A contemporary, sometimes historical, art, social, political, blog in and around the art world and its artists. Poetry, litterature, commentary, images, music, books, life... Et aussi, un peu de la culture Française et ses artistes contemporains. A place to come to read, relax and contribute your ideas and projects.
août 29, 2010
"R&R" - Doug Simay's Best Picks
by Doug Simay
Late summer shows invariably are largely survey or group exhibitions. Such is the case in the current LA art scene. I remember in rosier economic times that most dealers took the last half of August off to have a little personal R&R time. Not this year. Regardless of the stated reasons (from “having too many projects on the wish list” to “paying overhead”) most dealers will be open and in action - rolling right in to the season’s inaugural exhibitions in early September. Too bad. We all need the rejuvenation that comes with personal R&R.
Tony Berlant at LA Louver (Venice through August 28).
The artist’s name is synonymous with nailed, tin collage. In this exhibition of his most current work we are given the chance to see the role that photography has always played in his work. In these “paintings” the dominant theme and spirit is conveyed by altered photographs that have been printed onto the painting’s substrate. Affixed tin, nailed on top of the images gives the work dimension and psychological meaning. This work will give any fan of Berlant a huge boost in insight about his artistic process.
19th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Athenaeum La Jolla
by Kevin Freitas
KV Tomney - "Low Hedge"
"It finally dawned on me that in this place that we set aside to nurture culture and study its workings, culture didn't work."
— Dave Hickey
If you have read Dave Hickey's collection of essays in his book Air Guitar you'll recognize the above quote about his forceful entry into academia and discovering that "talk" about the things one could love - like Jazz, bookstores, record shops, and art galleries (Hickey having been baptized at a tender young age by such enticing waters) - was nonexistent at the University level, instead "[professors] exempted by their status from the whims of affection and the commerce of opinion, could only mark their territory from the podium, with footnotes, and speak in the language of authority about things they did not love." In short, Hickey is talking about a disconnect between art with a capital "A" University style and the everyday discussions about art and popular culture that occur in public spaces, bars, and at the supermarket. Now it might be a stretch to make a comparison between Hickey's assessment of the University system some 10 years ago and an annual juried exhibition in La Jolla but I'll try anyway, given there still exists today I believe, a separation between art and its public and those who claim to know something about it. This might also be seen in the work chosen for the Athenaeum's 19th annual juried exhibition. Could I or anyone else truly love or be inspired by what they saw at the Athenaeum? Tough to say. I do question rather aimlessly though and perhaps rhetorically, what Hickey might think about the University system now and if art in general has become anymore democratic or accessible. Can we love art today as much as we love Lady Gaga?
"Portraits from the Golden Age of Jazz" at the Cannon Gallery
by Marilyn Mitchell
"Portraits from the Golden Age of Jazz" opened at the Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad this past Saturday along with a talk by Dirk Sutro. The collection includes 71 black & white photographs by William Gottlieb and contemporary color photographs of local jazz musicians. Although jazz enthusiasts may be the most appreciative audience for this show, the Gottlieb's images are sufficiently distinctive to make them pleasurable viewing for anyone.
Dirk Sutro's talk gave us some inside information about William Gottlieb. He was a journalist and he took up photography to enhance his writing. Despite the fact that he is not a 'fine art' photographer, his compositions and ability to capture an authentic emotion from his subjects sets his photos apart. Try this challenge - view the black & white photos and then the contemporary color photos and decide which ones you think have greater urgency or a sense of reality. In my opinion, the black & white ones are far superior to the contemporary ones. It appears that Gottlieb had greater access to his subjects and was comfortable showing us an intimate side of these musicians.
Los Angeles is the City of Angels. LA is my favorite city in the world...
Where else can one see so much art using the luxury of personal transportation?
Jean-Leon Gerome at Getty Center (Westwood through Sept. 12). Gerome (French, 1824-1904) was, in his day, hugely popular with his audience. But given his interest in the commercial development and popular spread of the work (utilizing reproduction techniques like photography) and his license in using his stylistic viewpoints to fabricate a view of history — the “academy” neglected discussion of him for most of the 20th century. In the age of the giclee, this highly worthwhile show could not be more germane.
Paul Caponigro at Peter Fetterman (Bergamot through mid Sept.). Caponigro studied with Minor White and this broad selection of his work attests to the skill of Caponigro and the significance of his education. His work follows well the path laid by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
Currently on view at the LACMA are two pieces by Richard Serra in their Broad Contemporary Art Museum. One is called “Band” (pictured above) and the other is called “Sequence”. Both were made in 2006.
For years I thought of Serra’s art as so overpowering physically that I called it ‘fascist art’. It always felt like his intention was to crush his viewers under the sheer weight of his enormous presence. Then in about 1996 I was viewing a piece of his at the Guggenheim and I realized how there is a delicacy to his work I had not fully appreciated.
Whether it conjures up the taste of super sweet icing or the chill of a summer ice cream cone on a blistering day, Richard Allen Morris’ work stimulates the taste buds. His work is probably the only art that makes me want to stick out my tongue and feel.
There are three reasons I think Morris is a stand out artist. Number one, he keeps inventing different works using his theme of thick, abstract paint. For a lesser artist, a few paintings in this direction and they would have run out of ideas.
Aside from being an unqualified success on its own terms, the most important takeaway from There Goes the Neighborhood is its revelation by example of how thoroughly exhausted the conventional forms are for community art events: the geographical containment on one street, the temporal isolation to a few hours, the bands on stage, the booths of art, ad nauseum. All this now looks done for — the sky's the limit.
The Bronowski Art & Science Forum has been a monthly event for more than 10 years, and used to take place at the Salk Institute. The events are coordinated by Ron Newby, and have often been attended by 20 - 30 people. The venue backed out and Ron was tasked with finding a willing and affordable venue. The Neurosciences Institute's auditorium is free but required a minimum audience of 100. Ron was concerned that the event would not meet the minimum number. With listings on Facebook and with the growing email community; Ron must have been greatly surprised when this Thursday over 320 people came to hear Roman de Salvo in conversation with Dr. V.S. Ramachandran. It literally was a standing room-only event.
Friday, April 9th, marked the new beginning for a wonderful art space downtown managed by SDSU. The new gallery’s name is “SDSU Downtown Gallery” but don’t let the generic quality of its name make a bland first impression. This is a top notch exhibition space because it is well lit, there are few distractions and the inaugural exhibit highlights nationally known names. This show is well installed and it calls attention to SDSU as an art school through association with those exhibited.
“Divergence: The Work of John Baldessari, Deborah Butterfield, and Andrea Zittel” was organized by Catherine Gleason, the Associate Director of the gallery. There are only six pieces in the show because each one is rather large. Deborah Butterfield’s sculpture is a signature work from her horse series called “Conure” and it is full of life. This horse makes you think it’s absolutely natural for horses to be painted in primary colors.
RG discussing the show with Uncle Brian in Oscar Prinsen's art. Photo Lori Lipsman.
Part I
Family Matters is a series of multimedia events centered around a key curauteurial idea: the ineluctably social nature of what passes in our culture for art.
The event series — curated by visual artist and teacher Brian Goeltzenleuchter, and presented at Sushi — has included a music concert, film screening, panel discussion, and visual arts exhibition. The time-based events are now past, but the art remains on view at Sushi until April 24.
Why curauteurial? Because the themes and ideas embodied in Family Matters are part autobiography, and part prone to the same sorts of eccentric category slippages as the ones in Institutional Wellbeing, Goeltzenleuchter's 2009 show at the Oceanside Museum of Art.
In essence, for Family Matters Goeltzenleuchter the artist commandeered the role of Goeltzenleuchter the curator and assembled a meta-event with aspects unmistakably similar to Goeltzenleuchter the artist's own work: specifically, the deadpan proffering of a set of propositions purporting to explain the work, which in turn are subverted by a second set of propositions immanent in the work itself. The result is a semantic instability characteristic of the finest satire.
This quality is amplified by Goeltzenleuchter's presentation of self in everyday life: against type he radiates the same sort of earnest Boy Scout vibe as his crypto-archetype Jeff Koons, but minus Koons' signature smarm and plus an order-of-magnitude increase in the conceptual complexity of his work.
Which, in the case of Family Matters, consists wholly of the show's superstructure and support information, given that the primary information — songs sung and artwork shown — is the work of seven seriously good artists, at least four of whom are Goeltzenleuchter's colleagues or former students.
Current Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions: Doug Simay's Best Picks
This month marks the 4 year anniversary of my “Best Picks” writing. I have been making regular (about 7 or 8 times per year) comprehensive “art rounds” in Los Angeles for just over 30 years. I have seen some history.
Ted Twine
Ted Twine at LA Harbor College (Wilmington closing). Twine’s are not superb paintings - but they are the best art to be seen in Wilmington. He skirts abstraction with a very visceral figuration/cartoon that reminds me of both Darren Waterston and Lari Pittman.
The sheer amount of work afforded sufficient time for the eye and mind to habituate to immersion in the ambient luminous flux. And it was only at that point that various small-scale epiphenomena began to assert themselves: color-mixing on the inter-bulb fixture surfaces, and best of all, long pinstripes of color on the bulbs themselves, products of reflection from the adjacent paired bulbs.
This was such an exciting discovery I promptly backtracked to the beginning of the show, starting over to re-see everything I'd seen but this time hunting for epiphenomena. My favorite was how the pinstripes engaged in subtle games of rock/paper/scissors, based (it seemed) not so much on the color wheel as on the relative outputs of the various bulb colors.
On seeing Robert Irwin's current show at Quint, I had to conclude he's been noticing the same things… no surprise, given that he taught me to look this way in the first place.
Irwin has made a career from site-responsive work, a practice that has over the years yielded periodic friction when the site in question was the product of another creative (Richard Meier and James Ingo Freed come to mind).
In his Quint show Irwin expands his notion of site to encompass art itself: the work on display can be described as Irwin-adjusted Flavins, with the evident — and entirely achieved — goal of expanding the range of epiphenomena generated by the original work. Here's a partial list of Irwin's adjustments:
Selective use of lower-intensity bulbs in secondary colors
Use of non-functioning bulbs which serve wholly as soft reflectors
Dynamically configurable works (ask the front desk)
Precision gallery lighting (best known from Irwin's disks)
I could similarly enumerate the resulting epiphenomena, but won't: why deprive people of the right to epiphanies of their own? Go, look. Then look harder.
You just may spot that rara avis of the visual realm: the elusive pinstripe shadow.
The work in Dave Ghilarducci's current show is extremely generative in its ability to assert questions about the artist's intention: whether it is to explore sound, motion, interactivity, or stochastics, any one of which is a topic sufficient in itself to sustain a career-length investigation.
A conversation with Ghilarducci at the opening revealed that for him all these are but means toward an end, which is to make work that is as accessible as possible to as wide an audience as possible. If a modality exists that he can exploit to engage a viewer, he will use it. And as a professionally-trained engineer Ghilarducci has the software and hardware chops to do so, far beyond the typical skill set of a professionally-trained artist (which he is not).
The central organizing metaphor behind Ghilarducci's work is the notion of conversation: in effect he is making machines that engage in abstract conversations. This positions his work somewhere between the wetware of Tino Sehgal and Maja Matarić’s work on social robots.
In response to Ghilarducci's stated goal of total accessibility, I asked if in essence that made his work a kind of Pop art. His response was swift and dismissive: he associates Pop with the work of Warhol and Lichtenstein, and doesn't want to see his own work so pigeon-holed.
This response itself is interesting, as it's consistent with a key property of Ghilarducci's work that makes it his own: namely, an unrelenting masculinity at a level hardly seen in contemporary art since early Matthew Barney. Historically, Pop has (among other things) been characterized as an effete and ironic rejoinder to the marked masculinity of Abstract Expressionism. Whereas Ghilarducci the person is quintessentially masculine: a quality that manifests in his work, which hews tightly to the gym-equipment esthetic of cold steel, industrial finish, and mil-spec joinery.
It's easy to imagine such works as ad hoc rickety (Tim Hawkinson) or bi-gendered (Sandra Doore), but they're not — they're tough as nails. It's this, combined with their propensity to communicate in odd and somewhat random ways, that makes them such a compelling spectacle, and — lest the artist recoil at the title above — not only worthy of their own branch in the tree of Pop, but fully potential of being something very else.
Half-consciously, though, there is the more indigenous dream that the adventure is everything…
— Kaprow, Happenings in the New York Scene
Last month Agitprop presented Coatlicue mi Amor, a performance by The Border Corps, a group of San Diego artists, musicians, and performers. In its density of information and feeling, Coatlicue was by far the most ambitious and successful event I've witnessed to date at Agitprop, and not by coincidence it's taken me a month to figure out how to write about it.
Billed as a happening, Coatlicue felt more closely positioned between traditional performance art and current trends in interactive theatre. Its hybrid nature made for a wild ride: rather than simply disappearing, the fourth wall seemed to be in constant motion throughout the Agitprop space, flying up, down, or inverting polarity as various scenes unfolded.
