It is interesting that for both Dana Schutz and Daniel Richter, two figurative artists that have been noted in proximity with the phrase "the return of painting," James Ensor has been a primary inspiration.
Actually I recently found online an alternate oil version (left) to Richter's
The Owner's History Lesson (right) from a couple years back:
I also suspect Schutz' influenced by Sigmar Polke, or that they both have internalized Guston in their own way. While Daniel's non-relation Gerhard strictly demarcates between the figurative and non-figurative, the line between the two becomes less clear in Schutz' canvases in ways that tend to work differently in each one, especially as she says she is moving from Guston to
looking at Johns, Dubuffet and Charline von Heyl*. Since
Giovanni Bellini conspired against the younger Giorgione there's also been a tight/ loose brush stroke dichotomy, both in figurative and Abstract Expressionism, with Caravaggio and Helen Lundeberg amongst others representing the hard-edge. Before Neo Rauch was known in the US, Arthur Danto used a critique of the hard edge to call Surrealism "retrograde," citing Magritte, the sort of statement like his prattle about "the end of painting" that he typically gets burned on.
The last time Schutz was up at Zach Feuer I thought I would go in reading as little as possible ahead of time to see if I liked her or not, and by the second long visit in two hours I was roasting marshmallows in Camp Schutz. I have noted here my interest in Daumier's dramatic tableaux, and my favorite Charles Demuth is the early illustrations, so you may have figured that I can't get enough of the dramatic tableaux, which Schutz serves up in large portions no two alike, historical dimensions with ambiguity that soaks its way into the brush stroke.
Yau says "Schutz’s drawings begin in abstraction—a gouache band or ovoid stain, a thick or thin line in ink and dry brush, a stained field of black dots. Each linear addition brings further definition until finally a figure emerges," a method similar to Ernst's use of frottage and decalicomania to deal with the white canvas.
I mention this because
she has a museum show in Purchase, NY (to go with a gallery show in Not-for-sale, NJ) of 42 works which opened this past Sunday, which will make its way to Miami and Denver.
Also, that Hesse girl is
showing oils in Brooklyn, apparently the fiberglass isn't selling.
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I mentioned Dubuffet's writings recently on this blog but in the end I find them good for a painter and not for a writer, and he says at one point that painting is better than writing. He says that because he's a painter and he's not much of a writer, although he expresses himself thoughtfully and originally. Friends of Artaud say he thought writing was 'pigshit' because he was too drugged out to be Proust, which is true on some level, but it freed him up to escape the laws of writing and express something else. Art Brut's appeal to the economic base is its infantilism. Infantilism and bureaucracy can work together well. The Visionary Museum in Baltimore inevitably has begun to have shows of MFAs, just as the MFAs enforce infantilism in literature.
But this quote of his is interesting: "You think you control the things you're interested in and choose to hold dear; what if you are completely mistaken? What if the things you claim to like, that you are convinced you love, are actually and ultimately alien and indifferent to you, whereas other things, unsuspected, which you would be quite astonished to learn play a part in your life, were actually of prime importance, were essential movers in your existence? It's not out of the question. When people affirm their liking for this or that, be careful not to believe a word of it, since they know the least about their taste: the floor of a room, the head of a stairway - they claim they've never noticed them and hardly realize they even exist...
"The things we truly love, the things forming the basis and roots of our being, are generally the things we never look at. Wherever collusion is deep and an attachment is solidly established, the eyes and the conscious mind can mind their own business. Consciousness requires a certain distance... The conscious deals with the unfamiliar or inadequate experience: the moment we're deeply imbued, we're done with the conscious. The objects we isolate clearly within our field of gazing are those still foreign to us. As we grow to like them, they pass into, and no longer before, our eyes, and we are no longer aware of their presence."
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At the moment Wall Street has eclipsed Soho and Chelsea for the best art show in town and Piri' Miri Muli' wouldn't think for a moment to suggest otherwise. A
video of two women participating in
Occupy Wall Street getting pepper sprayed has gone viral, and police brutality of a more widespread sort is what induced the Sorbonne students to march in solidarity with the Nanterre students in May '68. In fact, I'm concerned that the shift of creative vitality from Soho and Williamsburg to Wall Street will lead to rising real estate prices that will drive out current Wall Street residents. Media coverage started to appear on Saturday with the usual columns framing arguments on behalf of the economic élites, taking the protesters to task for not having a specific demand. The march organizers had made the decision long ago to open the "occupation" to discussion over what such a demand would be, a welcome development in contrast to protest organizers that are wont to say "I need bodies," betting that such a process for a demand could constructively emerge. I would suggest this: public funding for elections. Protests for the overturning of Citizens United are sorely needed, as there is bipartisan opposition to the Supreme Court ruling among the rank and file of the two major parties and predictable apathy in Washington to pass the necessary legislation, but if/when it is overturned you're left with the same old campaign finance system that not only didn't work but made things like Citizens United and the Iraq War possible.
