Art as Authority

Photo: Christine Fricaud

Spun by Art as Authority at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Abstraction in art traditionally refers to nonrepresentational art. But in informatics it refers to a more generalized process of complexity reduction which is used in all domains of art and life.

Consider the informatic properties of the classical European portrait in a palace: the room has a specific decor; the painting is constructed of wood, canvas, and pigment; the wood is arranged to create a visible frame; the pigment is arranged to create an image of a royal personage.

Informatic abstraction can be applied to any or all of these properties, yielding a unified description of a plethora of art-historical phenomena:

-- Stripping the palace decor down to bare white walls yields the modern art museum gallery.

-- Removing the visible frame from the painting yields another modern art convention.

-- Removing the figurational restriction to royalty represents the liberation of art to represent all things in the world (Brueghel as precursor to Warhol).

-- Removing the representational constraint yields traditional art-historic abstraction.

-- Removing both the representational and formal constraints yields color-field, monochrome, and minimalist art.

-- Removing the materials themselves yields the dematerialization of art, which can be seen (in very different ways) in the rise of performance art, and in Light and Space art.

-- Removing the gallery (and abstracting the materials appropriately) yields land art and public art.

Thus the progressive generalization conventionally attributed to the development of modern and contemporary art can be equally viewed as a process of progressive abstraction.

If abstraction denotes a reduction in informational complexity, then anti-abstraction is the inverse: namely, the adding of information to an entity (in the context of art, an image or object).

The most straightforward means of achieving anti-abstraction is magnification, which has played a key role in the information-creation process fundamental to science. In art, however, magnification as a strategy is relatively rare: it was pursued most famously by Roy Lichtenstein and Chuck Close, with lesser-known practitioners including David Reed, David Wilson, and (in Strange New World, the current show at MCA San Diego) Monica Arreola.

Abstraction and anti-abstraction can be used in tandem as a strategy for generating possible art. For instance, consider the following images, which were collected from the backgrounds of New Yorker cartoons, scanned at 600 dots per inch, and magnified accordingly.

A New Yorker cartoonist uses abstraction to solve the formal problem of recognizably depicting framed artwork in an area no greater than 1-2 square centimeters, using the imprecise imaging technology of a handheld pen, and subject to the additional restriction of not having the depicted artwork call undue attention to itself. This latter restriction derives from the informational role of a New Yorker cartoon image, which is to supply the minimal amount of background context necessary to assist the reader in grasping the humor in the text caption.

Visually this context is supplied in the cartoon image by the depicted human characters. Since the paintings themselves are background to the characters, they function for the reader as second-order background elements and as such are obligated to visually recede to the greatest extent possible, so as not to distract the reader from the purpose of the cartoon. In short, they are not to be looked at.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Paint #18" - Brad Streeper


You are cordially invited to attend Limbo Fine Arts's
Anniversary Gala III

June 17 - July 9, 2006
Gala reception: June 24, 2006 (7-11pm)

Featuring Craig LaRotonda
with special guest artists

Andy Crane
Pamela Jaeger
Joshua Krause
Naomi Nowak
Kevin Peterson
Bradley Streeper

For more information visit the events page at:
http://www.limboarts.com/events
Gallery hours: Saturdays and Sundays noon-5pm
Limbo Fine Arts
1432 University Avenue
San Diego, CA 92103
619.295.5393
www.limboarts.com
Brad Streeper web site

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Michael Arata - Chapel of Mary's Parents - San Bernardino, CA

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An abandoned factory, open space, northern light, room to paint what more could one ask for?
Julien Colombier lives and paints in Paris, France.

Spun by Art as Authority at 09:04 PM | Permalink

Art as Authority's own Michael Arata presents new work in the Chapel of Mary's Parents, San Bernardino CA from May 25 - July 29, 2006.
Opening/Vernissage Thursday, June 15, 5 to 7pm



Stain Glass Window, detail from Chapel of Mary's Parents, 2002-2006 Steel, paint, paper, plywood, acrylic paint and medium, 40" x 24" x 4", courtesy of the artist.

Click on image to enlarge

Spun by Art as Authority at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My blog title is NOT about a new movie or a current bestseller novel. And it has nothing to do about art.
As summer is fast approaching, beaches being blanketed bodies (alive, hopefully!) car windows zapped down, more people outdoors, I am talking about
NOISE POLLU[TE] SHUN! Definition: POLLUTE - to render impure or morally harmful. SHUN - to avoid deliberately.

I was stopped at a light the other day, and this noise polluter behind me, windows wide open, played his specially equipped extra boom blasted bass rock music SO loud that my car (and stomach) was vibrating to the point, where for 2 minutes, I was getting a major stomach/head AND earache and concerned that my car's glass windows might crack!

