Surface

(Henri Matisse, The Painter’s Family, 1911)

I’ve always used the word “decorative” as a pejorative when describing a work of art: to me it has meant pretty-to-the-eye, but without further depth. Synonyms in my mind – equally pejorative – have been superficial, even artificial. That’s why I’ve always tripped on reading “decorative” in writings by and about Matisse. He’s a hero, and none of my heroes are shallow. So what gives?

It may be that a more accurate way to understand the word is as “on the surface.” “On the surface” acknowledges that in drawing and painting, the artist is physically dealing with a flat plane (the canvas or sheet of paper). Turning this flatness into dimensional space – into “realism” – is valued as skilled and serious. It is valued as depth spatially, but also morally in Western art. But spatial depth on a flat plane is an illusion. What’s more, we don’t really see the world like realism. We see it in bits and pieces, probably more like Cubism than a photograph.

Through surface, Matisse takes on the plane as a plane with multiple areas. It may in fact be that the superficial is the means to depth.  More on this soon.

Undercover (I love this show)

Slag Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of Undercover, featuring drawing, painting, sculpture and performance by Joy Curtis, Rebecca Goyette, Carin Riley, Molly Stevens and Trish Tillman.

April 10 – May 2
Opening Reception: April 14, 6-9 pm

Undercover, at its most basic, means going under a cover. This can be a physical barrier or a metaphorical one, a persona you stand behind.

Going undercover implies danger. Sometimes it’s the danger from which you seek protection, the reason why you seek cover; other times it’s the danger that meets you on the other side. Both involve adventure, psychological confrontation, and, in our case, quite a bit of humor.

Once you start labeling sides - front and back, outside and in, the protected and exposed - you realize there is no difference. You’ve become your front. Your front is you.

This multi-approach exhibition is at times revealing, at times stealthy, at times both. Either way, the work goes behind, beneath and beyond in order to keep its truth covert or to blow it open.

Rebecca Goyette’s Bundling Bags call on participants to literally get under cover and hold hands. Based on the Puritan sacks used in coupling rituals, her contemporary version confronts the vulnerability of being present with one other person while in public. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Goyette will inhabit the bundling bags, inviting viewers to participate in a bundling date with her.

Trish Tillman combines home relics and furniture parts to construct private memorials and characters. They are present like furniture, but are non-functional, and as such, become unsettling talismans or companions.

Carin Riley’s diagrammatic mural Revolution represents underlying forces mapped according to ancient laws of fate and positioning. In responding to the exhibition space it becomes a personal drawing of lithe linework that sticks with you like an enigmatic lesson.

Molly Stevens’s large-scale oil stick drawings put forward vigorous color, shape and line that communicate a direct, fully visual energy. Bold handwork come to form convivial power figures - a soothsayer, a guardian, a knight in armor, each representing safeguarded resolve.

Joy Curtis creates not-quite relics that are familiar at first, but then catch you by surprise. Reminiscent of Romantic ruins, they are in fact cast from contemporary molding and aged. Here, standing in for Joan of Arc - the historical heroine, who donned male attire as a defense in her fight to liberate France - is the stake at which she was burned once charged with insubordination and heterodoxy.

Slag Contemporary specializes in contemporary American and Eastern European art and is operated by owner and director Irina Protopopescu.

Slag Contemporary is located at 56 Bogart Street, Ground Floor #005,Brooklyn, NY 11206

L train to Morgan

For general inquiries, contact the gallery at 212 967 9818.

Pathos 2012

"Group of Mothers." Memorial sculpture by Fritz Cremer. Unveiled 1965.

It took me about an hour to read a 1,000 word article in Artforum – man, that shit is dense! – but I can proudly say, the subject made it worth it. Diedrich Diederichsen (of course that’s his name) considers an exhibition in Cologne entitled “Before the Law: Post-war Sculptures and Spaces of Contemporary Art” that brings together figurative sculpture from then and now, leaving out the transitional years in between. The earlier period puts forward pathos – humanistic compassion for the suffering plight of mankind – as a direct reaction to the shock and destruction of World War II. Think rough-surface bronze monuments of weeping mother figures. This pathos, as an approach to injustice, has become complex in contemporary art, and is replaced by the self-reflective, the ironic, or other emotional approaches like indignation or “the euphoria of counterculture” (I don't really know what that is). Pure pathos in contemporary times – like the work of William Kentridge – can come off as ostentatious (I agree). So the question is “What sort of feelings or moods should political art, or even any sort of serious art, engage with today?” Whether I know it or not, I think I might personally favor humor, but that doesn't mean disengaged irony.

