4/07/2006

Rico Gatson

27 comments:

Painter said...

Rico Gatson
African Fractals
March 25-April 22, 2006
@Ronald Feldman
31 Mercer St.
New York, NY 10013
212-226-3232

no-where-man said...

very "African"

zipthwung said...

The yellow bumpy surface on the subway platform
At times my shoes are thin
ANd I feel it.
Other times I am wearing boots
And I move the earth.

Stripes suck.

zipthwung said...

Orange Yellow Brown- these color flavors "excite" - which is why McDonalds uses them.

Orange symbolizes energy, balance, heat, fire, enthusiasm, playfulness Aggression, arrogance, flamboyance, gaudiness, overemotion, warning, danger, fire...basicly energy and its side effects...and metaphoricly speaking we ascribe these energy states to people - "in your face".

So in this sense, this painting is "in your face"

It has been theorized that people who feel powerless speak louder and are more agressive in their interpersonal communication.

this is why minorities like williamsburg hipsters paint gaudy patterns like this.

People of power paint a few subdued shapes in grissaille, ideally, although their insecurities show through at times in a blush of color.

no-where-man said...

hey! w-burg hipsters rule.

Sven said...

help I'm stuck in 1974 and I can't get out

zipthwung said...

W-burg. I include Bushwick, Greenpoint to the Pulaski bridge Ft Green north of Metro Tech. and Bushwick somewhere before the city limits.

Hipsters pay attention to culture more than average but don't necessarily think about it all that much - that would be the intelligentsia.

zipthwung said...

I forgot to define "living in" - I think that means you landed there and cant get out.

dubz said...

bb, i think it's a striped t-shirt. or some kind of cloth-covered desert home.

rainbowandskull said...

This painting is best seen as all paintings are in person, but at the gallery it is with 3 other paintings two are of figures and then the other is just shapes and lines. It is a very elegant show and a bit spooky.But maybe feldman gallery always spooks me. I don't understand the hipster comment at all, that seems like dumb comment coming from you Zip. Have you seen the work or know his work from before?

zipthwung said...

Wrong side of bed.

If anyone says diaspora to me I'll clock them.

I like the seventies feel. he nailed it. I can dig the update, groovy. Still all this nostalgia gets to me. Reminds me of suburbia in a bad way. Maybe thats good but I've seen a lot of it and thats bad.

If you dont know what I mean then ignore it and enjoy your experience.

I'll go see the video and then do some fractal macrame.

dubz said...

alfred jensen.

zipthwung said...

movin' on up

zipthwung said...

RAD!

Max said...

I usually don't like art that relies on geometric optical tom foolery, but in this case I think I do like it. I haven’t seen Rico's work in person, but from the .jpeg I am enjoying it quite a bit. It is exciting and sublime.

I like the way it takes geometric abstraction and uses it to talk about primitive mysticism. The striped shape is organic, reminding me of a bearskin, and the brown background seems like mud or wood. This, coupled with the psychedelic Dr. Who worm hole in the center has an interesting poetry to it. To me, the painting is about revisiting our mystic selves through technology. It is a confirmation and extension of what was going on in the '60s with guys like Noland and Held. It also reminds me of some of Arturo Herrera's work.

no-where-man said...

primitive mysticism is so "black", someone should be wearing it in midtown selling incense on the side of the road. i can't stand the composition or pallate.

Max said...

by the way, I was googling Alfred Jensen and came across this really nice essay he wrote about his experiences and influences as a painter. It has a great feel to it and is fun to read:

http://www.alfredjensen.com/writings/wayIpaint.html

operation enduring artist said...

mr wakeup.

have you seen gastons videos? did you see the other paintings in the feldman show? it is NOT just decorative...there are other layers...i dont know if the swastika is analogous to our times (seems to me an easy way out) but it is there, transcending decoration.

operation enduring artist said...

fair...i totaly agree, this image is not representative of the work i am familular with. actually i am only familular with his video work, if you can get your hands on them they are worth seeing....open to all.

jpegCritic said...

bada, I suppose by context, you mean an art-historical context.

Thus a 'good concept' is a concept that fits conveniently within the context of art history (or the market.). This is to say that there are plenty of good paintings out there, and good paintings with good concepts -- ones that will never show in the right places because of lack of art historical context and gravitas as established, well, by the establishment.

Max said...

"I think the correct term used was primitive mysticism-
which by the way, NO-Where-Man- is not a "black" term- "

Well, honestly a better term might be primal mysticism. Using the word primitive in an art crit. context is dicey because of the similarity in sound to the primitivism movement, which and that has all kinds of colonial issues connected to it that are probably better left alone.
Maybe that's the way Nowhere Man was reading it.

But anyway you are correct that primal/primitive mysticism is hardly a "black" thing... the viking hordes, for one, would probably take exception to that notion.

jpegCritic said...

bada,

Paintings, good and bad, i feel, are almost always intriguing.

So there's the context of the institution, yada yada, and that controls how the institution will 'buy in' to it.

But then, there's the special (i think) context of the painting in front of you. An individual context. The frontal assault, or frontal address, like a confession. The relationship with architecture and thus the interiority of the viewer as well as the artist. This self addressing of it's history unfolds privately to the viewer.... And while, of course, the history of the artist unfolds thru personal investment. (but of course on this blog, an artist's 'history' is too easily associated with 'gossip, and thus is too easily dismissed.)

This is a kind of private context is something i think that painting takes to, pretty well. It is, for the most part, a private address, one-on-one by nature. Painting seems to heighten the drama. But only when the drama is paid attention to....

no-where-man said...

sorry i ment "black" in the pop culture sense of the word - and this extends from an idea on another board, i was flowing up on. (and yes it is not my struggle). i feel there is a certain prevailing if not often reverse racism in the art-world, where most "stereotypes" (anyone but white educated men) are ghettoized into making Art about that very thing that marginalizes them to begin with.

no-where-man said...

yes wod zar xam, primal and primitive are TOTALLY different terms! that is the way i was reading it. primitive is thrown around far to often in a bamboozled context.

no-where-man said...

yes wod zar xam, primal and primitive are TOTALLY different terms! that is the way i was reading it. primitive is thrown around far to often in a bamboozled context.

zipthwung said...

I'm kind of into primal mysticism, but in the gallery context, or as it is used in popular culture (burning man) it gets tamed or neutralized as they say.

I liked the Kranky Klaus video at the WHitney - including the Melvins soundtrack, which complimented the documentary well.

I've seen a lot of work by artists who's humor, pathos or intelligence were called into question because they were in textbooks, on TV (Egg, Art21, the News) or in poorly hung galleries.

Its like thrift shopping - with experience you gain perspective and stuff starts popping out at you no matter what the context. Thats the kind of objective insight a good curator should have.

This blog is kind of like the indian store where they have tribal artifacts hung in rows of ten or twenty. Made for the masses - artists like Warhol and Koons have devoted careers tot his kind of thing, in a way.

What makes objects have power?

zipthwung said...

how many of you will be going?

10 dollars and you can get all the multiculti you can eat...