Paper work

(Ingres, Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne)

In case you were wondering, here’s a template for a certificate of authenticity, which is typically provided when an artist sells a work. It is an act of aggrandizement that I find to be stupid, but also exciting. Have to say, I loved making one for my recent drawing sale. I actually had to print four or five until I got my signature looking good.

I made one for a video work a few years back, which was frankly total BS because of the medium’s reproducibility. But, along with the fancy box for the DVD, it gave importance to the bucks the collector dished.

That said, an artist and collectors can control the distribution and value of video. But that’s a post in itself.

CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY
Title:
Artist:
Medium:
Dimensions:
Date:
Duration: (write n/a, if n/a)
Copyright: (write n/a, if n/a

I, [name of artist], certify the authenticity of [title of work], sold to [name of collector] on [date].

[name of collector] is the rightful owner of the drawing and will be credited as such. [If an edition, include edition number].

Many thanks for your support [a personal flourish]
[artist signature]

Long time passing

I spend much of my time pressed up against a computer screen, rarely looking beyond its surface, not even out the window. When I walk outside, my eyes are usually set down and at most three feet in front of me. Even on a country road. All this to say that I rarely look at the long view: literally, for sure, but also in terms of my development as an artist. Basically, I want my solo show now, because if not, when would it possibly happen?

A new artist-friend recently said to me - I was telling him about my doubts about showing at a particular space - that if I honestly respected the gallerist and if I maintained a good relationship with said person, then the right solo opportunity might come sixteen years down the line. Mama. I can hardly think sixteen days down the line.

But I’ll start trying. Because I do think I’ll be doing this –making things– for years to come. I’m really just at the beginning. So, it makes sense to wait for the proper circumstances that will best support all this effort. Hell, I might even turn down a show a two.

On a more now note: how much did the Oscars suck!

Long Live the Art

I read an article some time ago (I can’t for the life of me find it) in which a big wig art world persona says that he doesn't take an artist who doesn’t work full-time as an artist seriously.

Even though I get depressed if I spend too much time in a studio alone, and even though I’ve got bills to pay (don’t tell anyone) – and even though I thought this guy sounded like a creep - I thought he must be right. So, this was another reason for my un-recognition. Eight hours a day, Monday through Friday would solve that.

But, give it up for Holland Cotter, folks, the spokesperson for non-market-oriented art. In his celebratory article “The Boom is Over. Long Live the Art!” among other exciting things (at least to this romantic), he says:

It’s day-job time again in America, and that’s O.K. Artists have always had them — van Gogh the preacher, Pollock the busboy, Henry Darger the janitor — and will again. The trick is to try to make them an energy source, not a chore.

At the same time, if the example of past crises holds true, artists can also take over the factory, make the art industry their own. Collectively and individually they can customize the machinery, alter the modes of distribution, adjust the rate of production to allow for organic growth, for shifts in purpose and direction. They can daydream and concentrate. They can make nothing for a while, or make something and make it wrong, and fail in peace, and start again.

[…]

I’m not talking about creating ’60s-style utopias; all those notions are dead and gone and weren’t so great to begin with. I’m talking about carving out a place in the larger culture where a condition of abnormality can be sustained, where imagining the unknown and the unknowable — impossible to buy or sell — is the primary enterprise. Crazy! says anyone with an ounce of business sense.

Right. Exactly. Crazy.

All in a day

I’ve had a crash course on what’s hot in tween pop culture this past week because my step-daughter is in town. High School Musical ("You Are the Music in Me") has now fully invaded my head space, as well as Beyoncé ("Put a Ring on It") and The Pussycat Dolls ("I Hate this Part"). If you need to impress a kid in the next few weeks, those are the titles you need to know.

For stark contrast, I recommend the exhibition of Ellsworth Kelly drawings (19564-1962) at the little Matthew Marks Gallery, on through April 11. They’re modest, solid and human. As the press release says:

The artist’s touch is much in evidence, and the drawings have an immediacy unusual in Kelly’s works.

Mini gallery crawl

Through Saturday you can see two very nice drawings by Alan Saret at the James Cohan Gallery, part of a group show called Shaping Space. They’re in the way back room. I’ll definitely be looking into his process-oriented, gestural work (sculptures as well, also in the show), which he began developing in the 60s. But I especially want to see more of his “gang” drawings, made with fistfuls of colored pencils. This is one above (ripped off the Drawing Center’s website. They had a show of the Gang Drawings last year).

