want the piece to be perceived as though we are raving lunatics: The Cosmology of Hell is based off of Dante’s Inferno. The original grave, as created by the US DAT, depicted six levels of hell: 1) The Violent Against Their Neighbor, 2) The Traffickers of Holiness, 3) The Falsifiers of Commodity, 4) The Profiteers of the People, 5) The Traitors Against Their Own, & 6) The Sowers of Discord. These levels of hell are represented through the media with television clips from 1) 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine; 2) crooked televangelists; 3) Supernatural Commercials; 4) Katrina; 5) The Administration; 6) Bill O’Reilly.
My job, when I first started working with the Department was to scrub, capture, and edit video and concoct a way to bury the monitors and DVD players in the dirt so they could last a run of two months.
For Athens, the piece had already expanded and additional narratives were included. The Cosmology of Hell had to be included. Below is the text on the wall, pulled from the audio clips of America’s Grave. The audio of the grave is designed in such a matter to allow chance. All six monitors are edited to different lengths, and the audio levels are raised and lowered to emphasize specific sound clips. All six monitors could play at once or the grave can go silent. Relationships form between them. The text below is an attempt to create a discordant linear narrative of the piece, as interpreted by a character I adopted for the trip to Lynchburg, VA: John 3:16. The numbers, which were originally reflective of the order of specific quotes extracted from their various levels of hell, have become an arbitrary assignment, but a deliberate visual aesthetic that communicates how text, even those of wholly writ, when removed from their source, or taken out of context, can be completely polluted of their intention and meaning.
1.1Oh my God. The mighty World Trade Center tumbling down. People saying I love you and then the line going dead. The loss of life is utterly unbelievable. 1.2Today they brought that terrible hatred to the United States of America. 1.3Very seldom a military plan goes according to plan. We are going to have to hold everyone accountable. 1.4Enduring freedom is an inexpensive operation, estimated at less than $2.5 billion. 1.5Allah be praised, it’s a win-win situation -- I hope I live.
2.1I don’t understand why God let this happen to me. 2.2Aww you dummy. Shut up! He’s being God! We did not evolve. We were created by the genius of God. 2.3But, one misstep, one change in the direction of the wind, and I am into the abyss. 2.4There are good days ahead for each of you, I promise. You better get yourself ready. You profess Christ but you do not possess Christ. 2.5When you’ve lived your life and you’ve shared the good news of Jesus Christ... bombs away!
3.1Tell us what you don’t like about yourself. It’s time to start believing, start getting things back to normal the moment you call. 3.2The medicines. The plastic. The materials. Things that make modern life modern. Less of it is stored in the body as fat. 3.3 It’s not only brought us closer together but it has definitely deepened our faith. Order today. And see your world in high definition. 3.4I’m not putting it off a minute longer. This TV really sucks! You know what to do.
4.1I tell ya it’s gotten to the scary level here. I’m just looking to make sure we’re not going to get whacked in the head with anything. 4.2For those of you who are concerned about whether or not we’re prepared to help, don’t be - we are. The government has declared martial law. There are no more civil rights. 4.3We lost everything. Everything. It’s crazy. That’s gotta leave you feeling pretty helpless. 4.4This storm affects everyone. And Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job!
5.1But we need to be alert. We will not tire. We will not falter. And we will not fail. 5.2There’s an old poster out west that said, “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. 5.3And then there came a day of fire. A fire in the minds of men. We will smoke them out of their holes. 5.4So help me god. My job is to protect America and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
6.1This is World War Four: the war for the free world. It is an attack on American tradition. 6.2Be American. Celebrate Christmas. People spend more money. Jesus makes people want to spend money. 6.3This is what the culture war is all about. 6.4Generally we’re against rape. To an obsessive element, you know, It looks like it is harmless. It’s not. 6.5So, it’s down with Christmas & up with sexual offenders. Because they’re Liberals and they throw like girls. 6.6The American Media is working for the enemy.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
America on the Brink: pt. Two
Monday and Tuesday have evaporated. 26 hours of installation and we still do not appear to be very far along. Transcribing the text of John 3:16 onto a 15'x13' wall takes time, however. Randall has busied himself with organizing and designing the wall devoted to the blog chronicles. More of that occurs today. Tomorrow we become, once again, grave diggers.
We were interviewed by the press on Monday. The author of the article asked, since there are so many Republicans in Georgia, how to go about writing this in such a manner so that it does not offend people. I suppose a grave with the death date of The USA coinciding with the second inauguration of W. can be a bit incendiary. We communicated to her that this is not an anti-Republican piece. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Nor is this piece in opposition of religion. The piece opposes fundamentalism and the mixing of politics and religion, that the blind cowtowing to both is problematic.
When pursuing this piece it has been of great importance not to have it appear with the look of a political cartoon. Half of the gallery is filled with the work of other artists and some of them appear with the look of political cartoons. Text heavy and with a punchline. The one-liner. Take my president, please! Art and politics is a messy busy.
We were interviewed by the press on Monday. The author of the article asked, since there are so many Republicans in Georgia, how to go about writing this in such a manner so that it does not offend people. I suppose a grave with the death date of The USA coinciding with the second inauguration of W. can be a bit incendiary. We communicated to her that this is not an anti-Republican piece. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Nor is this piece in opposition of religion. The piece opposes fundamentalism and the mixing of politics and religion, that the blind cowtowing to both is problematic.
