Some NYC action:

*surely one of the most poetic visions committed to paint on canvas this past year was offered by robert kingston at the randall scott gallery in DUMBO. harshly brushed, worked canvases that invoke, at once, landscape and masters of the past such as twombley and, at times, klee. last year i was lucky enough to attend the opening of kingston's san francisco show and was simply blown away by his achievement. now it seems he's taken the possibilities of that show to new heights. if it's possible for a mature artist to further that maturity, kingston has done it. of particular note was a suite of small works-- a brilliant example of taking control of the issues, not of size, but of scale.

*david hockney at pace was about as dismal a show as i could imagine. huge, multi-paneled paintings of childish landscapes, built up with a clumsy paint handling that just should not be seen from an artist at this stage in a celebrated career...

*you walk chelsea and there is this awesome proliferation of incredibly beautiful japanese women...

*bjorn ressle will be opening his new space downtown...

spent the morning looking at and meditating on the re-worked painting started in 2001. after several months of working mostly in acrylic, all this black oil is really moving. while the speed of acrylic opens it's own possibilities, i'm really digging the slow pace of working in oil once again-- it makes you look and understand what is actually going on in a painting... there is a lot to be said about good acrylic paint, and the improvisation that is readily available while working in acrylics has it's own poetry. but, yeah, oil paint... black oil.

something else entirely...

so, after crazed intensity of making four 8-foot paintings in less than 2 weeks, I'm back to the slow pace of studio work. i've spent the last week re-visiting fairly large drawings that were started last year, created in a span of 4 or 5 months of solid work on paper. now, i've pulled a 6-footer out and put it back on the brooklyn studio wall. this is another work thats been with me since 2001. worked, re-worked, set aside, etc... it's been hanging out now for about 2 years. every now and then i'd take it out and dig it for a while, for one reason or another, never hitting it. that ended yesterday...

a few notes:

*if you see a gallery show this week, make sure you see david novros at the paula cooper gallery on 21st street and vivian springford at gary snyder project space on 26th. these are museum quality shows of 2 painters who have not had their due. novros is still with us. springford is gone...

*the first big week of the art scene has come and gone. we could hardly walk the streets of chelsea, the crowds filled with those who make art, those who buy it and, of course, those who can't, or don't do either...

*another show to make would be jesse mccloskey at the christopher henry gallery, downtown on elizabeth street. this is heavily allegorical work-- painted collage, worked and re-worked into a strange poem of life in the studio. autobiographical? maybe. maybe it's the tale of what we all go through facing the canvas or the panel or the sheet of paper laid out on the work table.

* there is a bar in brooklyn i might not be allowed to enter for a while. thats probably good for both of us...

and now the floating in the pool is done... i'm in the reality of NYC. fair enough.

a good friend is using (and abusing) my studio for a commissioned work. there should be a standard for artists bumming anothers space, as favor, as chance, etc... but i guess there isn't.

a poet from san diego is in town long enough to get me really drunk.

this is life. life attacked or life followed. either way, life...

where am i going with this?? good question.

good question...

the fires are burning around LA and it's late. about 2 weeks ago, while sitting in traffic on the LIE, i got a call from my atlanta gallery about a commision for the Palazzo Tower in las vegas. so i ended up having 4 96"x48" canvases made and delivered and flew out to LA to get down. that was august 19th. after 7 days and about 90 hours of work (given breaks for the pool) i've got 4 eight foot paintings standing in the studio, waiting to be picked up and i'm still trying to understand it all.

luck? the gods, finally smiling? a matter of time? who knows?

i do know this:

keep making work. go to the studio and lay it down. find a way to make the rent. find a way to make someone understand. keep in it. remember why it should happen. believe that there will be your moment. continue to fire up the dream. life doesn't always work for you. thats not what it's supposed to do. but sometimes, once in a very blue moon, it does...

and tomorrow, i will float in the pool and sip a cold mexican beer and remember just that.

the days after an opening are strange... personally, i tend to drift a bit.

troy tecau of 210 gallery and michael brennan met me U in the afternoon before the reception. before they showed up i actually laid a little paint down. it had to be done...

