was that really how he described his own work? I think that's fantastic, kinda makes me like it more. although i still don't like conceptual artists that do slacker doodles to appear avante-garde, this is more impressive than that.
I meant the "humble" part. I think it's unfortunate when someone introduces himself as humble. Humble people don't normally announce themselves as humble. Is all.
that could be true... unfortunately art always seems to have to introduce itself. in contradiction I would also add that I would be just as impressed with someone that introduced their work as a masterpiece and then perhaps went into some detail as to why their work was a masterpiece.
cheeze whiz, I can't seem to remember why I had such a problem with humble slacks below? Maybe its with the way in which it's announced as Nomi suggests? Maybe I'm bothered with that fact that this seems like a priority for some? Others not so much?
Probably typo… Odd things these, not as tough, conceptually tough, as MH. And the thing on the Rowe site makes me a little sad. I mean, does painting have to reference the TV tube, old eighties movies, appropriation-went-flop, as an apology for doing these small things -- small things with a dark background that may quite possibly draw your attention in, not because they have a history in the cinematographic, and not because the artist is a genius and has come up with yet another take on how apologetic one can / must be before this simple idea can be broached, with the concerns of simple pleasures, making, breaking rules that really don’t exist, though do for the fun of it, for the artist, … that despite the diminutive size of 'the deliver', with the less than down-your-throat tongue-o-kiss, there is certain area of pleasure in experience of one of our simplest pleasures, ...
The second paragraph of the blurb is a little closer to the truth, where these pieces sit. Take out the first, and then you have your humble! And something worthwhile working against.
Anyway that's what I was thinking about with the comments on Linquist, [?] ... you know the human mind is fascinating, how it is able to put different things together to make sense… or how it makes sense of the most simplest things. I mean…
MH? Who or what the? The humble thing didn’t really spring to mind when I looked at the work here or at the other examples on the Rowe website – although the bigger images definitely help with gauging the scale. Yeah there’s a humbleness I suppose in working with little pieces of cardboard and chips of wood, not exactly Povera or Dada but the idea of maybe lowering the volume on art, speaking quietly. But then this is coupled with an attention to color which is puzzling. I don’t see too much humble or humbling about the color range, and I don’t quite know what to make of the combination: modest support + bright, clean color. Maybe the fact that the texture and surface comes through the colors is meant to ground them, but it seems like they need some narrower focus, to link them to the scale/materials in some way.
I read tal r used to have a problem with his work, was more impressed with socially conscious painters that did big paintings from photos, thought maybe he should be doing this.. he was a guy singing a dumb luv song, painting wasn't important and art history was a fart. Now he embraces this role more. Now he's happy thinkin paintings role is just to cause problems..
I think the lack of edginess could be seen as humble - no tape, no attempt at clean silkscreened adge (how many artists fake the haaaaannd?) and so on and so forth. But humble seems more like "hey leige lord, i humbly beseech thou to taketh mine objet 'dart unto thee and also, humbly, to fun my toil, oh gracious and most revered conoisseur and most passionate patron."
or something like that - my courtesan speech is not that great.
I agree that these pictures (sculptures) need no apology. And I like very much what they almost are. They are almost sensuous, almost intimate, almost innocent, almost beautiful.
But they fall short. They are neither awkward enough, nor pretty enough.
And I see the wheels turning. I always hate to point to one thing in a piece -- there's never just one solution -- but I can't help feeling that in large part it's the black. The black feels like justification, like a way of saying here, these are important; see, I've put this crude black cardboard around them; these humble little color block sculpture paintings need love too.
But I respect the attempt. I don't know about the inspiration being "pseudo-modernist paintings seen in wealthy homes in 1980s soap operas," but I respect the attempt at modest straightforward exploration of the basics.
Theres some stuff up at freight and volume that might relate - Jim Lee - i dunno what its all about, - im going to read some enlightenment literature and try to get a read on it.
