Explorations in Latex Paint

It was a great escape into the clammy basement of a local Baltimore woodworking artist/TRUE true true (true) friend Colby Staley to work with a myriad of latex paint filled olive jars, and thus, a resulting Happy Birthday for M.

Work for me like FLESH: Lucian Freud

In the spring of 2010, I flew to Paris for a short leg of two weeks.  I prioritized a visit to good ole' Beaubourg in order to see an exhibition of, in my view, one of the masters of contemporary painting; Lucian Freud. He is enormous. His paintings had to be seen in real life to absorb their colossal nature.

Reflection. Lucian Freud, 1993.

I was taken by the virile forces at work behind his heavy brush stroke.  I sat on a low bench and wrote the following:

"Work for me like FLESH"

Exercises in musing off paintings begin with Lucian Freud- his realization of human flesh, pores, skin, blue veins, pink veins, red veins, translucence, the protruding nipple, the perturbed glutton, disproportion of fat and muscle, even hair, even wood grain like flesh, flesh like wood grain, holy wonder of the leaf, light between the garden, splurging dance amongst the faucets too thin to touch, sumo wrestlers too thick to grant the wishes of space-deny contact-or escape, the made bed stark wrinkled, wrinkle of the every limb or edge, limp dog curling, curling like a rug or toe, the contortion of bodies you will never see upright save through catastrophe or collision with death, boots with open mouths.

We are surrounded by imperfection and fascinated by its departure from beauty.

March 25, 2010

Paris, France

The Entropy of Found Objects, as Art

Last nite I went to a local bar to see a humble exhibit of found slides that had been water damaged, resulting in a natural deterioration of the images.  The exhibitor had the slides blown up and presented upon constructed light boxes emulating a large scale slide.   The images belonged to his parents, presumably on mid-century travels around the globe.  The eroded slides were beautiful and made interesting by their decomposition.  The slides that caught my eye were the ones that mimicked impressionist paintings, lost in diaphanous smears of color.  I could not stop thinking about erosion.

What is the role of natural erosion in found Art? 

 Initially, when an artist chooses to exhibit a found object, he or she is essentially the scientist placing the object beneath the magnifying glass.  There is an inherent talent in spotting an object and seeing its potential as a thought and sense provoking thing.  Further yet, artists throughout history have experimented with different ways of deconstructing  objects.  Artists have strived to simulate the chaos that exists in nature within their works of art. 

There is entropy in nature. It is the natural reversal of ordered things, thus, the order of life.

When an artist chooses to present to the public a collection of found objects which have been manipulated naturally, the outcome is not contingent upon his or her will.  There is a lack of responsibility at hand.  Natural deterioration takes the blame, if there be a fault.  It is fascinating, even mind blowing, to look closely at an eroded object.  Then, to associate that feeling with the artist behind the exhibit is perplexing and certainly raises some questions.

Searching for my Basquiat

It was Christmas, 2010, a particularly cold one. I was in Paris alone, mittenless, and walking briskly away from clouds of my own smoke.

 

I was staying with a dear friend and future art dealer Guillaume Pinaut in a flat on the Boulevard St. Michel.

 

The Musée d'Art Modern de la ville de Paris was hosting a retrospective celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Basquiat's birth...the largest of this size ever in Paris. I planned to meet an old friend whom I met in former years living in Aix-en-Provence, Marie Hélène.  She had spent years living in India and it was merely by chance that we found ourselves both in Paris.  I stood at Pont d'Alma cellphoneless and staring wildly at women flocking the metro steps.  Marie Hélène did not surface and I grew tired of noticing and un-noticing the tip of the Eiffel tower in the backround.  Basquiat was on my mind.  It is unusual for me to carry an ipod in my pocket, I must have had a headache this day. It occurred to me that I could experience the exhibition whilst listening to the sounds of Mark Mothersbaugh.  If you can imagine a stack of claymation blocks in primary colors stacking and unstacking themselves-then you can imagine Basquiat to the tune of Mark Mothersbaugh.  

 

 

What a pinnacle of vie, the solo exhibition. In a curatorial sense, I am looking for my Basquiat. Do I already know him? I suppose the inception of a 3,000 sq. ft. gallery will be my litmus test.  I walked slowly through that exhibition experiencing the nonchalance and novelty- the obdurate energy of his beginning strokes, and unto the coherently cultivated movement into public consciousness, to the hand grabbing of other artists, to the 'too much' in respect to the 'too little', to the warm reaping of heroin, and to the masterful veil which immediately shadowed his death...the exhibition was a real experience, a touching of a vastly talented body.  I exited Basquiat's late works after a couple hours. My mind was soaring with the inspiration of a thousand questions and near immediate answers. I had accidentally wandered into the gift shop where a russet haired girl smiled with eyes that had seen the far east, peering from behind a postcard- a portrait of a young Basquiat pushing the corners of the great veil. 

Screaming loudly in a gallery amidst the rain of dollar bills: Jeff Koons

 Just this past April I found myself in Edinburgh, Scotland gazing past the verdure of the old volcano and incessant rain of  the everyday. 

An affiche for an August Sander collection of photographs exhibiting a portrait of the German people caught my eye.

Thus, The Dean Gallery.

Serpentine shaped mound designed by Charles Jencks.

The façade flashed me back to Berlin, 2008 where I saw the Altes Museum lit up with 'ALL ART HAS BEEN CONTEMPORARY'

A peak into Eduard Paolozzi's studio...

 The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was exhibiting 18 works by the now house-hold name American artist Jeff Koons. O' how he would have loved to be the first to manipulate the American Flag! Put those all-seeing pyramids in the place of fifty threaded stars! An over-actively scheming part of me wishes that he could have further patronized his Bavarian hired woodcarvers by giving them Home Depot sponsorships. Alas, as I teetered through vanilla-shell rooms an eerie sense of nostalgia and adoration came over me.  I just wished that he had put more toys into his toy box. Koon's 'Caterpillar Chains' from the Popeye Series (inflatable toys meet Iron Man, by Iron Man I mean they 'get hard') caused me to get that epiphany stirring early feeling of conceptualism...then I was reminded of my nieces and either giggled or sighed. Essentially, what do I gather from this experience? Screaming loudly in a gallery yields the applause of children.

Jeff Koons will be showing at The Dean gallery through July 3, 2011.