Art as Authority

Congrats to San Diego artist Kelly Hutchison aka Dark Vomit for scoring an awesome interview in the latest issue of Juxtapoz Magazine. Here's an excerpt:

Knee Deep in Dark Vomit: An Exclusive Interview
interview by Greg Escalante and Wendy Sherman

Dark Vomit AKA Kelly Hutchison recently showed a magnificently bizarre body of work at Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center. The art was so imaginative and outright funny that Juxtapoz curator Greg Escalante and GCAC board member Wendy Sherman tracked down the illusive artist and scored this illuminating interview.

Greg Escalante: Nice to meet the man behind the art! So what’s up with the nickname?

Kelly Hutchison: Dark Vomit transpired partly because everyone misspelled my last name. It was a whimsical idea - when I was 13 years old I almost died of a burst appendix. Was in the hospital for three months. It was a military hospital, my dad was in the air force. After the surgery to remove my appendix, my guts started forming abscesses and I was fed off an IV tube for a couple of months. Had a tube in me that went down my nose and reached my stomach to pump and drain it to stop me from digesting. That kept me in a hospital bed for a month and a half that way. It brutalized my appetite, and still does to this day. I am 6 foot 6 inches tall, weigh 145 lbs. and have been the same weight since age 15. From that experience I came up with the idea to call myself “Dark Vomit.”

“A regurgitation of my most twisted inner thoughts.” It is a way for me to pool my emotions in the context that I paint.

The rest of the interview can be found here.

Spun by Art as Authority at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Richard Gleaves








Until recently my exposure to anime had consisted primarily of a satisfying addiction to anything Miyazaki. But then I learned of Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime series written and directed by Hideaki Anno which spans 11 hours of television episodes and a concluding movie.

If Miyazaki's work embodies classical art cinema à la Kurosawa, NGE comes off as a kind of mad dog masterpiece which strains so hard at its genre seams that it finally bursts into something entirely one of a kind. (Think Wagner making Saturday morning cartoons.)

NGE themes include adolescent fantasy, rampant Christian symbolism, sex, opera, penguins, budget battles, gods, angels, robots, Nevada, domestic chores, death battles, clones, computers, mental illness, the United Nations, hubris, teen angst, global warming, bad parenting, mushroom clouds, beer, Antarctica, spies, aliens, poetry, human extinction, crotch shots, Tokyos, origin myths, psychoanalysis, the Dead Sea scrolls, Beethoven, global conspiracies, existentialism, homosexuality, watermelons, and more, all set in a plot line as elliptical and labyrinthine as any novel you've ever tackled, and laced throughout with a pervasive underlying sadness.

Anno, who clearly knows his art house, created such a compelling pop series that when in the final episodes he abruptly took the story in a 720-degree left turn, the resulting viewer uproar included not just blistering criticism, but death threats. Hence the concluding movie, End of Evangelion, which attempts to tie up various loose ends.

If you're willing to invest 12 hours in close-attention viewing — a task made considerably easier by the oft-beautiful imagery (Anno launched his career working for Miyazaki) — you'll come out with a pretty good handle on how far anime can be pushed as an art form. The general consensus on the net is polarized between WTF and "the most moving story I've ever experienced", which given the work is only to be expected.

The TV series and movie are available on Netflix, and can also be found (in 10-minute chunks) on YouTube.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 08:14 PM | Permalink

from ArtsJournal and the USC Annenberg School for Communication


At a time when both the art and business of arts journalism are undergoing transformative change, A National Summit on Arts Journalism is being convened to explore some of that change – on Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9AM PDT.

The Summit will present a range of ideas and projects representing current thinking in covering the arts. Five projects were selected in an open call this summer that attracted 109 submissions. Five additional projects will be presented representing broad trends in the field of journalism. Presentations will be made in front of a live audience, streamed over the internet and archived on this website.

The Summit will also include two roundtable discussions about the art and business of arts journalism. The online audience will be invited to comment and ask questions during the Summit using Twitter and chat features.

The live webcast will be found here at najp.org/summit on October 2, 2009, from 9AM-1PM PDT.

A National Summit on Arts Journalism is a project of USC Annenberg School for Communication and the National Arts Journalism Program. It is made possible with the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation, the University of Southern California and the National Endowment for the Arts.

More information here.

Spun by Art as Authority at 08:25 PM | Permalink

by KAI ONE





Every second the art world breathes in another minute of life, one young person at a time. Every time a television clicks off or property is vandalized you are hearing the sound of our collective esthetic palette expanding whether you like it or not. This new generation of artists, art critics, and art collectors emerge as the youth shy away from vacuous commerce and slave labor crafted objects of fetishism. Perhaps pigment marking surface is now morally superior to Nike Airs made in sweat shops by nine year old girls. When I was a kid I coveted all sports card ephemera. I was only mildly interested in the sports themselves but the cards, banners, magazines, games, toys, and other collectibles delighted me. These objects of worship were also worth big money at the time and I acquired them like a cutthroat stock trader. I would hustle my less knowledgeable classmates out the choice shit because I had done all my home work. They invested their allowances in cards and I invested mine in the card price guides. As soon as the bottom fell out of the cards market I quit collecting them and left all of my prize cards in the bushes of the mall after being told by the card shop that they wouldn’t buy any of them back. It turns out that if I had held on to them about 15 years later (now) they would be worth a lot of money.

But my obsessive collecting would turn to comic books after I ditched the cards in the mall bushes. Comics were also worth money at the time and I collected, stole, and swindled them with all of my heart and soul. The pictures captivated me and even the stories with their mainstream corniness were amusing and full of interesting things to learn about life. That was when I was young, before you are truly jaded, and know it all. I really changed when I saw my Uncle Rusty’s collection of underground comics. I mean sure he had card sets going back to the 1940’s and even some Mickey Mantle’s and whole lot of awesome bobble head dolls. He had an insane record collection as well but I wasn’t even really up on the music tip at the time. What shattered my fucking skull was his collection of underground comix. He had R. Crumb shit for days, Mickey Rat, all original stuff from the 60’s. I changed forever after looking at his box of comix. Those hundred comix changed my life in a way that nothing else could have at that young age. They were like cryptic answer books for all of my questions about life. I collected comic books fervently and eventually acquired over 5,000 books. They invaded my room lurking in every corner stacked high. Even as the market on comic books failed I still couldn’t bring myself to give, sell, or trade away all of them. Some of them are special. I’ve used some of them for source material in painting and collage work. It’s like I’m putting a little bit of my childhood into each painting.

I was always told that “Fine Art” was something that’s only synergistically created in conjunction with money. That no matter how much wealth of talent you have it means nothing without monetary wealth and societal connections. They say that you are only a real artist if you are selling for seven figures. They deny art that does not have economic viability. They deny the fact that art lets your soul free to fly and is the only real good reason I can give for living. It gives you the power to create ANYTHING out of nothing. The fact that the artists most heralded are the ones who use art to make MONEY is despicable. But that’s just the way it goes, people are just trying to eat, just trying to make something out of nothing. That’s what we’re all trying to do so it’s wrong to hate on them only but rather try to learn how they do it and try to duplicate their dastardly vision fourfold with dollar signs in your own eyes. They say all is fair in Love and War but War has the Geneva Convention and Love has Prenuptials. Art has no fucking rules man, on the other hand, famous artists might have big money for lawyers but if you’re anonymous and broke you can do anything you want to do and the most that the law can do is throw you in jail.

Take the case of Damien Hirsts' pencils. I mean Hirst is kind of the guy you love to hate. I liked his cow in casting resin or whatever and his assistants can paint pretty well, and I thought what he said about 9/11 was pretty zany but his pencils take the cake. The story of poor lil’ Damien’s pencils started when some little toy graffiti artist, a 16 year old kid, started selling studies of Hirsts’ paintings (which aren’t really his but copies of copies of paintings possibly by him copied from source material remixed and done to death) only to receive a cease and desist letter from the Hirst lawyer camp. This is ridiculous because Hirst himself had just ripped off the Invisible Man science model (which was an awesome educational tool and object of art on its own accord) by creating an oversized scale replica model. I’m sure Hirst has more money than the people who own the Invisible Man. So anyways this little graffiti kid decides to steal a box of pencils (regular pencils) from one of D.H.’s installations which causes Hirst to claim that the box of pencils is valued at around a million dollars. This is crazy fucking talk. Those pencils had even less esthetic value than the sixteen year olds shitty knock offs.

There is nothing wrong with using art and source material or doing studies of famous works or even recycling your old stuff. But can you at least change it like 10 percent? Please throw another color scheme or change some doodads or some shading here or there. It’s hard to draw or paint straight from the subconscious and I’ve had to ween myself off and on the source material over the years. It’s always key to remember that there is a fine line between a “hack” and “homage”. Every artist of any kind starts off at biting (copying) existing works of art. It’s been like that since the beginning of art. Now because of technology humans can find out almost every single thing about any particular genre or art and imitate it badly. Years of dues aren’t paid and because of this the art is vacuous and lackluster.

When I was about twelve I discovered vandalism. This is when people make markings on surfaces that don’t belong to them with an opposing color of ink or paint and for some reason it is a crime. A lot of what they do is better then what is in museums but because they don’t get permission they get punished if they get caught. Some of them are getting more prison time then rapists and murderers. In just the last few months Buket got like three years and this kid from Texas got eight years. Eight years for changing the color of paint. This shit is ludicrous. What’s going on? The point is though that this art is free, shit it’s even better then free it costs people money who don’t like it to cover it up. There are no rules in vandalism and while some graffiti is art nothing can ever change the fact that it is done without permission. This is what makes it anti-art. Over the years because no one was able to find outlets for the young vandals their methods became more savage. Now the vandals bring acid etch batch into the equation and all of a sudden there is an economic factor to along with the anti-art. Suddenly businesses have to start spending enough to buy a Picasso just to erase the anti-artists work. This is happening everywhere.