Then the article considers “verticality” – literally the direction of uprising embodied in a standing figure. Is the vertical still relevant today? The conceit of new political movements, like Occupy, champions the horizontal. The horizontal steers clear of upright individuals and also voyeuristic culture that empties a single body. There’s no pinpoint focus. That can be effective. In my own work, I very much favor powerful vertical figures. It’s one-on-one viewing, body to body. But the question of vertical vs. horizontal has no set answer.

“It may be that all art, in encountering this problem, must ask itself what kinds of direct paths between affect and articulation, between reflection and revolt, it can still rely on – or whether the first task of art today is to blast away those very connections. “ I’m not totally sure what that sentence means, but I believe it enough to chew on it for a while.

Trayvon and art insiders

(T-shirt designed by Ali Spagnola)

I don’t think art is an effective place for direct political statements. I think political stances are most powerful in art when communicated through metaphor, or at least subtlety. I’m not likely to be moved by a portrait of a woman flexing muscles on top of a pile of robber barons in suits. Although maybe I should try depicting that.

I guess I would point to literalness as the culprit, to spelling out as the culprit. At least in visual art. And I’m speaking for myself, as an art insider who doesn’t need the crutch of obviousness because I speak the language of New York insider art pretty well. Yes, that makes me part of an elite, something I can’t pretend I am not, even though I’d like to just be regular. Regular, but an artist too.

I like Hennessy Youngman’s videos. But I think many art insiders like them in part because he comes off as not an art insider and that’s partly because he’s black. So by association we become regular. Many politically aware artists who are members of the art elite don’t want to be what they are. I get it. It’s full of damn uncomfortable contradictions.

All this to say, I’ve been thinking about wearing the name Trayvon on my back at the opening of Undercover, a group show that I'm in opening next week in Bushwick. But I think it would be a fashion statement; too much about me (and not me); too much about my politics as a definition of me (and not me).

Maybe I’d do it if I could get a large majority of people coming to the opening to wear the name Trayvon somewhere on their outfit or body. Still there’s the whiff of the false, of the cause célèbre publicized to people who already agree. Wearing the name in Walton, New York, a hotbed of poor Republicans: that’s another story.

I’d do it if I were Bruce Springsteen. In fact he did, dedicating his song “American Skin (41 Shots)” to Trayvon at a concert in Jersey this week. But he’s a rock star. I heart Bruce so much.

You think artists are rock stars?

A rose is a rose is a rose

(Pierre Bonnard, Le Boxeur, autoportrait, 1931)

I’m always trying to show myself in the best light possible. I really hate this about myself right now.

As I’ve been seeing it, my drawings are a reflection of me, they are my image. My image can be diverse, but I ultimately approve of the multi-facets. That is, if I’m going to show fragility, it’s in a way that I think is ok. If it doesn’t pass my inner test, I keep working. That’s why looking at older work can be difficult for me: because I no longer approve of the moi it presents.

What would really be brave is to show myself in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable, unprotected. I don’t think I can actually try to do this. It’s probably more of a matter of stopping before I begin polishing, before I begin resolving and judging.

That said, the drawing has to be solid in formal terms – the endeavor, the attempt that I wrote about in my last post still has to be in play. This is important because in the end, viewers don’t care – and shouldn’t – about my emotional state and struggles. What counts is the thing in front of their eyes. What if stopping short added something visually?

And then there’s no controlling what’s going to happen to the thing, how it will be seen. The thing is on its own.

You know what's a great movie?

Rocky 2. Rocky 1 is even better (if I remember), but it’s not on instant watch.

Give me intense determination when the odds are against you – the fighter’s spirit unsullied by privilege -, posit love as sustenance, and I’m a goner. A total blubbering goner. And don't forget about word quality. Rocky’s humble mumbling is entirely endearing; it’s so deferential he barely even takes credit for his victory, telling his opponent “You were great” as his arm is lifted by the ref. What a winner.

But then. Rocky 3 and Rocky 4. Balboa strikes it rich. He wears cashmere coats now. No more satin embroidered tigers. The character is a stand-in for Stallone himself, who has entered the 80s and also the spotlight as a director and actor. His vision for the sequels (I skipped 5 and 6) now formula. Here it is: a challenger presents himself. Rocky hems and haws. A loved one’s death or sickness fills him with purpose. He begins to train in earnest. He climbs a staircase. Or a mountain. The final fight (20 minutes) is prolonged but culminates in victory. End.