I see now I have neglected Pezzimenti’s disturbing social agenda. The two ‘globes’, the free-hand (or is it free-market? either way it’s shaky) carve up, the loans, the trade, the bases and slaves. This is one devastating graphic, and those candy colors – oh the sarcasm! Like so many radicals back there in art history, Pezzimenti can get a bit pezzimisti, and is not satisfied with the figurative and particular, has got to go for the big picture, albeit in a small way, the abstract and absolute, point line and plane – that’s where the power is, that’s where the private and privileged hide. Serve them up scrap Peter, the irony will be lost and profound. It’s cozy to think politics will be satisfied with the obvious and public, is done somewhere else for others, but there’s no getting away from it once alerted. As Tal R would say – and he’s... what nationality this week? - for some it’s just a means to an end anyway – “I am my own biggest consumer”. Painters of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your critics!
Yep, I tend to agree with nomi 'can't help feeling that in large part it's the black. The black feels like justification, like a way of saying here, these are important', and old guy, 'seems like they need some narrower focus, to link them to the scale/materials in some way'. Something to go home with.
I like these use of materials in these paintings. Just dont care for the references. Would be better if he just painted away. Instead of referencing autonomous freedom, try practicing it.
Silkscreen vs. spraypaint stencil vs. digitally printed canvas:
which one is worth more? Because I cant afford the digital print but the other two are reasonable arte demi-pauvera.
If your silkscreen doesn't cover the whole canvas, or if your squeegee arm gets tired in mid pull, is that good? I hear people say flaws are a selling point, because they are indicators of handicraft, something that is valued over mass production.
Why is that?
Why is it important that david Ratcliff's stencils are mono rather than multiple?
Eighties? American Psycho? 14 days?
THese are attractive ideas, but anyone can use them, and many have.
I have a somewhat naive question. Is the artist responsible for the press release? Is it necessarily fair to judge the work by the language used in the press release (artist's quotes aside)?
You can buy and sell paintings. And you can buy and sell history. I have never bought the canon that abstraction is where power and privilege hide. Abstraction is totally natural. Paint away at that idea.
The artist statement can be written by the artist, by comittee or by a lone gunman - depends on the gallery and the skill of the artist as a writer and articulator of the vision thing (if they have one wich is often doubtfull).
For example, what if you hire hot shit famous writer (thousands) for the five page essay in the catalogue raisonne? What if you have your friend (dinner, some pocket change)write it (because we're all just folks and im that sort of painter..(poor, humble))
An anonymous byline is sort of weird isnt it? Its like doing it for the church - or a corporation.
...only as good as the people in it...
My take is that any artist with spine or even no spine will at least know what their work IS or IS NOT about and either doesn't care about the statement or cares greatly.
Is Monya Rowe so intimidating that you couldn't controll what your statement says? Is Monya Rowe savvy enough to write a resonant and powerfull statement about the state of art? Or write a statement that is so open ended as to be useless to the critic, who, enamoured of the work, or not enamoured of the work, will nonetheless seek to categorize the work in such a way as to insure the hierarchy and the ideological status quo, unless the status quo seems lacking somehow, in which cas they will use the work to reorder the status quo. Or thirdly, what if the critic doesnt care and ignortes the work, which is so obviously historical that if it was a bayonette it would probably impale Hitler and Jesus between two graham crackers? Or something.
Maybe this painting is a take on Sean Scully. If it is then I've cracked THE art world code wide open. let the trumpets sound.
i like hearing that, abstraction is totally natural.. I think its natural to approach 'pictures'-for lack of definition - in this way too. like the comments here, the read on the black, the talk of scale materials with narrowed approach.. I'm trying hard to be my own consumer since I have no critics only the made up ones in my head who basically say the same things - assholes...
I am pro-the black. replace the black with say, mauve, and you just have a la-dee-da formalist painting, maybe with an odd double-globe compostition. The black at least raises an extra question - but maybe he could take that line of questioning a little further. At least its not just 'oh maybe a little yellow over here to balance out the purple up there'. And for the love of god, don't read the press releases! That's just the business-end trying to woo 'the money' into staying an extra minute or two in the gallery while the money' secretly hopes they won't be late to see the reunited Police from the 3rd row later on that evening, because they got the tickets from the boss and really don't want to miss 'Roxanne'.