The youth see this real free expression of art going on and are going to be forever changed by it. Nothing will change the history of art more than graffiti. Not the renaissance, not the camera, nothing. Graffiti is the freak mutant child of pop art and calligraphy forever lurking outside your house while you sleep “destroying your property”. This economic guerrilla coup d’état is something entirely unique within the extension of the dialogue of art history. I can certainly see the next logical extension of this anti art would be bursting in to galleries and painting famous works black or slashing them with box cutters. Another idea is perhaps spraying the art and the patrons with paint loaded fire extinguishers. My favorite grandiose dream (and I’m trepidatious here to share it here for fear of someone hacking my idea before I get the bankroll to finance but decided to publish it now so at least I will go down in the annals of history as its true creator) is to be able to purchase important masterworks and collaborate with the artists posthumously. Imagine changing that Picasso vase you don’t like or fixing the lighting on a Manet. Perhaps you can straighten some of Matisse’s crooked lines from his later years. Buy the Andy Warhol Shot Marilyn and shoot it a few more times. All the minimalists and geometric painters (that’s you Frank Stella) stuff would make great backgrounds. The more important painting the better. Maybe finally get to draw Duchamp’s mustache on the Mona Lisa. Someone crazy enough to be into this sort of thing buy with the actual money to do it would probably be too distracted with safaris and watching to make sure no one is stealing his money to actually go through with it. But watch out if I hit that lottery or make it big in the stock market. If anyone wants to donate a shitload of money or important masterworks to my cause surreptitiously I'd be happy to meet you.

So where does that leave me as an artist? I’m stuck in the middle of a bunch of hungry rich collectors who only see dollar signs and successful artists with their claws dug into the last little bit of economic sustenance in the withered art market. I despise the schmoozing and gave away the entirety of my last art show for free just because I was in a good mood. I really hate the seedy underbelly of art world dealing and kickbacks and nonprofit politicking. I just want to paint. I will find supplies and canvas and I will paint. That’s just what I do. I will do it if I have nothing or if I have a billion dollars. I hate looking at a picture and seeing dollar signs but I’m hungry and times are only getting leaner. So what do I do? I just hustle hard as I can. I do shit for free but I also push art like crack cocaine in the streets and on the internet I do: commissions, murals, design, and photography. I like people to collect my art and have it mean something to them even if they are not important collectors. Art is meant to be seen and loved; it’s not supposed to sit in a vault as an investment. Just remember that wherever there is art there is vandalism just like light and dark.

For Your entertainment/edification:
Damien Hirsts’ Pencils on BoingBoing
http://boingboing.net/2009/09/05/damien-hirst-to-send.html

Bucket video link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mhg2gkoCGQ

Kid who got 8 years link from Revok's blog
http://revok1.com/blog/2009/08/fuck-corpis-christi-texas/

Spun by Art as Authority at 10:40 AM | Permalink

by Kevin Freitas


The chaotic, haphazard and bizarre nature of modern art is easily explained: The painter finally settles for whatever satisfaction may be involved in working not as an independent member of a society that needs him, but as a retainer for a small group of people who as a profession or as a hobby are interested in the game of comparing one mutation with another.
— John Canaday (former art critic of the New York Times)

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
— Claes Oldenburg

By now, though, let's hope you are convinced that you need to see this show for yourself. It isn't to be missed, even if you have only a casual interest in contemporary art.
— Robert Pincus, “It starts with a good eye: Mark Quint's 30-year gallery history is richly dotted with highlights” SignOnSanDiego, September 3, 2009.

Preface


If you are not already immersed in its functioning, much of the art world can resemble a micro-industry supported and continually inflated by a host of individuals and entities who are willing to give lip-service and their last breath to keep it afloat, but for whom the “power of art” has been discarded in favor of a model defined by status, power, money, and social networking. Reform is needed in these parts, much as it is in any other industry or governmental agency that is more often than not flailing these days. While it is growing increasingly difficult to differentiate between what some might call standard practice in the art world and what good is being done by those who still believe art is important, I would argue that this schism is having a significant effect on the types of shows being organized, the artists chosen, and the internal complacency that sometimes exists between institutions. As a result, the public’s interests get neglected and their public trust in an institution can be jeopardized.



Detail of Olive Branch Rorschach, © 2008 Roman de Salvo. Courtesy the artist. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

For all the good that is being done elsewhere in the industry by galleries and artists committed to their craft, there are others it seems who no longer wish to be at the service of anyone who is not part of their community. The end result creates a “dialect” between the parties, and to a certain extent fosters apathy — lost is any need to convince others. This can stifle a larger recognition and a broader audience for art, making what is produced more difficult to understand and place within a specific context or idea (and also less open to criticism), and desensitizing any nagging responsibility to explain oneself and one's actions when organizing an exhibition. I find myself at the crossroads of one such instance currently unfolding here in San Diego.

There exists any number of factors that define an individual’s character or achievements — actions, for one — and other factors that don’t, which might prevent you from even hearing about them at all. Not being “in the loop”, as we say, is one example. The point I’m trying to make is that these factors I believe often depend on the shared knowledge of a specific community, a town, or even a city the size of San Diego. Often the things we know about a gallery, Quint Gallery for example, are groomed to a specific and knowledgeable audience which maintains that information up-to-date. Often, the acts of artists, their works, and the galleries that represent them appear heroic within a region, but are in fact rather standard fare compared to other enclaves that exist outside their territory.

In his essay Art & Authority the artist Vito Acconci points out that “every art-work falls under — on the part of both artist and viewer — the assumption of an atmosphere of authoritarianism. The art-work makes an appearance as if out of nowhere, as if it’s existed from all time: since you can’t put your finger on where it began, the piece presents itself to be wondered at, venerated (whether for reasons of finance or ‘culture’) — the art, in other words, is bigger than you are.” There is, I believe, an institutional authoritarianism which exists undetected by an art viewing public that can transform a gallery with very real pragmatic reasons to operate commercially into a gallery inducted into the hallowed halls of art history — bigger than you or I.

Part I


So, with a large dose of skepticism (and a masochistic tendency to cut across the grain and risk bringing what Hunter S. Thompson would call “a shit train of bad Karma” down on my head) I find it worthwhile to question — at the risk of not finding any answers — the motives behind a not-for-profit museum organizing an exhibit around a highly esteemed for-profit commercial gallery. I’m of course speaking of “Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art”, which is currently on view at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

As someone who doesn’t frequently partake of (or hasn't been entirely privy to) what I will call for now a “regional communal knowledge” — or what Peter Schjeldahl might call a common definition of celebrity, “famous for being famous” — I would like to show how that perception can be affected by a gallery’s power and reputation. The rather poor curatorial demonstration by the museum of its newfound “celebrity” (Mark Quint) whose role it was to interpret and make sense of it all, did not accomplish this very well. This essay is as much an expression of my concerns as it is an opinion about the results of this endeavor between a gallery and museum.

For the sake of full disclosure, I have not sought an interview with either Quint Gallery or the museum. This was not done in an effort to discredit them or myself but a way in which I can maintain a certain distance and a private/public conversation as well. I sent a series of questions to the Center’s curator Olivia Luther, and received answers that I thought were as committal as they could be from someone in her position. Quint’s gallery director Ben Strauss-Malcolm also received the same questions, but did not reply. The show was up: what was there to discuss except the artwork on view? Motives are more difficult to pin down.

In effect, I see part of the problem with this show as curatorial but also regional — it is the difference between looking at the exhibit with sunny San Diego glasses on and taking a more worldly view without them. I don’t want to argue the pros and cons of Mark Quint or his gallery’s accomplishments. Give credit where credit is due, as they say, and 30 years in any business is worth noting and throwing a party for. Furthermore, even if there is a hint of complacency on the part of Quint in accepting to do this show, it would have been foolish for him not to — strictly speaking from a marketing point of view. This isn’t in so much about Quint as it is a way of separating the man from the myth, so to speak, and looking at what has been put in place — a museum exhibit — to represent him and his gallery. We can only know so much about him as is given to us in the context of this show. Many informed individuals can speak of his “good eye” for art, his longevity as a gallery dealer, his commitment to his artists and his passion for art in general; this is all fine, but you can’t possibly know of all this unless you know something of the man himself, have had dealings with the gallery either professionally or personally, or have gone to see an exhibit or two in his gallery.

You might feel this is a lapse in recognizing what exists, some part of a critic’s responsibility to know all see all, but as an “outsider” and a member of a larger general public, I can only objectively evaluate what is presented to me. I ask then, what in effect is being celebrated here? It is impossible to know in the context of this exhibition that has made no attempt to trace or outline and share that history with us. It is assumed we already know the gallery’s story. It wouldn’t be too difficult to view Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art as a vanity show, as it is currently portrayed. The museum speaks of a time in history without showing how that history has changed us, our community, or its artists. Quint quoted in the North County Times prefers “to call this exhibit a survey of the last 28 years rather than a retrospective.” I myself call it “show and tell” without the telling, because there is no clear reference point to start from. There is no “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…” You see my point. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, beyond what is known (by some) and been said by others about Quint — which might be arguably enough — I ask, was there a good reason for the museum to put on a show about a series of shows?

To my knowledge, showcasing a commercially-active gallery in a museum is unprecedented. Right now, my fellow colleagues in the media from the Union-Tribune, the La Jolla Light, NPR, and the North County Times (and to some extent the show’s curator, Olivia Luther) want you to believe this is about the art on view. And this is partially true. According to the UT, 99 works from 49 artists have been assembled under one roof. Keep in mind that this is a very large and diverse group show with a subset of highs: notably an exquisite painting by Manny Farber entitled “Ingenious Zeus”, and equally ingenious and impressive works by Peter Dreher (“Tag um Tag guter Tag”) and still others such as Jay Johnson (“NRNRNA (for Louise)”) and Simon Linke (“March 2002 (Crumb)”). Robert Ginder’s “One Car Garage” is another fine and exquisite work. There are also unfortunate lows in this exhibit, embarrassingly bad painting alongside other less-than-stellar works.