the opening was an awesome experience. great, large, happening crowd including gary snyder, lilly wei, the artists james little, michael rouillard, don voisine, linda byrne, jerry thomas, wayne dobson, The Artist Without a Name (heroically slurring by 10pm),and of course, bjorn ressle and the beautiful denora... the wine flowed and when it stopped we took the party under the BQE to mojitos and kept it going a while longer. i think i drank my first 10 beers in about the first 5 minutes...

and today it's back to work...

so, today i set up the lighting for the show and figure out any additional fine tuning... i'm actually thinking i might put a little paint down on one or 2 of the pieces... so hard to let them go.

last weekend bjorn ressle came out to the studio before i began installing the work in the gallery space. he was very positive on the large work and also the smaller work in the square format. i think with these large pieces finally behind me, i'm going to focus once again on the square (24x24) and my drawings. i'm going to go back into the large charcoal and graphite drawings of last year-- new layers, new insights...

so today i installed my paintings for the show at the gorgeous and enigmatically christened, U... This is my first 2-person show, fittingly, with a sculptor. the challenge of course was the reality of walls versus space. though it seems that reality has been met with aplomb. the sculptor is christine howard sandoval, an artist of intense focus and realization. i've been challenged by and interested in the pursuits of her work for over a year now. there is a ballsy, historical resonance to her recent endeavors and, at the same time a rather playful exploration of form and material. this isn't the "exploration" you might hear or read regarding some MFA discourse on culture and or what have you-- this is real exploration and real discovery-- the found object made real, if you will, etc, etc...

the work i've included in the show are paintings that have been worked and re-worked for years now. 2 of the pieces were started in 2002. the other 3 first saw the light of day in 2005. for any number of reasons they were set aside and brought back and set aside, etc. of course, today i actually laid some additional paint down after the installation... and then came back and put down some more. such is life. a painting is something that becomes what it should be. long ago, i gave up trying to "make" a painting. these objects are beyond us, they resonate of their own volition and our hand merely guides the motion. the painter comes to the canvas with an idea, perhaps with a compositional theory or possibility, but it ends with the painting itself...

the space is incredible. i stood there in the unlighted expanse surrounded by art and a weak raking light from windows shrouded in plastic. it was ghostly. a powerful way to end the day.

so, back to james little...

color. yeah, what of it?? to start, it's rather overrated. white and black hold as much profundity as is needed in painterly expression. but, having said that, color, taken to it's apex, packs the weight of a bulldozer in overdrive. color can be tough. it can be lyrical... it can be anything in between. these are easy thoughts. no big deal. color makes for pretty pictures. it also makes for serious ass-kicking painting... the pink (or yellow) one artist lays down has nothing to do with the pink (or yellow) another artist lays down. in the end, it's about intent and an understanding of the material and nature of what it is that we do. the great colorists understand how one color (and, or hue) relates to the color (and or hue) laid next to it. the truely great, in this contemporary age-- so much history behind us-- twist our notions of color a bit to the side of what we think we know about COLOR... the color of james little is just that-- the color of james little. they are earthy and temporal when you want them to ground themselves in some sort of pastel definition. they are hard and bombastic when you want them soft and powdery... this is his strength, his mission perhaps...

and culturally, intellectually, we are all the better for it.

yeah... paint in NYC.

this afternoon i hung out with troy tecau of 210 gallery in brooklyn. we discussed hunting, motorcycles, violence and art. and then i had to make some art.

but last night was a big night... i remember holly solomon's space on houston street. it still stands, more of less. of course, now, it's a clothes store, or boutique, if you prefer. i remember the scene, not so much the art. bad art is not a new phenomena, much as we'd like to think... but, yeah, SoHo. we would make the scene and the streets would be empty until you neared whatever gallery was having the show. there, a crowd would be hanging out-- smoking, drinking, getting ready for the next show a block or 2 away. even in the early 90's SoHo was vacant and alluring, cobblestones and firescapes and uneven sidewalks and hot chicks puking in the trashcans and turning to you with a smile... what i remember is how silent and peopleless it was, as the sun went down and especially in the darkness. and then, suddenly, it seemed, we were enduring chelsea... yeah. anyways, last night at june kelly gallery, the artist james little unleashed his latest work. to say it was good to be in a SoHo gallery is an understatement. that it was a james little show-- well, fuck it.

