Back to Basics

(Installation view, Vincent Fecteau)

At artcritical, there are engaging recorded discussions about recent exhibitions in the Panel Review section. I turn it on in the studio to distract my thinking mind from what I’m drawing.

In a conversation about the 2009 exhibition of sculptures by Vincent Fecteau, the panelists made distinctions between size and scale, surface and structure. Sounds basic.

As is it is commonly understood, a monument is a commemorative work that usually towers over us. But something relatively small can be monumental not because of its size, but because of its scale. A depiction of a head that is five feet tall is monumental because it’s not human scale, but a five-foot building is not, unless perhaps there are tiny people also depicted. It gets more complicated when forms are not figurative, but abstract.

I’d also add that the monumental is generalized, non-specific. People are archetypes, forms are reductive. That said, I don’t think a monument can’t be intimate, personal.

Intimacy is something that can be offered through scale (or not), but it can also be revealed through surface. For example, if you have a rough, handmade edge on your five-foot head, it will remind us that it was crafted by a person, not at machine. The hand isn’t disguised and therefore the piece comes back down to the human. In art speak, you could say in this case that there’s a tension between scale and surface.

Scale, surface and structure are essentially formal elements in an artwork. Some viewers find meaning more in an idea or concept behind a piece, but I find meaning in its making. These days that’s perceived as a romantic notion. More on this another time.

Initial thoughts on season 1, episode 1

It’s such an effort for me to turn off my thinking mind. Try, try and fail again. What ever I do ends up being for a purpose.

I don’t have a TV. That might come across as righteous, but really it’s because I’m cheap. And also I fear its effect. When I watch too much television, I feel like a failure, because I’m not performing, striving. I’m just watching, vegetating.

Vegetate is what my Marc recommended I do when he told me to Netflix something dumb. So I started Desperate Housewives, and now I must finish. At least season 1. I’ll be done by tonight, which means I’ll have watched some 24 hours of TV in 4 days.

I was sucked in when in the first minutes of the pilot episode, a prototype character shoots herself in the head. This signifies – it’s the conclusion, really - that life as you are about to see it is enough to make you want to kill yourself. I’m often unclear about what cynical actually means (distrustful of other people’s integrity or sincerity; doubtful that an endeavor is worthwhile), but this series-start is cynical by definition. Satire is something else. So is irony.

My immediate hunch is that artmaking can’t really be cynical. Because why do it if it’s not worthwhile. Or maybe cynical would be the motive: making pretty pictures for checks. Is it cynical to make art for anything other than for art's sake? I think that would just be naive. Is that thought cynical?

New Yorkerland

(George Condo, The Beatnik, 1987, oil on canvas)

In Calvin Tomkins’s portrait of George Condo in this week’s New Yorker, you’ll read about the artist’s effective Cologne dealer; his few years in Paris living at a hotel and renting studios; a buddy named Basquiat; a mistake called the Pace Gallery (shoot!); confidence galore; fine taste (but not uptight!) and a good personality to boot. Ah, isn’t life in the New Yorker grand. And so well expressed, because when everything is in place, and well adjusted, you don’t need to be grandiose. You are all that you need.

In the Time’s moving review of a moving-sounding book called Twins by Allen Shawn, you’ll read that the author’s father was a “legendary” editor at the magazine. But the world created in its pages was a yoke in real life.

The Shawn home, with its emphasis (like The New Yorker’s) on discretion and decorum, magnified neuroses. […] [Their mother] even chaperoned [Allen Shawn’s] taste in music, "instituting a rule that I could only listen to one jazz record for every three classical ones."

I find myself striving to be a New Yorker living in New Yorkerland every week. It is my pleasure but also my side thorn. Last night, as I met the diamond at the end of the Condo essay, I wondered, as usual, "what exactly am I doing wrong?"

A year in sentences

(Molly Stevens, (not yet titled), oil stick on paper, large but not huge)

The blog is a slog: it’s something I’ve been feeling as this year ends. ‘Tis the season to feel wracked with doubts about my writing and artmaking. But onward, onward JewBu soldiers.

Looking back on a year in writing here and on Donkey Trail (excluding the interviews), I’ve forced myself to make a top-ten list of favorite sentences. I’ve chosen them because I like them as writing, as ideas, or for the memories they evoke.

My bests wishes to all readers here at Art on My Mind. Thanks for stopping by. See you in January.

10. Backstage with Pink Rocks

9. Making art involves endless choices; you can go safe – stick with what you know, with the good looking cream-white combination - or you can go out on a limb, leap into the unknown, a leap of faith as my friend refers to it.