Is this a memorable show, not likely? Its disjointed nature and paint-chip sampling of works blend together in an monotonous stream of one work after another. Yet it is also a fairly unique and unilateral vision of the contemporary art world by one man, representing a cross-section of tastes and styles, among many other tastes that exist in a larger and more complex art world. Quint gallery has proven itself to be a sustainable blue-chip gallery which has had the good fortune and capacity to expose major national and international artists. Italo Scanga, Mel Bochner and Rebecca Horn figure on the roster list at the Escondido show — Bochner was given a solo show in 2007 of his velvet paintings (at Quint) and Rebecca Horn figured in several group shows under the Ouint-Krichman Projects days — none of which is uncommon or unusual for a gallery of this stature.

Installation detail: bottom: Untitled (Pins), © 2004 Tara Donovan. Private Collection; top: Aster 140 T8/4100 K, © 2007 Thomas Glassford. Guss Family Collection. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.


... it is a densely packed show, almost claustrophobically so, with one exception: a room containing one work by Tara Donovan, two works by Thomas Glassford and one large painting on the wall by Icelandic artist Birgir Andresson. Captivating.
— Kevin Freitas, Art as Authority

Knowing one’s history is important, but how you communicate that history and preserve it for present and future generations is of far greater importance and, I believe, part of the role of a museum — any museum. Unfortunately, one is obliged to approach and appreciate this show under the auspices of a past that is being represented by the present (the artwork), which has been once removed from the relationship it had with the gallery before it became artwork in a museum and was simply artwork in a gallery for sale. There is a quiet assumption that you understand and know San Diego’s cultural history, and in particular one gallery. In this case, the exhibit is “good enough” for San Diego because it has been made for San Diego and that group of individuals — artists, collectors, critics, museums, galleries — that share a communal knowledge and experience of it. If you refuse to acknowledge that history or are simply unaware of it, the work still exists; however, it lacks intent and a framework – yet we still know where it came from, a gallery. Once they have been removed from that framework, the artworks survive on their own within the context of a museum that can only be seen and judged in relationship to other similar works found in other museums and in some cases who might be exhibiting the same artists. The artwork’s importance then relies on the reputation of a gallery and not itself, which has the paradoxical effect of reinforcing the gallery’s reputation by the strength of the works on view.

The strength of Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art lies then in the knowledge one possesses of its existence and history. The moment it becomes an unspoken dependency on a communal knowledge and an oral history, it then becomes (somewhat narcissistically) a reflection of tastes, likes, and dislikes of any number of southern Californian collectors who have works on loan for the show, the artists that are currently represented by Quint, and the personal vision of the gallery dealer. Once again, I’m not here to argue whether that vision was good or bad, but what it represents in the context of this show. Having a “good eye” as a gallery dealer is very different from the historicizing and iconic status a museum can bestow on an artwork. Once this happens, you cannot help but compare it to other iconic works that exist in the art world and it is there that Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art starts to break down, it may be “good enough” for San Diego but it may not be for the rest of the world. My goal then, as I’ve stated earlier, is to separate the artwork from everything else and judge it on how well it has succeeded in the context of an exhibit that I am being forced to acknowledge and look at with very tinted institutional glasses.

As an example of this, Kim MacConnel is only as important to you as your knowledge of his career, achievements, sales etc. That knowledge is regional, meaning San Diego and national at best. It is a very secular and limited knowledge which is useful only to those who have an interest — one might say a vested interest — in MacConnel’s career sustaining visibility vis a vis collectors, museums, galleries, and eventually the auction houses. It is a commodity with a specific currency as long as it remains under the patronage of a gallery. This is what galleries do. MacConnel’s new work at the Escondido show (entitled “Intermission”) gives the viewer no indication of the importance of MacConnel in the art world or in San Diego — his assumed “importance” is once again guaranteed by his association with a reputable gallery. It is impossible to look at MacConnel's work historically in the context of a show that is celebrating his gallery. Ditto for Allison Renshaw. She is also one of Quint’s stable of artists. Being a San Diego artist does not qualify her or anyone else for that matter, a spot in a museum show if we’re talking simply aesthetics, content, theme, and importance of a painting’s history. Once again, her work can be only viewed as an example of her gallery’s vision. There is nothing there to tell me why this vision or this painting is important outside of its pre-approved stature and regional appurtenance. Other artists in the exhibit play a different role as benchmarks for the gallery even though their reputations are recognized globally in the art world – Scanga, Farber, Bochner, and Horn are again examples of this.

Intermission, © 2009 Kim MacConnel. Courtesy of the artist. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido. click for larger image

In short, there is a risk that the importance of a show of this nature then, lies more with the achievements and dialogue created between a gallery dealer and his artists, the individual strengths of the artworks (not something any dealer can truly say they have had a hand in forming), and the social-networking abilities, friendships, collector and museum base, abilities, and financial wizardry to keep shows flowing in and out of the gallery and works selling. Why does a museum consider the daily activities of a gallery relevant enough to build a show around it if it’s not going to tell us why? It is a power structure that cannot be viewed let alone understood by the common layman without help. A gallery can only hope to circumvent and participate in an artist’s career as an agent, a friend perhaps, a resource, a retail store and a vehicle to a larger audience waiting in the wings. It is a symbiotic relationship that is ultimately dependent on the quality and strengths of an individual artist’s work that establishes the foundation for everything else built upon it — including galleries. An artist’s work is the sole pillar we are all attached to.

Part II - Conflict of Interest

The curatorial statement below avoids any pitfalls and conflict of interest by turning the goals of organizing a show like this into a retrospective, a slice of contemporary art, seen through the lens of one man and his gallery. In hindsight this would have been of great interest had it conclusively demonstrated its relevancy either historically, politically, or even culturally, and did not become instead, a larger annex of the gallery’s past and current artists. There is a conflict of interest here, yes? Curator Olivia Luther makes it clear that a museum’s “primary responsibility is the acquisition, care, display, and interpretation of works of art,” but you cannot interpret and condone at the same time an art movement or artist, let alone a gallery, if the work being condoned is also being sold as works of art (separately) or by extension, through other means and venues diametrically opposed to the goals of a museum. History obviously is much larger than any one movement or individual. If it is the museum’s duty is to demonstrate that art has a much broader and non-singular vision of itself, it cannot promote works of art that exist as “live” commodities. By definition museums are not galleries, and vice-versa.

“Sustainability of the art world is based on the concerted effort of a collective commonwealth of museums, galleries, auction houses and art collectors, all linked together by a common thread - the art and the artist. This exhibition, a survey of artists shown by Quint Gallery, will explore how the vision of one local gallery has contributed to the commonwealth and document the changes seen in the artistic community of San Diego, in the art world, and for each individual artist as they have found their notoriety and artistic voice.

Featuring paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings and prints, the exhibition will include work by bold and innovative artists such as Jean Lowe, Mel Bochner, Kim MacConnel, Ryan McGinness, Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson. Exhibited together, the creations of these working artists embody the vitality of the past three decades of art, and will further the public’s understanding and appreciation of our current contemporary art scene.”
— California Center for the Arts, Escondido

March 2002 (Crumb), © 2008 Simon Linke. Courtesy Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA. Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art does none of this. It embodies and reinforces the stature, the client and collector base, and reputation of these artists and their gallery. The artistic history of San Diego is deep and rich: Quint is only one part of that story. Couldn’t that story have encompassed a broader past, a titillating present, and the inclusion of an artistic community that was left out, in an attempt to trace and mold everyone’s role, place, importance, and contribution to San Diego’s artistic future? This is a curious decision which only increases suspicion of the show’s intent and purpose, does nothing to even remotely clarify the museum’s position in all of this — letting the artwork speak for itself is not enough — and makes me wonder why an even larger institution such as MCASD did not (beyond loaning works for the exhibit) entertain doing a “Quint” exhibit in its own space. I believe the answer is evident: it would have been construed as a conflict of interest. Or perhaps it reflects what the Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight considered unacceptable (my words) in another unrelated incident concerning MCASD — “the rental from a nonprofit museum to a commercial enterprise violates various professional museum standards” (all links courtesy of the Los Angeles Times and Christopher Knight). Those standards have been tainted, I believe, by the museum’s association with and support of an active commercial gallery (though according to Olivia Luther, Quint neither funded the show at CCA nor rented the works to it).

Spawned by Driscoll’s custodial night job at an oceanographic research lab…

— Wall text: Tom Driscoll “Toys” – gypsum cement and powdered pigment, 2005.
Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido

Yes, galleries loan works to museums all the time: this is nothing new, outrageous or spectacular. What is spectacular, however, is a show uniquely about a gallery that sells work full-time and has representations of that work in the exhibit on loan from collectors, the gallery itself, and its current roster of artists. The difference lies in the fact that even if a commercial gallery does loan an artwork to a major institution, there is of course the potential to gain recognition and sales for the gallery and its artist from this exposure. What it does do though, is fulfill a moral and ethical need (if you will) to satisfy an exhibit’s curatorial theme making the artwork chosen to become neutral, historically relevant and non-commercial; it becomes part of a larger picture that fleshes out an idea and a focus, instead of turning it directly on a source (like Quint) that now becomes a judge and jury of its own destiny. The museum then becomes an unofficial brand for the gallery that has now — speaking from a strictly commercial point of view — acquired an unfair advantage over its competitors in the same limited market. So how is this possible? I believe it falls under the same premise of regional versus global: a regional hierarchy (the Escondido museum) which exists side-by-side with the broader international presence and museum standard upheld, for example, by MCASD. I am not alleging that the California Center for the Arts is unethical (though it raises some questions); I am arguing instead that CCA exists and functions regionally for regional artists and their constituents, and that they therefore can be viewed more as a cultural center — a not-for-profit gallery, if you will — that is not subject to the same standards as a major museum.

It's important to note that if Quint gallery were no longer in business, all this would be a non-issue. Works would be on loan with no threat of potential sales, the curatorial theme could be expanded upon to include other entities, galleries, and collectors that do not have a direct connection to Quint or its artists, allowing for other examples and criteria as viable and credible proof of San Diego’s contemporary art history. This would ensure a broader and more comprehensive vision and position of the arts here, and would honor those who have equally worked hard to bring art and San Diego to everyone’s attention beyond its regional borders. There are many ways to honor someone’s achievements. It’s difficult to honor those achievements by endorsing a product at the same time. It is equally difficult to demonstrate that a gallery or group of artists has had an artistic impact — in this case on thirty years of contemporary art in San Diego — if no curatorial effort has been made to elicit that connection. It is, as I mentioned, hearsay: a common knowledge that not everyone is aware of, and thus may be unaware of its importance. It is a regional show for regional tastes. This, in a lot of ways, is a disappointment.

