Money for Artists

Pro Arts is working on an innovative fundraising event for art projects: Art Eat-Up. To quote the Art Eat-Up site:

Art Eat-Up is a food, drink and entertainment event with a twist; for a small donation, guests eat a delicious meal, enjoy good company and musical entertainment, and vote for the most worthy art proposal on the menu that night. All profits collected go to the winning artists to realize their project, which will be displayed at the next Art Eat-Up event. It is a great way to network, meet new people, have fun and provide support for a local art project. Art Eat-Up provides individual grants for artists, connects artists to each other and to the greater community and promotes the artistic livelihood of our community.

It will be held on Saturday, March 13, from 6 to 9 pm, at Villa Borinquen’s 1st Floor event space (396 Manila Ave.). Suggested donation is $20. The deadline for proposals is March 1; the submission guidelines can be found here.

The Jersey City Independent just published an excellent post on it, and you can find that here.

Duchamp and Friends

Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Widow, 1920, Museum of Modern Art

Marcel Duchamp’s work is displayed in what is probably the worst room in MoMA’s permanent collection -- if you can even call it a room at all. It’s more of a large landing for the old stairway in the middle of the building. But maybe installing it there wasn’t such a bad idea. Duchamp’s work -- raw, informal, non-artful -- handles the casual space well.

This isn’t to say Duchamp’s work is casual or offhand -- it's just the opposite. It’s deliberate and mindful, even if it sometimes uses chance; and I always feel with his art that a human being has made choices and decisions, however absurd. And, as a corollary to this, Duchamp’s work, with the possible exception of some of his Readymades, is fabricated by hand. Of course almost all art is hand-made, but Duchamp’s is emphatically so, and we strongly experience it as such.

Back side of Fresh Widow

This hand-made quality was brought home to me when I took a good look at the back of Fresh Widow -- a miniature French window (a typically bad pun) whose glass is covered with black leather that Duchamp insisted “should be shined every day like shoes.” (Given the cracks on the leather, I doubt if MoMA honored this request.) It’s displayed near a wall, but not right up against it, so the back of the work can be easily seen. (I wonder if Duchamp included exhibition guidelines for this as he did with several other works.I also wonder if the glass case Fresh Widow is displayed in was Duchamp’s idea -- I doubt it.)

Btw, in the same room are paintings by Duchamp’s friends and colleagues Man Ray, John Covert and Katherine Dreier. They all worked with Duchamp to establish organizations (The Society of Independent Artists and the Société Anonyme) that exhibited and promoted modern art and educated people about it. Duchamp also made a modest income advising such great collectors as Walter Arensberg (whose collection is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art), Peggy Guggenheim and Katherine Dreier (mentioned above, whose collection went to Yale and MoMA).

For someone so reluctant to promote or sell his own work (or even admit to making art at all), Duchamp seemed to have had no trouble doing so for others. I can relate to that!

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Unexpected Theatricality

An illustration showing the likely colors of the dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi, Evidence Builds on Color of Dinosaurs, New York Times, February 5, 2010 and National Geographic.

When we think of the art of classical antiquity, certainly Greek Classic Art, we think of somber, pure white marble sculptures. Likewise, when we think of the Renaissance, especially the Italian High Renaissance, we conjure up balance, restraint and idealization. But a performance and two exhibitions (unfortunately, only one still ongoing) remind us how important theater and theatricality were.

The Sackler Museum at Harvard had an exhibition a couple of years ago, “Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity.” It was a show of about a dozen scientific reconstructions of what Greek Classic sculptures really looked like. I unfortunately missed the exhibition by one day, but the reproductions I saw in the catalog were mind-blowing (see below). Not only were Greek Classic sculptures painted, but they were painted in garish, bright colors and flashy patterns. And don’t forget, these works were settings for grand theatrical events -- the Panathenaic festivals and processions

Reconstruction of a Trojan archer from the west pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina ca. 490-480 B.C, in "Gods in Color" at Harvard's Sackler Museum

More recently, in a one-day event, film director Peter Greenaway used theatrical lighting to create the illusion of light shining on Leonardo’s Last Supper (c. 1495-1498) from a now-bricked-up window of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. That is, Greenaway re-created the window, light and shadows that existed when Leonardo was painting the fresco and that he used to reinforce the perspectival illusion. Witnesses were astounded at how miraculously three dimensional this made the painting look.