8. Puppy topiary is a person. I accept that person.

7. But what’s harder, actually failing, or predicting that you might fail.

6. She goes and gets her higher up, who comes out, her hands in prayer position, at a slight bow, as if she were in front of the Dalai Lama.

5. Line does and color is.

4. Dealer is onomatopoetic for money.

3. "Out of Line" is on the Short List in this week’s New Yorker in the Goings on About Town section! Whooooo! Oh, I mean, "I am so pleased."

2. When Slacker first came out in 1991, I couldn’t take it in because I was trying so hard to distinguish myself politically and socially (oh wait, I still am) that anything that became popular I considered mainstream, ie: not good because it was not radical (radical ironically meaning that everything was as politically correct as it could be, that the proper stance was taken in terms of race, class and gender. (Oy vey)

1. The spirit of art goes against the downward spiral – or at least attempts to – and that is not insignificant, for the artist personally, for any interested viewer, and as a symbol.

I am the upper bourgeoisie and I am screwed

(Martin Kippenberger, Self-Portrait, 1988)

I skim David Brook’s columns only so that I can righteously confirm to myself that he is a pompous conservative and extremely irritating, even more so because he’s so damn articulate. On Monday my skim revealed something about how it’s bourgeois to be interested in self-improvement - and that the bourgeoisie is growing, growing, growing, so expect the self-help section at the bookstore to takeover. This is a good thing, he says

I can understand that if you’re really working class, you can only think about survival; I can understand that self-knowledge is a luxury. I get that. From that point of view, being able to pick up a copy of Deepak Chopra might be enriching.

But I’m an elitist and a snob. I want to go somewhere where Barnes & Noble can’t take me. And I think I can. And I think I can through things like artmaking and meditation (with a mantra) and esoteric books and existential angst. I am such a damn sheltered liberal as someone noted just yesterday. But so be it. I hate the suburbs.

As I am now, where do I fit among middle class values? Nowhere. And, as I am now, where do I fit in an ideal classless society? Nowhere.

Flash of the Spirit

It has also taken me twenty years to key into Basquiat. Up until now, I just haven’t been able to take him in for all the hype and myth around his person. The documentary Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child is my first step towards the subject.

Despite the annoyingly fast editing, the doc paints a truly affecting portrait. What hit me hard was the core contradiction he embodied. On one hand, he was so tremendously independent in his approach to painting. On the other, he had a palpably gaping need for recognition and respect.

In one interview, Julian Schnabel says of the artist:

[…] he didn’t want to get his feelings hurt. And if he just could have had a little more support in a deep sense so that he didn’t feel so damn lonely, and didn’t feel so taken advantage of, and so damn confused… he just didn’t have to the tools to navigate the sea of shit.

How can someone be both so terribly fragile psychologically and so artistically unequivocal and brazen at the same time?

It got me thinking (again) about what gets an artist to make something and also to make it in the art world. Basquiat got into the latter through fun, through partying, and clearly through the penetrating sweetness of his good looks. And it worked, but it also killed him. He got to artmaking through his kind of stimulation: in his studio, the music and TV was always on, and visitors came and went. What came out as a result is the mystery of art, and I don’t want to try to figure that out.

It's a Madonna pap smear

When Slacker first came out in 1991 I couldn’t take it in because I was trying so hard to distinguish myself politically and socially (oh wait, I still am) that anything that became popular I considered mainstream, ie: not good because it was not radical (radical ironically meaning that everything was as politically correct as it could be, that the proper stance was taken in terms of race, class and gender. Oy vey.) Plus, I didn’t have a cool air and I wasn’t laid back (oh wait, that’s still the case) so anyone who was, I just promptly wrote off as pseudo (that was a favorite word left over from senior year in high school), as stupid, and, well, as a slacker.

With the distance of almost twenty years though I really appreciate this movie. The vision that we’re all interconnected but entirely isolated and alienated resonates. It’s hard watching over-educated white folk going off philosophically, and it’s hard seeing resignation and wandering, because, frankly, it hits a bit close. But there are wonderful quirks, there’s wrenching suffering, stabbing humor. In one vignette, for example, an artist-type has prepared a stack of cards with aphorisms on them that anyone can just draw at random and contemplate for however long he or she wishes (usually less than a second). One card reads: “Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy.”

This is a portrait of a population and a time, our time too. But, as usual, I couldn’t see that in the moment of 1991. When will I just let my own immediate senses be the judge?