It was very annoying to say the least. If this was just an example of what the next few months will bring to my ears, I'll be happy to stay indoors, thank you! While I am NOT an old fogey, I don't want to be polluted! I want to be able to hear a symphony or opera concert 20 or 30 years from now! Yes, this is supposedly a FREE country (although with our present *&%$#@! in office, I am not so sure about that anymore). BUT citizens and others should be more respectful of the harm they are causing to others by blasting their music.

Just like second hand smoking, noise pollution is harmful to your health AND your mental state as well.
SO, for all of you who are guilty of the above, PLEASE think outside your slowing failing hearing little head.
RESPECT the ears of others as well as improving the health of yours!
It's NOT cool to be a BLASTER.
And HECK, I'm going to invest in HEARING AID stock.

Spun by Maura Vazakas at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Richard Gleaves joins the editorial staff at Art as Authority. This is his first essay. We wish him "bon vent" and many articles to come. KF



The following images are commercial advertisements from recent mainstream publications (both print and online). The three exceptions - a 16th-century painting, vintage comic strip panel, and contemporary pornograph - are from art/performance web sites and John Berger's classic book Ways of Seeing.

The images share a common image schema, and the schema itself begs several questions regarding its apparent absurd meaning, its function, and above all its cultural persistence. For lack of a better term, the schema is called The Designated Voyeur.

What is the history of The Designated Voyeur? Berger traces it back to the art-historical traditions of the European nude, and given the 1972 publication date of Ways of Seeing and its pervasive influence on visual culture, TDV may well be a standard chapter in advertising school. However, Berger's own explanation of TDV falls far short of covering the examples shown above:

It is true that sometimes a painting includes a male lover. But the woman's attention is very rarely directed towards him. Often she looks away from him or she looks out of the picture towards the one who considers himself her true lover - the spectator-owner. (Berger, page 56)

Berger's analysis - developed in the context of the female nude - asserts that the woman's gaze towards the spectator underlines her role as passive object and property of the painting's male owner. But from a patriarchal perspective why would a male wish to see "his" woman engaged in sexual activity with another male? And from a commercial perspective why would so many mainstream advertisements be based on such a starkly sexist format?

Other factors must be at work. Here is a brief overview of some possibilities:

-- Female eye gaze directed towards the viewer is the bedrock schema for all sex-based male-targeted advertisement.

-- Voyeurism is a taboo for both men and women (with the latter case being comedically illustrated in the 1987 film I've Heard The Mermaids Singing). Having one of the observees gaze towards the viewer with a non-hostile facial expression serves as effective permission for the viewer to voyeur.

-- The True and AAA ads shown above, which depict scenes of suboptimal courtship, appear to be designed primarily for a female demographic, the direct eye gaze in these cases inviting identification from women who have experienced similar situations.

-- Evolutionary psychology suggests that Berger's analysis, while superficially correct, is at a deeper level completely backwards. In particular, EP offers a unified explanation for both the appeal of 16th-century female nude paintings to their male owners, and the appeal of 21st-century cellphone ads to both male and female consumers.

According to EP, female heterosexual partner selection is governed both by perceived ability to provide resources for child-raising and by immediate sexual appeal (the two archetypes being colloquially known as Mr. Right and Mr. Right Now). Again according to EP, a woman who wishes to maximize her genetic success will maintain a long-term partnership with a nurturing male while engaging in periodic sexual liaisons with charismatic non-nurturing males. To the latter this situation is ideal from a genetic perspective, as they achieve genetic success with no outlay of nurturing resources: the cuckoo syndrome, to borrow from avian biology (this is in fact the origin of the word "cuckold").

Considering the EP perspective in the context of TDV, the woman's outwards gaze in the presence of a male partner implies for male viewers that the woman, far from signaling her role as male property, is in fact signaling her active ability to manage multiple sexual partners: the overt one in the image, and the covert one in the role of the male viewer. Thus the viewer of such an image is designated not merely as a sexual desirable, but as a non-nurturing charismatic sexual desirable (if male), or via identification as a partnered sexual desirable (if female). Human nature being what it is, the depicted genetic advantage translates emotionally into a suitably heightened sexual frisson, which to return to the world of art translates in turn into enhanced saleability, whether of 16th-century paintings or 21st-century cellphones.

This is best exemplified by the Tom-and-Nicole image above. This image was the keystone of an ad campaign for the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, whose story centers on a wife's infidelity.