Throughout the fourth-wall gymnastics backstage remained overhead and crucial, as Border Corpsmen Armando de la Torre and Anthony Vasquez worked full-time through the performance spinning a dense web of real-time audio and video around performers Endy, Perry Vasquez, and Shondra Dawson.
The work was structured in three parts: the dreams of two vividly REM-state dreamers; a satirical review of recent and ongoing commercial crypto-genocides (the gods are more subtle these days); and a traditional Catholic liturgy recounting in lurid detail the historical genocide of the Island Carib people at the hands of conquistadores.
At this point I'd normally attempt a detailed description of these parts, but doing so would require more pages than could fit on this blog, and would only lead the reader further and further away from the intense theatricality engendered by the performance. Words fail me — you had to be there.
Never overplaying its hand (except perhaps in the topical Haiti references), the entire production displayed subtle signs of being well-thought-out to the n'th degree:
The audience was materially encouraged (via an admission discount) to attend the performance with sketchbooks and pencils. The presence of sketchers sketching throughout the performance mere feet from the performers seemed to insert them into the story itself, as complicit documenters of historical phenomena.
The climactic genocide liturgy was delivered directly to the artist-heavy audience, reframing them as members of the Church and so complicit participants in the recounted genocide. And so we are: you and I live where we live and how we live on the bones of a destroyed people. It's an old story, and not an uncommon one, but some old stories deserve regular retelling.
Post-performance some remarkably good food was made available to the audience for free. Perhaps not by coincidence, most of it seemed to be round.
I know of several people who missed this event and regret it. Word is that a repeat performance may occur at Agitprop in the indefinite future — watch for it.
The California Center for the Arts in Escondido has a high quality exhibition that most everyone will find visually interesting and well installed (with only a few exceptions). To begin, "Material Matters: Selected Works by Allied Craftsmen" has a range of works, all worth pondering. The title of the show, 'Material Matters' could be interpreted as a pronouncement that material items have importance, versus decades of conceptual dominance in art or it could be viewed simply that all items presented highlight the use and transformation of materials. Here are a few that must be seen...
Anna Zappoli's show at the San DIego Art Institute ends this weekend. The show is remarkable in several dimensions:
After a decade of cycling her paint between poles of superflat and superexpressive, the two come together here, perfectly integrated, and often on the same canvas. It no longer feels like two styles: just one, utterly, unique, signature. She owns it — it's hers.
Color-wise the work is more cohesive than I remember from shows past: various flavors of black and red.
The color cohesion is force-multiplied by the hanging of several works as de facto diptychs, a move that concentrates the show spatially while generating some striking contrasts not normally associated with the diptych format.
At this point I need to mention that the greatness of this show is due in no small part to an unadvertised collaboration: for this show Anna turned her work over to SDAI President & CEO Tim Field, who was solely responsible for the exhibition design (including those diptych pairings). The design is frighteningly perfect — it more than qualifies as an installation in and of itself.
One of the things I love about the art world is how crystalline talents can reside in eccentric and even ignoble containers. (Guy, take a bow.) In such cases I dig the art while giving its maker a moderate berth. And goodness knows I've had my run-in's with Tim: the very idea of an SDAI CEO makes me LOL.
But here's the thing: once upon a time I myself was a member of SDAI (Hi, my name is Richard and I'm…). That's where I got to know her work and Anna. And Tim was new on the scene back then, and the guy was there as an artist. And evidently still is: no doubt assisted by a Jack O'Brien-esque run of putting together a gazillion shows at SDAI, the guy has developed a major eye for designing clean-looking shows. Or in Anna's case, great ones.
The Reflected Gaze - Self-Portraiture Today at the Torrance Art Museum (Torrance through February 20).
I am frequently a fan of the curatorial efforts at the TAM. I also love portraiture. But this exhibition lacks a cohesive “eye” that would better integrate the artists represented. Figurative/portrait art was hugely seen about town this week and many of the artists in this show are in other exhibitions as you will read below.
Tom LaDuke and Chuck Close
Allison Schulnik at Mark Moore (Bergamot through February 6). There has been lots of media bubbling about this sold-out show. The work is interesting. There are great gobs of paint. She slathers it on more vigorously than Frank Auerbach and with the same “innocence” of Karel Appel. Me thinks the hype machine is not truly dead.
Movers & Shakers 2: Who’s Who in the San Diego Visual Arts World
by Baudelaire Shepherd
Artist: Lee Puffer - Portrait: Karen McGuire, Curator of Exhibitions, City of Carlsbad’s William D. Cannon Art Gallery
On Movers and Shakers 2, at the Art Expressions Gallery
A visitor to “Movers and Shakers 2: Who’s Who in San Diego Visual Arts” might reasonably expect to be treated to a representative sampling of the best in San Diego art; what they will find instead are a few good works bobbing upon a turgid sea of proud mediocrity. The show’s title already had an air of fawning desperation before an indifferent public, but through the combination of a needlessly narrow selection of artists, a flaunting of mere technique over wit and vision, and an uninspiring theme, the organizers have perversely given the public good reason to stay indifferent. San Diego’s artists deserve better.
Out of a total of forty-four works, by forty-six separate artists, I found only seven pieces that were truly successful, including quirky sculptures by Jeffrey Laudenslager and Lee Puffer, a wittily “minimalist” painting by Vero Glezqui, and a joyful, cartoon-like representation by Michael Gross. I found Lee Puffer’s ceramic bust of Karen McGuire particularly striking, combining energetic form with lively color, as well as touches of subtle comedy. Another eight were of moderate interest. Herb Olds, for instance, presented a moody, large-scale drawing, but without the revealing detail that adds depth to his other work. Cheryl Sorg created another entry in her clever “thumbprint” series; but in the process perhaps revealed the limitations of this cleverness—the overall form risks becoming muddy and over-familiar; the textual content proves no more revelatory than a list of favorite books on Facebook.
by Richard Gleaves Fringe Theories (at Agitprop through January 9) is billed as "the work of five artists and scholars that thrive outside of traditional and accepted rules and boundaries."
What's most striking about the show as a whole is not its fringiness but rather an odd formal emphasis on oldness: old newsprint, old photos, old paintings, old sculpture. The work itself is recent, but — with the exception of Keith Engeron's modest deployment of corporate logos and Tony Allard's use of layered space — otherwise avoids the look and feel of contemporary art.
It's interesting to contemplate just why this is.
My first thought was that the curator (Katherine Sweetman) was asserting the notion of fringe theories as a historical phenomenon: a plausible hypothesis given how the 1960's engendered greater cultural weirdness (spoon bending, pyramid power, Kirlian auras) than we experience today, while in times pre-60's the absence of science-based consumer protection laws enabled entire socioeconomic classes of theory-pitching charlatans and mountebanks (Pirelli in Sweeney Todd).
A brief conversation with the curator dispelled this hypothesis: it turns out she wasn't aware of the thread of antiquity running through the show. But the thread was still there, and in need of explanation.
My second thought fit better: namely, that the curator was subconsciously mapping the notion of "fringe" to outsider art — though the artists themselves were not necessarily "outsider" — and that in doing so the formal baggage of outsider art was serving as a de facto constraint on the work selected for the show. Hence the virtual lack of contemporaneity, and the focus on traditional forms.
And what, pray tell, is the formal baggage of outsider art? Simple: the esthetic engine driving outsider art is the pairing of traditional form with eccentric content. The work must be recognizable as drawing or painting or sculpture. Only savvy professionals with insider credentials can adopt forms such as digging holes in the floor or cooking in the gallery — if an institutionalized schizophrenic were to try this, they'd get solitary, not a retrospective.
A few additional thoughts:
The show copy implies that Noah Doely's ghost-story photographs overlay a contemporary sensibility on traditional techniques. In fact his images are straightforward (and beautifully executed) derivations from the historical genre of occult photography.
Allard's newspaper installation was the sole work in the show to offer extended visual pleasure: wallowing in the information overload made me think of how often pigs look happy.
Agitprop's gnarly upstairs corridor space finally met its match in the muscle-bound sculpture of DJ Brelje and Erich Winzer. I'm nearly certain that putting the very same objects in a white-cube space would gag me by their overstatement. Yet I'm equally certain that any white-cube art hung in this rustic environment would die a thousand deaths. Here the fit's perfect — Fringe Theories is worth seeing solely for this rare conjunction.
Art as Authority is proud to add to its growing roster of artists, writers, and art activists who not only support San Diego’s art community, but concretely contribute to its development and growth. I’m honored to welcome Doug Simay aboard in a joint effort to expand his readership and ours to yet another level of arts coverage and content. Doug Simay has been extensively covering the Los Angeles gallery and museum scene in his column “Simay’s Best Picks” for over two-and-half years. His column provides a comprehensive guide to the art being shown there, as well as, offering the reader rare personal insights into an artwork’s context, history and contemporaneity with great intelligence and wisdom rarely seen. Doug has maintained a presence here in San Diego for more than thirty years, recently as the director of Simayspace. His passion for collecting San Diego based artists has left him with an undisputable expertise and experience we can all surely benefit from. Please help me welcome Doug to the blog by enjoying the first segment of “Simay’s Best Picks”. Ars Longa Vita Brevis
At the end of Doug’s picks, I’ve included a brief explanation on how to go about subscribing to the Art as Authority blog via the RSS feed. Please take a moment to read over the instructions and subscribe, this way, you’ll never miss another “Simay’s Best Picks” or any of the blog’s future postings. Thank you.
Doug Simay's Best Picks
Alex Grey at Orange Coast Community College (Costa Mesa through December 18). The visionary art of Alex Grey is just part of a complex, spiritually driven world that Alex and his wife are evolving in New York (the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors). Grey’s paintings are heavily based on his experiences in Harvard’s anatomy labs and with LSD. In 1999 he had a mid-career show at the MCA La Jolla.
"BIGGER, BRIGHTER, BOLDER" - Kelsey Brookes at Quint Gallery
by Kevin Freitas
At 31 years of age, Kelsey Brookes is no painter. Unless of course, your definition of painting is limited to pigment on canvas, frames, and exposed in galleries. What Kelsey Brookes is is a doodler, a young man who has not lost the urge (I’m guessing) to fill pages and pages of his sketchbooks and canvases with mindless (obsessive) yet mildly interesting drawings and mixed-media works that center around (quoting from various press releases) “sex, comedy, and animals.”
Kelsey Brookes - "The Storm" 2009 Mixed media / 72" x 60" / Courtesy of Quint Contemporary Art / Photo credit: Roy Porello
The 24 character tweet does nothing more than attract the viewer. Once our curiosity is sufficiently aroused, the work never quite seems to deliver. I stand before Brookes work unmoved. I find the pieces in his current show at Quint Gallery only as titillating as the three words used to describe them. I guess this makes me then, some old-fart who has grown tired of “sex, comedy, and animals” period.
Los Angeles artist Michael Arata gets a nice review from Doug Harvey in this week's LA Weekly for his current show at Kristi Engle Gallery in Highland Park. We're as proud as Punch!
On another note, it doesn't seem to be all that big of a deal to review art shows in the LA Weekly on a weekly basis. Perhaps Seth Combs and Co. from San Diego's own weekly, CityBeat, should take a lesson or two on how its done. I'm just sayin'...
Review by Doug Harvey
A slightly darker take on pop seriality and gender can be found in Michael Arata’s latest group of paintings, collectively titled “Remember,” on view at Kristi Engle Gallery in Highland Park. Arata, whose work often hinges on outrageous humor or (as with his wall-creeping modular contribution to the “Some Paintings” L.A. Weekly Biennial) playful interactivity, has shifted into a more solemn — though hardly less edgy — mode, appropriating the images of 54 anonymous women whose photos were found in the apartment of L.A.-based serial killer William Bradford in 1984. More...
Deth P. Sun is among the handful of Giant Robot artists (Souther Salazar, Saelee Oh, Ray Fong) who can make GR2 the sole reason for an LA art run.
Sun works in the school of illustration-flavored painting that is the house style of Giant Robot. What sets him apart from the cartoon crew is a melancholy poetry that's hard to put one's finger on, but utterly compelling to look at.
Sun lives in the Bay Area but grew up in San Diego, taking art classes at Patrick Henry High School from the gifted artist and teacher Tina Brown.
Normally I loathe articles that link national artists to local roots (Baldessari! Zittel! Go Padres!). But in this case it's useful for understanding the work, since Sun himself likes to throw in the occasional hometown callout, wherever home might be.
(Untitled) is a new comedy that parodies contemporary art – especially the New York art scene. Jonathan Parker's view is at times painfully funny, at other times too realistic. It made me squirm with recognition. All contemporary art lovers will want to see this film. The story follows two competitive brothers, one who is a visual artist (Eion Bailey) and the other is a deadpan atonal music composer (Adam Goldberg). They form a love triangle with a beautiful gallery owner (Marley Shelton) that wants to only show 'important' emerging artists.