Do you want to eat his paintings?

— VTS-inspired wall text to further public reflection:
Richard Allen Morris “Yellow Book” and “Pink Archipelago” acrylic on wood, 2007
Quint: Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

As it stands now, this exhibit is just a slice of a larger pie. A hearty one certainly, but one that could have benefited many members of the art community instead of glorifying just a few. A gallery can demonstrate a dealer’s sensibility or “eye” in choosing this or that artist to exhibit, it can indicate a certain taste and direction, and it can advise and consult with its clients. A gallery chooses what they like and believe in, what they deem important for themselves and their audience, and what they want to promote and eventually sell — they are the artist’s outlet store. They do not need a museum to support or help them carry out these daily tasks. A gallery cannot in good faith forgo its primary mission of selling artwork — beyond exhibiting the best work it can find and having that selection confirmed one day by other experts in the field who might find it critically important, or socially and politically relevant — and have it transformed into something other than what it is, personal choice. To put that choice in the hands of an cultural institution whose mission is to classify, organize, and fit those works of art into a larger historical framework — the significance of this benediction cannot be lost on many — impedes a fair and just reading of what is presented for reasons and justifications beyond the scope of the gallery’s ambitions. It is, to paraphrase Schjeldahl once again, the difference between being witty and mystical. And an audience thrice removed from the constraints of a commercial venue, hoping to visit a museum to learn and be influenced by an objective and interpretive look of what art and its artists are all about, will not know or see the difference. This is a problem no museum should be confronted with, and no gallery should accept. No one can benefit from such a relationship; it can only diminish the cultural horizons of its adherents and compromise their judgment. This in the end is a loss for San Diego and the viewing public.

Spun by Art as Authority at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

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by Richard Gleaves

Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate is arguably the most successful public sculpture in the United States today. It draws the same number of annual visitors as the Statue of Liberty and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, yet derives its appeal solely through aesthetic pleasure not historical content. In short, it's a people magnet.

Accounts of the work uniformly cite its mirrored surface as the active ingredient — which it is — but then settle for comparisons with funhouse mirrors or the joy of narcissism.

While it's true that the work's close-range perceptual narrative initially engages the viewer in mapping themselves in a nonstandard visual field, that convex surface does a curious and wonderful thing: it visually situates each viewer not only in the context of the transformed landscape, but also — and more crucially — in the context of all the fellow viewers of the sculpture.

The movement of those others animates the surface in a way that could never be achieved by a single viewer... and animation (in its core cinematic sense) is the foundational property of our popular art.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 06:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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by Kevin Freitas


Former San Diego resident and artist, "Poor Al" Barasch, who now finds himself on the other side of Camp Pendleton and living in the City of Angels has released a new limited edition book entitled "Junk Mail Jamming". Here is what he had to say about it:

Two weeks after 9/11/2001, I received a piece of red, white, and blue mail with the giant face of a majestic bald eagle printed on the outside and the type “Urgent Open Immediately” across it. I ripped it open (well... because it did - tell - me to open it immediately) and inside was an advertisement from my local cable TV provider. Instead of picking up the phone and ordering in a flurry of patriotic-fueled consumerism, I decided at that moment that I had had enough of the junk that filled my mailbox every afternoon.

I decided that retribution would involve me wasting just as much of a company’s time and money as they had wasted of mine. I started to draw on postage-paid return cards and pamphlets and mail them back to the companies that sent them to me. I scan in the image when it is completed and then send the original. My first book on the project, Junk Mail Jamming, represents some of the better examples from the series, but not all of them.

Ideally, this will spur on others to do the same thing with their junk mail. If enough people “jam” up the mail, they will stop sending it to us. I don’t think I’m going to change the world, but I sure hope some very bored person working in the mail room at one of these companies gets a kick out of what I sent back (and keeps it). That alone would make it well worth all the effort.

200 limited edition signed copies, 56 pages, hardback. $29.95
Purchase: www.pooral.com
Layout/Design: Marcos LaFarga - www.marcoslafarga.com
Preface: Kevin Freitas - www.artasauthority.com
Join the Facebook Junk Mail Jamming group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=115348681187
Volume 2 in the works: contact Poor Al if you are interested in doing a piece of junk mail for it.

excerpt Junk Mail Jamming

Containing over 50 illustrations, Junk Mail Jamming is an original concept and a beautiful artist book. I'm of course, proud and honored to have been invited by Poor Al to appear within its pages. I'm convinced you too will find it to be equally as charming, humorous, and mischievously subversive. But hurry, if you want to stop the flow of junk mail arriving at your home, take a lesson from Poor Al and check out his book.

excerpt Junk Mail Jamming

Spun by Art as Authority at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

from the press release





San Diego, CA (August 17, 2009) - On Saturday September, 19th from 6pm - 10pm North Park Nights, non-profit arts collective, will celebrate their third collective event - "Green Scene." September's event will feature local artists and businesses as they respond to the "green" theme. NPN believes in sustainability, responsibility and an overarching respect for our immediate community and by extension the planet at large. The date for the event was chosen specifically to build on the efforts of local architecture firm, Zagrodnik + Thomas, who for the past few years laid the groundwork for green events in their annual "Green Scene." The collaborative spirit has made this years' event bigger and better. Artwork will be featured at local galleries, restaurants, retailers and bars. Together we're going to paint the town "green," freckling the North Park landscape with creative eco-inspired works of art.

Cardboard Challenge

In the spirit of "green", select members are responding specifically to a cardboard challenge that coincides with our second scavenger hunt. Local artists and business were invited to create a window display, artwork or installation that is built primarily from cardboard. It will be juried, and participants will compete to win prizes for first and second place. Most importantly, the public is invited to come and enjoy the creativity. Stroll through and take a peak or head out on the scavenger hunt that will lead you to each participating location and ultimately to a wide array of prizes, from gift certificates to artwork, all donated by different local businesses. Local artists will show SD how North Park can convert objects that are ordinarily thrown out into works of art. Creativity meets sustainability in this interactive project.

About North Park Nights

NPN is a non-profit collective of North Park businesses, artists and community leaders dedicated to the support and preservation of arts and culture in the North Park community. Through the organization and promotion of individual artists and collective events, NPN insures the continued revitalization of the arts in North Park and by extension all the businesses there in. The strength of a committed collective group has laid the foundation to set North Park, its artists, businesses and general spirit, apart from any other community on the map.

FOR MORE INFO OR TO CONTACT:
www.NorthParkNights.org
npn@northparknights.org

Spun by Art as Authority at 02:48 PM | Permalink

by Richard Gleaves

After the debate over the 2009 San Diego Art Prize about what exactly is an emerging artist, it was fascinating to come across the very same debate taking place in a parallel universe.

Here are the relevant quotes:

After awarding Tony Kushner a record-breaking $200,000 for distinguished playwriting last fall, the Steinberg Trust suddenly realized there was a problem with its plan to present its other newly created award to two emerging playwrights this year. “What we immediately discovered was that we all described ‘emerging’ differently,” said Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater in New York and a member of the selection committee. Some of his colleagues thought the prize, created by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, was geared towards writers just a year out of school, while others considered “emerging” to refer to a playwright in mid-career.

Defining “emerging playwright” turned out to be like grasping a handful of Jello. Committee members settled on the idea that a writer was still emerging five years after a first production, only to soon note that someone could still be emerging 10 years out, said Ms. [Polly K.] Carl.

Mr. Eustis joined Ms. Carl’s end of the spectrum. Though the final selections are “not identical to who I would have picked,” Mr. Eustis said, he too understands the rough financial circumstances that face even accomplished playwrights. “It wasn’t really bitter, but every one of us is acutely conscious of how hard a life these writers have,” he said. “We didn’t feel like we could give a prize on the basis of need, but what would burst out consistently was, ‘Do you know what this money could mean?’”

This year all three winners have been produced by at least one member of the advisory committee. To Mr. Eustis, such connections are inevitable, since they are in the business of producing promising playwrights. As he said, quoting another producer, “No conflict, no interest.”

Trust Tussles Over Playwright Award Eligibility

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 09:58 AM | Permalink

by Kevin Freitas



Alfred E. Raider - Josh Flood


One of the nice things about Art as Authority's contributors is, they are independently, very accomplished artists in their own right. They graciously submit to the blog, taking time out of their lives to cover an event or someone else's show. They do this without rancour, freely, and on occasion they too get to share in the recognition they so richly deserve. Take Josh Flood for example, he put on one of the most kick-ass shows San Diego has rarely experienced last year at the Art Produce Gallery. He has not slowed down since, in fact, no one can keep up with him as he turns out his own great work and curated exhibits. Well now, San Diego's adopted son has been interviewed in the Tucson Weekly by Mari Herreras and we're damn proud. Check out the excerpt below and then read the full article. Word up my man!


T Q&A
by Mari Herreras

Josh Flood wants to show how pop art can be more than just depictions of a Campbell's soup can. The 27-year-old says his version of pop art has more to do with what's going on in the world today, and how that world relates to our everyday lives. Flood is part of a group of local artists working to connect young people to art through events, projects and volunteering. Check out Flood's paintings at The Living Room (thelivingroomtucson.com), 413 E. Fifth St., from 7 to 10 p.m., Friday, Sept. 18, as part of Paper Stacks, a group show that includes music and poetry readings. Connect with Flood and see his art at twitter.com/JoshFloodArt. Read the full interview here.