You can expect public financing of elections to cost a little more than what is spent on campaigns today, though it doesn't have to, but even if it does, the public can well afford it: 2-5 billion a year for all the races in the country. What we can't afford is all the candidates that take a bribe of a nickel from a corporation and pay them back a dollar of corporate welfare from the public funds - we've tried that for years and it got us a Super Congress for debt reduction, along with cuts in the Securities and Exchange Commission and similar agencies. Our congress with an historically low approval rating knows that they owe their careers to the current system of funding, so the public must take the initiative.
Also, Pasolini's comment from '68: "When you clashed with the policemen at Valle Giulia, I sympathized with them. Because policemen are children of the poor" applies here. An NYPD policeman told Michael Moore in solidarity that Wall Street stole their pension fund, but they know Michael is a regular guy. I agree with those columnists that say there's too much effort spent by college kids heckling the cops, when they should be discussing policy. That said, the cops are ordered to represent the interests of what is being protested and I've experienced how tear gas makes you angry and talkative, to go with the brutality the protesters have witnessed from the hands of some like
Officer Bologna. I don't think Pasolini would have liked Officer Bologna, he was Roman.
(Update 9/29: CA Conrad weighs in inside
a grey polygon on Huffpost)
I don't agree with Arthur Danto's view that the essential art is in New York, though I note both that Wall Street is in New York and that there have been supportive protests elsewhere. I'll let you know when I agree with him about something.
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Criterion came out with
The Complete Jean Vigo on August 30, so if I label this a
New on dvd citation it is only because a certain mail rental company that has wallowed in the negative attentions of the masses recently, a company that makes no attempt to offer all of Criterion's titles in concert with a larger cultural push to dumb down cinematic audiences, releases it to its subscribers tomorrow.
Complete means all of Vigo til his death at 29, including a documentary juxtaposing the idyllic port of Nice with its corruption, no less relevant today, and
Zero for Conduct, for which my longstanding adoration has thankfully not affected my good attitude for school. And of course the restoration of
L'Atalante (on Youtube sans sous-titres en Anglais), the only comedy and the only film before World War II to make
my Top 15. This is not to say I have thought long and hard what the best comedy ever is, because I don't seek out comedies for the same reason goats don't shop for sweaters, but it would be on any short list of the best comedies, adding to the genre - which has caused critics to say the story line is not characteristic of a 'classic' - so much that is completely unique to Vigo and his imitators. I can, however, with more certainty give it award hardware in other categories:
* Best barge movie: I don't think I've seen another canal barging movie but there could be one some time in the right hands; I find memoirs of barge trips amusing and read them often;
* Best cat movie: This perhaps also relates to how many cat movies you've seen and what your needs are in a cat movie;
* Best love triangle movie: Would have to research the extent to which this set forth the French genre of love triangle movies but whatever that may be, it is a parody of all of them that came later;
* I think I had more but I can't think of them. I will update this while I'm watching it again. Also I have recently commenced my fascination with Otar Iosseliani films and he's interviewed on the extras.
* von Heyl has a 10 year retrospective in Philly til Feb 19
The Bosnian, Serbo-Croat language ballads of Alija Djerzelez, possibly influenced by the bugarštica tradition of ballads that have been traced to the 15th Cenutry, are no longer sung in their original form, but the Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors, incorporating the story of Gjergj Elez Alia, have been passed on by an oral tradition and retain their popularity. As Elsie says "While the Bosnian Slav epic seems to have died out as a living tradition, the Albanian epic is still very much alive. Even as the twenty-first century marches on, one can still find a good number of 'lahutars' in Kosova, in particular in the Rugova highlands west of Peja, and in northern Albania, as well as some rare souls in Montenegro, who are able to sing and recite the heroic deeds of Mujo and Halili and their thirty 'agas,' as part of an unbroken oral tradition. One can safely assume that these elderly men constitute the very last traditional native singers of epic verse in Europe."