The musician's music was composed by David Lang, and it is a hoot. He drops a metal chain into a bucket and kicks it with gusto to create some of the 'music'. At a concert in the movie, the theater is almost empty while Adam Goldberg and his two accomplices plunk, bang and squeak their performance to life. The ironic twist on it was that (Untitled) played on a Saturday night to a similarly sparse audience here in San Diego.
from the New York Times, Deborah Sontag and Robin Pogrebin
One day in the mid-1980s, Dakis Joannou, a Greek Cypriot industrialist, was exploring the art galleries of the East Village in Manhattan when he came upon a basketball suspended in a tank of liquid. Captivated, he invested $2,700 in “One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank” by a little-known artist named Jeff Koons. It was, he said, as if a whole new world had opened up to him.
Twenty-five years — and 40 Koonses — later, Mr. Joannou is considered one of the most important contemporary art collectors in the world. And the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan is preparing to showcase his vast collection in a three-story exhibition, with Mr. Koons, now an art superstar, as the guest curator. More..
Of the many fascinating aspects of Donovan's work, perhaps most intriguing is the oblique relation between how it's promoted as visit-worthy, and how it works as art.
The hook is the novelty of a mass accumulation of everyday objects, while the actual esthetic engine is the work's deft exploitation of a bi-level figure/ground inversion:
At the micro level the action centers on the play of light between or through the objects, rather than on the objects themselves.
At the macro level the focus on large-scale bioform enables the work to engage (and thus appropriate) the rectilinearity of the containing museum spaces.
These levels are linked by the work's crucial dependency on formal properties of surface:
If drawing’s origins can be traced back to the Italian Renaissance and the Academies - its usage primarily as a means to an end - that is, as a form of visual note taking or sketch in preparation for the final work of art, it isn’t until the 18th century that it begins to acquire a certain autonomy and appreciation. Drawing materials and the techniques used in employing them haven’t changed much over the centuries either, case in point, ink drawings or sumi-e has been around since the 10th century in Japan and even earlier in China. Today, it is still one of the many methods artists use to make their art. If there is any thanks to be given for drawings continued success and general public appeal, we should remove our porkpie hats (Llewellyn sports them) and thank such great masters as Rembrandt, Poussin, Rubens, Boucher, Fragonard, Delacroix, Cezanne, Degas, ad nauseam… Drawing has a very fine pedigree that carries a lot of art historical weight: tons and tons of it.
Renaissance artists viewed drawing as a cosa mentale, something that originated in the spirit and mind and then manifested itself through its gesture. Drawing then, was both mental and physical. It may have taken a major exhibit in 1976 organized by Bernice Rose entitled “Drawing Now” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to realize drawing could be something else than just lines on a piece of paper. It could also encompass such radical artists (at the time) as Land Art aficionados Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, and still others from Dine to Agnes Martin to Stella, Twombly, and Rauschenberg. And how about now, where does drawing stand in 2009? The answer might be found in several new works by long time San Diego artist and resident Clayton Llewellyn, currently on view at Device Gallery (Barrio Logan).
Every year I make one or two trips to NYC to visit family & friends and to walk through as many galleries as possible. This year I was able to make a trip to the National Gallery in D.C., too, which included one of the highlights of my trip. In the contemporary wing of the National Gallery, top floor, there was a room full of Phillip Guston paintings. Photos were not allowed. The room contained about 15 of his works from his early abstractions to his later comic influenced paintings. They also had a video of Guston speaking about his work on a loop. He spoke of how when he began to bring imagery back into his paintings, many people criticized him. He wanted his works to have meaning once again, though not literal meaning, so the images are not realistic. My favorite works of his are from his later period because they are so unlike anything else anyone was doing at the time. It's interesting to note that Jackson Pollack also attempted to bring back some imagery into his painting before he died and was vehemently criticized for it. Guston also said, "Nothing is ever solved in painting." I think we can say that nothing is ever solved in art. Art is not about the ends or the resolution of a journey - it is the evidence of the lived experience.
Jack Pierson
In NYC there were a number of wonderful shows, including a Kandinsky show for the Guggenheim's 50th Anniversary exhibit, a special Vermeer exhibit at the Metropolitan and a fabulous exhibit called "The Art of the Samurai" also at the Met. To me, though, my time in Chelsea always feels the most important.
One of my favorite exhibitions in Chelsea was at Cheim & Read where they were showing Jack Pierson. He takes old signage and rearranges it so it no longer has the 'meaning' that it had. Instead, the result is calligraphic without language. The pieces are whimsical and dance along the walls.
MCASD is exhibiting a number of works from their Annenberg Foundation Acquisitions at their downtown space at 1001 Kettner across from the Santa Fe Depot. Even if you're not especially a fan of minimalism, this is a vital group of works to see. Called "Primary Forms", the works do generally take standard geometric shapes but they are also often subtle plays on perception. Their copy states that it focuses on works from the 1960's and 1970's but the most interesting works are from after 1990. Judging from this show, minimalism has not run its course yet. Again, the museum claims these pieces address the notion of "...materiality as its dematerialization through the reflection and diffusion of light." All of the pieces require a few minutes of viewing in order for your perceptions to register the variations and changes. Attaching photos would not even begin to give you the pleasure of sensing them on-site — so I have purposely not added photos to this commentary, except for the image link to the museum's website above.
In our culture, museum going may be one of the only places where we allow our vision to rest on an object for minutes at a time. The act of viewing can be calming and refreshing for me. In the past, though, some minimalist works annoyed me. I found them not especially interesting or clever. Okay, a cube, big deal, was my feeling. "Primary Forms" has one stellar piece, though, worth the trip. It's a piece so subtle that the museum guard that day said he had never seen any single museum goer actually notice the piece without being told about it until my husband pointed it out to me.
The piece I am urging you to experience is on the second floor of the museum across from the elevator — the experience is in how you will see it. It's called "Wall MCASD Downtown" and it's by Wendy Jacob from 1993. You may notice the museum wall card describing the piece before you even see the piece, as I did. I read the placard and then felt confused because I didn't 'see' the piece. I asked my husband where the piece was and he responded, "It's right in front of you". I stood looking in front of me for a few seconds and noticed the wall appeared to be expanding in front of me! What a surprise — a wall that breathes with a slow steady pace accompanied by the sound of it's expansion and contraction. If you stood in front of this 'wall', it would appear like a blank, white wall. It's only when you are standing to the side of it as you read the placard that you can notice that it moves.
Wendy Jacob's piece is successful because there are standard museum going conventions, like written placards and white walls. She transforms the very surface that is meant to support the art into a memorable and unique experience. It made me consider how the institutions we visit that contain art are themselves learned experiences that can be viewed in new ways. It also reminded me how we are generally complacent as what is alive or animate versus what is dead or inanimate. "Wall MCASD Downtown" moves but it is inanimate so that also one can begin to question how we define life. It has nothing to do with reflection and light but it is certainly about what we call art and its material nature. The definition of art has undergone so much expansion in the last 40 years that it is difficult to ever claim one knows what art really is. If we pin it down in any way, it seems to slither away with defiance and glee. Wendy Jacob's piece brought art to the very structure of where art is housed and I know it made my afternoon step a bit bouncier because of my sense of joy from seeing it. Enjoy!
It occurred to me on visiting the new exhibit at Palomar College Boehm Gallery that I’ve been to several campus galleries like this one, and curiously enough, they all pretty much look the same. I’ve bemoaned the gallery at Southwestern College already for their poor space management; the Boehm Gallery on the other hand is much smaller and divided into equal halves. It’s better but still not optimal. The room on the left has a linoleum floor; the room to the right is carpeted in a light gray which neutralizes any sculpture laid upon it. It’s a gallery with two distinct personalities. I imagine most of these community colleges were constructed during the late 70’s and early 80’s during the push to educate everyone in America, however, with no real thought behind what would be put inside. Campus galleries suffered the same indignation.
Artist Talk - Part 1 with Sandra Doore, Marisol Rendón, Brian Dick, Zac Monday and Rebecca Tice
De Salvo's tree-branch networks at Quint serve as pods to his Caltrans mothership: a translation (and refinement) of public-art-scale technology down to the level of portable object.
The pods work beautifully, not just formally but as markers of de Salvo's progress in contemplating the role of mechanism in the world, a train of thought which seems to have evolved of late away from an affinity for per se mechanical ingenuity and towards an appreciation of general systems thinking... something we all need to do these days.
And how do they work formally? Let me count the ways:
They lie flat on the wall, a move that — along with the studied avoidance of conventional branching structure — precludes a simplistic abstract-diorama reading.
But not too flat: enough warpage exists to make the shadowplay pop, while suggesting (if not actually implying) that the works themselves are still settling in structurally.
The small rectilinear bursts of the wood spline joints neatly punctuate the larger biomorphic forms they're embedded in (yielding a beautiful conceptual metaphor).
The material semantics of the planed and finished wood radiates furniture yet is perceptually detached from furniture's archetypal corners and straight edges. The effect is pure Nakashima: a deft borrow.
The original tree bark lines the finished edges of each branch, activating them like the neon lips of a Chihuly vase. Less borrow than extremely elegant design freebie.
This is a great show. Let's hope some curator pairs it with Ann Mudge's wireworks. One can dream.
Juxtapoz interview with Kelly Hutchison aka Dark Vomit
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 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.
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.
The 18th Annual Juried Exhibition at the Athenaeum - Juried by Michael Krichman and Mathieu Gregoire
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 Inn can now add another notch to its belt under the category of Marketing So Advanced It Qualifies as Museum-Grade Art. I'm referring to their current promotional offer entitled Survivor Package, which in its studied blurring of corporate practice, long-term global economic trends, cultural and institutional self-critique, subtextual subversiveness, and (not least) downright cheek makes it a worthy match of Brian Goeltzenleuchter's current show at OMA.
The deal is straightforward: from August 16 to 31 the Inn is offering rooms at the following rates:
$219 standard luxury
$199 without breakfast
$179 without honor bar
$159 without A/C or heat
$139 without pillows
$109 without sheets
$89 without lights (except one bulb in bathroom)
$59 without linens
$39 without toiletries (BYOTP)
$19 without bed (tent provided)
For more information (including a priceless photo of the tent) see today's Union-Tribune.
This past Saturday afternoon at the MCASD in their downtown facility they hosted talks by three different artists, Jim Skalman, Lewis deSoto and Kevin Lynch.
Both Skalman and deSoto were included in the Attempt to Raise Hell exhibit whose intention was to exhibit work that features large scale installation work. The MCASD had made a commitment to ...“work that is not easily accommodated or commodified.” The talk began in the lobby of their Santa Fe Depot facility with Jim Skalman.
In his works on paper Joe Nyiri uses stencil, spray paint, broad line marker... all the tools of a state-of-the art graffitist. He works fast too, which gives his line a high-energy crackle rivalling the best taggers.
Nyiri has been teaching art for over fifty years.
The work below is part of a one-person show currently at the Taylor Library in Pacific Beach. Through September 4, which gives you many opportunities to not miss it.
This summer Southern Californians have a rare opportunity to see the work of Agnes Martin in numbers and variety far beyond the ones and twos typically offered by regional museums.
Martin is commonly labeled a minimalist, but her work differs so markedly from that of other artists so labeled that it exposes the term itself as semantically overextended to the degree of buzz.
Perhaps a better term for Martin is "low stimulus threshold", as a way of foregrounding the visual subtlety that is her trademark. A Martin painting whispers in a way that makes a Judd box or Flavin light shout: all the difference in the world.
Art can take a million paths up the mountain, but the art that interests me most is the kind which challenges viewers to see the water they're swimming in. We live in a consummate high-stimulus-threshold society (the planet Soundtrack), and as a result much easy art exists which parasitizes the spectacle while claiming to comment upon it. Martin, on the other hand, took the hard road of making an art of the radical act of quiet contemplation.
A caveat on making the journey to Newport Beach to see the show: the curators — apparently influenced by their own elevated stimulus thresholds — decided the work was so quiet they could stuff far too much of it into two smallish galleries without causing a stir. Bad move: it reflects poorly on the museum. Each large Martin deserves a room of its own.
“Halftolds is the title of May-ling Martinez’s current exhibit on view at the Art Produce Gallery in San Diego. I didn’t like it. If truth be told, Halftolds as in half-told stories or half-truths makes for an exhibit to this viewer’s eye, half-a-success.” (July 2006)
The above quote was the opening lines to my first review of May-ling Martinez’s solo exhibit at Art Produce Gallery in 2006. A review that many disagreed with including the artist who called me presumptuous, commentators who found my critique half-assed, while still others – including friends and colleagues – I argued with privately and in public over the merits of Martinez’s work.
What a difference three years makes.
May-ling Martinez’s exhibit entitled “Measured Resistance” now on view at Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects through August 1, 2009 is really quite good. So what happened?