You know those little words in the press release that nobody reads, they tell. Like why not write something just for the ****
If Saturn can have two moons why can't we? And as Saturn is currently enjoying 31 moons, and when we add 3+1 we get 4 divide that, we get two, which is one whole more moon than the sun, which we have currently orbiting us at this moment.
I mean the content is the same, it makes sense, there are facts, and well...
I really do think people do have to get this out. The TRUTH! it makes art just that little bit more interesting, and guess what, it goes for free with the price of the art.
Exactly, it's "almost" like a sideways version of the old binoculars matte in the cartoons.
I think the black as a framing device is weak. I suspect it insures that they are read as paintings/pictorially and not as constructions or sculptures. Ties the sections together and makes the colors glow-y but I don't get the relationships between the different isolated sections. The color choices seem pretty-safe/pretty. & I suspect it really would look more like color exercises if the shapes were cleaner.
The handmade is too insistent as a look in this work. Way too precious.
I have an impression of someone who enjoyed playing with kaleidescopes as a child. But I get so literal-minded when it comes to abstraction.
I made an image like an artist once and someone said "hey thats like so and so" and I was like "yeah" but really I didn't know what they were talking about.
Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree with hardpan -- "The handmade is too insistent as a look in this work. Way too precious."
And I think also that she hits on something else -- as humble (heehee) color exercises, they would be more successful with clean hard edges. As they are now, they have neither the precision of an obsessive investigation, nor the rawness of a genuine absence of self consciousness. Preciousness is, unfortunately, what we are left with.
Quisquilloso -- Yeah, when I read a press release I tried to unravel the artist's words from the other gunk -- sometimes clear, sometimes not.
milf-magic says don't read them (for the love of God!). Right. But I find it really hard not to read words that are in front of me. And, I guess I can't help wanting to know what someone else thinks is important about someone's work. But it almost always takes away rather than adds in what is usually a sad attempt to "make relevant" something that, good or bad, should need no justification.
It's hard enough to find good writing about art, and I imagine nearly impossible to find it written by someone trying to sell it.
yes its a johansen. I was in THE STRAND - miles of books, and it caught my eye, you know, almost like magic, but not really because thats stupid.
best view in THE STRAND is on the newish staircase looking out above the shelves, but below the flourescent lights. I think someone got that shot, which is why I remember it.
Then I ruined it by looking at a book about web design. Fucking bullshit - they have all the books on the landing. its like urban outfitters, in a way - the "curation" or "visual merchandising of the "merch".
Like the book(s)- the SERIES on "best" web designs - a lot of them are crap. Who cares? Technically they are there, but its not hard to build a site built around a jpeg and font of the year by the newest type foundry, or one you designed yourself, preferably at great risk to your health because you had to cast the letters yourself and then print the whole deal in an antique hand press on paper you made from your dead wifes cotton dress and various clippings and your MFA paper, if you still keep that. Scanned back in and its every nuance traced to the pixel.
But it looks so clean.
Then I got to the Johansen or maybe I read the book, saw the view and then the Johansen. maybe thats a better narrative arc - that I ascended towards the Johansen.
But why is that book on sale? Why did I go to the strand? (I heard someone say Im going to the Strand and I decided that person was me.)
And so, I bring to you, this image this pear of striking simularity to the work in question. ANd I say unto you, there is nothing new, under the sun, not moon, nor zipthwung.
That David Hickey List in Art In America was more thought out than mine, I'll try to raise the bar next time. David Hickey: honest injin. Can I get a doctorate in writing or what?
Wes chillins' jes tryun ta do us best.
I want some Vegas Prime rib and a suite in the top of a pyramid, maybe one I build myself in my own honor.
