Notes and Observations

Shows Recently Seen

2009-11-29T18:17:00.004-05:00

The class load that I've been carrying this semester has held me back from visiting galleries - or so it seems, since I have managed to get out and see rather significant exhibitions.

The week before last, I took two classes to the Bauhaus exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. For all the criticism that it has received, I was impressed with the nature of the display. Beginning in the first room, it was evident that European artists were still grappling with their Catholic-Christian past despite the tragic results of World War I and the further separation of church and state. My favorite part of the exhibition was a collection of stained glass studies that Josef Albers made, using small glass squares in different colors. His piece titled "Park," both asked and suggested that small planes of color, arranged next to one another, could substitute for figurative representation; in this case, the numerous elements seen throughout a park.

Prior to that, I ventured up to the Guggenheim to see the Kandinsky retrospective. It was sweeping and provided a good preface to the Bauhaus. His early paintings were figural, reminiscent of the Jungendstil stained-glass effect. While walking up through the spiral, the figures dissolved into planes of color that eventually suggested the feeling of space - or the number of feelings that can be experienced in a single space at once. Some scholars choose to label that the transcendental, but I don't think it's that esoteric. Simply the ability to feel color.

I also stopped by the Tria Gallery to see Serena Bocchino's abstract flower paintings in an exhibition titled, "iPop." They're bright, moving and highly engaging while coupled with a small sculptural installation, extending the idea of painting away from the flat wall. "iPop," is a retinal relief to these otherwise challenging times and proves that art is like water - it finds a way and will show itself.

The panel talk that I gave with Blane de St. Croix at Black and White Project Space came off as a success. The entire event was documented rather extensively on Twitter.

Curating Online

2009-10-14T06:11:00.002-04:00

I've been overwhelmed these days with teaching and writing, but it has been immensely enjoyable as well.

That said, I've had no time to issue regular installments of Facebook curations but do hope to return to them in the very near future. However from what I can glean, the online sphere is a perfect space for art viewing. The only problem is that one person risks getting lost in the crowd just like any other. So volume is the challenge.

The curatorial concept is evolving in an interesting way. On the one hand, Robert Gober has curated a show at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Jeff Koons has embarked on doing the same for the New Museum with a private collection. And yet Alex Williams' recent article for the New York Times titled "The Word 'Curate' No Longer Belongs to the Museum Crowd," shows how this once-exclusive practice has been deflated and commodified for other areas of the retail market.

Andy Warhol and Art & Text

2009-10-04T19:27:00.003-04:00

I read two books over the weekend - both incredibly well-written. The first is The &-Files by Paul Foss, charting the development of the art magazine Art & Text as it continued to garner international interest while many of those close to the venture found themselves battling with the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The second book is Arthur Danto's new book titled Andy Warhol, revealing the artist as a historically relevant figure to the trajectory of contemporary art, all while simplifying his mythical, complicated personality.

Facebook Curatorial Week 11

2009-09-23T11:48:00.005-04:00

Untitled (2009) by Sigrid Tanghe

Back Yard (2009) by Roy Herrick

Untitled (2009) by Pau Pogranizky

Untitled (2009) by Claire Corey

Facebook Curatorial Week 10

2009-09-14T08:31:00.002-04:00

No. 1 (2008) by Mapi Gil

Moo, Said the Glass Menagerie (2006) by Renee Dahl

Untitled (2008) by Moishe Kampin

Untitled (2008) by Christopher Lee

Facebook Curatorial Week 9

2009-09-07T20:39:00.004-04:00

= - av:al:al:a:nc:he - = (2009) by Ui Uuii

I Fucking Love You (2008) by Emil Yap

Demerara - Moth's Veil (1970-80) by Carl E. Hazelwood

Blinded by Abuse (2007) by Stefan Eins

Facebook Curatorial Week 8

2009-08-30T01:36:00.006-04:00

Small Drawing 2009 by Aaron Olshan

Out of the Blue, the Turn Around 2007 by Bill Radawec

Guns and Roses 2004 by Ilona Anderson

Untitled, Street Photography 2009 by Orville Robertson

Facebook Curatorial Week 7

2009-08-23T23:27:00.004-04:00

Untitled, Wire Series (2009) by Wolfgang Stiller

Zipper Helix (2009) by Meridith Pingree

Handshake Machine (2009) by Debra Jenks

Separatrix (2009) by Phillip Buntin

Facebook Curatorial Week 6

2009-08-16T18:39:00.003-04:00

Untitled (2009) by Dave Perry

Atonement (2009) by John Robertson

Sugar & Spice (2008) by Orly Cogan

Yes We Did #3 (2009) by Victor Davson

Facebook Curatorial Week 5

2009-08-08T14:39:00.005-04:00

Plunder Road (2008) by Gelah Penn

Tibetan Prayer Flags (2008) by Willow Gray

Bath (2007) by Bonnie De Witt

Be the change united in = rights, liberty, justice 4 ALL (2008) by Barbe' Slitkin