Because the Saturday gallery hours are being eliminated this weekend so that the tent cities in the urban centers can be cleared out by authorities and replaced with sculptures of a manger in a gated community with a baby in swaddling clothes, my Two Days Left column culled from wanderings a few days ago has been reduced to a One Day Left, which means you have only tomorrow to see the haunting images of the Iraqi Halim Al Karim in his NYC debut at Stux (530 W 25th), who says "the main challenge for me is to identify and stay clear of the historical and contemporary elements of brainwashing" and "nobody in Iraq hasn’t lost somebody or at least part of their own character." From the gallery press release: "During the Iran-Iraq war, Halim’s family was forced out of their home in Baghdad. Halim was unwillingly conscribed to serve in the Iraqi military during the first Gulf War, which the artist describes as, 'a fearfully lonely and harrowing journey.' Halim Al Karim soon escaped the military and sought refuge in a rock-covered hole in the southern Iraqi desert. He attributes his physical and emotional survival to an elderly Bedouin woman who brought him food and water, as well as educated him about mysticism and gypsy customs. Aided by this wise and kind stranger, the artist retreated to a deeply meditative state that enabled him to distance his memory from the atrocities of war. He emerged from seclusion on occasion, refusing to disclose his whereabouts to his friends or family for fear of jeopardizing his family and his own safety.
".... Hidden ... incorporates the Sufi concept of 'al-batin' in Arabic, one of the ninety-nine names of Allah that denotes 'truth' when recited. The series references the artist’s perspective that humanity is best preserved from brutal acts of violence when an inner focus is maintained and hidden from view. A number of works within the theme are covered with a tightly stretched sheer scrim of white or black silk; this compositional device represents a transcendental portal to the subconscious, where the serene human form latently lies protected underneath." (pdf)
As to whether you should check out Nan Goldin's Scopophilia show (522 W 22 Street) all you need to know is that it has been banned from a Rio de Janeiro museum because of works like this one, that one, this one and that one, utilizing the Baudelarian method of juxtaposing paintings at the Louvre that she photographed during off hours with the contemporary folks from her own photographic oeuvre. Piri' Miri Muli' readers are accustomed to theoretical concepts mentioned here in passing becoming trendy in a year and a half's time but this approach more likely drew some inspiration from Chris Marker's project over the last half decade about which he noted “Cocteau used to say that at night, statues escape from museums and go walking in the streets," one painting making it into both shows. Goldin takes the technique in an expanse of directions and adds a slide show recounting the stories of Narcissus and Theseus.
I'd never seen Liberty Plaza Park absent of Occupation, so I have no idea whether it looks large on a normal day, but it has the aura of a delightfully crowded sardine can that makes walking into a constant conversation and negotiation and will not show a yard of empty space any time soon. Hovering above it is the red, large scale sculpture Joie de Vivre by Mark di Suvero, one of the most politically engaged artists of his generation. In the 70's he said "I left the country because of the Vietnam War. We say democracy, and then the United States is guilty of something like Chile. That's incredible." Recently he reflected "The 60's scene was an idea of liberation, was an idea of struggling against this military industrial complex that's still ruling our economy."
di Suvero designed the Peace Tower in Los Angeles in 1966 (left), financed by Rauchenberg and Stella amongst others, which so enraged locals that the artists had to defend it physically, with Irving Petlin at one point reduced to brandishing a broken light bulb. Participants included Guston, Golub, Spero, Hesse, Judd, Motherwell, Nevelson, Rosenquist and many other luminaries. The project was revisited at the 2006 Whitney Biennial with di Suvero collaborating with Rikrit Tiravanija, who had attempted to build a tower in Central Park for the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The new internationally focused C24 opened with quite a good "Double Crescent" show putting artists from New Orleans side by side with artists from Istanbul, including Skylar Fein's reconstruction of the Vertov Telegram, believed to have been sent right after the murder of Rosa Luxemborg: "Down with the scented veil of kisses, murders, doves, and conjuring tricks! We need conscious people, not an unconsious mass, ready to yield to any suggestion! Long live the consciousness of the pure who can see and hear!"
I mentioned Dubuffet's writings recently on this blog but in the end I find them good for a painter and not for a writer, and he says at one point that painting is better than writing. He says that because he's a painter and he's not much of a writer, although he expresses himself thoughtfully and originally. Friends of Artaud say he thought writing was 'pigshit' because he was too drugged out to be Proust, which is true on some level, but it freed him up to escape the laws of writing and express something else. Art Brut's appeal to the economic base is its infantilism. Infantilism and bureaucracy can work together well. The Visionary Museum in Baltimore inevitably has begun to have shows of MFAs, just as the MFAs enforce infantilism in literature.