The Designated Voyeur appears to be a staple of commercial advertising - watch for it and it will show up with surprising regularity. And if you accept the argument from evolutionary psychology, marvel that commercial advertising depends not only on everyday sex and everyday violence, but on everyday adultery too.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 12:38 AM | Permalink

EXPOSITION du 22 Juin au 10 septembre 2006
La Ville Andon - 22170 Plélo FRANCE

Issues de publicités, d’archives, d’œuvres peintes, morcelées, reproduites, les images que j’utilise dans ma peinture concentrent le regard sur un niveau anonyme. Ce parti pris fragmentaire, oblige à une vision active, un effort d’attention et de déchiffrage auquel nos regards contemporains, saturés d’images, ne sont plus tout à fait habitués. Certaines formes changent sous l’influence d’autres formes auxquelles elles sont associées pour déterminer des créations conformes à une mémoire collective. L’image peinte s’interpose à la prolifération des images. Dans sa nature, le fragment est énigmatique parce qu’il place le spectateur face à un vide auquel il ne peut répondre que par sa propre interprétation. À vouloir trop chercher l’image, à vouloir la faire exister plus que la peinture ne le souhaite, elle finit par disparaître dans un brouillard de traces. En peinture, le moment seul importe où il faut retenir l’accord révélateur.

Infos sur :
http://h-crespel-peintures.skynetblogs.be/

http://www.lavilleandon.com/index.htm

Spun by Art as Authority at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rêver La Révolution (Dream the Revolution) was a Surrealist belief in a “total” revolution that addressed materialistic, economic and political issues that past revolutions could never overcome, by artistically and intellectually re-thinking and re-creating a means of overthrowing them. Their faith in doing so relied on confronting and alleviating the misery of moral and social problems plaguing mankind and its civilizations for centuries. In the hopes that this could lead to a higher elevation of thought and action(s), and the guarantee of a successful revolution for everyone.

As a proud media sponsor, Art as Authority wishes Sushi Performance and Visual Art Red Ball event, a successful and prosperous coup d'Etat!

Sushi Performance and Visual Art presents
RED BALL: The Revolution
NTC Promenade, Point Loma (2899 Roosevelt Rd.)

Saturday, June 10, 7pm VIP, 9pm General Admission
Tickets: $40 GA ($45 day-of), $35 Member/Student, $150 VIP
(619) 235-8466 www.sushiart.org

Sushi’s Infamous Red Ball Returns

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Join your fellow cultural revolutionaries and support cutting-edge contemporary art in San Diego with a night of great music, dancing, performance and a healthy dose of debauchery at Sushi’s annual art-party, fundraiser. This year’s event, themed around Revolution, features live bands, DJ’s, dance performances, multi-media art installations, and a visual art exhibit. Guests are invited to dress as their favorite revolutionary – artist, thinker, politician, etc. – or come in their most fabulous red ensemble. The event takes place on the beautiful grounds of the former Naval Training Center on Point Loma, the NTC Promenade, on Saturday evening June 10th. A VIP dinner begins at 7pm and general admission at 9pm. Tickets can be purchased for $40-$150 at 619.235.8466 or at www.sushiart.org.

Spun by Art as Authority at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The invitation reads "Brad / Curtis Together again and better than ever!", a titillating title for San Diegans Brad Streeper and Curtis Gannon, who are obviously friends as well as fellow artists. You might expect some collaborative effort on their part but what you’ll discover are two very distinct and diverse works of art that appear at least on the surface, in opposition. Brad Streeper is exhibiting three large works in the Art of Framing gallery space, and Curtis Gannon provides the links in the maille that weave their way through Streeper’s constructions with smaller brightly colored canvases. If opposites attract, it leaves us to wonder what being the same could look like as this show is seamlessly organized, installed and surprisingly “better than ever.”

Brad Streeper’s works are bold and brash, large unflinching works that are robust, solid and fought out on the wood panels they’re painted on. Painted might be too romantic for the swirling orbs of material to construct these works of solidified plaster? paint? resin? which are bathed in subtle colors of ochre, reds, blues, charcoal blacks and titanium whites. These are fluid works by the nature of the materials used, built up in layers of hide and seek, utilizing an all over approach to the surface and often laying pieces on the floor while applying to achieve a topographical birds eye view. It is this perspective and lack of horizon (line) in Streeper’s paintings that allow the viewer an entry and freedom to explore and discover the parcour of the painting’s history from the first blob dropped, to a rich poetic rhythm and beauty in its finished altered state.

Composite (Click for larger image)




Click for larger image



Curtis Gannon’s works are much smaller in comparison to Streeper’s, atypically longer horizontally or taller vertically – brightly colored as well. Using a palette of pastel acrylic colors on canvas mounted to plywood, Gannon’s paintings make up an infinite abundance of geometric shapes and lines that float across the surface without any particular boundary or destination. Form and color overlap and intersect in a mosaic abstract patterning reminiscent of the artist Stuart Davis. While Gannon’s paintings are pleasing to the eye, joyful and playful in their compositions, it is often difficult to delve beyond the layering of the forms – which often obliterate the painting underneath leaving flat areas of textured surface – like miniscule mountain ranges that push up toward the earth’s crust, to find any further meaning or objective in the work. Furthermore, Gannon’s rather simple titles of the paintings confuse and possibly mislead the viewer into another realm of interpretation.

