Donkey Trail

Straight from the Donkey's mouth:

I've been on this path for a while now, with these sacks on my back. This morning I tripped on a rock. So I’ll just stop in front of this one right here. Come to think of it, if I go this way, it’s still up. Nice roses. Ouch.

Donkey Trail: an exhibition being developed by Nils Folke Anderson and Molly Stevens, opening May 2010 at Slag Gallery in New York. Maturing until then right here at Art on My Mind, or visit the Donkey Trail link on the sidebar.

Rhymes with the plural of (window) SILL

Very soon, perhaps even on Wednesday, I'll be announcing an exciting project (if I do say so myself), one that I'm developing in collaboration with my friend, the artist Nils Folke Anderson. Stay tuned!

But today, allow me to briefly introduce you to Nils's work.

Take the piece shown above. What I like is that I have a visceral relationship to it - it's not a model of an idea or an illustration that I observe. That's not to say that I couldn't consider this piece - a set of interlocking and moveable Styrofoam squares – a mathematical conundrum. And as an afterthought this is indeed interesting.

But what strikes me first, along with its balanced good looks, is its scale, which is bigger than me, but smaller than monument. Next to it, I don't feel dwarfed or nullified, but rather distinctly human, and humbled at that. Also as such, I want to touch it, move it. If I were to do so (but I prefer to watch someone else do that, or just imagine), I would end up becoming aware of the piece's possibilities, and also how it is that I move differently in comparison. So I come to have an appreciation of the thing through my experience of it.

The piece is arranged in a formation to suit a specific site; and the little pellets shed through the installation process are also left in the space. This immediately counteracts any pretensions of permanence and importance, making it all the more so, if you ask me.

Consider this post a starting point.

What's up on 24th

(Kim Dorland, RIP Tom Thomson, 2009, courtesy Freight + Volume)

A run across 24th Street yesterday yielded the following miscellaneous thoughts:

The large paintings by Albert Oehlen at Luhring Augustine are stereotypes of art itself, what I imagine the popular image of art to be: a little bit of collage, a splash of paint, and the very important "wha?" Wouldn't the work be perfect for Lily van der Woodsen's home on Gossip Girl.

Across the way at Freight and Volume are intriguing landscapes by Kim Dorland in which urban life encroaches on our pristine conception of nature. In general, give me trees or graffiti (above, both!) and I'm happy. But, with these, am I happy because of what it reminds me of, or because of what's actually in front of me?

It was nice to see the Christopher Wool in the window at Stellan Holm, and also the below painting in the back entitled Unworkable Machine. Upon learning that it was made by William S. Burroughs, I began to wonder if paintings can have a literary esthetic. If so, am I attracted to the wordiness of it?





















(William S. Burroughs, Unworkable Machine, 1993, courtesy Stellan Holm Gallery)

Boden Sea

Perhaps the visual opposite of last week's Tibetan landscape are Hiroshi Sugimoto's renowned seascapes, for example the image of the Boden Sea from 1993 above. With each image offering the same balance of water and sky and a particular play of light and texture, the series is really a study in the subtleties of stillness, the kind that Japanese Zen surely informs. As someone who's mind has perhaps never been this poised, I can nevertheless take in the piece as a possibility, as an illustration of how it could be. And there'd still be the crowded train car.

The series reminds me that an artist finds a landscape and then makes it his own. Sugimoto certainly approached the sea and the darkroom with a vision in mind. What we see is really a combination of the outer and inner image.

Landscape vision

I’m just starting to think about landscape depictions, and how they reflect the outlook of an artist or the culture of the artist. I wanted to start with this portion of a tangka from my bathroom calendar.

Tangkas are scroll paintings traditionally used by monks as meditation or teaching tools. This one caught my attention in particular because of the diversity of activity and the unusual combination of formal tools. There are rich narratives inside each room and outside each building, including elephants crossing rivers, groups of flying deities flying (see the orange ones at center), and severed bodies. But there are also surprising geometric areas like the horizontal stripes at the top. I mean, what is that?

Furthermore, we've got the massive structure at the bottom left, the three small cube-houses at top right - unbelievably geometric in themselves - and then those curvilinear buildings at top left. Somehow though, the composition holds together in an unlikely balance.

So this is a wildly complex and untidy world. In it I recognize our own.