"Not irrational but ''transrational,'' ZAUM uses seemingly nonsensical units of sound and unorthodox rhythms of speech. The prologue to ''Victory'' was by the Futurist writer Velimir Khlebnikov, whose interest in creating new words was another aspect of ZAUM's expression of feelings or ideas through sound."
"The theme of ''Victory Over the Sun'' is in fact the necessity to go beyond the visible, everyday order of things to the higher world of the super-rational. This will not be the Italian Futurist world dominated by the machine, but rather, the new world of supermen, rejecting the past and its tradition of logic. Malevich called some of his paintings ''alogical.'' Because the sun, in Western tradition, is a symbol of rationality, it must be captured and destroyed."
heavy stuff ne! ... referencing the twittering machine?
1. Rational 2. Nonrational - obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation
The study of irrational behavior is of interest in fields such as psychology, cognitive science, economics, game theory, and evolutionary psychology, as well as of practical interest to the practitioners of advertising and propaganda.
I always got an A on any test of logic, but really I only use it for everyday tasks like crossing the street. Otherwise intuition is much more fun to mess with. Was once mentioned that everyone has intuition, true, but how many people develop it?
Good article on salvia divinorum in the latest GC.
There are several consistent forms that appear in salvia influenced artwork. The form constants appear in specific variety; twisting flat forms subdivided into stringy tubes in grid patterns. These shapes often take the form of leaves, wings, and feathers. Spiral curves within triangular compositions of ambiguous dimension and scale are also common. Shapes usually flow together and create non-continuous representations of space. Eyes, aliens, fields, wheels, and flowing landscapes are well-used Salvia symbols. Color is often used vividly and emotionally, such as bright oranges and yellows over muted blues and greens. Multiplicity of form is often depicted.
I’m back! CIA wanted to go over a few of the finer points on Objecthood and Self-Reference with me, but I’m all right, or is that all white? Anyway just back to say isn’t it funny the first thing people want to do when they go to a gallery is read something? (anything!)
well its easy to pick on "galleries " like agora and spike and that new one next to the red cat on 10th.
And the work/curation can vary everywhere else.
I'd like to hear which gallery has the worst atmosphere (vibe)
I was just reading a quote "a jerk is someone who competes with the wrong guy"
-so i guess Im noncomittal (why would I talk about a gallery I dont like? Why not talk about ones I do?
I could pretend to insult ones I do - I mean that how you create controversy - but in my experience no one has a sense of humor about that unless they are in on the joke, but where is the FUN in that?
I’ll pass on the five worst galleries – hard to say with about 1000 to consider.
But as far as galleries providing an artist’s ‘statement’ or press release or catalogue etc – I’m as liable as anyone to take the thing for something to read on the way home or doodle on while I’m on the phone (I just seem to think and speak so much clearer taking a line for a walk!). And whatever the interpretation there - it might well be a lot better and more flattering than any I’ve arrived at just looking at the stuff - but most of the time I end up taking a quick look at the bio just to see where the artist is coming from and it’s always about 6 pages long and in reverse order with all these amazing awards and collections I’ve never heard of, and something as basic as where and when the artist was born apparently is too offensive to be included anymore. So even critics like Roberta Smith revert to talking about a ‘20-something’ or ‘30-something’ artist (this deduced from college graduation dates, presumably) which is just so ****ing coy you wonder what the point is.
52 comments:
Peter Pezzimenti @
Moya Rowe
526 west 26th street #605
new york, ny 10001
Oh, wow. That was easy!
“Humble anti-masterpieces” -- unfortunate way to describe your own work.
was that really how he described his own work? I think that's fantastic, kinda makes me like it more. although i still don't like conceptual artists that do slacker doodles to appear avante-garde, this is more impressive than that.