New Reviews

2009-08-02T14:00:00.003-04:00

Two reviews that I have written have just been published by Afterimage, in their July/August issue. One is rather lengthy and considers the Pictures Generation at the Met, which is about to close if it hasn't already. The other reviews a show that Michael Mandiberg curated at Eyebeam Gallery titled, "Permanent States of Emergency."

Aside from that I recently uploaded reviews of Carol Salmanson, Gustave Caillebotte and Don Voisine to ArtQuips. I am currently at work on two pieces for Whitehot Magazine: an interview with Hans Op de Beek and a preview of the Tim Burton exhibition that will open at the MoMA in late November.

I would also like to bring to your attention to two online art hubs that appear to complement that of UbuWeb and Rhizome. Founded by former Whitney Director, Maxwell Anderson, ArtBabble is a significant online outreach program that serves as an online salon about art, artists and by artists. Many museums around the country have recently thrown their support behind the venture. Not only can one see how a Sol LeWitt is made, for instance, but artists can upload their own videos as well. Creative Africa is run by Mark Coetzee, brother to author J. M. Coetzee. His effort for PumaCreative is to bring together an array of artists, curators, writers and so on who could exchange ideas and find opportunities with one another.

Facebook Curatorial Week 4

2009-08-01T22:58:00.002-04:00

Untitled (2008) by Gretchen Bennett

Burning Light (2008) by Grace Graupe Pillard

Sky (2009) by Mandy Greer

Wings (2006) by Amanda Church

When to Move On

2009-07-29T01:09:00.005-04:00

I found myself recently thinking about the loss of friends at my day-job and the close contact that we had shared for weeks. But that's just it, I thought that all of those friends were friends. We had enjoyed lunches together, confided in one another and shared dirty secrets so that we could get through the day, let alone the week. However I realized that most of those relationships were only connected to the context of work that started in the morning and ended in the evening, Monday through Friday. The relationships didn't have to do with either me or them but just the context. It's been strange retreating back to a life that I adore.

Bookstores Are Magnets

2009-07-29T00:42:00.003-04:00

Although I have been reading ravenously these past few weeks, I've also been finding new titles that are very exciting. Here is a short list of what I have found, which gives you an idea of the work ahead, but with the boring books out of the way this should all be a breeze:

Flaubert: A Biography by Frederick Brown

The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer

The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lillian Pizzichini

Collected Short Stories by Jean Rhys

The Stories of John Cheever

Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms

Facebook Curatorial Week 3

2009-07-25T20:05:00.006-04:00

'090508-2' from "Pixelog II," (2009) by Bing Lee

"Transit Man," (2007) by Christian French

"The Kiss," (2008) by Carla Gannis

'Untitled' from"Digital Art," (2009) by Larry Carlson

Why Jerry Saltz Does Not Want to Blog

2009-07-23T19:32:00.002-04:00

In several exchanges on Facebook, art critic Jerry Saltz has been nudged to start a blog so that everyone could be assured that their comments would not be deleted by Facebook's automated system. Finally Saltz gave a thorough answer:

"A lot of people have told me I should start a blog. I love blogs but I don’t want one. I like FB as an irregular gypsy-guerrilla cluster of 5000 camped on the edges of the cyber-landscape; FB as a band of brothers and sisters that affects change, fosters dialog, and creates a space for doubt. Many (not all) blogs are vanity projects; you just hear one voice, usually unchecked and unedited, in love with its own sound. On FB we tend to keep one another in check. People are vulnerable and have to identify themselves by name; no one can comment under numerous fake IDs; conversations expand virally, are unpredictable, chaotic, surprising, confusing, and usually grounded in pleasure. On FB people tell me things I didn’t know I needed to know until I know them. Blogs tell me things the blogger thinks I should know. I love blogs (I start my mornings with Art Fag City, Arts Journal, and Edward Wickleman). For now, I love FB more."

The Internet and Culture Change

2009-07-23T18:49:00.003-04:00

Lee Siegel's small book titled Against the Machine (2008) dives into the complicated world of the Internet and how it has changed the perception of culture within a new bumper-crop generation of artists and creative individuals who wish to have their silent screams heard. Much of the shift started taking place in the 1990s, when technology companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Sun Microsystems sought to make the work day interesting by offering employees the chance to dress casual as well as taking advantage of flex-time, that allowed work from home whenever coming into the office was not possible.