MoMa does the line dance

(Atsuko Tanaka, Drawing After Electric Dress, 1956)

My point is, the “On Line” show at MoMa – not to be confused with the “Out of Line” show at Slag this past May - is too linear. It’s mostly chronological and too jammed packed. As such it becomes a survey, and that does neither the art nor the viewer any good.

For example, you’ve got some great Picassos in the first room. But they’re literally stacked up over one another so you can’t focus on an individual piece; and then they’re placed next to – surprise – a few Braques! The room gets “wild” with the inclusion of a hanging projection of a whirling dancer. It’s a really nice film, but why so high? If I were installing it, I’d have put it playing on a wall alone. Or maybe next to ONE Picasso cubist collage. I think then you’d start to see line in a different way.

What we need in our MoMa show is some fresh installations of historical work, some air so that I can see, some focused thoughts so that my brother won’t get museum back, and some daring paring down on a (great) subject.

That said, there were some really good finds: a contemporary piece by Nina Canell looked positively exciting because it was precisely mixed-in. And then I enjoyed the mid 20th century work by Georges Vantongerloo and the drawings and video by the Gutai artist Atsuko Tanaka. To boot, it looked good next to a Rauschenberg tire drawing.

There were artists missing though: me.

In Transition

(Piet Mondrian, Apple Tree in Flower, 1912)

Sometimes there’s talk of an artist’s work being “in transition.” My take on this expression is that it means that the work is neither quite here nor there. It’s evolving. An artist’s work is always evolving, yes, but sometimes a direction is not quite ripened, and that’s what I think they mean (he, my visitor last week, means) by “in transition.”

“In transition” can be very beguiling because it’s searching. You can see the artist’s struggles, experiments and also her failures. “In transition” is vulnerable. After “in transition” comes another phase. Often I hear the word “resolved” to describe it. “Resolution” is confident, it’s a problem solved. A piece or series is “resolved” when a direction is settled upon. This is exciting, of course, because of the depth that can then be explored.

Mondrian is a good example. First his work evolved from traditional landscapes to schematic trees. We could call this the “transitional” phase. Then he came to settle on his iconic grids. Once this was “resolved” he explored and explored. And each work presents its own “resolution.”

Two things: it's stimulating to see that early development from tree to grid. And some artists adopt the transition as a "position." Kippenberger called this mobility the "running gag." More on this another time.

I expound

(Roy Lichtenstein, Bread and Jam, 1963)

My Monday post is murky to me. I jumped from irreverence, to attitude, to life approach, to detachment, to surface appeal, to intimation of attitude. Let me attempt to deepen the sense of some terms.

By irreverence, I don’t mean a big fuck you (although that is a form of irreverence). I mean un-preciousness. I mean standing out on a limb. I mean having an opinion, maybe unpopular. In all likelihood, exquisite is the opposite of irreverent. Some drawings are exquisite, some are irreverent.

Irreverence is one kind of attitude. Attitude doesn’t necessarily mean a seventeen-year-old thinking she’s got it. Attitude really simply means stance. Artists do take a stance whether they know it or not. In art school they call it a “position” (gawd).

Some artist’s go for outward expression, whereas others go for cooler observation: sometimes this manifests itself in the ways they lead their lives, sometimes it’s in their work, sometimes it's in both. In any case, both are attitudes. Someone like Lichtenstein brings passion to detachment. (Aside: his very detached drawings chock full of individual markings are on view now at the Morgan Library and are a must see).

Some artists are interested in immediate visual communication, which can be very appealing: sumptuous color, enticing shapes. But behind sensual charm can lay (lie? I don’t understand this verb) irreverence. Were not the Impressionists, for example, the scandal of the 1860s and 70s? This form of irreverence may be towards a context, or it may be in the quality of the mark making.

And that, my friends, is today's vocabulary lesson.

First Impressions

(Raoul de Keyser, Tornado, 1981)

WHO is the most tempting question in the art world. The answer is a quick fix, bringing on extreme: extreme satisfaction, extreme jealousy, extreme admiration or an extreme blank stare. I love WHO, and I’d love to come right out and tell you WHO was here, but I think that would lack class. In a private conversation, sure.

So back to content: of the many subjects broached by my visitor – he asked loads of questions, bless him – one, at this moment, pokes in particular. It was the subject of attitude. I want to remember every detail so badly, but can’t. Maybe because my cat was sitting on his shoulders (yes, she was).

From what I can recall, I told him I would like more irreverence in my work. By which I mean less self-consciousness, more risk, less concern for appearance (not irony though). It was just after that I think he used the word attitude.

