2/5/10

Kierkegaard meets ( not quite) Irwin but the two had a connection?


From Kierkegaard's Either/ Or, reprinted in Seeing is Forgetting...

...one tires of living in the country, and moves to the city; one tires of
one's native land, and travels abroad; one tires of Europe, and goes to
America, and so on; finally one indulges in the sentimental hope of
endless journeyings from star to star. Or the movement is different but
still extensive. One tires of porcelain dishes and eats on silver; one tires
of silver and turns to gold; one burns half of Rome to get an idea of the
burning of Troy. But this method defeats itself: it is plain endlessness...
The true rotation method resembles changing the crop and the mode of
cultivation ( rather than the field). Here we have the principle of limitation, the only saving principle inthe world. The more you limit yourself, the more fertile you become in invention. A prisoner in solitary confinement for life becomes very inventive, and a simple spider may furnish him with much entertainment.

2/1/10

Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees

yay, I ordered this online for $3.50 and it just arrived...
already I found good quotes by R.I. :

"Basically, I can have a terrific time doing nothing. I am quite at ease, and always on the plus side."

Regarding Guston's "really smart paintings"...

"...that God damn Guston...some people call it ' the inner life of the painting'...all that romantic stuff. A good painting has a gathering , interactive build-up . That's what a good Vermeer has, or a raku cup, or a Stonehenge. And when they've got it, they just jump off the goddamn wall at you. They just, bam!"

1/25/10

SHOW: Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970 @ David Zwirner








I saw this inspiring and seductive show on Saturday. I can't stop thinking about it for many reasons but mainly because I felt like I had seen some of these works before... in a daydream? The artistic ideas & visions of artists like Robert Irwin, James Turell, Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, Peter Alexander & Helen Pashgian seem relevant to my own art-making process but they lived and worked in the bright sun and generous spaciousness of Southern California. My work is made amidst the compressed world of New York where space and light are rarely uninhibited. In my work I am channeling fantasies of their reality.

The next book I plan to start reading is Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin by Lawrence Weshler.

There is a great review in the New Yorker about the show, out now. It will be up until Feb 6th.

10/26/09

SHOW: NEFER/NFR @ Capricious Gallery



Date: Thursday, November 5th

Location: Capricious Gallery

103 Broadway, 917-438-7015

Time: 6pm-9pm

Artists: Molly Surno, Kenya Robinson, Sarah Frances Kuhn, Dave Shull, Olivia Wyatt and Shaun Kessler, Suzette Guy, and Leif Ritchey

Curated by: Molly Surno

Luiza Sa from CSS will be DJ'ing and Abby Walton will be doing free nail art at opening.

The deep and spiritual relationship that we have with adornment will be explored in this dynamic group show of Brooklyn-based artists. Each piece is a meditation on the history of human decoration which will take form via photography, sound, sculpture, and installation. Ancient Egyptians were the first to remove body hair and wear wigs and since then, the obsession with self-decoration has evolved into a sometimes passionate, masochistic, celebratory, sensual, grueling, and lengthy ritual. In some cultural niches, fashion and/or trends take on such powerful meaning that they signify a belonging, tribal cohesion and cultural identification.

For better or worse, the connection between attraction and goodness is as old as civilization. Visible is all divisions of society from children's tales to advertisements human behavior equates flawlessness with glory and respect. Beauty comes from Latin bellus meaning pretty, which is akin to the Latin word bonus meaning good-more. Embedded in Egyptian vocabulary is the word Nefer (nfr ) which means both 'good' and 'beautiful.' Together these artists investigate bodily desires through the power, sorrow, loneliness, celebration and sensuality of ornamentation, glitter and garnish.



SHOW: Gauge at ARTJAIL Oct 22- Nov 13th, 2009