Beneath Coats and Layers



Between Breathes (Click for larger image)



Both Streeper and Gannon work in decisive styles building up the surfaces of their works through experimentation or hard-edged geometry. This slow build up and successive under and over painting, bring to the viewer like a slow rolling rumbling boil from within, a certain emotive charge that expands across the picture plane and the mind. Whereas we can easily accept the warmer tepid murkiness of Streeper’s pieces, infused with hot bursts of volcanic red color that pierce the crust of the surface; the cooler/detached yet vibrant paintings by Gannon are rather difficult to assimilate separately and do well – as I’ve seen them previously – grouped together as a single puzzle rather than individual pieces.

Congratulations should be given to both artists for a strong showing and opposing view of contemporary painting today as well as the Art of Framing gallery, for accepting to showcase some of the better art works being made here in San Diego.




Doom's Day Device

Hide and Seek

More Left Unsaid

The Art of Framing
3333 Adams Avenue
San Diego, Calif. 92116
619.563.9770
expo on view through July 1, 2006
Call for opening hours

Taking Shape

As a possible counterpoint to the review above, here is a short article on Tomma Abts who is one of four artists selected for the prestigious Turner Prize 2006. Born 1967 in Kiel, Germany she lives and works in London, England. I find her work to reflect some of the same notions and ideas in Gannons's work. KF
http://www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?Abts

Spun by Art as Authority at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Just in case you need a little brushing up on how to properly pronounce Sandro Botticelli, here's a little guide to get you on your way. Guide courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1958.

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Brad Streeper's web site

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Marussa Gravagnuolo et Christine Lahoud ont le plaisir de vous inviter

jeudi, le 8 Juin de 18h à 20h30

pour le vernissage de l'exposition de PABLO REINOSO

"CONSPIRATIONS"

Exposition du 8 Juin au 25 Septembre 2006 (Fermer en Aout)
Heures d'ouverture: mardi au samedi: 11h -13h et 14h30-19h
Plus d'info sur notre site: www.galeriepieceunique.com
Galerie Piece Unique
4, rue Jacques Callot Tel: +33 (0)1 43 26 54 58
Galerie Piece Unique Variations
26, rue Mazarine Tel: +33 (0)1 43 26 85 93
75006 Paris - France
info@galeriepieceunique.com

Pablo Reinoso web site

Spun by Art as Authority at 05:39 PM | Permalink

I was up in Costa Mesa, California the other night for the opening of Collabro at the Subject Matter Gallery. I took the hour long ride or so up there with my good friend Ryan from The Art of Framing gallery here in San Diego. Subject Matter is not really a "gallery" in the strict sense of the word or what comes to mind when we think of a gallery.

It is really a gallery "space" and a hip clothing store combined. I would guess that most of the clothing is unisex and targets 18 to 25 year olds with some discretionary cash to spend. It is pretty representative of what you might consider to be Hip-Hop culture. It is nicely done, spacious, and the gallery space comprises about a 1/3 of the total retail surface. Every month they showcase younger artists from the graphic design and graffiti underground sticker indie music mileu. Collabro was curated by Poor Al, a local San Diego artist, who also collaborated on several of the works exhibited.

There were over 30 artists who were exhibiting that evening and works of art in many different styles and mediums. There were also plenty of people at the opening, free flowing Corona's and a live DJ spinning.

click on image for larger view

I had a great time. The work exhibited was fresh, innovative, exciting and perhaps at times, a tad bit too professional looking - a little too much design, a little too much cliché, a little bit too much Hollywood - glitzy, pretty and over the top. But the amount of quality works shown quickly made you forget this minor and forgivable "error" as you were quickly swept up into the ambiance, energy and passion of the artists and their creations.

Up in the left hand corner of the image is a collaborative piece by Poor Al and my most favorite piece in the entire show. It's difficult to explain why I like this piece so much, but I think part of it comes from its blatant simplicity and execution/subject matter and the little figurine in the lower left corner of the drawing that is saying to this woman on all fours, ass in the air " We love you ". Excellent piece!



click on image for larger view

click on image for larger view



Even Luna had a good time, limes and all!

This was really an excellent show all in all. I like the play on and subtility of the title Collabro (drop the r and you have Collabo, slang for a not so friendly group of individuals during World War II). But nevertheless, there were truly plenty of brothers in arms for this turnout and the strength and diversity of what was being shown was a rare energy, not seen lately here in SD, that should be paid attention to and followed with loyal and religious fervor.

Subject Matter Gallery
Please call the gallery for opening hours and duration of show.

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