Solicitation

(Painting by Bendix Harms)

It has taken quite a bit of courage to write this blog, exposing feelings and opinions and also realizing them through writing. I’m very grateful to you readers – the small number of you that there are - for sending me comments, emails or in-person encouragement. It goes a long way.

In one of Borges’s lectures, he describes writing as a collaboration, in which readers enrich the writing. He says of his lecture:

You may think now and then that you have heard a good lecture. In that case, I must congratulate you, because, after all, you have been working with me. Had it not been for you, I don’t think the lectures would have seemed particularly good, or even tolerable. I hope that you have been collaborating with me tonight.

He even humbly adds:

I think you are quite mistaken if you admire (I wonder if you do) my writing. But I think of it as a very generous mistake. I think that one should try to believe in things even if they let you down afterwards.

I’m no Borges, that’s for sure, but I am applying for an Andy Warhol Foundation arts writing grant (thanks AP). It’s a bit intimidating, but I will give it a whirl.

Among other things, I need to send a selection of posts. Please let me know if there are any posts that stick in your mind as either memorable or stimulating. Thank you.

The Blue Hat

The Picasso show at Gag in Chelsea is definitely star-studded gallery going. The last time I went, I spotted Brice Marden. All I want to say is that I noticed he was wearing a blue knit cap, which I’m now discovering is part of his everyday wardrobe. See any video on YouTube. This one is particularly interesting because he almost removes it. But he’s just scratching. Plus I like how he talks about painting.

Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise

I have a hard time with the concept of individuality.

First, there’s something very tenth grade about the idea of embracing your uniqueness. I picture my friend drawing swirls emanating from a figure, its hands open to the sky. It’s not that I don’t value that sweet expression of a certain concept of self-identity, it’s just that I’m dubious that it’s so unique. I mean, don’t you know someone who drew swirls? (The drawing above is the first that came up under “stoned drawings” in a Google image search)

And then, somehow I’ve learned that I must not confuse a sense of self for uniqueness, because that would be forgetting my privilege. It’s ingrained in my head that any revelation is somehow indulgent and blinded. Don’t feel special, just feel guilty.

Then there are the Buddhists of course and the assertion of no-self. The fragile understanding I have of no-self – the idea that a fixed, intrinsic identity does not exist – in fact can yield a great freedom, because the pressure is off. I am what I am in a context, and there’s nothing much I can do about it, for or against it.

What I am trying to say here? Oh yeah. As artists we have to do our own thing. We can’t be someone else, because we’re not. But, the individual doesn’t exist. So is that a contradiction or what?

“Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise.” Sensei Ogui

Eat it

While we’re on the topic of success…

Last week’s New Yorker had an article about a test in the 1960s that had kids sit in front of a marshmallow. They could eat it immediately or wait ten minutes and earn a second one. Of course it was torture for all, but helped divide the population into “low” delayers and “high” delayers of gratification. Further studies decades later show that the kids able to delay gratification were likely to become “successful” adults.

Carolyn Weisz [high delayer] is a textbook example of a high delayer. She attended Stanford as an undergraduate, and got her Ph.D. in social psychology at Princeton. She’s now an associate psychology professor at the University of Puget Sound. Craig [low delayer], meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles and has spent his career doing “all kinds of things” in the entertainment industry, mostly in production. He’s currently helping to write and produce a film. “Sure, I wish I had been a more patient person,” Craig says. “Looking back, there are definitely moments when it would have helped me make better career choices and stuff.

What bothers me is the value judgment. Carolyn may be “successful” but I bet Craig is a hell of a lot more fun to be with. I bet he’s spontaneous and creative. I bet he’s had some rough falls too. In short, I’d rather know Craig.

I probably would have delayed the gratification, played good girl, and rebelled 30 years later after thousands spent on the couch. But I wish I would have just eaten the marshmallow and then found a way to buy my own goddamn bag. Screw ‘em.

(Image: Claus Oldenburg, 1962)

Beamer me up, Scottie

This post was going to be about how I wasn’t too surprised about BMW ripping off the work of Aaron Young. Because surely I’m not so naïve as to think that this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Plus, because I’m so smart, I can tell the difference.

Young is best known for riding motorcycles on gallery floors leaving a trace of the movement. So it’s a tough(er) boy approach to action painting (Pollock, that gang). I like the looks of the raw version, but I’m not so keen on the glitzier one he organized for the Whitney Biennial in 2007 (image of both below).