Consumers transformed into Prosumers since they eventually used their free time, their leisure time, to come up with ideas that would possibly turn a buck. YouTube, for instance, was mistaken as a site where talent could be found, and self-expression was turned from something creative into one's ability to replicate what someone else had done before. The Warholian ersatz nature continued as individuals continued to package themselves further into the Internet, where the goal was to reproduce familiar tropes better than they were before.

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point revived a sociological concept that had been coined in the 1950s as a means to describe the continual waves of trends that coursed in and out with each season throughout the late 20th- and early 21st-centuries. Siegel wrote, "Part of the book's appeal was that presenting a formula for the tipping point captured the American obsession with transformative moments - with 'lucky breaks' in romantic, professional, or financial life. But its wild success lay mostly in the fact that Gladwell was writing a guide to making yourself a prosumer. The Tipping Point is a how-to book for Homo-interneticus." (92) In addition, "human existence is wholly driven by commercial concerns. Life is divided into manipulating winners and manipulatable losers: there are the people who know Connectors, possess a 'sticky' concept, and have the capacity to use their environment; and then there's everyone else." (95)

Siegel points to American Idol as a case in point: "Not only does every contestant sing a song already made famous by someone else - every great singer has done that at one time or another. On American Idol, nearly every contestant is singing a song already made famous by someone else and singing it in the very same style as that famous person [who] performed it." (104) Originality and novelty are replaced with mimicry and who can sell themselves as the best copy. Mimicry, in other words, masquerades as democracy whereas the nature of democracy is built upon diversity.

Suspended, Not Closed

2009-07-21T10:27:00.004-04:00

As the art world hangs in suspension with a flurry of group shows that, really, are like seeing nice spring flowers of hope growing up from an arid desert, I keep reminding myself that I need to open the last 3 months of Artforum issues. As a subscriber, I read and look through it loyally every month. But as galleries started closing and news of Art in America joining the ranks of "magazines that don't pay," I lost interest in reading through a possibly historical document, times 3.

That said, there are a number of artists and art exhibitions that appeared over the last year or so that were glossed over. I'm thinking particularly of Carol Salmanson's light installation titled "Diaphany," at Mixed Greens Gallery; Michael Zansky's solo show at Nicholas Robinson titled, "The Western Lands," and Don Voisine's new works of hard-edge abstraction at McKenzie Fine Art. I am in the process of writing about all 3. Initially, I thought blogs were bound to the immediate - which they should be - but I also think they could reach back and capture what has been overlooked by those sources which we put more of our attention towards. With all of the flowers in the field, this time couldn't be more perfect.

Facebook Curatorial Week 2

2009-07-19T10:54:00.005-04:00

"Can You See the Future," (2009) by Jon Measures

"Untitled (Eggs)," (2009) by Brainard Carey

"Becky Smith, Former Gallerist of Bellwether," (2009) from Art World Trading Cards by Qi Peng

"Free Will?" (2009) from the "Unwinding Destiny Project" by Ula Einstein

Street Art

2009-07-18T20:49:00.004-04:00

What I always find most interesting about venturing through the streets of Chelsea's art district is the various types of street art that appear. This week there were two collages that framed several arguments reflecting the angst of the moment:

The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale

2009-07-17T23:31:00.003-04:00

Jeff Stimmel's sharp documentary about once-famous and now unknown artist, Chuck Connelly, titled The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale has been nominated for an Emmy. My review of the movie was published last Fall in ArtUS:

HBO Documentary Films July 7, 2008

Chuck Connelly became a 1980s icon in New York's booming art scene and made millions from the sale of his paintings, which were frequently compared with those of Vincent van Gogh. In addition to representation at Lennon Weinberg Gallery, his paintings were included in MoMA's permanent collection. Nick Nolte, moreover, played Connelly in the first short of the anthology film New York Stories (1989), Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons," written by Richard Prince. However, as his fame and fortune continued to increase throughout the decade, Connelly followed the path of many other artists at that time and began acting out his own reverence for such hard-drinking legends as Jackson Pollock, which ultimately destroyed his professional contacts with collectors, curators, and gallerists. HBO recently captured the artist's tawdry, un-glamorized life in The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not For Sale (2008), which premiered on July 7. As part of the cable station's new documentary film series, this particular portrait of an artist not only deconstructs the myth of bohemia but also makes one wonder if any of it ever really happened in the first place.