Spun by Art as Authority at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Kevin Freitas





Title: “Meet the Press”

Where:
Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave.
San Diego, CA 92104

In conjunction with the exhibit – “Agitprop: Brain Trust”

When: September 26, 2009 – discussion kicks off at 6pm

Who:
Seth Combs – San Diego CityBeat
Keli Dailey - SignOnSanDiego
Patricia Frischer – SDVAN (San Diego Visual Arts Network)
Pam Kragen – North County Times
Moderator: Kevin Freitas – Art as Authority
info: 619.337.4891
artasauthority@artasauthority.com

Who covers the arts in San Diego? How do they decide? What makes for outstanding arts writing or reviews? What are their submission criteria?

These are some of the questions we will ask our distinguished panel from several local newspapers and weekly’s here in San Diego. At the end of the discussion, audience members will be invited to submit their own reviews or articles that cover various art, music, and theater events. The goal is to encourage more writing about the arts and to increase public awareness of our cultural and community institutions.

Spun by Art as Authority at 04:43 PM | Permalink

from the press release


“Alien Organic”
Julia Westerbeke

Sept 26th - Oct 31st
Opening Reception: Saturday September 26th, 6-9pm





compactspace announces “Alien Organic,” an installation of sculptures and site-specific works by Julia Westerbeke.

In her obsessively detailed works, Julia Westerbeke creates terrains that are by turns organic and curiously alien, quiet yet chock-a-block with information. These abstract sculptures covered in crops of cilia-like drawings invite associations that run the gamut from microbes and scientific diagrams to Dr. Seussian flora and fantastical illustrations. For instance, a mountainous spill of white hot-glue adorned with patches of vinyl drawings might be a glacial landscape or Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. A slick, coiling tube that sprouts leaf-like forms could inspire thoughts of tropical vines or venomous creatures. Through a certain indeterminacy, each piece feels at once familiar yet foreign. The artist is interested in these subtle contrasts, tempering the beautiful with elements of the strange or the unexpectedly alluring. In kind, her use of materials could best be described as alchemical: burnt Styrofoam, melted plastic, paper dipped in resin and tiny units of drawings clustering on the surface.

The detail in each work pays homage to the intricacies of natural forms, while the obsessive accretion of elements gives a nod to the process of germination. It could be argued that the artist likes to “grow” these works, building them slowly from the ground up. This installation is filled with sculptures that yield more after closer inspection. While exploring ordered rows of drawings you will discover a neighboring plastic sphere encasing a nest-like form and translucent arches that bend toward delicate filigrees of dripped glue. Here, there are patterns within the patterns. The sum-total creates an eco-system of the artist’s making, one that is grounded in a specific visual vocabulary that has been influenced by cultures of fantasy and science fiction.

Julia Westerbeke has just recently completed her MFA at the University of California, San Diego. This is her first solo show in Los Angeles.

About compactspace:

compactspace Los Angeles and its sister space in Geneva, Switzerland are part of the the compactspace collective started 2003 in Berlin. compactspace Los Angeles opened 2004 in LA’s Pico-Union district and has recently re-located to historic downtown LA, where they promote a multi-media arts program that mainly features emerging and mid-career artists. compactspace LA is made possible by the contributions of the University of California San Diego’s Visual Arts Department.

compactspace
105 East 6th St (near Main St)
Los Angeles, CA 90014
626.676.0627
www.compactspace.com

Spun by Art as Authority at 08:27 AM | Permalink

from the press release





The Escondido Arts Partnership's Film/Video/Animation Screening Series is putting out a call for short film/video submissions for our next screening night, Oct. 2nd at 7pm.
Submissions are accepted on cd/dvd either as data files (preferable) or dvd formatted, not to exceed 15 minutes. Submissions should be suitable for all ages. Screenings allow time for presentations, discussion, conversation, and refreshments.

The Escondido Film/Video/Art Screening Group seeks to give local artists a voice and community members the opportunity to experience a variety of projects both local and national.

Submit your original film/video to:
Escondido Municipal Gallery
attn: Screenings
262 E. Grand Ave.
Escondido, CA 92025
Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want your cd/dvd returned.
Guidelines are online at: www.escondidoarts.org (screenings)

For any questions regarding the Escondido Film/Video/Art Screenings, please contact Tzu Fen Wang at tzufen.art@gmail.com

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

by Kevin Freitas


I heard about Bret Barrett before I ever met him. People would talk about some artist making kinetic sculptures out of his garage in some back alley off of El Cajon Boulevard. They said I should check out his work. And then one day, while getting a tattoo at Body Marks Tattoo on El Cajon, a guy comes in with a camera and starts taking pictures of the ceiling. Mark form Body Marks lets artists decorate the acoustic panels overhead. As it turns out, it was Bret Barrett taking the photos. We chatted awhile and then he left as quickly and as quietly as when he walked in. I didn’t meet him again until a few months later when he was part of a group show at the now defunct Zedism Gallery in Normal Heights.





This gallery is currently being replaced by a Subway sandwich shop. People have to eat it seems and no appetite for art.

Hanging in the back corner of the gallery then, was a painting by Barrett entitled “Cat’s Eye”. It was blinking at me. As I moved closer I realized it was not just a painting but an assemblage of whirligigs, blinking lights, and mechanized parts repetitively performing mundane tasks but completely animating the surface of the painting. It was brilliant. I bought it. Thus began a relationship with and admiration of Bret Barrett’s paintings and kinetic sculptures, one that has lasted for several years now. Many of his works adorn the walls of my apartment and continue to enchant me.

Barrett is part of a loosely defined group of painters here in San Diego that have quietly and consistently produced bodies of work that are recognized for their technical prowess, as well as, their subject matter. Not quite Pop Surrealist and not quite the Juxtapoz School of Art — though many have been featured between the magazine’s cover — they often provide a wry, humorous and sometimes biting commentary on society poking fun at corporate industry, politics, and world events. Artists such as Dark Vomit aka Kelly Hutchison, Paul Brogden, and Brian Dombrowsky would make up the rest of this group. Former San Diego resident Dave Miles I would also happily include. What sets these artists apart from say a Matt Stallings is that they can paint — truly paint. No small feat in today’s image laden art world.



Reptilian Swashbuckler - Bret J. Barrett


Some of Barrett’s more memorable exhibits were with fellow colleague Kelly Hutchison at the Rubber Rose Gallery in North Park or at the Art of Framing Gallery in Normal Heights where Barrett is showing now. “Transports of Form” is Barrett’s second major solo show at Art of Framing and he has come prepared with a whole new body of work. It is a more focused and thematic exhibit than I am used to seeing by Barrett. I admire his tenacity and commitment to keeping the work “on track” so to speak, even when some of the smaller sculptural works feel forced and redundant.



Steam Punked: The Surrender of Horse Power - Bret Barrett


Transports of Form, its conception at least, came from a recurring dream Barrett said. I have just realized that Barrett has spoken of dream imagery before when referencing his work, but I never took too much stock of it and the impact it has on his work until now. I guess it is the aversion I have to the notion of using dreams as a source of imagery to make artwork. Naïve of me I know, but still, it seems so shamanistic — I’ll stop before I dig the hole deeper. But Transports of Form has a literal and quite physical importance to Barrett as well, since his sole means of transportation is by foot — this meant he told me, carrying all the work for this show from his home to the gallery. Beyond any political or environmental reasons for not wanting to own a car, Barrett understands that walking has its benefits of course — it’s healthy, but it also has its disadvantages, prolonging travel time considerably and increasing the dependence on others who do own cars. What walking does do effectively though, is change the appreciation and understanding of the landscape around us; it heightens that appreciation allowing the person walking to see things normally passed by in an instant in a car. It brings the human experience down to a humanistic and primitive level — to a level just before the invention of the wheel.



Chicken Sub (Toasted) top - Chicken Sub (Emerging) bottom - Bret Barrett


There is a sort of primitiveness that reigns throughout the work of Barrett, it comes through in the very rudimentary but very delicate kinetic sculptures he makes that vacillate between part-time garage mechanics slash inventors club slash low-brow low-tech tinkering that has no real purpose beyond the enjoyment of making something spin, gyrate, blink, rattle, and clang along. A fine example of this and by far the most poetic work in the show is the sculpture sitting in the front window of the gallery. The video featured above gives you an idea of its supreme wackiness, humor, on the brink of self-destruction and twirling, spinning, dildo-like proboscises surrounded by wire forms that encase brightly colored balls that rock back and forth in rhythm to some unheard orgasmic orchestra on the verge of climaxing or dying. A certain sort of primitiveness also appears in the paintings he makes and the forms he uses to convey an imaginary world filled with archaic symbols and floating UFO like shapes. One form you’ll find throughout Barrett’s work is a sort of hybridized seed pod inspired from a milk thistle plant, seeds of which, herbalists have used for over 2000 years to treat chronic liver disease.

Transports of Forms blends this primitiveness and mankind’s experiences, knowledge and ability to stand and walk on his own two feet into prehistoric, hybridized reptilian combines of animals and various transportation vehicles — if only the technology existed god willing, it would culminate a long evolutionary chain of Man, Beast, and Machine working together as one ever since horses were tamed, James Watts overhauled the steam engine and Jack Kilby invented the computer chip — but it would not be in the hopes of creating these Frankenstein-ish monstrosities of pachyderm heavy metal, but as a “thought experiment” (to quote a colleague) and imagine a world perhaps one day, where an alternative means of transportation adapted to the lifestyle and speed of its human counterparts could exist. It could also be seen as a broad commentary on an impending if not long overdue extinction of the human race and the second coming of the dinosaur age. Or to push the metaphor even further, a fragile eco-system dependant on the industrial and mechanical leftovers of mankind for survival and protection. And this is where the work in Transports of Form starts to become a bit problematic. Is anything of this possible or believable?