"Though Russe (Beate Russe — president of the museum's board of directors) believes that museums are there partly to educate and challenge their audience, this show reached too far, too fast, in her estimation, for a museum with a populist, even a parochial, bent in its programming." — Robert Pincus, from his review Oceanside's conceptual exhibit risky but worthy
photo courtesy: Brian Goeltzenleuchter
How do you know when art reaches too far? Do you try to slow it down, dumb it down, make it accessible to everyone: bite-size sugar-coated morsels for easy digestion and contemplation? Russe's commentary surely raises the hackles on all of us who smell institutional dogma and knee-jerk conclusions. But then beyond partly educating and challenging its audience, what do museums do exactly? And what about those infallible artists: are they not partially responsible for the pétrin Russe finds herself in? Of course they are. The question then becomes, who is responsible for an artwork's content and its subsequent showing after it leaves the studio? The simplistic response would be the artist is responsible for content and the museum for putting the work up on the wall. If that division of labor truly exists, then Russe has no reason to complain. So what is she questioning?
I think, despite Russe's gibberish commentary and the apparent backlash the show has accrued, some of the problem might lie within the show's formal structure and less to do with the artist and his ideas. I have a smidgen of doubt, as incredulous as her remark may seem, that it isn't a matter of Goeltzenleuchter's work being too advanced for the public, but the intangibility of an idea put on display that simultaneously positions itself as an art form laden with art historical precedents — as Pincus clearly points out in his review (a movement that many may be unfamiliar with including Russe), appears to also point an accusatory finger in her direction (clearly tongue-in-cheek), propounds some type of scientific experiment and data to back it up, but might fail in convincing the audience that what they are viewing is relevent and can be meaningful to them. Russe's criticism in an oblique way then, might be questioning what types of art should be made for the museum. What Russe doesn't understand is that art like museums, have limits in their capacity to communicate everything to everyone. It doesn't make the adventure any less exciting for trying, but the art must somehow signal a larger purpose beyond its exhibition when in a public domain (as opposed to a much more private domain such as a gallery). How that manifests itself either didactically or pragmatically with a clear intent, is the key I believe, to a show's successful reading by the public.
On view from May 16th until June 20th at the Athenaeum in La Jolla is a fine show of artists' books juried by Stanley Strauss, Curator Emeritus, Artists' Books Collection, Cerritos Library.
With 33 pieces on view, a few were definitely standouts. The variety and inventiveness of artists' books are what make the genre worth viewing. If it looks like something that could be purchased at Barnes & Noble, it may have achieved technical expertise but it is isn't art.
Sibyl Rubottom - "Fore Edge"
Sibyl Rubottom's "Fore Edge" has the makings of a book, yet, it sits with this packed, solid blankness of a minimalist master engaged in a formal display. The piece is only one inch deep so the shallowness of it feels surprising and clever. No content needed here, just the book elements need be seen.
The current show at Quint is billed as an exhibition of San Diego's 50 top-tier contemporary artists, which immediately begs the usual question “1: Why X and not Y?”. Here there be dragons, so let's instead home in on "top-tier" and see how it holds up. Eleanor Antin, David Avalos, Robert Irwin, James Luna: they're not on the list, which effectively toasts “top-tier”. Nobody’s perfect — let’s hope they were invited.
Once past that, writing about a 50-artist group show is not unlike seeing one: disorienting, especially in where to start. The best way to make sense of it all is to frame the event not as an art show, but rather as a diverse (and crowded) ecosystem within which the players adopt various strategies to survive and thrive.
Allison Wiese, Woods (non-installation photo used in show announcement)
Conceptually, Wiese's wired networks of altered appropriated paintings are much richer than the work she's shown previously in San Diego. In particular, their use of archetypal semantic primitives — wiring, blinking red LEDs, traditional landscape paintings — goes a long way towards dispensing with the need for any supporting text (a tell-tale signature of weak conceptual work).
The LEDs multi-function gloriously: blinking red points of light are ubiquitous symbols of caution, most commonly signaling the threat of protection via car alarm, but also (thanks to Hollywood movie conventions) equally well-known for signaling the threat of imminent destruction via terrorist device.
These double readings interact with both the image and object properties of the appropriated landscape paintings, evoking with sheer mathematical elegance issues of art commoditization and avant-garde backlash, global urbanization and anti-globalization, society and environment, and various combinations thereof.
In short, the work is extremely strong, as are the shelves of small abstract mountain sculptures in the gallery's front room. But the show itself — and by "show" I mean not just the display of the objects but their categorization as collections of salable art — suffers from a serious flaw: certain key formal elements of the works as displayed turn out not to be intrinsic parts of the artwork, but rather extraneous elements intended to serve as display supports for the work.
Jason Sherry & Neil Kendricks: In Conversation, April 18 @ Seminal Projects
by Richard Gleaves
I picked this because it's the most beautiful clip in the world. And I think you'll enjoy it. How it relates to my work is something about being a low-budget director, and you just have an idea that you have to do that means nothing to the entire movie — that's totally ridiculous — but you have to do it.
— Jason Sherry
He's sort of this archaeologist in terms of pop culture and movies.
— Neil Kendricks
Sherry's work is described in the gallery press release as "audio-mechanical sculptures and photo/print collages," but a more elegant way to conceptualize the work is as "image and non-image collage."
Image collage is in essence technically trivial: scissors, glue, and a magazine suffice. But non-image collage — a turntable with a bicycle; a pump organ with a pile of magazines; a hair dryer with ... an image collage! — takes mechanical genius, and Sherry's got it.
A worthwhile reference point here is Tim Hawkinson, who deploys similar levels of genius toward the very different goal of realizing Rube Goldberg. Hawkinson celebrates mechanism, while Sherry works to achieve a seamless whole: the collage ideal.
Update: 4/24
Michele Guieu has posted video of the full conversation.
... to sound art, which though technically not music can't help being so, given how music reigns as the supreme art form of electronic-age humanity.
Drawing from a national call for submissions, Garage Gallery (aka Larry Caveney) recently curated a high-quality one-hour set which played straight through in the darkened BYO chair garage space.
The eight works presented hit various points on the sound-to-music spectrum, depending on one's ears: the musicians in attendance said they heard everything as music.
That the musicians were there is due to the cryptic sagacity of CityBeat, which chose to list Garage's art show announcement as a music event. Wise move: the musicians were stoked, and said they'd be back.
Garage needs to consider doing this annually; otherwise, aside from the occasional Céleste Boursier-Mougenot or wind chime, the closest we get to sound art is SoundWalk, and that's up in Long Beach.
Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body
by Marilyn Mitchell
Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body is now showing a SDMA until April 26th. If you haven't seen it, you are missing a bold and diverse group of works well worth several hours of contemplation.
The exhibit, curated by Barbara Thompson, includes contemporary black female art, postcards from the end of the 19th Century, and traditional African sculptures. The focus is on the female body and the stark differences of perception and interpretation by Africans, Western Colonial photographers and contemporary female artists.
The exhibits opens with a gigantic self portrait photograph of Renee Cox titled "Baby Back", 2001. Clearly a re-imagined take on Ingres' Odalisque of 1814, Cox's portrait holds a whip and has none of the 'come hither' attitude of Ingres' painting. She looks more like someone who is in total control and will dominate even an anonymous viewer. Hung on a deep red wall, it's a striking image.
The postcards were meant to titillate western viewers with the semi-nude examples of women from Africa and the Middle East. Seeing them today makes me cringe at the thought of how the buyers of the cards were meant to feel vastly superior to those portrayed.
If you are not familiar with African sculpture, it's worth noting that most African sculpture was made with a spiritual purpose and may have been used in a religious ceremony. The sculptures are from Sierra Leone, Gabon, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, The Republic of Congo, Tanzania and others. The exhibit shows some delightful pieces but does not give us the context of the objects displayed. They serve as an interesting counterpoint to the contemporary works but honestly are not likely to be antecedents to the contemporary pieces.
Alison Saar has two pieces on display, a wonderful woodcut "Topsy" (2002) which shows a woman's head with bottles on her hair. The image is explained as containing her dreams. Very cool.
Her other piece is a large reclining nude sculpture "Cache" (2006) made of ceiling tin, wood and wire. The piece is meant to "evoke the burden of Saar's own racially mixed ancestry" but for me it evoked tension wound so tightly it becomes a crushing weight. The stiffness of the figure and the blank expression of the face creates a feeling of burden but one would never know it comes from her ancestry. Knowing her mastery of sculpture, this piece feels surprisingly lifeless, yet it is also very beautiful.
Included in the programming for the exhibit were several story telling sessions by the Black Storytellers Association. Their lively performance Saturday, April 11th left me chanting their phrase, "I am not my hair. I am not my skin. I am not your expectations. I am my self. I am the soul that lives within." How true, how true.
MOCA's current show consists of two unequal parts:
A large group show from the permanent collection, including works by Judd, Benglis, Chamberlain, and Rothko
A retrospective of the conceptual artist Dan Graham
To anyone considering a visit with hungry eye or mind, consider yourself forewarned: the former makes the latter feel like a long string of late-night TV commercials (notwithstanding the occasional Glenn Branca score).
It's not every day — or decade, for that matter — that one can spend quality time in a roomful of Rothkos. For this, go.
But as for the half a museum of Graham, it left me in a state of anesthesia to a degree I've never before experienced from a major museum show. Out of profound respect for and affinity with conceptual art — good conceptual art — I'm considering a return trip to try and determine whether, as the museum claims, anyone's home.
"Faite comme d'habitude" or the Culture of Me Me Me New Contemporaries II - Part IV - FINAL
by Kevin Freitas
"Flotsam and Jetsam" - Marisol Rendón
A little inside information is necessary. I chose the title “Faite comme d’habitude or the Culture of Me Me Me” for this essay as a direct reference to the usual suspects and typically unsurprising decisions that are made within the art world - San Diego included. This involves friends, colleagues, and golden opportunities that are not as far reaching as they seem or should be. “Faite comme d’habitude” roughly translates into “Do as you always do” and is taken from the French artist Ben, a colloquial junkie of sorts who would fill entire gallery spaces with these non-sensical expressions that contained a deeper meaning about society and its suspect practices. The culture of "Me Me Me" is an obvious reference to Brian Dick’s recent exhibit of the same name at Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects a few months back.
"Faite comme d'habitude" or the Culture of Me Me Me New Contemporaries II - Part III
by Kevin Freitas
Daniel Ruanova - "FUCK OFF" (painting), "Untitled" from the FUCK OFF project (sculpture)
The San Diego Art Prize now into its third year has taken no one by surprise. The lack of enthusiasm may not be the organizer’s fault as much as how it is felt in the work of the 13 artists dubbed “emerging”. New Contemporaries II is the sequel to last year’s New Contemporaries exhibit which was held in the now defunct Simayspace Gallery downtown. In comparing the two exhibits, NC1 is far better and not for the quality of the work shown but for the dark horses that ran in it. Lael Corbin was one of those contenders, his much deserved win of the coveted Art Prize made it that much sweeter for us to savor.
"Faite comme d'habitude" or the Culture of Me Me Me New Contemporaries II - Part II
Dear Kim MacConnel,
I hope you don’t mind if I address you as Kim. I feel like I know you already so please allow me to do away with any pleasantries and formal servitudes. Discarding obligations and formality, rules and regulations if you will, seems oddly appropriate in writing this letter to you. It might be that we have something in common, something interdit. Ironically, breaking the rules has never been my forte. I’m too conservative, too scared generally. Maybe I lack a spine. Authority still impresses me. You impress me with your long artistic career, your days of “P & D” and subsequent successes. But this is not why I’m writing to you today. No, not in the least.
Well, here goes nothing. I’m sorry but you blew it Kim. Please excuse my frankness but you didn’t do the right thing. You threw away the one chance to prove to all of us you were different from the rest of the art world’s artists of unwavering and sometimes unflattering complacency. “Faite comme d’habitude” the French artist Ben used to say. And indeed you did. All you had to do was choose one artist, just one, from the 13 artists selected for this year’s San Diego Art Prize. Was it really that difficult a decision to make? So difficult a decision that you turned a blind eye on a group of artists, who like you, fell gleefully into the arms of the temptress of creativity with abandon and passion? Was it really that important to do the contrary for the love of God and Country and your art?
Were they not worthy of your jaundiced eye?
You were once a young artist, full of vim and vigor ready to conquer the world. At some point in your career, you were also emerging no? And how about now, did you grow up all alone without any recognition or hope? I don’t think so. But perhaps, the spoils of success came with a price. One that renders us callous, blind like moles, living in the darkness of our all too familiar surroundings that we no longer see the work we make, the good or evil we wage, or the opportunities we were given and lost. So Kim, without regard, without just a little compassion, without - c’mon a little love - and without your eyes to guide you, you felt about the room for the one thing that you knew the best – yourself, and couldn’t find the things that are much more important: desire, curiosity, passion, interest, camaraderie, trust, and 13 artists waiting in the wings.