I meant the "humble" part. I think it's unfortunate when someone introduces himself as humble. Humble people don't normally announce themselves as humble. Is all.
that could be true... unfortunately art always seems to have to introduce itself.
in contradiction I would also add that I would be just as impressed with someone that introduced their work as a masterpiece and then perhaps went into some detail as to why their work was a masterpiece.
cheeze whiz, I can't seem to remember why I had such a problem with humble slacks below? Maybe its with the way in which it's announced as Nomi suggests? Maybe I'm bothered with that fact that this seems like a priority for some? Others not so much?
sonia delaunay?
Mary Heilman but more opaque
Isn't it Monya Rowe?
Probably typo…
Odd things these, not as tough, conceptually tough, as MH. And the thing on the Rowe site makes me a little sad. I mean, does painting have to reference the TV tube, old eighties movies, appropriation-went-flop, as an apology for doing these small things -- small things with a dark background that may quite possibly draw your attention in, not because they have a history in the cinematographic, and not because the artist is a genius and has come up with yet another take on how apologetic one can / must be before this simple idea can be broached, with the concerns of simple pleasures, making, breaking rules that really don’t exist, though do for the fun of it, for the artist, … that despite the diminutive size of 'the deliver', with the less than down-your-throat tongue-o-kiss, there is certain area of pleasure in experience of one of our simplest pleasures, ...
The second paragraph of the blurb is a little closer to the truth, where these pieces sit. Take out the first, and then you have your humble! And something worthwhile working against.
Anyway that's what I was thinking about with the comments on Linquist, [?] ... you know the human mind is fascinating, how it is able to put different things together to make sense… or how it makes sense of the most simplest things. I mean…
MH? Who or what the?
The humble thing didn’t really spring to mind when I looked at the work here or at the other examples on the Rowe website – although the bigger images definitely help with gauging the scale.
Yeah there’s a humbleness I suppose in working with little pieces of cardboard and chips of wood, not exactly Povera or Dada but the idea of maybe lowering the volume on art, speaking quietly.
But then this is coupled with an attention to color which is puzzling. I don’t see too much humble or humbling about the color range, and I don’t quite know what to make of the combination: modest support + bright, clean color. Maybe the fact that the texture and surface comes through the colors is meant to ground them, but it seems like they need some narrower focus, to link them to the scale/materials in some way.
I read tal r used to have a problem with his work, was more impressed with socially conscious painters that did big paintings from photos, thought maybe he should be doing this.. he was a guy singing a dumb luv song, painting wasn't important and art history was a fart. Now he embraces this role more. Now he's happy thinkin paintings role is just to cause problems..
I think the lack of edginess could be seen as humble - no tape, no attempt at clean silkscreened adge (how many artists fake the haaaaannd?) and so on and so forth. But humble seems more like "hey leige lord, i humbly beseech thou to taketh mine objet 'dart unto thee and also, humbly, to fun my toil, oh gracious and most revered conoisseur and most passionate patron."
or something like that - my courtesan speech is not that great.
I agree that these pictures (sculptures) need no apology. And I like very much what they almost are. They are almost sensuous, almost intimate, almost innocent, almost beautiful.
But they fall short. They are neither awkward enough, nor pretty enough.
And I see the wheels turning. I always hate to point to one thing in a piece -- there's never just one solution -- but I can't help feeling that in large part it's the black. The black feels like justification, like a way of saying here, these are important; see, I've put this crude black cardboard around them; these humble little color block sculpture paintings need love too.
But I respect the attempt. I don't know about the inspiration being "pseudo-modernist paintings seen in wealthy homes in 1980s soap operas," but I respect the attempt at modest straightforward exploration of the basics.
Theres some stuff up at freight and volume that might relate - Jim Lee - i dunno what its all about, - im going to read some enlightenment literature and try to get a read on it.
do dogs think?
I see now I have neglected Pezzimenti’s disturbing social agenda. The two ‘globes’, the free-hand (or is it free-market? either way it’s shaky) carve up, the loans, the trade, the bases and slaves. This is one devastating graphic, and those candy colors – oh the sarcasm!