i've know james since 2000. we've shown together and been represented together. in chicago, we tore it up-- booze, food, strippers... it was ours. our town, our time... last night, it was all james.

there are 2 artists that i think of when i think of color; james little and pat lipsky. there's an irony there that i won't go into here. both artists deal out tones and hues of understood "color" and then take it a bit farther than most are ready to deal with. in james little's case, he takes it to places where (for me, anyways) you just shake your head and try to understand what (and why and or how) it is that makes it work. little is a hard-edged, unabashed painting machine. he doesn't give a shit. fuck you. he will do his vectors and lay his tape down and nail the wax and oil and leave you guessing about how the hell he came up with this blue next to this grey or orange (if it is an "orange"), or green or red... and the paint lays think and heavy-- flesh on bone, with all the implicit perfections and/or imperfections... i remember, in a bar in chicago, james discussing my own work, saying to me--"...all that shit means something, the drips, the marks...". yeah, you're right...

it's good to know there are masters at work...

it's even better if you've been able to drink away an afternoon or 2 with them.

i raise this glass to you, james.
thanks...

it seems that paint is alive and well in NYC... it's nice to be able to say that.

a few weeks ag0, there was the paintings of michael brennan at brooklyn's 210 gallery, a great space with a strong curatorial program put together by the artist, troy tecau. last year i wrote about brennans' new work, as i saw it at the gary snyder project space. this is the kind of work where you look and, after the initial pleasures, you can't help but try to figure out how the artist does what he does... for me, part of the majesty of brennan's painting is that mystery, that and the firm commitment of the hard horizon line at the bottom of each piece. brennan brings oil to life and seemingly arrests it's motion, creating works that are both lyrical and rugged.

in chelsea, last week we had don voisine exhibiting new work at mckenzie fine art, just across the street from the madhouse scene of chuck close's opening at pacewildenstein. voisine is a master of black. there is a cold black, a warm black, a reflective black... all held tight by his hard edged line and the limited palette of (at times, surprising) contrasts. for my eye, the big thing with voisine's work is the surprise you get with each viewing-- that shape in the middle of the composition isn't what you think it is-- there's that tilt, that corner shaved off just so... at times a willful diagonal cuts across and stops short... and then there's that black....

that i've been so moved by these shows is no surprise in that i've been working black in the brooklyn studio for sometime now. there is an intensity is these labors that i believe comes from the force of the paint, of the black... there is the black of night, the black of water, of oil itself, the flat, sensuous matte of gesso, the grays that darken into tones of a black you just now discovered as you laid it on with the 4 inch brush... and now i get to bring these pieces together in a 2-person exhibit with the sculptor, christine howard sandoval, at the beautiful, newly renovated (and renamed, midstream) 124 performance and art space in brooklyn. and my long delayed solo show at roger ramsay gallery in chicago is set to be installed. and then, last night there was the opening of the james little show in soho's june kelly gallery.

more to come...

i had the great pleasure of attending a lecture by irving sandler, author of the seminal work, The Triumph of American Painting, published in 1970. the lecture was to introduce his new work, Abstract-Expressionism and The American Experience: A Re-Evaluation. sandler was concise and eloquent. his main point in the new book being his idea that pollock, de kooning and interestingly enough, clyfford still make up the most important artists of the ab-ex movement, particularly from the pivotal years of '47-'50. the clyfford still pick was a bit of a stretch to my mind at first, but sandler seems to believe still offered heavy doses of influence to both rothko and newman. he didn't go into whether or not this influence was more intellectual or with regard to formal composition, but it made sense. another premise he pushed was that both pollock and still were from the western plains, and that that experience pushed their vast "landscapes" and vistas-- hence the influence on rothko and newman; 2 very urban artists. makes sense.

one point he made really resonated with me, particularly with regards to my own work. sandler mentioned that, in writing his new work, he wondered why certain artists didn't meet his criteria of the most important art. what was that criteria?? his finalization was that there was great "lyrical" art being done (bradley walker tomlin, was mentioned), but that only the art dealing with the tragic and the "terrible sublime" reached the level of the "most important art."

yes...