Yes I know Brian Dick is a fine choice you’ll say. But an easy choice I reply, last year’s contender, but nonetheless a fine artist. I agree. But this is not the point. Even if we are given a magic wand to change the world, we do not change it to suit our liking. Having been given the “get out of jail” card as an option – just in case – shouldn’t I believe, have emboldened someone like you to use it. At least, any reasonable person would not have done so, given that they accepted to play the game with the intent of picking this year’s best player, or in this case the best artist from a group selected by the very same group of committees that selected you. Did you know I was one of those members? I regret but I did not choose you.
What now? What do you say to these artists who believed they had a chance to show with someone of your caliber? Who in good faith entered into this show with high expectations and quality work only to be snubbed? I pray your colleague; Richard Allen Morris, will not make the same error. How do you explain that you found nothing of interest in the show? If the work did not suit your needs, if at all possible, seems a rather weak excuse. I would strongly encourage you to explain why you made the choice you did with all the respect and courage you can muster. In doing so, you will have honored these artists as they have honored you, and given them back the dignity they deserve. It’s a tough spot you find yourself in; you can’t argue that there was a lack of artistic incompatibility/sensibility within the group with what you do, since there was plenty to choose from and as varied and diverse as your own work with lots of it frighteningly compatible, so I can only imagine there is another reason. There must be something else. It really isn’t about finding the best, the new or the emerging now is it? Of course not. Your reluctance justified or not, endangers the credibility and the integrity of the Art Prize, its members, supporters, selection process, volunteers and most importantly, its artists as well as the validity of your selection of Dick. It is a loophole that should be sewn shut forever.
Am I overreaching, assuming too much, am I unjust? Are my claims unfounded, unwarranted – yes, no, maybe – what difference does it make? You could have made a difference though had you wanted to. I’m sure come April, spring showers and all, your exhibit with Brian will be just fine. Will it make a difference, change the status quo, stop us from watching our full bellies rise and fall, will your show upset the apple cart – who knows. I hope so. But I have to wonder Kim, from one newly acquainted friend to another, imagine the difference you could have made in the lives of those 13 artists. Think about it. There really is no good reason for what you did.
It really pisses me off when I’m running out of ideas and people around me are coming up with gold. Usually I would be bitter and spiteful but in this case the brain that came up with the idea belongs to my good buddy Andy.
I found myself jobless wandering the halls in the U of A art museum checking out some free entertainment. Engrossed in the apocalyptic 26 panels of the 15th century Altarpiece from Ciudad Rodrigo by Fernando Gallego and his cronies I was thought about how magnificent the series is and how there were no good ideas left for my generation of artists, when the stillness of the room was broken by a familiar voice in the uptight corridors of the museum. With a straight face Andy fleshed out the details of work of art he has been working on for the last few months.
"Faite comme d'habitude" or the Culture of Me Me Me New Contemporaries II - Part 1
by Kevin Freitas
Snapshots Panel Discussion (lft. to rt.) Philly Joe Swendoza, Robert Pincus, Katherine Sweetman, Patricia Frischer, David White - Art Produce Gallery, Sat. February 21, 2009 - photo: courtesy SDVAN - click for larger image
With standing room only and new faces crowding into the back of Lynn Susholtz's studio (director of Art Produce Gallery North Park), all ears were tuned in to listen to a panel discussion led by Katherine Sweetman (arts writer and Director, Lui Velazquez Gallery, Tijuana). The Panel members included Philly Joe Swendoza (Art Rocks! radio), Robert Pincus (San Diego Union Tribune), Patricia Frischer (San Diego Visual Arts Network), and David White (Director, Agitprop Gallery North Park). The theme: offer a broader perspective on the San Diego art scene from the points of view of several of its actors. The idea grew out of a discussion with Philly Joe Swendoza, David White, and myself and later included an ongoing discussion with Robert Pincus. It germinated from a response left by White on Art as Authority, questioning the semantics and selection process of a recent exhibition entitled Movers and Shakers organized by the San Diego Visual Arts Network.
It seemed obvious that if we wanted to address some of these issues and enlarge the discussion beyond a few individuals, we needed the help of Patricia Frischer as well as Robert Pincus, to put White's comments into a larger context but also to address San Diego's developing artistic community. This led to a series of 5 questions for the panel and audience members to contemplate and answer. And while these questions do not directly respond to a specific concern, they allowed for a very diverse and enriching commentary by all who attended.
1) - In your opinion what are the problems with the San Diego Art Scene?
2) - Why do we stay in San Diego?
3) - How do we get more/better/diverse art coverage from the media? What should the arts be asking of our writers?
4) - What sells in SD? How does market affect what is made here?
5) - What can we do to make the art scene better?
Patricia Frischer has written her own responses to these questions on her new A+ Art Blog. Check it out and be so kind as to leave a comment.
In other news, Kim MacConnel has chosen emerging artist Brian Dick as his exhibiting partner for a two-person exposition at L Street Gallery on April 25th, 2009. Dick is one of two artists selected as recipients of this year's San Diego Art Prize. The second artist recipient of the Art Prize will be chosen by Richard Allen Morris - and will be announced. I hope Morris does not make the same error by choosing outside the 13 nominated artists.
Dick was selected from last year's "New Contemporaries" exhibit and was recently seen exhibiting in a solo show at Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects.
Cannon Art Gallery Juried Biennial 2009 - Carlsbad
by Kevin Freitas
Annuals when referring to plants, typically start from seed and grow to maturity, flower, than produce more seeds in the space of one year. Biennials on the other hand, take two growing seasons to complete the same task. Can we draw an analogy between plants, artists and their longevity? Do the artists in the exhibit need another year to bloom? - Perhaps. The Cannon Art Gallery’s 2009 Juried Biennial on view through February 7 might give us some answers. The word Biennial with its origins dating from the 16th century has, other than describing plant growth and a myriad of other every 2-year events, infiltrated the Contemporary art world’s vernacular for decades. Used to denote such prestigious events as the Venice Biennial, the Whitney Biennial and a host of other contemporary art fairs, it appears every major city across the globe has one. This years Cannon Biennial in Carlsbad is its ninth.
It appears Cupid’s arrows have been laced with oxytocin and vasopressin all along. It is what I imagine after reading a report in the New York Times* by the neuroscientist Dr. Larry Young. Martial bliss of any kind can be a wonderful thing apparently if you’re with the right person, and have the right drugs.
Oxytocin is a hormone released naturally in fertile mammals, or in the case of Dr. Young’s research, in prairie voles, occurring naturally “during labor, delivery and nursing” aiding in mother-child bonding and also to one’s mate.
Time flies when you're having fun they say, so I must be having a lot because its been six months since the last Art Tapout came to town - it seems like yesterday. I want to thank David White, owner/director of Agitprop Gallery in North Park, for having initiated the second round of Art Tapouts and the artists who graciously participated. I want to thank everyone who came as well, there were several new faces attending and a renewed interest in bringing a dialogue about art and artists to what they create. The idea is simple: one critic and several artists go head to head in a metaphorical cage fight and discussion about art "LIVE" which is then opened up eventually for questions, comments and insights from the public. I'm consistently surprised by the interest and passionate voices the public brings to these events, proving once again that art is important to everyone's life.
Below you'll find several video's taken of the Tapout by Michele Guieu, one of this year's San Diego Art Prize emerging artist nominees. Finally, keep an eye out for Art Tapout events coming soon to a gallery near you!
Sandra Doore - "Paradox of the Absurd" - Victoria, BC
by Kevin Freitas
Former San Diego artist and SDSU graduate Sandra Doore, has an exhibit on view at the Slide Room Gallery in the Vancouver Island School of Art, Victoria, BC. Doore also has work on view at Deluge Contemporary Art in a group show "Gifted" and will have another exhibit in May 2009 called "Primal Sense".
All photo credits: Nadine Kong - Paradox of the Absurd / Sandra Doore - Gifted
"Venus in Furs"
Victoria also happens to be where Doore makes her art and home. Some of you may have seen this same body of work, "Paradox of the Absurd," last April at the Art Produce Gallery in North Park, San Diego. If you did, you'll recall a body of work that was absurdly constructed in its use of everyday kitchen utensils weaved into or should I say, overtaken with bulging fungi like forms - generally stitched, pieced, and sewn together out of various fabrics and vinyl (faux) leather.
Doore, like another San Diego artist David Adey, make artwork that is compelling, at times repulsive, extremely beautiful, expertly crafted, and to a large degree - unexplainable. It is work that goads, annoys, and seduces you into (seeing is) believing one thing while implying another. Understandings Doore’s work hinges on our comprehension of how “objects” work, are used contextually (by whom for what), and how they are for example, admired as trophies, acquisitions or art. In the case of Adey, it is how celebrities are portrayed and admired in all their one-dimensionality between the covers of a magazine. In both cases, the object’s (form), and how we use them, is inseparable to their functioning (like utensils) or fulfilling our projected fantasies.
Machine Project is a Los Angeles based non-profit arts organization, a storefront exhibition space, and purveyor of DIY workshops in the spirit of the Maker Faire.
LACMA is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the largest encyclopedic museum west of Chicago, and a patchwork complex of seven buildings ranging in style from 30's streamline moderne to Jetsons 60's to bad 80's to Wright-ian organic to bland contemporary. (Hold that thought.)
Machine Project at LACMA was a one-day event where MP took over the LACMA campus, inserting Machine esthetic into a museum setting to the tune of 55 artist projects.
"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth." - John Heywood
And I'm not. I'm just sayin' despite the re-writes, the emails and the stress and uncertainty of whether or not a review will be published, can make art criticism a real bitch to do. It's not easy, at least for me. 350 words good or bad and an excellent artist like David Adey doesn't go very far, just a handful of short paragraphs to cut my teeth on. But it isn't about me, it's about bringing to the public's attention the work of a very fine artist. Sometimes, I think we forget what sort of cause and effect a review not published can have on an individual artist, writer, gallery and public, which it is destined to help promote and instruct. While I am sad that a review may not be printed, it is felt to a much larger degree, especially here in San Diego where arts coverage is next to nil, by the artist whose work slips by un-noticed and un-read. The stakes are higher here, given that there is so little, it actually ends up hurting the arts community it is supposed to be supporting. (We end up covering the arts I believe, not out of any real moral or societal compunction, but out of laziness)
I applaud the recent initiative by CityBeat to feature local artists on the front cover of their weekly paper. But while I am grateful for the opportunity to have my reviews published and beautiful covers to look at, I recognize the necessity for more arts coverage by more diverse writers, and implore CityBeat and the Reader to expand their output.
Please find below the review of David Adey's exhibit, I've got a river of life flowing out of me, published in today's CityBeat, and on view until November 20th at Luis de Jesus Seminal Projects.
click for larger image
PUZZLED PIECES
The art critic Peter Plagens has referred to a lot of artwork these days as “postart,” fabricated by “postartists” who create works “post-” - after - the known art-history lineage without ever referencing the masters or the movements that have brought them to where they are today.
W. Haase Wojtyla: A Coincidence of Paintings - Revisited
by Kevin Freitas
While doing a little fall clean-up on the blog and some overdue maintenance, I decided to re-post one of the first reviews I did two years ago on the San Diego painter, W. Haase Wojtyla. His solo show, organized by the Oceanside Museum of Art and curated by Catherine Gleason, was one of the largest retrospectives of his work in over ten years. At the time of the review, I was unfamiliar with his paintings or the artist. I'm pleased to have encountered his work and glad to have had the opportunity to write about it. Why re-post the review, well that's easy: the readership for Art as Authority has grown substantially over the past year, and while it appears more and more people subscribe to the blog and are regular readers, this is a way of sharing with you some of the blog's humble beginnings. Enjoy! and thanks for the continued interest.
from September 9, 2006
According to the exhibition catalog, W. Haase Wojtyla was born in Chicago in 1933. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1954, left Chicago for New York in the mid-1950's, and earned his M.A. from the University of Cincinnati in the early 1960's before returning to New York in 1967. He moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with his wife and child in 1970, left Mexico in 1973 for San Diego, CA where he has been living and painting for the last 30 years. Wojtyla was included in several prestigious shows while in Chicago, notably the Exhibition of Chicago and Vicinity in 1956 and the Momentum Exhibition of the same year, an alternative exhibit in reaction to what was thought to be unfair politics and exclusion of those students desiring to participate in the Vicinity show. Wojtyla was also part of Art in America'sNew Talent in the U.S. survey of 1957 which included the likes of Helen Frankenthaler and Ellsworth Kelly. The current exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Ca is the largest retrospective of Wojtyla's paintings in over ten years.
Eleanor Antin's show at the San Diego Museum of Art is currently the best in town, and maybe the best in the country.
Her large-scale staged photographs thoroughly master the vocabulary of classical painting — symbolism, allegory, posture, eye gaze — then redeploy it to address contemporary social and conceptual issues.
For instance, The Tragic Performance uses posture and gaze — and crucially the line of a shadow — to systematically enumerate the roles defined by the nexus of artwork, artist, and audience. How does one respond to Angels in America when HIV-positive? Or in love with someone who is? Or a connoisseur of theatre? Or a Kushner fan? Or a critic? The answers are all here, carefully encoded in a single image.