He seemed to enjoy how an artist’s approach to life seeped into the work, and seemed to have a penchant for detachment mixed with the personal (On Kawara or Roy Lichtenstein, for example). But he also talked about how a work’s appearance can be charming, even pretty, but intimate attitude behind it. His example was Raoul de Keyser.

Yes, I know who Raoul de Keyser is! Phew! But, do I understand this interpretation? Not really. But I plan on checking it out. My starting point will be that attitude in this case means personal stance.

Does this sound right?

(Chris Martin, Untitled, 2006)

I’m preparing for the most prominent visitor to date to set foot into my studio. Ever since we settled on a day and time – next Monday, noon, I wrote it into my calendar, as if I would forget – I’ve been drawing like a mad woman, the idea being that I will reinvent the wheel by next week in order to make an impression. One thing is for certain: a public does motivate me.

Word has it that said visitor is not much of a talker. My urge will be to ask him questions about him and what he does, a tactic I’ve developed to deal with my discomfort during social interactions. But this is not a social interaction. This is a meeting of mutual self-interest, and I have to think about a cache of things to say – not over-say – regarding what I’m up to.

At T-6 days 9 hours, here are talking points I can draw on if necessary:

1. A few years ago, I was focusing primarily on text-based art, and became increasingly interested in the line forming the words – its vitality, movement, personal-ness - eventually dropping the word altogether. Now I’m interested in line and/versus color as ways to present the rawest, non-verbal forms I can make. Heads and rock forms are the primary result.

2. I don’t want to be enchanted by a facile primitivism, though. While I really enjoy Chris Martin and Huma Bhabha and their disciples, I’m not into imitation.

3. I’d like to move beyond the pale of new primitive art, and definitely beyond abstract expressionism. That’s why I look at a lot of landscapes, Asian ones in particular, and also the solid forms of Mantegna, the color of Giotto, and I’d like to unleash some more of my inner-Kippenberger. Yes, I’d like to be more insolent, but not ironic.

4. Yeah, these do have a sculptural quality.

5. No, where would I put it! I have a problem already storing flat paper.

6. Ah, good question. You know, I’m not a good tester, so why don’t I get back to you once I’ve thought about that.

7. Are there other people you think I should show this body of work to? For example, I’d love to invite XXX.

8. Really! That’s just great. Thanks so much.

When a tree falls

(De Chirico, The Uncertainty of the Poet, 1913)

I’ve never questioned my assumption that the exhibition is the final step of the creative process. Showing, I’ve always thought, is just what comes after making. And this presentation is what makes the work evolve. After a show, when you get back to the studio, you’re somewhere else. Somewhere more advanced (ie: better). This is what they say.

Sometimes the attention causes an artist to steer the work in a direction that will please the most people. When this happens, you have to wonder who the artist is drawing for. But I’m not sure you can ever really just draw for yourself.

The high-minded idea is that by putting your work out into the world, you’re contributing to culture. Some say that art makes a difference. It does make me feel alive. Except for when I’m so mad about the crap.

Psychologically, putting your work out into the world satisfies a need to be seen. I think you can be motivated high-mindedly and psychologically at the same time. Then there’s the motivation of making the pile of paper in your studio a bit smaller. You could always just throw it out. Or cremate it, like Baldessari.

Then of course, you just can’t stop. Can you? It’s an urge. And also, what else would you do? And what about your identity?

When you sell a work, you feel good. Unless the person puts the work in their basement, where it gets moldy. This is what people are talking about when they say they want to “place” the work. Sometimes you just have to pay the rent. But that’s why you have the day job.

Parsing

(Joan Mitchell)

In last week’s New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl ended his review like this: “Then those movements [after Abstract Expressionism], too, disintegrated, and it’s been pretty much one damn thing after another ever since.”

I love how Scheldahl sticks to his guns.

Sticking to your guns is a good expression. I picture a guy in a field – and he’s going to die, it’s for sure, because the enemy has him surrounded – but he stays put, gun cocked and ready to defend himself.

And don’t you love the use of the word “damn” here. Damn is onomatopoetic for anger. Rightly placed, it’s a bomb.

Kind of like the word “Dealer.” Dealer is onomatopoetic for money. It makes no bones about it, especially because of the earthy “D” sound. “Wheel and deal” is good too, creating a sense of non-stop movement, maybe because of a slimy ground.

In any case, art changes, just like everything else does, in accordance with the law of impermanence. Artists have got to follow the beat of their own drum through it all. Or die.