Pink Vanelephant (model) - Bret Barrett



Pink Vanelephant - Bret Barrett


Not all of the works in this exhibit do enough to capture my imagination. They are under no obligation to do so. But at times, it feels like I have caught the tail end of a story or I find myself watching some Planet of the Apes mini-series out of sequence or B-movie horror picture show. The camera cuts away from the set and we see that Godzilla is nothing more than a man in costume. There is plenty of humor in this exhibit and superb painting but is it enough to carry an idea that feels novelistic at times and divulges almost nothing as to its intent beyond the hybridization of two very different sources? Even Sid Phillips from Toy Story had a reason for dismembering his toys, but beyond the titles of some of the works on view – “Chicken Sub (toasted)”, “Tank Chick”, “Bottle-Nose Jet” or “Steam Punked: The Surrender of Horse Power” (both a painting and an actual model train that has a plastic horse’s head mounted on the front of the locomotive like some figurehead on a ship) is there ample enough content and interest to keep ours up and motivated? I don’t wish to be harsh because I can appreciate the concept, take pleasure in seeing what a VW bus crossed with a pink elephant would look like, and chuckle at some inside jokes and visual puns. I can marvel at the boyhood wonderment of discovering solutions to oblique problems or finding the exact component to make something run. I can also sympathize with the process and creative drive that inspired these creations and the need to bring a form that exists two-dimensionally into three dimensions as Barrett has done in several instances where a painting has inspired its 3-D brethren — as in the toy cars and planes — or vice versa when a found object or thrift-store find is fitted together both sculpturally and on canvas.



Steam Punked: The Surrender of Horse Power (model) - Bret Barrett


Curiosity is good. They say necessity is the mother of invention. Do Barrett’s works predict a future that may be or are they to be solely appreciated for their incredible and richly painted surfaces of bizarre animals and aging modes of transportation? My only regret, and it is a small one, is I had hoped Barrett’s maiden voyage would carry me a bit further and closer to my destination than what his gas-guzzling predecessors have done thus far, if not at least, in my mind.

The Art of Framing Gallery
3333 Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116
619.563.9770
http://theartofframing.net
IMPORTANT!! exhibit on view through September 17 only

Bret J. Barrett

Bottle-Nose Jet - Bret Barrett



Tall Sail Lizard - Bret Barrett



Reptilian Swashbuckler - Tall Sail Lizard (models) - Bret Barrett

Spun by Art as Authority at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

by Kevin Freitas


Agitprop aka David White, opened his entreprenurial exhibit this last Saturday night at the Art Produce Gallery in North Park. Titled Brain Trust, it is an "installation (which) addresses issues of social economics, art markets, commodities trading, and community engagement. In “Brain Trust”, Agitprop turns corporate and art world institutional conventions on their head as a method of generating support for projects based on connectivity and community at the scale of the neighborhood. Brain Trust asks people to become investors in Agitprop." More information about the exhibition can be found on the Agitprop website here.





In addition to this show, Agitprop is organizing a month long series of events that will reinforce the notion of community engagement, by offering a diversity of open public debates, tours of the North Park neighborhood, and serving homade soup. A complete calendar of these events can be found below:

Saturday, September 19:

North Park Thrift Store Bicycle Tour
12:00 to 2:00 pm
Location: Begins at Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue
North Park, CA
info/contact: joyboe@hotmail.com

Join the San Diego Second Hand Shopping Society, lead by Joy and Joe, in conjunction with North Park Night's eco friendly focus theme, for our first annual North Park Thrift Store Bicycle Tour! We will leave Art Produce at noon sharp for a 2 hour pedal-powered tour of some of N.P.'s finest thrift establishments. Pump up your tires and show support of our local economy and several of North Park's non-profit organizations by filling your basket with those vintage wares you didn't know you couldn't live without! A sundown slideshow presentation with take place at Art Produce from 6-9 that evening, in conjunction with AGITPROP's current BRAIN TRUST exhibitition.

Saturday, September 26:

Meet the Press
6:00 pm
Location: Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue
North Park, CA
info/contact: artasauthority@artasauthority.com

Panel discussion about how the arts are covered by the press in San Diego, what constitutes good arts writing, and how do we get more of it. Panel members include: Seth Combs - San Diego CityBeat Arts Editor, Keli Dailey - SignOnSanDiego.com, Patricia Frischer - SDVAN (San Diego Visual Arts Network), and Pam Kragen - North County Times Arts Editor. Moderator is Kevin Freitas - Art as Authority

Saturday, October 3:

Poetry Reading
Poets Frank Montesonti & Jeannine Hall Gailey will read from their work on
Saturday, October 3 at 7:00 pm
Agitprop Gallery in North Park: 2837 University Ave
(entrance on Utah, behind Glenn's Market)
San Diego, Ca 92104
619.384.7989.

This event is free and open to the public. As always, there will be a reception following the reading. Donations to the gallery are greatly appreciated.

Frank Montesonti teaches creative writing at National University. His poems have appeared in such journals as Black Warrior Review, AQR, Cream City Review, Poet Lore, Lit, among many others. His chapbook, A Civic Pageant, won the 2007 Black River Chapbook contest.

Jeannine Hall Gailey’s first book of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, was published by Steel Toe Books. Poems from the book were featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and on Verse Daily; two were included in 2007’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She was awarded a 2007 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize for Poetry and a 2007 Washington State Artist Trust GAP grant. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Columbia Poetry Review, and Ninth Letter. She volunteers as an editorial consultant for Crab Creek Review and currently teaches at the MFA program at National University.

Sunday, October 4:

Residual Spaces Walking Tour
1:00 - 3:00pm
Location: Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue
North Park, CA

Saturday, October 10:

Old Timey Self-Portrait and Soup
2:00pm
Brain Trust closing reception
6:00pm

Location: Art Produce Gallery
3139 University Avenue
North Park, CA

Spun by Art as Authority at 09:56 AM | Permalink

by Richard Gleaves

Harry Bertoia is best known for his Diamond Chair, one of the icons of Mid-Century modern design.

But Bertoia was also a sculptor, and beginning in the early 1960's he focused on sound sculpture to the extent that his sculpture evolved into instruments for making music, qualifying Bertoia as the plastic-arts obverse of Harry Partch (an American composer who in pursuit of his own music invented instruments so eccentric as to qualify as sculpture).

In 1970 Bertoia released a set of LPs containing original music he created playing his sculptures. The LPs — collectively titled Sonambient — anticipate by almost a decade both the sound and title of Brian Eno's highly-influential Ambient albums.

One of Bertoia's sound sculptures can be found in Chicago at the north end of Millennium Park, on the corner of East Randolph Street and North Columbus Drive.

The work in question exhibits far more sensitivity to site than the money-shot sculpture Chicago's famous for.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

from the press release


L’Artothèque de Caen présente du 18 septembre au 31 octobre 2009

Axelle Rioult





Exposition
Axelle Rioult
18 septembre - 31 octobre 2009

"(…) C’est difficile de sortir de prison, intérieure, extérieure (…) - Oui, surtout, intérieure, pour moi, c’est surtout de cela que je parle. C’est moi qui me suis créée une prison de cet appartement. Une prison que je traîne partout avec moi."
— Interview de Chantal Akerman et de Frank Nouchi, Là-bas 2006

Cette exposition est l’aboutissement de plusieurs années de travail autour d’un même projet photographique intitulé "Les Lisières". La démarche d’Axelle Rioult cristallise deux approches préexistantes depuis 2005: celle de présenter à domicile son travail artistique à des personnes reçues individuellement et celle de photographier des espaces intersticiels dans son propre cadre de vie et celui de ses proches.

La notion d’échange et de rencontre qui structure ce projet fait naturellement écho au fonctionnement même d’une artothèque et à ses enjeux : la réception de l’oeuvre, le rapport à l’intime... Ainsi, en septembre 2007, l’Artothèque de Caen et Axelle Rioult élaborent une collaboration qui va se construire dans le temps et ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives aux recherches de l’artiste. Après avoir fait l’acquisition d’une de ses photographies, l’Artothèque propose à ses abonnés de s’impliquer dans ce projet commun : en empruntant cette photographie, l’emprunteur s’engage à accueillir Axelle Rioult à son domicile. Il devient alors plus qu’un simple regardeur. Reprenant le dispositif amorcé deux ans plus tôt, l’artiste se déplace chez les emprunteurs de son œuvre pour une présentation de sa démarche sous forme de diaporama. La rencontre est suivie par une série de prises de vues réalisées dans l’intimité de chaque foyer.

Le projet des Lisières questionne les limites de l’espace et de la vision. Le choix de la prise de vue et de la luminosité, l’absence de mise en scène et les ruptures d’échelle par l’utilisation de la macrophotographie, ouvrent sur des compositions graphiques, picturales, et abstraites.

"Longer les murs, s’allonger sur le sol, se retourner, ramper, insérer l’appareil dans les meubles, les livres, les interstices. (...) Capter ce qui n’est pas contrôlé pour le regard de l’autre dans un espace de vie privée, et ce que d’habitude nous ne remarquons pas"
— Axelle Rioult

La notion de passage est inhérente à ce projet d’Axelle Rioult, évoquant à la fois le changement, l’espace, le temps, ou l’éphémérité. Il suggère le temps de l’emprunt, le passage d’une œuvre d’un individu à un autre, d’un cadre de vie à un autre, le passage ponctuel de l’artiste chez l’emprunteur. Enfin, dans l’aboutissement du projet, les images exposées prennent plusieurs formes. Axelle Rioult pose la question de la matérialité de l’image, utilisant pour ce faire plusieurs supports : l’affiche encollée, le tirage professionnel, la vidéo-projection, ou encore le livre unique. Elle interroge ainsi le regardeur sur l’avènement de l’œuvre et sur les différentes formes que peut celle-ci peut revêtir aujourd’hui.

Chaque série prend racine dans l’échange. Le travail de photographie fait suite à une rencontre, chaque fois différente, mais au fil du temps tout aussi importante que la réalisation des photographies. Chaque participant s’enrichit réciproquement d’un point de vue humain, sociologique et culturel. Au même titre que les œuvres de la collection investissent l’espace privé, l’artiste s’immisce dans la vie de l’autre et doit gagner sa confiance.

"Dans ce travail des Lisières, la photographie par les bords se révèle être une approche en douceur et en biais des grands thèmes artistiques de l’histoire de l’image: le portrait, le paysage et l’architecture, après avoir longuement exploré le thème de la nature morte et de l’abstraction."
— Axelle Rioult

Parallèlement à cette exposition, Axelle Rioult a mené deux autres projets en lien avec les Lisières: le premier avec des étudiants hébergés en chambre universitaire d’une surface de 9m2, qui sera exposé sur le campus 1 de l’Université de Caen à partir du 7 octobre et le second avec des élèves de l’internat du lycée Jean Rostand de Caen.