A curious omission in the show is its failure to include the image The Last Day in the photo series The Last Days of Pompeii. This series is Antin's historical remapping of the classic cautionary tale onto the carefree lifestyle of Southern California wealth, with the image in question depicting the apocalyptic aftermath.
The Last Days of Pompeii was shot at a home in the wealthy San Diego community of Rancho Santa Fe. Six years later wildfires burned through San Diego, destroying hundreds of homes in the region, including many in Rancho Santa Fe.
In his book Beyond the Brillo Box, the critic Arthur Danto introduces the notion of comedies of similarity to describe the phenomenon of art critics grossly misreading radical artworks in their attempts to shoehorn them into known categories of art. As an example, Danto cites Hilton Kramer's critical dismissal of Eva Hesse's sculpture Metronomic Irregularity II as a derivative attempt to translate Jackson Pollock's drip paintings into a three-dimensional medium.
Which brings us to Larry Caveney's painted sculptures, now on display at the Expressive Arts Institute in Point Loma. There's no question that Caveney's work is formally rooted in Hesse's pioneering painting/sculpture hybrids, and little question that the work strongly evokes 3-D Pollocks.
Marcel Duchamp; Isamu Noguchi; Robert Smithson; Robert Gober
none
Critical keywords
allude; blurring; fine line; gift; homage; metaphysical; passion for subtlety; slyly
depress; direct confrontation; elusive; inspire; maturity; poetic seductiveness; surprises
92 words (17%) of review devoted to artwork and show originally written about on 17 Feb 2008.
Second review created by appending introductory paragraph to first review. Paragraph includes promise to write third review, presumably derived from first two.
My current review of Lael Corbin's exhibit entitled Remodel, installed and on view through July 5th at Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects in Little Italy (San Diego), appeared in this week's CityBeat. Lael you might recall, is one of this year's San Diego Art Prize winners, who had a two-person show with Roman De Salvo, a few months back at L Street Gallery downtown. This is Lael's first major solo show and he has managed to completely overtake and reconstruct De Jesus' gallery - much to De Jesus' delight I might add - that leaves us impressed by its sheer execution, but lacks maybe, a tad bit of inspiration and passion, a little soul as they say. No worries here though, Lael still remains on top, and is well on his way to an impressive career. This fact, I have been convinced of for long a long time now. You can read the rest of the review below. Look for an expanded review right here on the blog - coming soon.
Lael Corbin - front of Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects
Art in review
Lael Corbin remodels his art
By Kevin Freitas
Luis De Jesus Seminal Projects Gallery is under renovation and San Diego artist Lael Corbin is heading up the project. His exhibition features a floor plan, ... More
Gray's current show (at Garage Gallery in North Park) consists of 18 paintings on wood panel.
The older works — which make up the majority of the show — derive formally from the 1950's-style geometric abstraction of period jazz album covers and Saul Bass film titles.
As such they are well-made and have retro appeal, but then things get interesting: the paint handling foregoes 50's modern flatness for the patchy quality of do-it-yourself faux-antique finishing, while the colors themselves are escapees from the 80's designer era. In a word the works are asynchronous.
In addition to these works, the show includes a handful of recent paintings which diverge from the earlier work in two ways.
First, their formal complexity is greatly simplified, leaving behind the 50's residue in favor of a pure timeless abstraction.
Second and crucially, Gray introduces black to his palette — flat black — while retaining the faux finish in the rest of the colors. The resulting dual contrast — between black and non-black, flat and faux — makes these works pop.
Inside the Wave: Six San Diego/Tijuana artists construct social art - A Review
Patricia Frischer, is founder of the San Diego Art Prize along with Ann Berchtold and Joan Seifried, and is also the force behind San Diego Visual Arts Network (SDVAN) - an online métropole of artist resources and arts info unique to San Diego. A long time supporter of Art as Authority, Patricia, is debuting on our pages for the first time in a gesture of cultural cross pollination and collaborative exchange, with a review of "Inside the Wave: Six San Diego/Tijuana artists construct social art" on view at the San Diego Museum of Art. We welcome Patricia, and hope you will too. Enjoy! Kevin Freitas
by Patricia Frischer
The *particle group*
The San Diego Museum of Art exhibition Inside the Wave was named by its curator Betti-Sue Hertz for its insider view of a new wave of artists not shown at the museum before. I attended the lecture/panel discussion where they all made presentations including a live Skype hook up with Adriene Jenik from Singapore. Brian Dick, Allison Wiese, Zlatan Vukosavljevic and Nina Waisman from the *particle group* and Bulbo presenting Tijuaneado Anonimos were the other five presenters.
(sculpture pictured above) El Anatsui - "Earth Growing Roots" Collection of Nancy and Dave Gill
Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Well, miracles can happen it seems, and having El Anatsui's work on exhibit here in San Diego is, it appears, one of those times. I saw a larger show of his work in the Fowler Museum at UCLA last year, and have been a devoted fan ever since. El Anatsui is originally from Ghana and is currently Professor of Sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.
"Earth Growing Roots" was organized by Tina Yapelli, director of the University Art Gallery at San Diego State. This show, much smaller in scale than its counterpart in UCLA, only contains seven works, modest in size, with the exception of an untitled work measuring 123 x 195 inches. Yapelli writes, in a small exhibit brochure (for those of you unfamiliar with El Anatsui's pieces), "Using copper wire, El Anatsui joins together foil bottleneck wrappers and metal bottle caps - refuse from empty liquor containers - to create colorful, fabric-like wall sculptures that juxtapose the social, political and cultural history of Africa with the stylistic and conceptual idioms of Western art practice... They (also) refer to the traditional woven kente cloth and stamped adinkra symbols of Ghana, the reductive imagery of geometric abstract painting, the pressing ecological issues of consumerism and waste, and the historical and ongoing impacts of the global marketplace."
I'm not so sure, that one or any, artwork, can possibly make so many claims, but even so, these smaller pieces appear to be more formally "self-conscious" and structurized, moving from the traditional motif to the more stylized, literal, and graphic. For example, a work like "Bleeding Takari," riddled with square holes of red metal, pours out brightly colored hemoglobin ribbons, down to the metal fabrics edge and beyond, as they appear to cling and drip onto the polished gallery floors.
Still, this exhibit is stunning in it's presentation and will likely leave you asking for more. It should not be missed; hurry though, it's only on view until May 7th.
"Noyer le Poisson" & The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization*
by Kevin Freitas
OR is Innocence is Questionable, questionable? Thoughts on "artspeak" and the presumed innocence of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
"WHY is so much curatorial writing so dreadful?... My first assumption is that there's a generation of curators who went to college and grad school in the 1980s and '90s, when the congested language of Deconstruction, Critical Studies and so on still seemed important, intrepid and even a little glamorous."
--Richard Lacayo, critic, TIME magazine. The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, April 1, 2008.
"Turgid"
Main Entry: tur·gid
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin turgidus, from turgēre to be swollen
Date: 1620
1: being in a state of distension : swollen, tumid [turgid limbs]; especially : exhibiting turgor
2: excessively embellished in style or language : bombastic, pompous [turgid prose]
--Merriam-Webster
"Noyer le poisson" (lit. "to drown the fish")
French slang
1: to cloud or dilute, blend. hide truth [fish tale]
Egyptian; Lisht North - Gold, beryl - ca. 1981–1640 B.C., The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Ancient Egyptians called fish amulets like this nekhau and gave them to young girls to wear as a charm against drowning."
FACT #1: I've been hesitant to tresspass upon an exhibit, that, I am simultaneously involved in as public spectator (art critic, if you will) and unpaid participant, insomuch as my participation is not related to the show's organization, but its support.
FACT #2: I haven't picked up a copy of TIME magazine in over 10 years. I stopped reading TIME - I never read the whole magazine anyway, just the art reviews - when Robert Hughes left his outpost as the magazine's art critic. Born in Australia, Hughes, among other professional and literary activities inbetween, moved to New York in 1970 to become TIME magazine's leading and most influential critic of the arts. He is an obvious hero of mine, a major influence, and a consistent inspiration to this day. I still recall, screening The Shock of the New on VHS, in the University's (UCD) lecture hall during a class entitled, Art Since 1945.
FACT #3: Ignorance is bliss, and so, I have not read anything by TIME magazine's (new?) critic Richard Lacayo, until now. I'm going to start though, if his recent article, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, and the quote referenced above, are any indication of the commentary I'll be viewing.
Critical COPY or A Critic Critiques a Critic This is how I roll.
by Kevin Freitas
The COPY exhibit currently on view at the Simayspace Gallery downtown got some copy, today, in the form of a nice article and review of the show, by San Diego Union Tribune's art critic, Robert Pincus. The long hours of planning, ideas and physical work that went into the organization of this exhibition, paid off. I'm grateful.
This show of course, couldn't have been possible without the help, good faith and excellent work provided by the artists who participated. I take this opportunity to thank all those who helped in the planning and execution of this event (and if you think this is sounding like an acceptance speech for an Academy Award, you would be right - I'm elated.)
Thanks to the artists: Richard Gleaves, KAI1, Joey Burns, Tom Torluemke, Herve Crespel and Bret Barrett; gratitude for Doug Simay at Simayspace Gallery and the Art Academy of San Diego for the invitation and letting me be the "first;" Mark over at BodyMarks Tattoo on El Cajon Blvd. for playing a major role in the performance; Patricia Frischer for being a sounding board to last minute ideas; Elliott Linwood for curatorial advice at a crucial moment; and finally, Robert Pincus from the San Diego Union Tribune.
Freitas follows the rabbit down the hole
Curator strives for an 'Alice in Wonderland' feel to exhibit at Simayspace
By Robert L. Pincus
ART CRITIC
March 30, 2008
Kevin Freitas has placed a big desk in the current exhibition he's curated for Simayspace downtown. It even has his nameplate on it, with his title (art critic) in French ... more
Can't say I didn't warn you but I did, and now we have a perfect case (several) of what a lot of us have been preaching these past several months - consistency, integrity, vision and how to put on a good show. March has turned out to be an excellent and exciting month in North Park, particularly on that hallowed art ground we call Ray St. I believe one should lead by example, especially when it comes to exhibiting in the art world. Lead they have and remarkably well, both Spacecraft and 4 Walls have exhibits ranging in style and temperament with rock solid performances. At Spacecraft Matt Wedel is showing some large scale glazed ceramic sculptures of quirky and delightfully charming Polar Bears embracing or dancing, and colorful singular slices of flowering plants clinging to angular stacked boulders. The photographer Bill Dane and the mixed-media artist Kimberly Tomney round out a beautiful and compelling show of works at 4 Walls. Bill Dane, for those of you like myself who are learning about him for the first time, is a longtime Bay Area photographer who has received critical acclaim during his long career and who has also received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts each twice. Impressive for work rich in metaphor that combines straight non-manipulated photos of juxtaposed layers of "common" everyday life - bus stops, billboards, window panes, advertising etc. - mixed in with the folk who inhabit that environment, reflected and shadowed oftentimes by the artist's own shadow in a domino effect of us as viewer/voyeur, the artist, and then the subject (photographed). They are stunningly simple and beautiful.
Kimberly's amalgam aluminum and pen & ink drawings on paper of suburban swimming pools have that definite Southern Californian feel to them, reminiscent of Edward Ruscha's black & white photos of the same subject in "Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass" and they even retain the same dead-pan humor and irony of his images. What sets Kimberly's drawings apart is the elegance, simplicity of line and form, and the almost religious atmosphere she creates and worships upon such a banal luxury.
Finally, French artist Julien Colombier from Paris has orchestrated a spectacular installation of painted paper bags at the Art Produce Gallery. Derrik Chinn, online editor of the Nightlife & Visitors info at SignOnSanDiego.com, has written a nice little article about Julien's exhibit complete with several photos and a series of questions & answers for the artist. You can read an excerpt from the article below:
POP BOMB: Julien Colombier at ART Produce
Graffiti sprayed all over the sides of city trains, buses and walls. Entire sides of skyrises draped with advertisements. Digital billboards towering over the interstate. Urban decor has exploded with such an intensity that megalopolises such as Sao Paulo, Brazil (population: 10,886,518), are beginning to ban all forms of public advertisements. Imagine ...continue.
If this isn't enough to get you into Spring with a light heart and a head full of images, I can't help you then...
Art Review of Bill Pierce's Endeavor exhibit - San Diego CityBeat
by Kevin Freitas
Andi Brandenburg - "Besos not Bombs"
I recently had the welcomed opportunity to give 350 words to CITYBEAT and saw them published today online and in hard copy. What was about? - a review of the current exhibition on display at Art Produce Gallery entitled "Endeavor," a group show of 15 San Diego artists under the collective umbrella of Bill Pierce and Radioactive Future. While I was generally disappointed in the range of work presented, I did find a handful of artists that have consistently "stepped-up" and produced works over the months that continue to innovate and delight. The above work by Andi Brandenburg does not. This may seem unfair but what I do know is this: we're all in this together. We all have our assigned role as artist, curator, gallery, critic, collector, public, museum et al. - as stereotypical and mundane as that might appear on the surface - which has a significant impact on how we go about demonstrating that responsibility. Some of you might be unaware of this added burden or are simply uninterested. This is certainly your right and choice.