Connelly arrived in New York City during the late 1970s and settled in a small apartment in the East Village between Avenues B and C, just as the art scene was about to transform the area with eccentric performances by artists like Klaus Nomi, Colette, and Gracie Mansion. Even though it has been said that Connelly moved in the same circles as Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the association is at most relative since everyone then was stoned and roamed the streets like zombies. Enjoying the early patronage of diet guru Robert C. Atkins, Connelly somehow went on to garner wide attention, before decamping for Philadelphia in 1999 after having lived in Manhattan for nearly 20 years.

The Art of Failure opens with a series of flashbacks that portray a successful career along with more humbling moments showing the artist and his now ex-wife venturing from one New York gallery to another in an attempt to revive Connelly's evidently lifeless career. Although door-to-door "cold calls" do not effectively begin or advance one's art career, the film's director Jeff Stimmel exposes the standard caginess that permeates the city's high-end galleries. Conversely, the camera also spends a great deal of time capturing the daily life of Connelly, which often reads like an exaggerated reality show. As we are taken through the artist's growing drinking habit, he eventually becomes emblematic of his own struggle against anonymity as he spends less time making art and more time complaining about the very art world that rejected him, or vice versa.

Connelly attributes the stalling of his career to the stock market crash of 1987 and the art market's subsequent shift from neo-expressionism to neogeo. The Art of Failure questions the purpose of being an artist at a time when the success of the art market is so dependent upon the strength of auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's. More importantly, it poses the question of how can art dare to achieve something meaningful. Given the large number of edgy artists who were either casualties of the era or simply passed over, it is not surprising to see an artist like Connelly render such a scathing critique.

Jeff Stimmel makes great efforts to keep his film treatment from becoming an idealization. Connelly also does not pretend to be nice, but maintains a very straightforward yet humorous point of view. With a recent mini-retrospective of his work at Chelsea's DFN Gallery (June 21-July 18), the artist is not only hopeful that this film will lead to sales but also cause others to see a different side of the New York art scene. In contrast to the 1960s, when art indeed served a strong political cause, the multitude of genres and styles that typified the 1980s is still sorting itself out. The Reagan era paralleled both the expanding art market and the growth of pluralism, pushing artists to find new ideas in a series of drug-induced phases that involved either cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, or alcohol--to name a few. This pharmaceutical solution proved critical in the fight against impending historical irrelevance.

Ignore Shallow Arguments

2009-07-16T22:31:00.004-04:00

Veering away from my interest in art, I read a short piece on the website of the Atlantic Monthly that attempts to frame Apple, Inc. as a monopoly with iPod and iTunes. Not surprisingly, discussion of Microsoft's incredibly weak Zune mechanism came up. But I guess what bothers me is the return of Microsoft's subtle and aggressive "steel arm" attempt to put a product that's better underwater. Apple, Inc. is not a monopoly; however, Microsoft still is and should have been divided into separate business units years ago. I'm crushed that the Bush Administration decided to discontinue the case, but on the other hand Microsoft has not been able to fully recover.

Expanding the Web

2009-07-16T16:21:00.002-04:00

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the number of visitors to economists' blogs are booming, as they seek answers to the dire state of America's economy. Not only does this ad significant heft to the blogging process itself, but it also shows that people want information immediately, especially if they know that there is a person rather than a corporation behind it.

In the meantime, Artnet.com has reported the first significant catalogue published online that captures part of the estate of Charles Martignette. While this artist has been largely unknown, due to the fact that his genre of figurative art was not appealing to the market at the time, this document presents a thorough display of some of his work, along with a thorough bio, all spanning 20 pages.

When the Pictures Generation opened at the Met, the museum's press office stated that this show was the first time that a show press kit had been placed on CD. In an effort to save paper, the Met has moved toward the paperless environment as well.

All of this could bode well for art institutions who seek to cut costs.

Reasons for a Facebook Curatorial

2009-07-15T08:28:00.002-04:00

While I eagerly wait to see the new Fall 09 issue of Afterimage, which will feature my long article about Facebook, media literacy and the image, I thought to start probing into the scope of artists' profiles who are in my network. Arthur Danto had remarked to me that it didn't seem like FB was a site for career opportunities, per se, but rather a place for everyone to hover together and be known to one another - possibly while seeking shelter from the economic fall-out within the art-scene.

So I decided to begin culling the photos of art on artists' FB pages in order to begin to make sense of what is "going up" online. At the moment it's a realm of plurality, just like Chelsea or the Lower East Side which actually buries artists more than reveals them. Since blogging itself can be a heavily time-consuming endeavor, I thought what better way than to have a single day each week than to look at images rather than angsting over words, their order and the specific impressions that they need to create.