Vernissage de l’exposition le vendredi 18 septembre 2009 à partir de 18h30, en présence de l’artiste. Une rencontre avec la presse sera proposée ce même jour à partir de 17h ou sur rendez-vous.





Biographie

Axelle Rioult est née en 1964
vit et travaille à Hérouville St-Clair (14)

Expositions personnelles:
Rentrée 2009
Artothèque de Caen
chAmbRe à parT, Campus 1 Université de Caen-Drac B-N-Crous
En-cadre Des clics et des classes, Lycée J. Rostand Crdp-Cndp

2008
Encore tant, Le petit lieu poileboine, Caen
Vidéo 1 (blanc), Galerie WARC Toronto, Canada

2006
Non sans émoi, Flash point Gallery, Washington D.C. USA

2001
Secretio, Appel d’air Idem +arts, Maubeuge (59)
Conférence avec Michel Gaillot

1999
Texere, Château du Bosq, Commes (14)
Des incarnées, WHARF CAC de Basse Normandie, Hérouville St Clair

Expositions collectives:
2008
Le temps retrouvé, 65 artistes, Grand Hôtel Cabourg (14)
Open 20 : 20e anniversaire de l’Artothèque de Caen (14)

2006
La grande expérience, Nuit blanche à Toronto, Canada Septembre 2006
Commissaire : William Huffman Associate Director Toronto Arts Council

2005
Des instants tremblants, Saison Vidéo 2005, Arras (62)
Les Instants Vidéo invités : L’invisible Lavoir Moderne Parisien (75)
Invitation : Pierre Bongiovanni
1er festival vidéo Macadamia 2005 Instants vidéo, Rosario, Argentine
Invitation : Marc Mercier
18es Instants vidéo, Martigues (13)

2004
Ho(use)-ho(me)1, Installation in situ chez un particulier
Ho(use)-ho(me) 2, Flash point gallery, Washington D.C. USA
Livres d’artistes ENFA bbb, Toulouse (31)
17e Rencontre Vidéo Arts Plastiques Wharf CAC de B-N (14)
Dossier de Presse - Exposition Axelle Rioult - 18/09 - 31/10/09

2003
Projection de vidéos La Maison, Transat Vidéo, Trouville(14)
Projection de vidéos, Transat Vidéo, Tourlaville (50)

2002
Multiples, L’Hôtel, galerie de l’Ecole Régionale des Beaux Arts, Caen (14)
Round robin, Abel Joseph Gallery, Bruxelles

2000
Parcours croisés, intervention in situ, Cambremer (14)

1999
44è Salon d’Art Contemporain, Montrouge (92)
Chantier, Ateliers de la Fonderie, Hérouville st Clair (14)

Bourses, Résidences, éditions:
2008/09
Résidence chAmbRe à parT. Partenaires : Drac B-N - Crous -Université de Caen

2006
Aide à la création (D.R.A.C. Normandie) Projet Les lisières
Que pouvons-nous faire de cela ? édité à 50 ex. Les petites manies, Caen
Résidence projet Non sans émoi, XCCA, Washington D.C. USA

2000
De fils en aiguilles, édition limitée à 30 exemplaires et présentée à l’Hôtel
Galerie de l’École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Caen en 2002 et l’ENFA de Toulouse en 2004
Ire fléchie, 13 mn Montage et coproduction de la vidéo à l’Atelier Cinématographique de
Normandie Caen (14)

1999-2000
Résidence à la Fonderie (ateliers) Hérouville Saint Clair, exposition Des incarnées

1999
Aide à la création (D.R.A.C. Normandie) Exposition Texere

Bibliographie:
Marc Mercier: Pour quelques gouttes d’or de plus, Revue BREF n° 66, 2005
Christophe Domino: 60 aides à la création, D.R.A.C Normandie, 2003
Michel Gaillot: La sagesse de la chair, 2000 WHARF n°3 (à paraître)
Emmanuel Zwenger: Le texte de la chair, Revue OHM, 2000
Dossier de Presse - Exposition Axelle Rioult - 18/09 - 31/10/09

Collections publiques:
2008
Collections particulières : 4 photographies couleurs

2007
Artothèque de Caen : Photographie couleur

Collaborations:
2009
Mise en place d’une Rencontre - triennale 2010 avec Benoît Casas et Gunilla
Josephson à Montmartin sur mer et au musée de Coutances (50)
9 artistes invités : poètes-musiciens-plasticiens-performateurs-vidéastes
Vidéo à partir d’une installation-performance de Jane Motin, Granville Gallery (50)
Encore tant, collaboration avec Pierre Moussaoui : cuisinier-créateur.
Performances : Sylvie Alexandre Labyrinthe vocal, Benoit Casas, poète-plasticien,
Patrick Martin, musicien-botaniste

2001-2006
Portrait d’Objet - Objet Portrait, avec Marie-Liesse Clavreul : création d’un livre
objet (entretiens et photographies sur la relation à l’objet)
Création de pièces sonores avec Bernard Martin plasticien-musicien

Projets en cours:
2010
Livre de photographies Édition NOUS : textes Anne Cartel et Alain Mons
États des lieux : Photographies et entretiens pour le Grand Plan de Ville
Partenaires: Hérouvile Saint Clair 14, Conseil régional, CUCS, Drac B-N
La chambre: série photographique et entretiens. Partenaires : Culture à l’hôpital

2005-2009
Les Lisières: série photographique chez des particuliers
À domicile: présentation du travail photographique chez des particuliers

Renseignements Pratiques

L’exposition d’ Axelle Rioult est produite par l’Artothèque de Caen

Dates et horaires
Exposition présentée du 18 septembre au 31 octobre 2009 à l’Artothèque de Caen
Ouverture du mardi au samedi de 14 h à 18 h 30. Fermeture les lundis, dimanches et jours fériés.
Entrée libre.

Vernissage le vendredi 18 septembre à partir de 18h30 à l’Artothèque de Caen

Les samedis de l’art
Visite commentée de l’exposition le samedi 26 septembre 2009 à 14h30. Entrée libre

Autour de l’exposition
ChAmbRe à parT, sur le campus 1 de l’Université de Caen, en extérieur à partir du 7 octobre, en partenariat avec l’Université de Caen, le CROUS et la DRAC Basse-Normandie.

En-cadre, internat du Lycée Jean Rostand entre le 18 septembre et le 31 octobre 2009, vidéoprojection dans l’internat (horaires précisées ultérieusement).

Contacts
Artothèque de Caen
Claire Tangy, directrice
Patrick Roussel, assistant
Marie Leloup, chargée de communication
Alexandra Spahn, documentaliste
Artothèque de Caen Hôtel d’Escoville Place Saint-Pierre 14000 Caen
Tel : 02 31 85 69 73 Fax : 02 31 86 53 57
artotheque-caen@wanadoo.fr
www.artotheque-caen.net

L’Artothèque de Caen est financée par la Ville de Caen, avec la participation du Conseil général du Calvados et du Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Drac de Basse-Normandie.

chAmbRe à parT





Un objectif:

Dans le cadre de la convention entre la DRAC de Basse Normandie, l’Université de Caen Basse Normandie et le CROUS de Caen Basse Normandie, plusieurs objectifs ont été définis:

— Contribuer au développement des pratiques artistiques et culturelles des étudiants, grâce à la collaboration entre l’Université et les acteurs culturels du territoire bas- normand.
— Favoriser un meilleur accès aux arts et à la culture.
— Accueillir des artistes en résidence en partenariat avec une structure culturelle.
— Réaliser d’un projet au long cours, avec la participation des étudiants.

Un constat:

Les chambres de cités universitaires sont des espaces « à part » pour les étudiants, partis du domicile familial mais pas encore dans leur propre domicile, des lieux de vie où il manque souvent une véritable animation.

Une question:

Comment faire entrer l’Art dans les cités universitaires, lieux à priori peu propices de par leur esthétique et leur exigüité, créer un évènement, briser le quotidien et l’isolement ?

Une rencontre:

Axelle RIOULT, artiste qui travaille depuis plusieurs années autour d’un même projet photographique intitulé «Les Lisières», construit sur un fonctionnement particulier qui consiste à présenter son travail artistique à des personnes rencontrées individuellement puis à photographier des espaces interstitiels des cadres de vie de ces personnes. Le projet des Lisières aborde plusieurs questionnements: le passage, la rencontre ou encore l’échange.

Ainsi est né le projet chAmbRe à parT

Le déroulement du projet:

Il s’agissait d’aller à la rencontre d une dizaine d’étudiants volontaires de nationalités et origines diverses, les uns après les autres dans leur chambre de 9m² sur le campus 1, cités « Les peupliers » et « les Tilleuls », pour y réaliser un polyptyque photographique dans des espaces d’architectures similaires. Les étudiants ont été informés par voie d’affiches, et avec l’aide de Gaëlle Jacqueline, agent de médiation du CROUS.

Les participants:

Ania KUCHARSKA Polonaise 26 ans
Mekki HERIZI Algérien 24 ans
Hubert GROULT Français 19 ans
Amandine GASCARD Française 19 ans
Myroslav PATSAK Ukrainien 22 ans
Shan YIANG Chinoise 24 ans
Johan KARREN Français 22 ans
Céline ROGER Française 22 ans
Mamady Koulibaly Guinéen 23 ans
Hamet Adama LY Mauritanien 26 ans








Une réflexion en marge du projet photographique:

L’étudiant est un être en trans(formation)
— entre deux états : l’adolescence et l’âge adulte ; l’univers familial et l’autonomie.
— entre deux espaces : la chambre de la maison familiale et un futur chez soi.