i've been looking through some old issues of Artforum. i leaf through the pages and here and there an ad will jump out at me. the text is a non-issue, as is the featured art and the artists involved in the making of said art. yes, we have art from india, south america, africa, eastern europe, the middle east, asia (especially, china, of course...), etc, etc... but are we better for it?? especially considering that the video crap coming out of ghana will look pretty much like the video crap coming out of hamburg, that looks remarkably like the video crap coming out of taipei. the twisted, misunderstood legacy of duchamp mutated with the additions of raushenberg and warhol and we've been living with the afterbirth ever since. and thats what you see in Artforum, or any number of rags with the pretensions of dealing with art. there is the photography, the aforementioned video, installation, actions, conceptions, etc... and at this point, they've been around for a good 4 decades-- time enough to have developed significant variations of language and meaning, both singularly and collectively. sadly, as clement greenberg foretold in the late 60's, the "alternative media", if you will, has become homogenously academic, to say the very least.

by the nature of it's democracies these media are an easy out for those who need it. the juvenile humor takes the place of high seriousness, the video protects from the visceral reality of paint, stone and metal. fine... but the horror of it IS THAT IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME. EACH "ARTIST" IS AS ANONYMOUS AS ANY OTHER FROM ANY OTHER LOCATION ON THE PLANET. IT IS THE SAME LOOK, THE SAME ATTITUDE, THE SAME POLITICS, THE SAME SHOCK TO THE MIDDLE CLASS (OR SOME OTHER DISTENDED ENEMY), THE SAME VITRINES, THE SAME LIQUIDS, THE SAME BODY FLUIDS, THE SAME NUDITY, THE SAME SELF-CONSCIOUS POSTURING AND PROMOTION...

something else i get from checking out these Artforums-- there is some damn fine painting being done in the world. and it looks good and it looks powerful and looks like an individual work of art. and you wouldn't know this by reading any of the reviews or featured articles, you would arrive at this realization simply through looking at the ads. every now and then a few of them will jump out at you. maybe it's only a detail of a particular painting, but it's there nonetheless...

one of the joys of mid-century modernism was how the diversity of international flavors developed and matured. for sure, there was a definitive "american" painting going on. and the same could be said for france in the 50's and 60's... i think it was greenberg who brought up the comparison between the work of kline and soulages. yes, both artists leaned on black and white and, obviously, the abstract expression. but there it ends. and then there were the germans, the other sordid examples of northern european art and, quite romantically the canadians, toiling anonymously and powerfully. a few years ago, on a trip to montreal i was struck by the sheer number of GREAT paintings by various artists from the last 50 years I HAD NEVER HEARD OF... and each one, though (for the most part) sharing the interest and exploration of abstraction worked through very different means, purposes and aesthetics. i won't act like i know much of mid-century art in asia and africa. but i'd guess that there was an aesthetic set of principals and understandings much different than those of the western world. but now? now cultural variation is only in the name on the slide label and maybe related somehow to the various pretensions involved. now, we have a hegemony of poorly realized, international regurgitations of weinerourslermccarthykelly and thats really about it and it's sad and it's futile to worry too much about it and it's more important to just (somehow) make it to the studio and make the work you need to make and maybe read a poem and maybe drink some wine and then come home and cook dinner and go to bed and then it all starts over again and you look back on the yesterdays and smile, having done what you could... add to that going to whatever job is allowing you to pay rent for a studio and buy paint and all the rest and well, my friend, thats life.

there has been a lot of talk and a lot of writing about what the economic shit storm will do to (or for) art and the art world. well, the idea of artists making money on their art is, all things considered, a relatively recent concept. galleries will close. collectors will be a little tighter with their dollars and all of that is fine. artists will keep on with their work.

and perhaps there will be a merciful culling of the herd...

ok... making black (predominately black) paintings can be a wonderful, invigorating experince, or it can lead one into a personal blackness of the soul and intellect. i'm working out these canvases that have been worked on and worked out for years now... and while i'm trying to understand what they try to say i'm reading essays on the late, dark (black) work of rothko. these late works, of course, came to conclusion with rothko slicing his forearms and bathing (in a union suit, it is said) in a widening pool of blood... where am i going with this?? good question. i want my work to be invested with emotion and truth and a somber quiet romanticism... these are heady terms and needs to bring up in this day and age in this time and this art world. emotion is tough to deal with and truth is the truth, hence (we would be led to believe, untouchable) and the quietly romantic, austere qualities of real art and expression are way to hard to come by and deal with-- hence, our state of the art of nonsense and non-art... fine. yeah...