Criterion came out with The Complete Jean Vigo on August 30, so if I label this a New on dvd citation it is only because a certain mail rental company that has wallowed in the negative attentions of the masses recently, a company that makes no attempt to offer all of Criterion's titles in concert with a larger cultural push to dumb down cinematic audiences, releases it to its subscribers tomorrow. Complete means all of Vigo til his death at 29, including a documentary juxtaposing the idyllic port of Nice with its corruption, no less relevant today, and Zero for Conduct, for which my longstanding adoration has thankfully not affected my good attitude for school. And of course the restoration of L'Atalante (on Youtube sans sous-titres en Anglais), the only comedy and the only film before World War II to make my Top 15. This is not to say I have thought long and hard what the best comedy ever is, because I don't seek out comedies for the same reason goats don't shop for sweaters, but it would be on any short list of the best comedies, adding to the genre - which has caused critics to say the story line is not characteristic of a 'classic' - so much that is completely unique to Vigo and his imitators. I can, however, with more certainty give it award hardware in other categories:
Blacked out for 46 hours, recalling my emotional stake in electricity: I like to read by candlelight but someone told me once "it's hard on your eyes." What I like about electricity is reading at night, reading blogs instead of newspapers, pushing buttons on a laptop that make books appear in the mail, some movies. Every way that electricity can make you stupider is utilized to the fullest, including by writers. This past week I've been into Dubuffet's writings, quite helpful and freeing, including "every year there are small discoveries like the telephone or the airplane, and these small discoveries ultimately have no importance for man's mind, his condition, or his sense of life. When a Parisian who's got gas and electricity in his home speaks with a villager who cooks in a fireplace and uses a kerosene lamp, it won't take him long to realize that the villager is nevertheless not supider than he, and that things like gas and electricity are trivial, highly trivial matters, that in no way modify or even scratch the position or structure of man."
What I was driving at with Matta was first described by his precursor Duchamp: "Simply, I thought of the idea of a projection, of an invisible fourth dimension, something you couldn't see with your eyes. Since I found that one could make a cast shadow from a three dimensional thing, any object whatsoever - just as the projecting of the sun on the earth makes two dimensions - I thought that, by simple intellectual analogy, the fourth dimension could project an object of three dimensions, or, to put it another way, any three-dimensional object, which we see dispassionately, is a projection of something four-dimensional, something we're not familiar with." This is at the heart of what is accurately called conceptualism, when conceptualism is being helpful to expression - the combination of the retinal and the non- or super-retinal, the invisible dimension which the literary art has through the centuries attempted to illustrate in different ways.
Marlborough's "Living in Havana" show (525 w25th, til June 18) features a series of conceptual works by Ernesto Rancaño, known around the Caribbean for his exceptional "baroque" paintings. At a show of Cuban art at the UN Office at Geneva in 2005, two nudes were taken down out of Rancaño's paintings, at which time the curator asked him to create a work for the International Labor Organization headquarters. What he came up with was "Noble ser" (left), a shovel covered with thorns, leading to the development of the other conceptual sculptures in this show including a ladder with thorns on it called "Ascension," a rope to escape being a figurine in a suit perched high on an obelisk called "The Escape," a phone with the earphone and microphone on opposite sides called "Wordless," and a horseshoe with a microscope on a man in suit.
I enjoyed Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung's parodies of the 2008 US presidential election, but his 10 new digital prints inspired by the Chinese Jasmine Revolution of the past few months provides a rare glimpse into the Chinese resistance, at Postmasters (459 w19th til July 9). Revolutionary dissident Ai WeiWei can be found on one digital print imprisoned in a logo of a chrysanthemum extract powdered drink and as the Buddhist god Guan Yin in another (left). A running theme is the Great Firewall of China, internet censorship including a ban on the word "Jasmine," which is expressed here both in the digital prints and a ping-pong table with the Great Wall in the place of the net. If you go as you should, take the brochure at the entrance in with you which explains the symbols and dark humor of each work.
Update: Also, Balthus seems to be a big influence: both the portraiture and the street scenes, in which guys are constantly carrying things across the frame.
Also, speaking of the lost loves of Loplop, the red knots will be in Delaware Bay feasting on horseshoe crab eggs for another week or so, and can be seen on the Jersey side here (where I saw them) or here or on the Delaware side. Since horseshoe crabs are 250 million years old and have existed in other forms for another 200 million years, and birds predate the dinosaurs, this has been going on for a very long time, but the number of red knots migrating to the Arctic Circle from Tierra del Fuego to mate is only a quarter of what it was thirty years ago. (PBS special) They're lighter than an apple but their tendency to fly in groups of 100 or so, provoked at a moment's notice (such as if you step within 40 feet of them) which can commence a week in the air, never gets tiresome.