Il vit une période de transition plus ou moins simple à vivre, accompagnée d’un choix d’orientation, de tentative d’autonomie, dans une situation fréquente de déracinement familial, géographique, amical, amoureux…
La chambre universitaire est un lieu neutre, puis intime dans un espace collectif : un lieu de sommeil, de travail, de solitude, de détente, de repli, d’échange…
Comment cet espace devient un lieu investi, personnalisé ou non, à ce moment de la vie, par des objets, des images, des meubles, des couleurs, une disposition et une circulation dans l’espace ?
Y a t-il des différences selon les origines socio- culturelles, le sexe, l’âge, le choix d’orientation ?

Pour aborder ces interrogations, des entretiens ont été menés avec chacun des étudiants, en collaboration avec Guillaume RAYNAL, étudiant en sociologie, dont le domaine de recherche rencontre ces questions.



click for larger image


L’exposition:

Les 20 polyptyques imprimés sur des affiches, sont composés de trois photos et d’un texte-image qui reprend une phrase extraite des entretiens ; chacun des éléments est de format 60 x 80 cm.

Ces compositions font l’objet d’un accrochage éphémère en extérieur, dans l’idée de l’affichage urbain, visible par un plus grand nombre sur le campus, hors contexte exposition ou lieu d’art habituel, constituant des signaux colorés donnant envie de s’approcher et d’en savoir plus.

Les murs investis sont ceux de la Maison de l’étudiant, des bâtiments de cours, et des bâtiments de cité universitaire.

Le regard des étudiants et des personnels du campus sera ainsi attiré dans différents lieux de passage et ceux dont la curiosité aura été aiguisée et qui voudront aller au-delà dans la découverte, seront incités à visiter l’exposition photographique installée à l’Artothèque.

Ce lien entre le campus et une structure culturelle de la ville est facilité par le cheminement naturel de l’un à l’autre en traversant le château et constitue un axe important du projet.





Renseignements pratiques:
L’exposition est produite par les services culturels du CROUS et de l’Université de Caen Basse Normandie

Dates et horaires:
L’exposition sera visible à partir du 7 octobre 2009 sur plusieurs murs extérieurs de bâtiments de cités universitaires (partie haute du campus 1) et de locaux d’enseignement (partie basse du campus 1), de jour sans limites horaires. Nous avons choisi de laisser les affiches en place le temps qu’elles résisteront aux intempéries, ou aux dégradations.

Vernissage le 7 octobre à partir de 18h

Ailleurs en lien avec ce travail:
Installation photographique à l’Artothèque entre le 18 septembre et le 31 octobre.

En-cadre, internat du Lycée Jean Rostand entre le 18 septembre et le 31 octobre 2009, vidéoprojection dans l’internat à des horaires précisés ultérieurement

Contacts:
Maison de l’étudiant
Joèle AVELINE - Dominique VOQUER, codirecteurs
Agnès ROUVIERE, chargée de communication
Tel : 02 31 56 60 93 Fax : 02 31 56 60 82
mde@crous.unicaen.fr
www.unicaen.fr (portail étudiant –rubrique Culture)



click for larger image

Spun by Art as Authority at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Typically, we publish reviews of exhibits during their scheduled times and before they close. Unfortunately, this one was not as I was away for several weeks and was unable to publish it online until now. My apologies to Marilyn, our readers, and the artists in the exhibit. It is however, an insightful and poignant review that merits being read and included in the pool of contemporary art practice, methods, and ideas. KF


by Marilyn Mitchell


Given that Michael Krichman is the Executive Director for inSite and that Mathieu Gregoire is a Project Manager for the Stuart Collection at UCSD, one would expect this year's annual to contain a number of pieces of sculpture or installation. The great thing about life is that we do not usually find it is predictable. This show does present a few surprises, one of which is that a majority of the works are not three dimensional. To their credit, they accepted a number of pieces from each artist so you get a deeper sense of the artists' works, rather than one or two works from a larger number of artists. In the interest of revealing any potential conflict of interest in my writing about this show, I should let the readers know I submitted five sculptures, none of which were accepted.



Kraig Cavanaugh


The works that create a greater visual delight than most anything else in the show are all by Kraig Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh reconfigures clock works to become the mechanisms that produce delicate movements of long stems of silk flowers.

The clock hands become plant leaves or slow moving creatures such as a snail or a bee. They are whimsical and finely crafted sculptures that also produce interesting shadows on the wall as they weave and bob in time – all the while reminding us of the passage of time. They are reminiscent of some Tim Hawkinson works that used soda cans and clock mechanisms, yet because they are mini-landscapes of unnatural materials, they are more playful and elegant.

The closest piece to an installation in the show, was “Welcome to My Library II” by Elena Lomakin. This 80” high, 32” wide book shelf is stuffed to the gills with books that have been stripped naked of their covers and rolled or stacked into a visual texture festival that includes some additional elements, such as a flower or a statue. The books alone could have made this a solid piece.

Neil Shigley's pieces are all stand outs. Although the gallery lists them as mixed media and paint on canvas, they look like linoleum prints on paper that have been mounted onto canvas with some additional paint added. Each one is a piercing larger than life portrait of a man, presumably titled by their names and their ages, and their location - which is handwritten along the top edge. As prints, they are dynamic and forceful with little fussiness and no anal obsession with cleanliness that mars so many handmade prints. Shigley knows how to let the image speak beyond technique because he makes these men into real people. They glare at us or look at us with a quizzical gaze. Their emotions are complex and feel palpably present. It is fitting that “Marco 42” won first prize.

Patricia Mercado has three paintings in the show that are done in a comic influenced style but take on difficult themes. The one titled “War” would be nothing less than horrific if it had been done in a realistic style. Mercado is able to pull off the stark images by making them seem very simple. She doesn't need to labor excessively because she just gives us enough to make one cringe at the thought of dismembered bodies or terrified orphans.

The simplest pieces in the show are those done by KV Tomney. The five pen and ink and aluminum powder drawings on paper all depict pools. They are all less than 10”x8” and drawn with a delicate hand. Seeing five of these drawings together does not make the work look more interesting, they become constrained by their similarities. The pools as done with the aluminum powder are the whole deal here. The topic of pools immediately brings to mind Hockney, who is able to evoke an entire lifestyle from his pools. Tomney draws on lined paper, which gives them a casual, doodle quality that contrasts with the fact that they are in a juried exhibition.

Dan Adams has five paintings in the show, also none larger than 10”x8”. These are all of individual men standing or walking in alone. They are each surrounded by a background of butter creamy oil paint, lusciously applied. The slouching, faceless figures seem solid and carry a burden, either of loneliness or fatigue as they materialize from the thick paint. Known for his painting of dogs for the past few years, these are more compelling, in my opinion, as they have more emotional depth.

This is a show worth seeing, if only because there is such a contrast between the various works. There are some photographs, some collages, and more paintings than I mentioned. Other than the emphasis on painting, there wasn't a strong theme that came through from the group. It takes an open minded approach to put together a show with such differing styles. Luckily, here in San Diego, one can find something to please almost everyone.

Spun by Art as Authority at 06:05 AM | Permalink

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from the press release





"Paper Stacks" Tri-artist exhibit at The Living Room Gallery - Tucson, Arizona
Opening reception: Friday September 18th, 2009.
"Paper Stacks" showing September 18th, 2009 - October 16th, 2009.

The Living Room Gallery
413 E. 5th Street
Tucson, AZ
http://thelivingroomtucson.com

Artists:
Keegan Rider
www.phoenixartspace.com/keeganrider
www.myspace.com/kr_art
Josh Flood
Erik Krieger

Bands:
Dr.Dinosaur
www.myspace.com/doctordinosauraz
Mean Beans
Overcast Off
www.myspace.com/overcastoff

Poets:
Nicole Goff
www.myspace.com/thewhiterabbitaz

Ashely Winegart
www.always-june.webs.com

Artist Zines
White Rabbit
www.myspace.com/thewhiterabbitaz

Spun by Art as Authority at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spun by Art as Authority at 11:11 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2009 – October 11th 2009

ART Produce Gallery
3139 University Ave.
San Diego CA. 92104

Agitprop moves into a new phase of agitation and propaganda by illustrating some of the work it has done in the past and asking you to participate in future projects by becoming part of a “brain trust”. This installation addresses issues of social economics, art markets, commodities trading, and community engagement.

In “Brain Trust”, Agitprop turns corporate and art world institutional conventions on their head as a method of generating support for projects based on connectivity and community at the scale of the neighborhood. “Brain Trust” asks people to become “investors” in Agitprop. Agitprop is a space in North Park which attempts to blur the lines between individual art practice, the Studio, the Gallery and the Neighborhood.

The Agitprop “Brain Trust” is established through “Brain Blocks”, an edition of 1000 sculptures which when purchased serve as “stock” in Agitprop. “Brain Blocks” simultaneously reference the art market, think tanks, commodities trading, and the “Cube” as an art historical sculptural form. Each sculpture consists of a 4¼ inch concrete cube with a surface pattern resembling the human brain.

Sculptural “shareholders” will become facilitators of Agitprop’s upcoming projects and will be asked in the future for feedback on these same projects. Past projects include the Agitprop space itself, literature readings, Art Tap Outs I & II (live critiques in the form of underground pugilism), artwork in empty storefronts, collaborations with other neighborhood entities, etc.

The initiation of Agitprop as a space, and subsequently the “Brain Trust” project, stems from an examination of and response to current art support structures. Contemporary practice tends toward two approaches to art distribution: art works presented as commodities by commercial galleries and dealers, or conversely as visual culture by universities and museums whose funding, when traced backwards, often leads to a corporate source. This exhibition asks the question “Is it possible to have a neighborhood art practice supported wholly by those who the practice serves?”

In addition to the “Brain Blocks” component of the exhibition, several single-day events are scheduled over the duration of the exhibition, including a walking tour of residual spaces in North Park, self-portrait photography sessions, free soup, and more. A calendar of events will be available at the exhibition, as well as in postings on the Agitprop blog.

Spun by Richard Gleaves at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Richard Gleaves

If you were wondering how one goes about launching something as big as an art fair, but in San Diego in the current economy, the answer is better magic through good design.

The BTB booth design, with its strong emphasis on diagonals and irregular booth spaces, resembled nothing less than a Menger sponge, creating the illusion of an infinite exhibition hall while fitting in a room the size of a medium theatre.

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