once again, it's been a long time...

so, last week i dragged out a 58x84 canvas that i started 4 years ago. needless to say, it has become something new and important to me. black and harsh... it's going to be a good journey wherever it leads. to paraphrase the eastern sages: the goal is the path... and today i went back into the 60x48 canvas i've been working on since 2001... we'll see. time in the studio has been good, bad, frustrating and invigorating. kind of what one can expect if this is the life chosen. moments in there of complete ennui and then suddenly the drawings are going and the paint flies and hits its mark with aplomb. or not...

a commissioned piece is finished or nearly so, there are possibilities brewing (to be firmed up) and spring is coming sooner or later. and i'm trying to make my work. to paraphrase once again, this time brice marden, "it's not about a single painting, its about doing your work and the evolution of a vision." fuck yeah...

this is a tough game we play-- this making of art, the laying down of expression-- visual, tactile, heroic, lyrical, what have you. anyone brave enough to labor through these wilds publicly needs no apologists or defenders. the act and or action or activity of the creation is validation and, indeed, defense enough. but there are times when words must be laid down to right a wrong, and clear up foggy notions.

a year or 2 ago, holly myers reviewed an exhibition of paintings by alex couwenberg at the now defunct, DEN Contemporary. her review was concise, literate and, in it's conclusion, somewhat damning. fine... her arguments were points of aesthetics and composition. and, to be fair, though one may or may not agree with said points, quite relevant...

skip ahead to her review of couwenberg's recent show at William Turner Gallery and we have a much different review-- the same tone, granted, but a much different review all together. here (in the LA Times, Culture Monster) myers brings up couwenbergs "...pronounced fondness for Midcentury Modernism..." ok. in a recent post on this site i mentioned how writers have fallen into the ease of this reference regarding couwenbergs work, and here another writer moves forward for the hook...

but now, with this new piece, we go along a strange and dark path of discussion as myers continues: "--so pronounced, it seems to have shouldered out any competing inspiration." this caught me for a moment. what?? had we seen the same work?

where was the discussion of the muscular composition? where were the words discussing the bravura use of material and stunning technique?

to give myers the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she has not experienced couwenbergs work of the last 5 or 6 years... my first encounter with the artist's work was one of stunned silence in the face of a singular, proud originality. the moves were there-- the use of material, stunning and innovative, the composition-- well, yeah, flawless... at that time, couwenberg used an elliptical, near organic line to divide vectors of the panel and the composition. it was a line, that, while not unanticipated, was also startlingly new. from there couwenberg went into a phase of investigation involving monochromes and various takes on gloss, and or luminous surface. he pared his compositions down to mere blocks in space, or perhaps soaring arabesques. then he turned to the more graphic, referential forms of his current work. all the while couwenberg exhibited his precise, austere sense of craft and composition. his innate fine taste and balance...

yes, midcentury modernism... why not?? myers herself calls the work; "...sleek, multilayered, spatially sophisticated compositions...". whats the problem? she goes on to write that, "...there is much to be said for a handsome, well-crafted picture." yeah, no shit... again, why not?? where is the problem? it's hard work to make a good painting. damn hard work. it takes guts and your hands get dirty and the stress eats away at you and keep at it and maybe it works. maybe not. but thats what it takes and understanding that process is part of the understanding of paint. it seems that myers' take on art is one that goes beyond the power of aesthetics and sincerity. ok, thats the way of the world, looking at and digging good painting isn't easy. that might explain the proliferation of so much crap installed in the galleries and museums, it's the yearning for the unique and the "lower east side", if you will, of the art world-- the look and the take on things of an artistic nature that frowns on the seriousness of intent found in the best of art and shines simply on the vapid, pedestrian POSTMODERNIST regurgitations of any number of galleries and MFA programs. indeed, any number of college graduate idiots nailing polaroids of their asses to the limpid walls of limpid galleries.

yeah... so how far to take this? how ugly do i get to get my point across? fuck it... myers (and the couple of lightweight dimwits who commented on the LA Times website, one of the lost actually brought up COBRA as a point of quality...) confuse fine art with their vision of labels and purpose. if myers came out and said these paintings were for shit, hell, why not? that would be a real statement and a fight worth fighting and standing for. i'd probably be tearing up words against that notion, but at least it would be a battle for the winning. alas, myers came out and told us how good the work was, then turned that into an attack on the very optimism she wrote of.

