so, yeah, richard serra... what can you say?? at beacon, i walked in and among the series of torqued ellipses, musing that it was an experience that can't be described. serra's achievement is one on the order of nature itself. by that i mean that he has surpassed the experiential facet of art and elevated it to the the level of the natural world. i've been caving and i've seen some spectacular caverns here and in europe. i've had lots of time on lots of beaches and in lots of boats, big game fishing. the feeling i get in these intense natural settings is very similar to the feelings i get while enveloped in serra's spaces. it's a sense of awe and, indeed a feeling of one's own insignificance in the scope of certain realities... this had been acheived, to a certain degree, in the painting of newman, pollock and rothko. it was the goal of clyfford still and perhaps motherwell. 

what sets serra (and heizer) apart is the unnerving ambition and final realization of an art that goes beyond what we know as art... 

next week i fly to san francisco for the opening of robert kingstons solo show at dolby/chadwick gallery. i haven't been to san fran since i was a child, so this is pretty exciting. and it's always good to meet a new dealer. we'll see what happens...

last week i drove up to millbrook, new york, to hang out with my friend and former dealer, andrew miller. he renovated a stone barn a few years ago and it's a truely awesome space. we ate giant ribeyes and went through 3 bottles of good st.emilion. and a few martinis. next day after bacon and eggs, we drove down to beacon to check out the dia center. in a word: amazing...

if you don't know much about michael heizer, try to find out as much as you can. the man's vision and his art is as profound as his ambition. of particular note, his piece magalith #5, rates for me as one of the most important sculptural statements of this century. the work includes a vertical recession into the wall of the gallery, maybe 18 feet high and lined with steel. inside the recession is anchored a boulder filling the vertical space. you can't really write a description about something this intense and pass it off. yes, i've written before about first hand experience with art, but this is taking that idea to a new level... i'll get back to this, not to mention the awesome holdings of serra, agnes martin, bob ryman, etc...

40 something degrees this morning on my way to the dojo... fall in nyc.

to 20x20's are looking good. 3 of them are now a very strong tryptich, horizontal, a rich, opaque black. now i'm trying to figure out the alignment. spent several hours the other day moving them around and just checking them out. but, yeah, it looks good... multi-panel works have always excited me and i haven't done one in quite a while. the multi-panel work demands a different viewing practice. the eye moves differently and the space between each panel is so important-- breathing room, etc...