All this said, at the risk of caving in to cliché, fighters and warriors are a great metaphor. For me (do I have to confess?) they have a gender: male. So a series of drawings depicting such types means tapping into my inner man. More soon (maybe).

BBBBrain

(see here about this photograph)

I’m on the brain bandwagon, reading about consciousness and the brain, vision and the brain, the brain that changes itself. It’s a tremendous subject and I’m just at the very, very beginning.

What is consciousness, our sense of self, is something I’ve been interested in since I started studying Buddhism a bit some 10 years ago. For Buddhists, there is no self; and for many brain people, there is no self. There are experiences, we exist, but there’s no thing that you can point to and say, that is moi.

Once Robert Thurman recounted a story about a guy who attended a retreat about no self. At some point this guy didn’t know which person he was in the room. That freaks me out totally.

The more and more I read about it, we are just bits here, there. Seems like the brain makes the continuity, a narrative; it creates a self and what it goes through. I suppose we need that story in order to be able to function. I’m not sure why we need to function. Maybe there's stuff we simply have to go through; because of karma or agita, or something.

I don’t know why there has to be people who get bombed and people who don’t get bombed.

This is all interesting philosophically, but I’m wondering if it’s perhaps a way to approach art. I’m not sure how it could be. I haven’t figured that out because I’m in the middle of it. But I’ve made work that is responding to these philosophies and sciences somehow.

So far I have: legs in motion, legs in space, legs as form (that would be the three streams that make up how we see). I don’t know why legs, except they are limbs that carry us and that you sometimes feel and sometimes don’t. I spent many years not really feeling them. The problem with legs is that Guston painted legs. I’m concerned about the derivative-ness as usual. Then I have guardians/bodyguards (they would be my protectors, maybe my survival instinct). I also have some mirroring, which is how people connect. I love mirroring. I think I need more of that. We’ll see what comes out next.

Guy who had a weird dream

I’ve been tapping various sources to try to learn why – aside from its formal attributes - ancient art is so enticing.

The least interesting vein of information has been my high school art history textbook. There, writers make up a narrative to fit their own idea about what art is. And it seems that for them, art is about the artist and his supreme will. For example, with regard to a figurine from 2100 BC (like this one above), it reads, “The sculptor [worked the hard stone] with consummate skill, making an opportunity out of difficulty.” But the concept of skill and of opportunity, and also of sculptor, is entirely modern. These were societies that didn’t make images consciously, as an esthetic or cultural exercise, but because they were powerful, because they served a purpose.

And I’m not really interested in what that purpose was; who the king was, what he wanted, what was happening around him. I’m not interested in specifics. I like generalities. That’s why I find Joseph Campbell’s conversations with Bill Moyers about myth more interesting. For the former, myths are the ground of humanness throughout the ages. Because, when you boil it down, when you generalize, there aren’t that many themes to develop. So, ancient art might be interesting to me in part because I see a humanness boiled down. Guy praying for direction. Guy walking with animals. Guy who had a weird dream.

Billy Childish

It’s so hard to know if what you’re making is a piece of crap. Worse, if it’s bullshit. I think you know deep down when you’re fooling yourself, when it’s just pretension. I hope so. Anyhoo.

The Billy Childish opening at Lehman Maupin LES was vitalizing. He talked, read a few poems and also sang a few songs. Lots of anger in the writing, but it’s so much his own that’s it’s not a turn-off. It seems that his anger is directly linked to the high personal standards he has for himself and the world around him. It’s probably fair to say he’s an idealist. Aren’t all artists?

The paintings aren’t angry. They’re bucolic, energetic, loose. I almost liked most, but really loved this volcano here. I feel good in its palette, its image, and also its freedom.

As he related, he was able to let loose in painting once his personal life was no longer in such turmoil. I can understand that entirely. I can’t really think of an example where personal mess and artistic burgeoning co-exist, despite the myth that torment is the stuff of meaningful art. I think you are stable and free.

Blogging in tongues

I’m still wondering what’s really relevant about ancient art, aside from its esthetic economy, which parallels a contemporary sense of chic spareness. I think there’s a directness in ancient art that we today read as meaning. No wobbling and ruffles. They’re SYMBOLS, we say. Symbols make us feel profound. I suppose symbols are in fact profound. But I’m not sure those symbols are apt for our times. Unless those symbols are something we need now. That’s what I wonder.