Facebook Curatorial Week 2 will appear this Sunday.

Following in the Steps of the New Museum

2009-07-13T19:25:00.003-04:00

Britain's renowned museums, the British Museum and the Tate, are going to develop a new operations model that strongly echoes that of New York's New Museum, while figuring out how to use the Internet as a means to effectively reach out to its public. As mentioned earlier in a review of the New Museum's panel on February 12th titled, "Museums and Civil Society - The Role of Artists, Institutions and Politics Now!", director Lisa Phillips stated that blogs have become the new venue for significant coverage of the arts. At a joint panel hosted by the London School of Economics Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, and Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, suggested that the role of museums will become that of publisher and broadcaster.

Complementing Lisa Phillips' dire tone of the future of New York's non-profits, Serota projected that there will be a limited number of individuals employed at galleries, but also an increase in the use of commissioned editors needed for crafting online material. In addition, museums will need to reconsider the relationship between viewers and curators:

"In the past, there has been an imperfect communication between visitors and curators. The possibility for a greater level of communication between curators and visitors is the challenge now...There will be a big shaking-out – a discrepancy will arise between those institutions that grasp these opportunities and those that do not."

Facebook Curatorial Week 1

2009-07-12T15:13:00.006-04:00

"Night Moons Over Little Compton," (Early Paintings 1974 - 2000) by Richard Kattman

"Water," (2008) oil on hardboard, 30"x30", from "Painting" by Ellen Soffer

"Untitled" (2009) from "Dieu Donne Exhibition" by Karen Margolis

"Untitled," (2009) from "Twinkle Abbott (me) in Second Life," by Joseph Nechvatal

"Rosanne Barr spitting at Yankee Stadium/Lothat Megggendorfer's Illustration of a court musician," (1992) by Heather Holden

Metaphorical Machinations of Modernism

2009-07-11T16:05:00.002-04:00

Quite similarly Aldous Huxley delved into the machinations of modernism that American entrepreneur Henry Ford successfully put into practice. Brave New World from 1932 presents a very futuristic, sci-fi view of the human race that seemed more unreal at that time than today. Published roughly 5 years after Kracauer and Heidegger had written about their observations of modernism, Huxley throws in a twist that oddly captures the effects of the group dynamic - an subtle psychological element that unfortunately united all of Germany one year later in 1933:

While waiting for the Greater Being among chants of "Ford!":

"Feeling that it was time for him to do something, Bernard also jumped up and shouted: 'I hear him; He's coming.' But it wasn't true. He heard nothing and, for him, nobody was coming. Nobody - in spite of the music, in spite of the mounting excitement. But he waved his arms, he shouted with the best of them; and when the others began to jig and stamp and shuffle, he also jigged and shuffled." (86)

Perspective on the Recent Art Boom and Struggle with Meaning

2009-07-11T15:42:00.005-04:00

Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz has been, for the most part, a re-hashing of my German BA. However when I finally landed upon Weitz's explication of essays by Sigfried Kracauer and Heidegger, everything suddenly seemed incredibly similar to our current era. In short, Kracauer was fascinated with the surface of society and its appearances, much like Jean Baudrillard. Heidegger, in his pre-Nazi years, was continuing Hegel's notion of the Geist and developed the concept of Dasein, or Being - a concept that Jean-Paul Sartre eventually made more popular as a public intellectual.

Here are some excerpts from the Weitz's text:

"For Heidegger, the modern world in which Kracauer immersed himself represented a shallow, hyperactive spectacle that made nearly impossible the deeper engagements that give true meaning to life...Modern man was a distracted, impoverished figure, one whose gaze roamed aimlessly and endlessly over mere sense perceptions. Life had been reduced to an unending succession of spectacles, that no longer permitted profound engagement with meaning." (270)

"Kracauer's flaneur has more the character of modern cinema with its rapid-cut editing and quick shifting from one scene to another. Kracauer's flaneur walks briskly, speedily shifting his gaze from buildings to people to traffic. For Kracauer, these new modes of perception were double-edged. The flaneur absorbs more, becomes, in a sense, a more developed person by taking in so much more than do Heidegger's peasants. (271)

"But the modern perceiver is also overwhelmed, like a circuit breaker that can no longer channel the current, and fragmented, like a capacitor sundered into pieces by an overly powerful burst of electricity. The perceiver is reduced to mere spectator, a helpless child who watches a flurry of events go by, but participates in none." (271)

Notes and Observations

2009-07-09T18:51:00.002-04:00

Notes and Observations is a collection of literal representations.