Like so many radicals back there in art history, Pezzimenti can get a bit pezzimisti, and is not satisfied with the figurative and particular, has got to go for the big picture, albeit in a small way, the abstract and absolute, point line and plane – that’s where the power is, that’s where the private and privileged hide.
Serve them up scrap Peter, the irony will be lost and profound.
It’s cozy to think politics will be satisfied with the obvious and public, is done somewhere else for others, but there’s no getting away from it once alerted. As Tal R would say – and he’s... what nationality this week? - for some it’s just a means to an end anyway – “I am my own biggest consumer”.
Painters of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your critics!
post suggestions:atm, 1018 kippenberger,alice neel,andre ethier@derek eller.
Yep, I tend to agree with nomi 'can't help feeling that in large part it's the black. The black feels like justification, like a way of saying here, these are important', and old guy, 'seems like they need some narrower focus, to link them to the scale/materials in some way'.
Something to go home with.
David Ratcliff at Team looks good.
I like these use of materials in these paintings. Just dont care for the references. Would be better if he just painted away. Instead of referencing autonomous freedom, try practicing it.
Silkscreen vs. spraypaint stencil vs. digitally printed canvas:
which one is worth more? Because I cant afford the digital print but the other two are reasonable arte demi-pauvera.
If your silkscreen doesn't cover the whole canvas, or if your squeegee arm gets tired in mid pull, is that good? I hear people say flaws are a selling point, because they are indicators of handicraft, something that is valued over mass production.
Why is that?
Why is it important that david Ratcliff's stencils are mono rather than multiple?
Eighties?
American Psycho?
14 days?
THese are attractive ideas, but anyone can use them, and many have.
Yeah, why not ACTUALLY be free?
Is life not art?
Does life not sell?
Are we not Devo?
every stinking bum should wear a crown...
I have a somewhat naive question. Is the artist responsible for the press release? Is it necessarily fair to judge the work by the language used in the press release (artist's quotes aside)?
You can buy and sell paintings. And you can buy and sell history. I have never bought the canon that abstraction is where power and privilege hide. Abstraction is totally natural. Paint away at that idea.
The artist statement can be written by the artist, by comittee or by a lone gunman - depends on the gallery and the skill of the artist as a writer and articulator of the vision thing (if they have one wich is often doubtfull).
For example, what if you hire hot shit famous writer (thousands) for the five page essay in the catalogue raisonne? What if you have your friend (dinner, some pocket change)write it (because we're all just folks and im that sort of painter..(poor, humble))
An anonymous byline is sort of weird isnt it? Its like doing it for the church - or a corporation.
...only as good as the people in it...
My take is that any artist with spine or even no spine will at least know what their work IS or IS NOT about and either doesn't care about the statement or cares greatly.
Is Monya Rowe so intimidating that you couldn't controll what your statement says? Is Monya Rowe savvy enough to write a resonant and powerfull statement about the state of art? Or write a statement that is so open ended as to be useless
to the critic, who, enamoured of the work, or not enamoured of the work, will nonetheless seek to categorize the work in such a way as to insure the hierarchy and the ideological status quo, unless the status quo seems lacking somehow, in which cas they will use the work to reorder the status quo. Or thirdly, what if the critic doesnt care and ignortes the work, which is so obviously historical that if it was a bayonette it would probably impale Hitler and Jesus between two graham crackers? Or something.
Maybe this painting is a take on Sean Scully. If it is then I've cracked THE art world code wide open. let the trumpets sound.
i like hearing that, abstraction is totally natural.. I think its natural to approach 'pictures'-for lack of definition - in this way too.
like the comments here, the read on the black, the talk of scale materials with narrowed approach..
I'm trying hard to be my own consumer since I have no critics only the made up ones in my head who basically say the same things - assholes...
I put on my batman mask sideways to look at this painting
I am pro-the black. replace the black with say, mauve, and you just have a la-dee-da formalist painting, maybe with an odd double-globe compostition. The black at least raises an extra question - but maybe he could take that line of questioning a little further. At least its not just 'oh maybe a little yellow over here to balance out the purple up there'.