The Ancients didn’t think they were making art. Artness is a value that was imposed much later. I don’t really know what they thought, but from what I gather, visual representation was a tool for them. It showed something. It served as something. I think artists today hope their work will do the same, but it can’t really in the same way, because we have a category called art. So we can’t really go back to art as use. Although art can speak like symbols.

Directions

(Still from a Ryan Trecartin video)

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are teaching me a lot about horizontal. There have been accusations, critics, worries that the movement has no leaders, no demands. But what I’m seeing is that it is precisely this widening of the field that is allowing for the movement to embrace other groups and complaints and to grow. This horizontal can also be called non-hierarchical. I’ve heard Ryan Trecartin’s videos being described as non-hierarchical. I suppose they could also be called horizontal.

But frankly I’m more attracted to vertical for it’s concentrated energy and strength. In terms of social movements, there is of course the word “uprising.” That surge is vertical. In terms of art, I see columns, standing figures, even seated figures, back straight.

The problem with vertical is that it is narrowing. It’s a funnel, and in terms of art, I personally need to let it spill out so as not to be constrained. But really, I guess you need both directions. The base of the horizontal, the thrust of the vertical.

Going beyond

What I’m trying to figure out is why mankind’s first images have such a contemporary feel. Is that work relevant to – even significant to - our times other than formally, esthetically?

Formally, esthetically speaking, the work lives on today because it lives: high-contrast patterns are energetic and bold lines are vectors. Furthermore, when images are schematic, they go beyond a specific time. Why is there no respect for the schematic? Is it because it’s not observed, because it’s not what we see with our eyes? Some schematic images can look like generalizations, but others are metaphors, they point to something bigger.

Schema: A pattern imposed on complex reality or experience to assist in explaining it, mediate perception, or guide response.

But why is it relevant to our times? I’m not really sure.

This art is pre-self. There is no turning inward, no me-reflection, no depiction of subtle emotion (brains then just didn’t do that yet). The images these cultures made served as consciousness. They were used as consciousness. Art today can expand our consciousness. So the connection must have to do with consciousness. With letting go of the self. With making a leap outside of ourselves and into understanding.

Hallucinating

(Georges Braque, Lying Nude (The Bather IX), 1932)

I’ve been thinking about hallucinations. Generally we associate the word with acid and mushrooms. That doesn’t interest me so much mainly because I’ve never tripped and I never want to. I don’t need it, I’m scared enough as it is. I suppose it has be powerful. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson just published a whole book on the influence tripping has had on modern art.

Georges Braque also used the word “hallucination” to describe the process of artmaking. Miro did too. In a statement in Minotaure, December 1933, the latter said:

It is difficult for me to talk about my painting, since it is always born in a state of hallucination, brought on by some jolt or other – whether objective or subjective – which I am not the least responsible for.

From what I gather, these artists were both using the word to describe what we might now call a process of “making the unconscious conscious.” I doubt many would use the word “hallucination” anymore in this way in our times, because we’ve become so familiar with psychoanalysis, dream interpretation and representation, etc. It doesn’t really qualify as halluncination, in my mind, because it’s familiar (now). We can explain it, whether it’s accurate or not. I think a hallucination must be something that feels outside the self.

Direction

(Thomas Hirschhorn, Tool Family, 2007)

I don’t see my drawings before I make them. I don’t have a vision or a continuous voice that dictates what’s next. I just do and work with what comes out. If I have a preliminary idea, it never works. So what is it that moves the work? Because they are moving as a body, the drawings keep coming out, and they change. I must therefore have some kind of inner direction. I just don’t know what that direction is.

I suppose I have a position: that art is best when it’s personal. It doesn’t have to be about you – and please, spare me - but I like it when it’s your verve, stripped of pretension. For example, I like Thomas Hirschhorn, despite what I used to think. His work isn’t about him, but it is deeply personal. And it is deeply visual. Yes, I also think art at its best is visual, that it’s its own language, not dependent on explanation.

One definition of consciousness is that it is generated by language. Language describes and then we have what it describes as part of our awareness, as part of how we conceive of the world. There was a time in history when language wasn't as developed, when a mind couldn’t reflect on itself, couldn’t describe itself, guide itself. This mind, a pre-conscious, two-part mind called the bicameral mind (Julian Jaynes), hallucinated voices and figures as guides. Sculptures and effigies were made not as a reflection of these voices but in order to aid these voices.

This is all related, I just don’t know how.