As a figure too, he also sounds interesting. After attracting quite a bit of attention in the 60s, he skipped off to India for three years, I think to pursue spiritual interests, and then recoiled from the art world.

And across the street from the Cohan Gallery, you might want to see many videos by Christopher Miner at Mitchell-Innes & Nash (through Friday). The show consists of a series of very short, narrative pieces, and one long lyrical one, all on monitors and all vaguely talking about family, religion and racism in the American south. The tone ranges from ironic-kitsch (boooooo!) to lonely (whooooo!) to the dispassionate. Go in this last direction Mr. Miner. Also, lose the credit “Christopher Miner, 2008” in the short loops. So art school.

Rope

I sold my first drawing, folks. To tell you the truth, I’m flabbergasted. Not only because people aren’t buying art these days, but because people buy art in general, not to mention mine.

I bought a photograph once for $800. But, it was an entirely disembodied decision. I think I did it because the guy I was with thought it was a lonely picture, and I thought it would please him If I acquired it. (It didn’t help).

Speaking of disembodied: the dude from Coldplay, who was on TV last night all over the place, has absolutely no control over his limbs. He skims around like the Scarecrow just off his stake. It’s actually quite pathetic to watch. And I really don’t like the sensitive, shy schtick. Give me asshole, please. And tense, like me.

But, back to buying art. I have to say,there's something I find moving about someone who collects seriously. Not socially. There’s a personal passion – a sincere interest that has been cultivated, a want to be with visual work, a conviction that it's worth it– that’s a pleasure to be part of.

Good one

Suzie posing on stools at the Art Students League, NYC, 1971

I think I get it. Some photographs are jokes. A knee-slapper, a one-liner, visual slapstick. Much of Elliott Erwitt's work falls into this category. And the looking usually goes like this: Ha! She looks like she has a dog face! Where do you want to go for lunch?

But some photographs have humor, like this one by the American Louis Faurer. Humor is like a loyal friend, there for you the next time. You still have immediate impact – in this case, the model’s luxurious form, the observing ladies (and it helps they’re almost all ladies)– but there is also a level of curiosity and of detail. For example, here, the impossible balance, the blackened feet. And, wow, what a pose!

This and other fine photographs on view in Figure Studies at Deborah Bell Photographs through February 28.

Touchdown!

Many thanks to everyone who came on Saturday to the artist’s talk. To those who couldn’t make it, next time! There already looks there will be one.

Here are some blurry pictures (I know the gallery got better ones). I also have a recording, excerpts of which I may post. But, first I have to talk to my therapist about hearing my voice on tape.

For those who couldn’t care less, read Roberta Smith on Brandeis’s stupid decision to close their Rose Museum in today’s times.

Notice students taking notes.

Slag's founder Irina Protopopescu and I (red shirt) before. Ask me about my pants.

Artist's Talk, This Saturday

Please come, dear readers!

Not conceptual No: the inner and outer languages of text-based art
In this presentation, Molly Stevens will survey how text has been used in art as a declarative, psychological and a visual form of communication. She’ll discuss the likes of Jenny Holzer, Matt Mullican, Jean-Luc Godard
as well as her own work in video, drawing and signage.

Slag Gallery
548 West 28th Street, 2nd fl.
(Between 10th and 11th Ave.)

January 31, 5pm

Slag Gallery is pleased to announce bimonthly gallery events.

Slag Gallery, since its opening in summer 2008, has focused on presenting contemporary works by emerging Eastern European artists who have minimal exposure in the United States. This year, in addition to that focus, the gallery will begin featuring works by international artists in all media.

And standing behind of our commitment to function as an experimental artists’ space, we are happy to announce bimonthly gallery events where artists, curators and other cultural producers will present, share their ideas and works, including film, video and live performance. Especially in a time that many galleries are closing and arts funding are being severely cut or eliminated, Slag believes that the significance of these events will create new dialogs and give an informative platform for everyone involved—from presenter to audience.

The events will be curated by Özkan Cangüven, Assistant Director at Slag Gallery

Totally Grody

I saw the grossest movies this weekend, all from the early 2000s.