And for the love of god, don't read the press releases! That's just the business-end trying to woo 'the money' into staying an extra minute or two in the gallery while the money' secretly hopes they won't be late to see the reunited Police from the 3rd row later on that evening, because they got the tickets from the boss and really don't want to miss 'Roxanne'.
You know those little words in the press release that nobody reads, they tell.
Like why not write something just for the ****
If Saturn can have two moons why can't we?
And as Saturn is currently enjoying 31 moons, and when we add 3+1
we get 4 divide that, we get two, which is one whole more moon than the sun, which we have currently orbiting us at this moment.
I mean the content is the same, it makes sense, there are facts, and well...
I really do think people do have to get this out. The TRUTH!
it makes art just that little bit more interesting, and guess what, it goes for free with the price of the art.
Exactly, it's "almost" like a sideways version of the old binoculars matte in the cartoons.
I think the black as a framing device is weak. I suspect it insures that they are read as paintings/pictorially and not as constructions or sculptures. Ties the sections together and makes the colors glow-y but I don't get the relationships between the different isolated sections. The color choices seem pretty-safe/pretty. & I suspect it really would look more like color exercises if the shapes were cleaner.
The handmade is too insistent as a look in this work. Way too precious.
I have an impression of someone who enjoyed playing with kaleidescopes as a child. But I get so literal-minded when it comes to abstraction.
I made an image like an artist once and someone said "hey thats like so and so" and I was like "yeah" but really I didn't know what they were talking about.
Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree with hardpan -- "The handmade is too insistent as a look in this work. Way too precious."
And I think also that she hits on something else -- as humble (heehee) color exercises, they would be more successful with clean hard edges. As they are now, they have neither the precision of an obsessive investigation, nor the rawness of a genuine absence of self consciousness. Preciousness is, unfortunately, what we are left with.
Quisquilloso -- Yeah, when I read a press release I tried to unravel the artist's words from the other gunk -- sometimes clear, sometimes not.
milf-magic says don't read them (for the love of God!). Right. But I find it really hard not to read words that are in front of me. And, I guess I can't help wanting to know what someone else thinks is important about someone's work. But it almost always takes away rather than adds in what is usually a sad attempt to "make relevant" something that, good or bad, should need no justification.
It's hard enough to find good writing about art, and I imagine nearly impossible to find it written by someone trying to sell it.
zip that a johansen?
yes its a johansen. I was in THE STRAND - miles of books, and it caught my eye, you know, almost like magic, but not really because thats stupid.
best view in THE STRAND is on the newish staircase looking out above the shelves, but below the flourescent lights. I think someone got that shot, which is why I remember it.
Then I ruined it by looking at a book about web design. Fucking bullshit - they have all the books on the landing. its like urban outfitters, in a way - the "curation" or "visual merchandising of the "merch".
Like the book(s)- the SERIES on "best" web designs - a lot of them are crap. Who cares? Technically they are there, but its not hard to build a site built around a jpeg and font of the year by the newest type foundry, or one you designed yourself, preferably at great risk to your health because you had to cast the letters yourself and then print the whole deal in an antique hand press on paper you made from your dead wifes cotton dress and various clippings and your MFA paper, if you still keep that.
Scanned back in and its every nuance traced to the pixel.
But it looks so clean.
Then I got to the Johansen or maybe I read the book, saw the view and then the Johansen. maybe thats a better narrative arc - that I ascended towards the Johansen.
But why is that book on sale? Why did I go to the strand? (I heard someone say Im going to the Strand and I decided that person was me.)
And so, I bring to you, this image this pear of striking simularity to the work in question. ANd I say unto you, there is nothing new, under the sun, not moon, nor zipthwung.
That David Hickey List in Art In America was more thought out than mine, I'll try to raise the bar next time. David Hickey: honest injin. Can I get a doctorate in writing or what?
Wes chillins' jes tryun ta do us best.