When pursuing this piece it has been of great importance not to have it appear with the look of a political cartoon. Half of the gallery is filled with the work of other artists and some of them appear with the look of political cartoons. Text heavy and with a punchline. The one-liner. Take my president, please! Art and politics is a messy busy.
Monday, September 04, 2006
America on the Brink. pt. One
After a 12-hr. drive I am finally about to settle down in a hotel room in Athens, GA. Driving on a slight situational tour through parts of the South, en route to install the grave of America and the Dantean cosmology of hell that it has descended into, with the US Dept. of Art and Technology, has been a bit of an event.
So far we have seen two red crosses at mega churches with the words Jesus Christ written across the arm beam, a real estate sticker with some relationship to the Passion, and about 3 dozen topless dancing club billboards at such and such an exit with washing units for your big rig. (semi-truck, not the other big-rig, you sick monkey...)
South Carolina does not sell liquor on Sundays.
Georgia can only sell liquor on Sundays if the vendor is a restaurant.
So far we have seen two red crosses at mega churches with the words Jesus Christ written across the arm beam, a real estate sticker with some relationship to the Passion, and about 3 dozen topless dancing club billboards at such and such an exit with washing units for your big rig. (semi-truck, not the other big-rig, you sick monkey...)
South Carolina does not sell liquor on Sundays.
Georgia can only sell liquor on Sundays if the vendor is a restaurant.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Note to Gallerist: Keep the Coaster.
Coast•er n
1. a mat placed beneath a glass in order to protect a surface
2. a compact disc rendered useless
Recently I received a return from the Arlington Arts Center, responding to an exhibition submission from earlier in the summer. We all know the kind: submit an exhibition idea to the gallery complete with examples of work and a check for entry fee. Include an SASE.
In decades past this was necessary for the return of the examples in slide form. Slides, as we are all familiar, are expensive. The film is expensive to purchase. They may be expensive to take with a hired hand. They are expensive to develop and they are just as expensive to duplicate.
CDs, however, are at most $1 to produce. And the images stored on them have a specific shelf life of the one CD typically due to a specified number of image entries or due to the related nature of the work for a site-specific installation or exhibition.
However, artists may still include the SASE in the form of a business envelope despite the obvious difference in size and function from an envelope that holds a compact disc. Lenny Campello made this observation in a blog entry a number of months ago and screamed at artists about the idiocy of this phenomenon.
It is not idiocy.
It is a reflex by artists to unscrupulous gallerists who do not have the common courtesy to send a rejection letter. And there are many. In fact, this may also be the reflex of artists who have applied for real jobs with real resumes and real portfolios. Who send them out to dozens of companies (273) in eight markets (Des Moines, Lincoln, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Madison) and not hear one peep from even the lowliest of HR reps… not that I write with such experience.
While I do not suspect this to be an activity specifically of the Arlington Arts Center, why should I take the chance? I’d like to hear back from such centers of art. What makes little sense is the effort spent to return the disc. AAC was kind enough to return the coaster in someone else’s SASE - I assume someone who got a solo exhibition (and his or her penmanship was gorgeous). To balance the cruelty of the even gallerists, the good galleriest will often dig out an envelope and cough up the 78 cents to return the disc.
GALLERIES. SAVE YOUR MONEY. KEEP THE COASTER.
1. a mat placed beneath a glass in order to protect a surface
2. a compact disc rendered useless
Recently I received a return from the Arlington Arts Center, responding to an exhibition submission from earlier in the summer. We all know the kind: submit an exhibition idea to the gallery complete with examples of work and a check for entry fee. Include an SASE.
In decades past this was necessary for the return of the examples in slide form. Slides, as we are all familiar, are expensive. The film is expensive to purchase. They may be expensive to take with a hired hand. They are expensive to develop and they are just as expensive to duplicate.
CDs, however, are at most $1 to produce. And the images stored on them have a specific shelf life of the one CD typically due to a specified number of image entries or due to the related nature of the work for a site-specific installation or exhibition.
However, artists may still include the SASE in the form of a business envelope despite the obvious difference in size and function from an envelope that holds a compact disc. Lenny Campello made this observation in a blog entry a number of months ago and screamed at artists about the idiocy of this phenomenon.
It is not idiocy.
It is a reflex by artists to unscrupulous gallerists who do not have the common courtesy to send a rejection letter. And there are many. In fact, this may also be the reflex of artists who have applied for real jobs with real resumes and real portfolios. Who send them out to dozens of companies (273) in eight markets (Des Moines, Lincoln, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Madison) and not hear one peep from even the lowliest of HR reps… not that I write with such experience.
While I do not suspect this to be an activity specifically of the Arlington Arts Center, why should I take the chance? I’d like to hear back from such centers of art. What makes little sense is the effort spent to return the disc. AAC was kind enough to return the coaster in someone else’s SASE - I assume someone who got a solo exhibition (and his or her penmanship was gorgeous). To balance the cruelty of the even gallerists, the good galleriest will often dig out an envelope and cough up the 78 cents to return the disc.
GALLERIES. SAVE YOUR MONEY. KEEP THE COASTER.
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