I believe to a very large degree that the days of "art for art's sake" are finished - we no longer have the luxury or the time (or the money perhaps) to mess around in the studio and let the art mature and age with grace. Life, society, politics and the world in the 21st century are accelerating past us at an alarming rate which leaves no time for a craft that requires reflection and intuition. Too bad. So as much as I call for some changes in the how and why artists exhibit their works in San Diego, I would also ask them not to speed up the production of those works but to slow it down. Make it count. By making each and every work that you make count, not only are you building a stronger and more diverse community - definitely more exciting - you're also fulfilling the obligations and right to be an artist. Please don't take it lightly - an audience is out there watching and waiting.
You can read the full review here in this week's CITYBEAT.
We're excited to have Paul Klein as our Special Guest on Art as Authority, graciously accepting to let us reprint his latest Art Letter - an online open letter of sorts covering the galleries and museums in Chicago, Illinois. Writing as if to an acquaintance, Paul is often direct and never afraid of strong opinions, speaking freely and directly to the reader in his unfallible support of Chicago artists. It takes a certain "vecu" and knowledge to understand fully an art community as varied and vibrant as Chicago's. Paul knows this because he has been a large part of its history as gallery dealer, collector, arts writer and corporate art advisor. Paul is a rare breed of those who dedicate themselves to art; we hope you'll dedicate yourself to reading more of his reviews. Enjoy! kf
Art Letter(1/25/08) [#57] Warming Up
I haven’t been writing because there’s been a dearth of good art. Finally that trend is being reversed with the opening of 4 superb exhibitions.
The show has earned notoriety for including not only the usual museum shop stuffed with artist merchandise, but also a gallery which is a fully functional Louis Vuitton store selling thousand-dollar Murakami handbags, and another gallery configured as a retail display case for the artist’s lower-end products.
Framing MOCA as a traditional museum space for presenting art objects, the show represents not only yet another crowded blockbuster but also a new low in the commercialization of visual culture.
But reframing MOCA as a neutral site which can be temporarily transformed into any kind of social space, the Murakami show functions not only as a presentation of visual art but also as a representation of the social phenomenon of commercial art.
In this perspective the viewer experience crucially depends on the presence of a crowd looking at the art, watching the anime, and — depending on their class — buying handbags from the boutique or knickknacks from the gift shop.
And so it does: for those with ears to hear, the ka-ching of a cash register in a museum gallery is not the same as one in a mall outlet. The sound gets neatly delimited by critical air quotes.
This is supported by a comment from the curator, who has said about the boutique that “the visitor’s relationship to that part of the show is the action that takes place in it."
Additional support comes from a nice bit of temporal assemblage by the MOCA programmers: the show immediately following Murakami’s is a retrospective of Allan Kaprow, who would rightly identify the show preceding his as one big happening.
I met Prawech Pranaprom at a coffee shop in downtown Manhattan after being fascinated with his recent series of work which he calls his “bubble paintings”. Even amongst the large group of people festering on the city streets I intuitively recognized him instantly. He carried a small portfolio of paintings and drawings under his arm and had his very pregnant wife in tow. Just like his paintings she looked like she might pop at any moment. I was lucky to get to get to chop it up with him for a few minutes about his painstakingly detailed pictures.
Christine Lee - "Shims: Thousands of Uses - Use #3" at Art Produce North Park
by Kevin Freitas
“Leave no stone unturned” – Euripides
“No good deed goes unpunished” – Clare Booth Luce (for Doug Simay)
What constitutes a good deed in art? Having the idea, being the artist, making the work, selling it, or a good crowd for the opening?
"Shims: Thousands of Uses - Use #3" (detail) - Christine Lee
Does a good deed in art mean that you were a success; the show was a success, tout était compris by the viewer or a viewer, the public, a friend, a lover, an art critic – you? Do good deeds in art or in life make up for all the bad things we’ve done or the bad art we’ve shown? Is there a bad deed that is never punished? Should artists be punished – and for what you ask? I say for all their good deeds, their artwork, their desire to create and fabricate images and objects out of thin air, and for their blasphemous cries of “this is art!” Or does this punishment for an artist come in the form of a show “missed” closed the weekend before you could get to it, or maybe a bad review or none at all? Is a good deed really enough to absolve you, me, and her from our daily responsibilities and moral and ethical – social – upbringing(s)? Isn’t it better for an artwork to be punished by the questions it leaves unanswered than to be complacent and all knowing?
David Adey - "Atomic Particulars" Spacecraft Studio Lands in North Park - Part III
This concludes the review of David Adey's exhibit at Spacecraft Gallery - KF
"Pump" - David Adey
If you look around the incredible display of works by Adey in this his first solo exhibition, you might deduce that he likes to work in series. This makes a lot of sense of course given the stamina and patience he brings to each and every work, stubbornly(in my view) by methodically finishing and drawing out the last breath of each sculpture’s essence. What I do know in asking him directly, is that this working methodology is part and parcel responsible for the greater success of all of his works. Aside from the one “lamb” sculpture in the exhibition and the other two I spoke of which are not, there are two separate bodies of work (loosely) that employ the use of black drywall screws and craft punches – no less compelling I guarantee.
RECON - "A Lesson in Lab101" an art column by poor al
by Poor Al
Freddi C and Crash
A LESSON IN LAB101
First let me apologize for the long delay in any ‘recon’. The last Collabro show that I curated kicked my ass, and honestly I still am just recovering. However I am ‘back in action’ now and will have many more articles coming as I check out some new spots that have caught my eye in LA and Orange County.
David Adey - "Atomic Particulars" Spacecraft Studio Lands in North Park - Part II
by Kevin Freitas
“A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.”
(Dr.) Victor Frankenstein
“I was benevolent, my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?”
Monster
"Lamb of Man" - David Adey
David Adey could be a modern day Dr. Frankenstein. He is very fond of the literary genius of Mary Shelley and I would imagine, fond of any work of genius whether it be in literature, art, music or relevant discipline if somehow he could break it down, dissect it, and put it back together into his own vision of order. The world according to Adey. He is not a dictator and this is not about power, it is about structure. Adey doesn’t give you much wiggle room when looking at his oeuvre; you’re almost always reacting to or against the very visceral content laid out before you. The work is emotionally charged and spiritually complex, it assaults the viewer’s sensibility by controlling the viewer’s intake of what is being looked at. It is sensual, deceiving, mischievous and humorous. It is also obsessive, maniac, and perfection at its core. It can also be process, repetition, manufacturing, design. It is Adey’s penance for having created so “many happy and excellent natures” that owe their being to him.
"To boldly go where no man has gone before" is indeed a lofty mission statement by which most of us know by now is the stuff of science fiction; much like the exuberant proclamations of the Administration’s equally enthusiastic “The Way Forward” or “Mission Accomplished”. The upside of the adventures of Capt. Kirk and the USS Enterprise is that their journey has never really ended, boldly moving forward exploring every nook and cranny of the universe. The downside of the political quagmire we find ourselves in today is that we are truly stuck, hardly advancing and sinking deeper.
A bit like the current art scene here in San Diego, wouldn’t you say? There’s the stuff that floats on the surface, bobbing for attention and then there’s the stuff that is already starting to decompose, shedding its superficiality and exposing its heart and soul. Not all bad art sinks and not all good art rises to the top, it takes a certain blend of ooze, time, permutation and quality of the ingredients – yes, the good art – to get a residue worth staining the knees of your pants as you dig down to pull up some of that primordial muck we call art. (All allusions to Peter Morgan’s recent expo at Spacecraft is intentional) But where do you know to dig? Call it Lady Luck, the environment, experience or just plain boredom, call it what you want but sometimes you needn’t drive from Houston, Texas to Orlando, Florida to find what you’re craving for. Sometimes it’s bubbling right up in your own backyard and sometimes it just lands there.
Take Emily Fierer and Christopher Puzio for example. They land in San Diego, stardate 2003, but it takes a meeting of the minds in Boston so to speak, via a voyage on their way here plus a long layover in Detroit to make it happen – that is to say, the building and opening of their design firm and gallery known as Spacecraft Studio in North Park. It is an interplanetary adventure that merits a closer look.
(Roman De Salvo - photo: Crissy Pascual SD Union Tribune)
Three “emerging” artists Allison Wiese, Lael Corbin and Pamela Jaeger have been selected for the San Diego Art Prize. If you recall, these were three artists that were participants in a larger group exhibit at the Simayspace Gallery downtown, chosen from 14 others hoping to be selected for a future exposition and potential mentorship with three established or career artists living and working in San Diego. Those career artists, according to Patricia Frischer – coordinator of SDVAN and the Art Prize – had free reign to choose whomever they wanted and even had a “Get out of jail” card to use in case they wanted to choose someone else outside of that group. Luckily that didn’t happen. Marcos Ramirez ERRE, Roman De Salvo and Elanor Antin took on the responsibility and challenge to select their future partners and exposants. ERRE will team up with Allison Wiese, De Salvo with Lael Corbin and Antin with Pamela Jaeger.
This is the third and final review of the "New Contemporaries" exhibit currently on view at the Simayspace Gallery, downtown San Diego.
"Paint #30" - Brad Streeper
Brad Streeper’s (www.streeperart.com) paintings are brash, large unflinching pieces that are robust, solid and fought out on the wood panels they’re painted on. Painted might be too romantic for the swirling orbs of material used to construct these abstract icons of solidified acrylic paint, gesso, glue and ink that create an aura of muted pastel colors bathed in faint reds and blues, charcoal blacks and titanium whites. The works are fluid by the nature of the materials used, poured on in layers of hide and seek washes, utilizing an all over approach to the surface often laying the panels on the floor. The effect is a topographical (maybe) satellite view of the land, sea or atmosphere.
The following is a review of 9 of the 17 artists exhibiting in the "New Contemporaries" exhibit at the Simayspace gallery downtown. Part III will follow soon after.
"Shannon Spanhake by Doug Simay" - Shannon Spanhake
Shannon Spanhake (www.shannonspanhake.org) engineer of airBUD - a wireless and mobile device that monitors personal exposure levels to air pollution, and who has also planted flower beds in potholes throughout the streets of Tijuana in a cross cultural and across the border exchange, offers the viewer a conceptual farce for lack of a better description of her work entitled “Shannon Spanhake by Doug Simay”.
The "New Contemporaries" @ Simayspace - Part I - OR Impressions: soleil couchant à l'ouest
by Kevin Freitas
"Industry Need Not Want"(detail) - Allison Wiese
A personal dilemma I have had lately, when visiting an exhibition, is what information am I relying on - meaning what do I exactly see in front of me - and what do I need to fill in with past visual experiences/memories, knowledge or these days, an artist’s website. It’s as if I need some sort of cultural reference guidebook or art historical dictionary to remind me where I’ve seen work like this before let alone getting a crack at, or a glimpse of its ubiquitous meaning. Unfortunately, some of these references hark back to the abundance of imagery in the public domain (freebies) – then appropriately appropriated by the artist or somehow eluding to past art historical movements without fully embracing or challenging them. It is a problem I see in much of the artwork being made here in San Diego. It is also what I’ve seen in the “New Contemporaries” exhibit on view at the Simayspace Gallery, part of the San Diego Art Academy downtown.
San Diego Round-up Part I : "Tenacious" Zedism Gallery - Normal Heights
by Kevin Freitas
Jeremy Wright - "Gruffy Jack Ball"
"This is where the rubber meets the road" I was once told by a gallery owner that I worked for in sales, believing he did that most successes in life and the negotiations necessary to achieve them came not by chance but by persistence and a call to the client. You don’t buy a ticket you can’t win the Lottery and if you don’t call the client you can’t make a sale. Sound advice but does it always work? Well of course not but at least you know where you stand. Persistence, tenacity, hard work all respectable values, some would even call them character traits but do they pay off in achieving your goals? How about in the art world?
What does a Frank Gehry inspired silver gas station and a circus-themed western have in common?
by Maura Vazakas
If you are thinking the answer is the back lot of Paramount studios, you're "half" correct! The "half" that I am talking about is LA. This blog is about an action-packed, visually-stimulating, art trip to LA, the art capitol of this wonderful US of A (sorry NYC)!
I started our "art runs" back in 2003, when I realized the art scene here in S.D. was beginning to fade and I desperately needed some visual stimulation to inspire me to paint! So, I called on a couple of friends and asked them what they thought about day trips to LA to visit galleries and art museums. The vote was unanimous! And so, about every couple of months, we planned our trips according to the LA weekly art calendar. This most recent art run happened to be on Cinco de Mayo (so who needs mariachis and tacos anyways)!Unfortunately, I was so excited, as usual, to get the hell out of my house, that I forgot to bring my camera. So instead, I will list the gallery websites so you can see some of the shows that we (meaning Richard Gleaves and myself) saw.