perhaps she didn't look at them long enough. and if she looked at them long enough she sure as hell didn't have the chops to dig the work for what it was. sadly, it must be said that it seems myers is missing something in the evaluation of painterly activity.

in conclusion, this particular piece was lazy journalism and, at worst, lazy intellectualism, camouflaged, conveniently, with a yearning for something outside the sinew of the aesthetic.

and now i will have another drink and look out the window at a cold new york night,
not unlike any number of painters--

great, lost, dead or forgotten...

a good day in the studio and then the hassle of trying to find a parking spot... life in NYC. we deal with it... or we don't. after i filled up my xmas present flask with a bit of vodka to ward off the winter night, i hit the subway uptown to the performance/exhibition/collaboration of artist, mark wiener and Panman Productions, on the roof of 123 East 47th street. film, music, and wiener with various programs on his laptop, layering images on the whitewashed wall of the neighboring building. it was cold and the artist asked who had a joint and i seconded the notion. where was my stash when so sorely needed?? it was that sort of night-- cold, cold and the wind started and then the mere cold became something a bit more horrific. but who's counting?

i hadn't realized how long it had been since i wrote in this... it's kind of like trying to keep a correspondance up with a beautiful woman a world away-- you want to put down these words, but life gets in the way and the words don't get down. and then you may or may not forget each other... but thats another story.

it's been a great 10 days out here in the valley-- mid '80-'s throughout the trip, while nyc was hovering around 6 degrees. nice... so tonight is the last night. i took out 4 new paintings (completed on this trip) to the william turner gallery in santa monica and bill seemed pretty excited by them, so thats not a bad thing. now it's the usual holding pattern of waiting. and waiting. but they're out there in the world, not cluttering up my small space out here under the orange tree. and i'm proud of them-- i think these are paintings that helped me learn a bit more about my art. there is a lot of moves from the latest nyc work in them as well, thats their strength-- these new moves entering the fray. and the best part is that driving back, on the cramped 405, i started envisioning new pieces to be made, new color, new form, what have you...

so, last saturday, jan. 17th, my great friend, the artist alex couwenberg had his first solo show at the turner gallery. the day i flew in i went out to the gallery and checked out the installation in progress. we shared some beers and discussed the orientation of three birch panels, along the massive main wall-- alex settled on an 8 inch seperation. then i drove back to the valley and got back to work...

the opening of his show on that saturday was (for all his commercial success) alex's coming out party. this was the kind of reception you dream of as an artist... period. there were the senior abstract painters of LA (ed moses, jimmy heyward), the writers (mat gleason, george melrod, peter frank and kerry kugelman) and the hot women you would imagine coming to a hot painting show in santa monica. indeed, the art was great and a lot of it was wearing high heels... sadly, i must say this isn't always the case in nyc. and, when i think about it, it's not always the truth in SO Cal, it just seems that way sometimes... and thank god for it. but yeah, the art... couwenberg has always been an inventing and gripping artist of a most graphic quality and intent. the first time i saw his work (we were both in the holiday group show at ruth bachofner gallery, maybe 2002, or so) i was floored by the material and that sensuous curve of line. through the years he's managed to maintain a startling consistancy, while, at the same time, invigorating his work with dynamic shifts of interest and compositional twists. in the end, this is the work of the wholly charged, fully engaged and focused artist. there are many painters tackling the issues of process and surface, etc, etc... there always have been. i do it myself... alex couwenberg gives us, however a bold and (dare i say?) original take on matters of such painterly importance. others, including the above mentioned writers have discussed such concrete influences as mid-century design, surf boards, etc, on and on, trying to pinpoint a hub for couwenbergs unique perspective. fine. perhaps its important to have that firm a grounding... i'll say this: alex and i were talking in NYC about inspiration. someone asked him what his inspiration was, earlier that night. it's a question that i've (and probably any other artist) had lobbed at me countless times. to paraphrase (we both had a lot to drink that night, funny enough...), alex looked at me and said something like, "...it's everything-- how can't you be inspired??"