I want some Vegas Prime rib and a suite in the top of a pyramid, maybe one I build myself in my own honor.
Gza
>>marketplace interest, in early Russian modernist painting is at its peak.<<
"Not irrational but ''transrational,'' ZAUM uses seemingly nonsensical units of sound and unorthodox rhythms of speech. The prologue to ''Victory'' was by the Futurist writer Velimir Khlebnikov, whose interest in creating new words was another aspect of ZAUM's expression of feelings or ideas through sound."
"The theme of ''Victory Over the Sun'' is in fact the necessity to go beyond the visible, everyday order of things to the higher world of the super-rational. This will not be the Italian Futurist world dominated by the machine, but rather, the new world of supermen, rejecting the past and its tradition of logic. Malevich called some of his paintings ''alogical.'' Because the sun, in Western tradition, is a symbol of rationality, it must be captured and destroyed."
heavy stuff ne!
... referencing the twittering machine?
Considering the similarities between the Johansen & Pezzimenti, I think the differences are striking.
Anxiety of influence. Is it rational?
1. Rational
2. Nonrational - obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation
The study of irrational behavior is of interest in fields such as psychology, cognitive science, economics, game theory, and evolutionary psychology, as well as of practical interest to the practitioners of advertising and propaganda.
I always got an A on any test of logic, but really I only use it for everyday tasks like crossing the street. Otherwise intuition is much more fun to mess with. Was once mentioned that everyone has intuition, true, but how many people develop it?
Good article on salvia divinorum in the latest GC.
GQ.
There are several consistent forms that appear in salvia influenced artwork. The form constants appear in specific variety; twisting flat forms subdivided into stringy tubes in grid patterns. These shapes often take the form of leaves, wings, and feathers. Spiral curves within triangular compositions of ambiguous dimension and scale are also common. Shapes usually flow together and create non-continuous representations of space. Eyes, aliens, fields, wheels, and flowing landscapes are well-used Salvia symbols. Color is often used vividly and emotionally, such as bright oranges and yellows over muted blues and greens. Multiplicity of form is often depicted.
I’m back!
CIA wanted to go over a few of the finer points on Objecthood and Self-Reference with me, but I’m all right, or is that all white?
Anyway just back to say isn’t it funny the first thing people want to do when they go to a gallery is read something? (anything!)
One good interview question I'd like to know the answer to:
Can you theorize your art?
Which, to me sounds like a cypto-marxist ideological trap.
Question:
What do you blokes and birds think are the 5 worst galleries in NYC listed in reverse order?
well its easy to pick on "galleries " like agora and spike and that new one next to the red cat on 10th.
And the work/curation can vary everywhere else.
I'd like to hear which gallery has the worst atmosphere (vibe)
I was just reading a quote
"a jerk is someone who competes with the wrong guy"
-so i guess Im noncomittal (why would I talk about a gallery I dont like? Why not talk about ones I do?
I could pretend to insult ones I do - I mean that how you create controversy - but in my experience no one has a sense of humor about that unless they are in on the joke, but where is the FUN in that?
I’ll pass on the five worst galleries – hard to say with about 1000 to consider.
But as far as galleries providing an artist’s ‘statement’ or press release or catalogue etc – I’m as liable as anyone to take the thing for something to read on the way home or doodle on while I’m on the phone (I just seem to think and speak so much clearer taking a line for a walk!). And whatever the interpretation there - it might well be a lot better and more flattering than any I’ve arrived at just looking at the stuff - but most of the time I end up taking a quick look at the bio just to see where the artist is coming from and it’s always about 6 pages long and in reverse order with all these amazing awards and collections I’ve never heard of, and something as basic as where and when the artist was born apparently is too offensive to be included anymore. So even critics like Roberta Smith revert to talking about a ‘20-something’ or ‘30-something’ artist (this deduced from college graduation dates, presumably) which is just so ****ing coy you wonder what the point is.
paul klee meets taeuber-arp. but i don't necessarily dislike it.
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