During each one, I kept saying to myself, “I should turn this off,” and yet I was unable to. They each had a pornographic pull; the magnetism of outrageous that makes you feel disgusting after.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of heavy, heavy movies. In fact, I tend to want heavy in anything I watch. But heavy has to be blended with humane to be fulfilling, to be truthful in a way that doesn’t make you want to commit suicide.

I can deal with painful, heart-wrenching, even hopeless – but there has to be an ounce of human-to-human connection in there. That that connection would survive in the difficult circumstance being described, is what makes something livable, beautiful.

So, don’t see: Requiem for a Dream, Thirteen, or 21 Grams.

Painting and Government

I really like ceremonies. They mark the beginning, the end, and that’s very soothing. Especially when it’s the beginning of Obama and the end of Bush.

Regarding yesterday’s inauguration, aside from Obama’s address, and the Reverend Joseph Lowery at the end, I was especially taken in by the fact that before the luncheon began, someone introduced a painting – Thomas Hill’s “View of the Yosemite Valley” on loan for the occasion from the New York Historical Society (very much like this Hill painting above).

All these politicians stood looking at an image as a useful vision, as something to respect as a way of seeing things. In this case, they were being asked to look at a long perspective, a landscape, a vision of the unknown, but not without hope (it is green, after all, and beautiful).

That was very cool, I thought. I guess that’s what they mean by integrating the arts into the way we function as a society.

If I do say so myself

With a group of artists friends, we're whipping together an application for one of LMCC's Swing Spaces (temporary exhibition space).

I wrote this email, and if I do say so myself, sounds pretty good!

I would maybe avoid words like "globalism" and "diversity," because I think they are a bit dated. We all know this is a global, diverse world at this point. It's really just semantics though, because the idea about converging, overlapping, interconnected cultures, expressions - about difference and commonality - is really the same.
This is what I've been reading/thinking about that interests me : We are past "movements" in art, there is really no "next thing." What's artists can offer now is a wide selection of viewpoints, a non-clarity about the world as it really is, and yet a inter-connectedness about the world as it really is. What this group of artists (us), who have converged in NY, can do is complement each other, fill in pieces of a picture.

Please note, my artist's talk date will be on January 31 (not January 24). More on this on Wednesday.

And when was the last time you thought about George Segal?

Anti-rush art

Collage has been a very popular way to combine text and image.

I love what the Cubists and Dadaists did with it. The text is so subtle in this Picasso. And I’m attracted to the way it’s hand-written, as opposed to printed.

I had an art teacher back when I was a teenager who showed me a way to look at Cubist works. She suggested I stare at the piece until the planes and the lines popped up and became dimensional. It’s kind of like going to the eye doctor and looking at one of those optical illusions. It takes so time staring, but it blows my mind. I’ve loved the stuff ever since.

Rembrandt and Rourke

I fall for the hit-rock-bottom-but-rise-back-up scenario. I really do.

In Friday's Times, Holland Cotter had an interesting article about how art can look differently depending on when we see it.

He says regarding Rembrandt,

But art changes all the time, according to what’s going on around it. Now I was looking at Dutch painting from inside an economic collapse, with a market on the rocks and Gilded Age revealed as fool’s gold. The art looked different.

Rembrandt, it seems, lost everything – he was on top of the world, and then fell to the bottom. But, he kept on going.

Cotter says,

Living in near-poverty, public reputation shot, with nothing to gain or lose, Rembrandt was painting in a fresh way because he was painting mostly for himself.

He ends somewhat sentimentally, but I fall for it:

I’m not saying hard times alone produced this painting. Rembrandt and art are so much more complicated than that. But when he was put to the test by circumstance, he somehow turned catastrophe into opportunity; turned his weakness into strength. From almost nothing — a little paint, a stretch of cloth, a freed-up mind and an unembarrassed heart — he made this.

The same is true of Mickey Rourke it seems. He found fame early and then became a real asshole, but then he lost everything - EVERYTHING. Then, through psychotherapy (APPLAUSE), he came out the other side, slowly but surely. One result: The Wrestler.


Frankly, I find it inspiring. I don't really want to romanticize that route, but... ok, I do want to.