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...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
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...
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...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
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...
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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...
Monday, February 2, 2009
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 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...
Friday, January 30, 2009
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?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
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??"
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??"
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