First stop was Bergamot station ( no, we didn't get there by train!). We usually select just a few of the many galleries in this massive art gallery drive-in. I saw to really amazing shows. The first, was at Patrick Painter www.patrickpainter.com. The artist was Marnie Weber and her show was titled "Sing Me A Western Song". I loved her large-scale color photos of the artist herself juxtaposed with scenes of western images. She looked sort of scary with her face powdered a pale white, spooky-looking eyes and an ultra-long dark wig. In the large center area of the gallery were superbly crafted circus animals and ghost-like clowns draped in white cotton sitting atop bales of hay. A few galleries away was yet another photographic show at Robert Berman www.robertbermangallery.com. New photographs by artist Alex Prager, show titled, "Polyester". This was one of my favorite shows of the art run. To quote Robert Berman,"Prager's cinematic approach is reminiscent of the mid 20th century angst and naivety that Hitchcock, John Waters, and David Lynch portrayed. Wish I could have afforded one entitled "Alexandra". Enough said.
"Hi, I would like to inform you that there’s no touching allowed" Something not very net about Neto at the MCASD. Are all cubes square? Not if you turn them on their side. Go ask the LACMA and Jeff Koons.
by Kevin Freitas
I just got back from visiting the newly renovated Jacobs building at 1100 Kettner Boulevard downtown San Diego, the contemporary art annex to MCASD’s (Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego) permanent exhibition space across the street. It was up until recently, the Baggage Express holding area for the Santa Fe Depot train station that is adjacent to it and still in service. It had been empty for several years and then acquired by the museum. According to the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum web site the depot is, “an outstanding example of the classic Spanish Mission-Colonial Revival style of architecture, including Moorish influences.” It also goes on to say, “the Santa Fe Depot is 650 feet long by 106 feet wide, including the Baggage Express building, connected to its north end by arches and a track-side arcade. It's built of wood, bricks, cement and tile on a steel frame, with wide arches, tuscan columns, baroque cornices and heavy masonry appearance. The roof is of steel supported wood, with red mission tiles. Its twin towers have zigzag-pattern glazed tiles with Santa Fe's cross-in-circle emblem. The bricks around the depot were laid without mortar for long wear in a herringbone pattern.”
WHEN I moved to Brussels to open my gallery, I found a large home with commercial ground floor space and living up above. De-centralized from the downtown arts district, I found myself located in a predominately Turkish and Moroccan neighbourhood with a couple of aging Belgian families too old to relocate or too stubborn to move like some already lost Alamo battle against the rising tide of immigration washing upon their shore. Equal opportunity and issues of class and/or culture over in Europe are a far cry from the problems we’ve experienced and continue to have in America, but it is no less damaging. At the time I truly felt that art could conquer all, turning the whirlpool of ignorance and hate into a positive life altering, food for the soul experience. I don’t believe anyone thought we would see 9/11, terrorism yes but not on that level, and certainly I believe no one felt it less when it did happen, than those involved in a very naïve and hubristic art world – including myself. How ironic that the destruction of the two Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan were the first to fall – art, religion, mankind had suffered the first lance. Don’t get me wrong, art has its place within the society; however it never seems to be in the right place at the right time. I no longer feel art can even remotely solve the world’s problems.
Looking back before the events of 9/11, I recall a few years earlier, opening the doors of the gallery for the first time to the amazement and shock of the neighbourhood – they were a bit amused to say the least. In hindsight, perhaps they felt threatened. I mean who would purposely move into a community that had previously been reluctantly given up to now, second and third generation immigrants with their own children, having taken the place of their parents, now with even fewer possibilities of social and economic success, a “good” education and overwhelming racial inequality at every turn.
A brief history of feminism, Porn is good, and riding the third wave. Does F-O-U-R add up? answers at the Rubber Rose
by Kevin Freitas
"Presto" - May-Ling Martinez
There’s Rubber-hose cryptanalysis and the Rubber Rose boutique. Rubber-hose cryptanalysis is a euphemism for the extraction of cryptographic secrets from a person through torture by beating them with well, a rubber-hose. The term was apparently coined by Marcus J. Ranum within the sci.crypt newsgroup, “the rubber-hose technique of cryptanalysis (in which a rubber hose is applied forcefully and frequently to the soles of the feet until the key to the cryptosystem is discovered.” A process that supposedly takes a very short time, is relatively inexpensive to implement and highly reliable given the human being is often considered to be the weakest link in any forceful interrogation. The Rubber Rose Boutique, Gallery and Community Space on Ray Street has from all appearances, taken a much gentler safer approach to obtaining those very intimate cryptographic secrets from its clients. Safe is the new sexy.
Nice little mention in the San Diego Union-Tribune today, by Robert Pincus - the Tribune's and San Diego's only credible art critic, in the Monday Currents section D2 under Essentials about the Humeurs expo currently on view at the Art of Framing. Here it is in its entirety, short but sweet:
DISCOVER THIS Group shows are treasure hunts of a sort, and "Humeurs," in the small confines of Art of Framing in Normal Heights, is one with a few genuine rewards. Maura Vazakas has made glistening versions of State birds, Bradley Streeper's "Red" is an elgantly executed abstraction, and the robotic vendor in Poor Al's "Earthmart Ice Cream Truck" serves up scrap-metal cones for robotic customers.
I'd like to think that the show was a genuine "find," certainly here in San Diego, but mainly for the diversity, strength and quality of all the works presented. Certainly, each and every one of the artists has had a long and critically acclaimed career and have shown their works in major galleries and museums here and abroad. They deserve any and all recognition they receive. I'd like to take this moment to thank Brad Streeper, Bruno Lavelle, Hervé Crespel, Joey Burns, Maura Vazakas, Michael Arata, Poor Al, Régent Pellerin, Richard Gleaves, Tom Torluemke, the Art of Framing gallery, and the Drawing Club and John Lieberman (Culver City expo) for their participation, effort and confidence in the process. It was fun. More here.
GOOD ART....NOT! (I wonder if Borat would have said the NOT sooner!) My personal View on "Personal Views Regarding Private Collections in S.D." @ SDMA in Balboa Park
by Maura Vazakas
OK. So with limited time on my hands (good), I was on my way to see some great art at SDMA's Personal Views Regarding Private Collections in S.D. show........NOT! As I approached the museum, I passed a family eyeing a Nikki de St. Phalle serpent sculpture in the garden. One of the members blurted out to the other, "Hey Jane, you could do one of those for our backyard!"
I am NOW convinced that the average person hasn't a clue about great let alone good art! Well, so I thought, what about San Diego's major art collectors? Do they have a clue about what great art is, or are they just keeping up with the PaineWebbers?? I am not going to waste my words and time talking about this entire exhibition. But with what I do talk about, I think you will get my drift as to why. I will only mention the collectors by their last names, unless otherwise explained.
NATURAMA, or any other noun combined with “orama” is if my current understanding is correct, essentially an inverted suffix taken from the Greek word PANORAMA, PAN (all) and ORAMA (a view) or in this case NATURE – ORAMA. It is also an apt title for the new exhibit of works by San Diego artist Maura Vazakas currently on view at Art Produce Gallery. The show is indeed a smorgasbord of texture, color, style(s), obsession, patience, contemplation and repetition. Accent on the repetition.
COULROPHOBIA - The Fear of Clowns @ the Art of Framing
by Kevin Freitas
COULROPHOBIA derived from the Greek words koulon(limb) and kolobathris(one who goes on stilts) or in English – the Fear of Clowns – is one of those phenomenon that has probably existed since time immemorial when the court jester had to make the King laugh and has evolved throughout the centuries into carnival freak shows, the circus and later through film.
W. Haase Wojtyla: A Coincidence of Paintings @ Oceanside Museum of Art
by Kevin Freitas
According to the exhibition catalog, W. Haase Wojtyla was born in Chicago in 1933. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1954, left Chicago for New York in the mid-1950's, and earned his M.A. from the University of Cincinnati in the early 1960's before returning to New York in 1967. He moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with his wife and child in 1970, left Mexico in 1973 for San Diego, CA where he has been living and painting for the last 30 years. Wojtyla was included in several prestigious shows while in Chicago, notably the Exhibition of Chicago and Vicinity in 1956 and the Momentum Exhibition of the same year, an alternative exhibit in reaction to what was thought to be unfair politics and exclusion of those students desiring to participate in the Vicinity show. Wojtyla was also part of Art in America'sNew Talent in the U.S. survey of 1957 which included the likes of Helen Frankenthaler and Ellsworth Kelly. The current exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art, Ca is the largest retrospective of Wojtyla's paintings in over ten years.
Hervé CRESPEL's current exhibit at La Ville Andon in Plélo, France was received warmly by many including the press. To see the complete review (in French) please click here.
EXPOSITION du 22 Juin au 10 septembre 2006
La Ville Andon - 22170 Plélo FRANCE
"Influences" - New works by Kelly Hutchison aka Dark Vomit at The Art of Framing
by Kevin Freitas
INFLUENCES IS THE TITLE OF NEW WORKS BY SAN DIEGO ARTIST KELLY HUTCHISON aka Dark Vomit, on view at the Art of Framing Gallery in Normal Heights. WOW !
The invitation reads "Brad / Curtis Together again and better than ever!", a titillating title for San Diegans Brad Streeper and Curtis Gannon, who are obviously friends as well as fellow artists. You might expect some collaborative effort on their part but what you’ll discover are two very distinct and diverse works of art that appear at least on the surface, in opposition. Brad Streeper is exhibiting three large works in the Art of Framing gallery space, and Curtis Gannon provides the links in the maille that weave their way through Streeper’s constructions with smaller brightly colored canvases. If opposites attract, it leaves us to wonder what being the same could look like as this show is seamlessly organized, installed and surprisingly “better than ever.”
I was up in Costa Mesa, California the other night for the opening of Collabro at the Subject Matter Gallery. I took the hour long ride or so up there with my good friend Ryan from The Art of Framing gallery here in San Diego. Subject Matter is not really a "gallery" in the strict sense of the word or what comes to mind when we think of a gallery.
"Portraits from the Golden Age of Jazz" opened at the Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad this past Saturday along with a talk by Dirk Sutro. The collection includes 71 black & white photographs by William Gottlieb and contemporary color photographs of local jazz musicians. Although jazz enthusiasts may be the most appreciative audience for this show, the Gottlieb's images are sufficiently distinctive to make them pleasurable viewing for anyone.
"Cascade" - Wendy Maruyama
Artist: Lee Puffer - Portrait: Karen McGuire, Curator of Exhibitions, City of Carlsbad’s William D. Cannon Art Gallery
Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body is now showing a SDMA until April 26th. If you haven't seen it, you are missing a bold and diverse group of works well worth several hours of contemplation.
(Roman De Salvo - photo: Crissy Pascual SD Union Tribune) 
WHEN I moved to Brussels to open my gallery, I found a large home with commercial ground floor space and living up above. De-centralized from the downtown arts district, I found myself located in a predominately Turkish and Moroccan neighbourhood with a couple of aging Belgian families too old to relocate or too stubborn to move like some already lost Alamo battle against the rising tide of immigration washing upon their shore. Equal opportunity and issues of class and/or culture over in Europe are a far cry from the problems we’ve experienced and continue to have in America, but it is no less damaging. At the time I truly felt that art could conquer all, turning the whirlpool of ignorance and hate into a positive life altering, food for the soul experience. I don’t believe anyone thought we would see 9/11, terrorism yes but not on that level, and certainly I believe no one felt it less when it did happen, than those involved in a very naïve and hubristic art world – including myself. How ironic that the destruction of the two Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan were the first to fall – art, religion, mankind had suffered the first lance. Don’t get me wrong, art has its place within the society; however it never seems to be in the right place at the right time. I no longer feel art can even remotely solve the world’s problems.
OK. So with limited time on my hands (good), I was on my way to see some great art at SDMA's Personal Views Regarding Private Collections in S.D. show........NOT! As I approached the museum, I passed a family eyeing a Nikki de St. Phalle serpent sculpture in the garden. One of the members blurted out to the other, "Hey Jane, you could do one of those for our backyard!"
The invitation reads "Brad / Curtis Together again and better than ever!", a titillating title for San Diegans Brad Streeper and Curtis Gannon, who are obviously friends as well as fellow artists. You might expect some collaborative effort on their part but what you’ll discover are two very distinct and diverse works of art that appear at least on the surface, in opposition. Brad Streeper is exhibiting three large works in the Art of Framing gallery space, and Curtis Gannon provides the links in the maille that weave their way through Streeper’s constructions with smaller brightly colored canvases. If opposites attract, it leaves us to wonder what being the same could look like as this show is seamlessly organized, installed and surprisingly “better than ever.”