But then I did some research on the campaign and now I feel a bit like throwing up and a bit like laughing. It started with the tag line, “Not all artists are depressed.” No, true. But I bet a lot of Beamer drivers these days are.

Then we learn that BMW has commissioned this artist from South Africa to drive paint-covered tires on paper (looks like Photoshop to me). Plus, the artist self-describes as a “revolutionary contemporary artist.” Why doesn’t he just call himself “fantastic person?” Did they just make this guy up for the campaign?

Gross-hilarious factor aside, I’m having a hard time really digesting that “success” and “recognition” entails a certain shallowness, a certain in-authenticity – and if it doesn’t, you’re still vulnerable to exploitation. What has me swallow is the realization that I’ve been wanting “success.” I (re)wonder.

White House Poetry Jam

Meanwhile, in the East Room, the president and the first lady have hosted the first ever White House poetry jam.

Here’s what Mr. Obama had to say:

“We’re here to celebrate the power of words and music to help us appreciate beauty and also to understand pain.’’

That had my draw drop actually. Not run away from pain? See, hear, appreciate something in art that you can take with you to your other tasks? Honestly, what’s not to like about these people?

Miscellaneous

Someone please go to this and tell me about it. I can’t make it:
"Laying low, aiming high, and keeping the faith in contemporary and emerging art": a panel discussion with art professionals organized by the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), and hosted by the Drawing Center.
Tuesday May 12, 2009, 6:30pm

Most of this article about the transportation hub at ground zero is interesting. Specially this idea:

The result is a monument to the creative ego that celebrates Mr. Calatrava’s engineering prowess but little else. And it reinforces the likelihood that one day, decades from now, when the site is finally completed, it will stand as a testament to our inability to put self-interests aside in the face of one of America’s greatest tragedies.

Finally, this too sounds pretty interesting, although perhaps too academic.

Considering Forgiveness Book Launch Celebration
Monday, May 11, 2009 – 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York City
Admission free

Considering Forgiveness is both a literal and a metaphorical meeting. Join us to celebrate the Vera List Center’s first book, edited by New School faculty member Aleksandra Wagner, as many of the contributors discuss the political—and personal—relevance of this controversial term.

What do we mean when we say forgiveness? Are we able to think it, and with what goals and hopes in mind? Forgiveness emerges here not as an agenda offering closure but as a strategy and form of awareness; a legal, sociological, psychological, anthropological, theological and ethical concept that demands engagement.

Speakers include
Ayreen Anastas, An Everyday Judgment of Eternity
Gregg Bordowitz, Admissions
Rene Gabri, When Final Peace Was Not (So) Final
Andrea Geyer, I Beg Your Pardon
Sharon Hayes, Thematic Apperception Test #22: Gay Power
Lin + Lam, Dark Meat or White Meat?
Jeffrey Olick, Times for Forgiveness
Brian Price, Texas 2008
Jane Taylor, Reconciling the Odds
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Hannah Arendt on Forgiveness

Making it

I think my therapist told me a story about a writer she knew who wrote his entire novel – and it got published - with a sign on his typewriter that read “Make it shit now, fix it later.” Funny thing is, I’m actually not sure about the “fix it later” part. Was that really part of the sign did she say? Or is that what I remember she said? The book definitely got published, that I know.

In any case, this past week I’ve been approaching my drawing and painting with only “Make it shit” in my head, inspired somehow by this story that somehow only exists in my head. The good part is that the attitude does get the juices flowing – because you’re trying to break any rule of decorum you catch yourself putting out.

So, here is a shitty photograph of one of the shit drawings and a shitty photograph of the shit painting I’m working on.

When you've got nothing

As you probably already know, for her show at Paula Cooper (a re-do of her pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale), Sophie Calle has a gazillion women respond – from the standpoint of their profession - to a breakup letter she received. A magician, singers, translators, a riffle shooter, etc., all react to the text in video or through the written word. The array of sturdy women and the solidarity is indeed empowering (probably why she undertook the project), but, oy, Calle must be so annoying! But, I do enjoy spending a little time with her obsessions every now and then.

Next door, at Gag, it’s true, you should see the Picasso show. That’s what they mean when they say moving the paint around. Also, the vigor of the artist’s creative production – up until his death – is nothing short of overwhelming.

The two shows together are safe territory for the blue chips - and viewers too. No one feels like going out on any kind of wobbly limb these days. If you’re something, I guess that makes sense. But if you’re nothing (and you know what I mean), there’s no reason not too. When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.