The Last Supper, even the ruin we know today, is extravagantly theatrical: it’s very large (about 15’ x 29’) and Christ and apostles are on an elevated plane, like a proscenium stage, that realistically continues the space of the room In addition, the original was flamboyantly colorful. This can be seen in a digital reconstruction of The Last Supper created by the media company, Leonardo3 (see below). Not only are the colors bright and contrasting but, similar to Classical sculpture, Leonardo painted brightly colored and elaborately patterned tapestries on the walls. When the work was in good condition, before it deteriorated and was vandalized, and before a door was installed below Christ, it must have felt like you were in a dining hall having supper with Christ and the Apostles, witnessing a highly agitated and dramatic moment -- when Christ told them “one of you will betray me.”

This theatricality and staginess shouldn’t be surprising since Leonardo was very involved with theater. He designed a revolving stage in 1490 (never built), and arranged the settings, masks, and costumes for wedding celebrations, parades and festivals. He even made a mechanical automaton lion for the the new King of France, King Francis I, on the occasion of his solemn entry into Lyon in 1515 (see below). The robot lion took a couple of steps, kneeled on one knee and pulled open its chest with its paws, revealing a profusion of golden lilies. A reconstruction of this lion, and many of Leonardo’s other inventions, as well as the high resolution digital reproduction of the Last Supper discussed above, can be seen in the exhibition: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Workshop, Discovery Times Square Exposition, 226 West 44th Street, until March 14th (tickets are about $20). The exhibition is an odd combination of serious scholarship and commercial hype (it’s in the same space as a Titanic artifact exhibition) but well worth a visit. Besides, it’s a look at what museum exhibitions might be like in the future (material for another post).

I Love Surprises

Doug Wheeler, Untitled, 1969

Sprayed lacquer on acrylic with neon tubing

David Zwirner Gallery

David Zwirner, Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970 (until February 6^th --sorry). This show got a lot of attention, and rightly so. It included all the people associated with Los Angeles “Light and Space Art” of the sixties and then some. Helen Pashgian, who was unjustly excluded from the group, probably because she was (oh my God!) a woman, is represented by some small cast resin globes, and her work fits perfectly. There’s also a piece by Laddie John Dill -- sheets of glass stuck in sand and lit from below by argon light. Dill is not usually associated with this group because he went on to make different work -- paintings made with concrete and glass -- but this work also fits.

I must say, after all the nasty things I said about LA “Light and Space Art” and “The Cool School,” the show looked great! I think possibly after all the heavy art in Chelsea -- the nagging political or identity art, the difficult and obscure conceptual art and the huge and showy theatrical spectaculars -- so prevalent in the last few years, it was a relief to see something that was just mindlessly beautiful. I know this seems like a backhanded compliment, but I don’t mean it that way.

Monet's Water Lillies at MoMA

Monet, Water Lilies, Reflection of Weeping Willows, 1914-28, MoMA

Until this show (MoMA through April 12), I guess I was always too busy looking at the interior of Monet's Water Lilies to really appreciated the many ways Monet framed these paintings. I don't mean the wood frames around the paintings, I mean the painted ones within the painting.

You can see the ways Monet ended his paintings before the edge even in these poor photos taken with my iPhone. His Water Lilies don't continue indefinitely beyond the frame, but rather come to a definite end before the edge. He'd leave a few inches unpainted (like Pollock did with his classic drip paintings), he'd curve the brushstrokes back around, or he'd change the hue, value or texture of the brushstrokes as they approached the edge. This not only creates an ending to the paintings but, more important, makes the paintings self contained -- makes the paintings a thing existing in our world, not an imaginary picture behind (and beyond) the frame. Monet learned the lesson of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon well.

More Bauhaus

I went to the day-long Bauhaus symposium organized by the Museum of Modern Art. They had some brilliant speakers and I learned a lot, but I was disappointed they didn't really say anything about what, for me, made the Bauhaus show a revelation. What really struck me about the show was how warm, varied and sensual the work was, instead of the usual cliche about it being mechanical and impersonal. For a brief but insightful essay on The Bauhaus as I experienced it, check out Robert C. Morgan's article, "The Bauhaus Idea" in the December/January Brooklyn Rail.

More on Richard Tuttle

Metal Shoes, 6 © 2009 Richard Tuttle and Gemini G.E.L. ^LLC

Detail: Metal Shoes, 6 © 2009 Richard Tuttle and Gemini G.E.L. ^LLC

And while I’m on Tuttle, a word about two current exhibitions of his work: Metal Shoes, new prints at Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl (until February 27th) and the well-named Seeing Intimacy at the Craig Starr Gallery (Until February 13th).

Tuttle’s works on paper are especially understated and subtle -- everything counts. So at the opening of his Gemini prints show, I asked him about the frames and if they were a problem. He gave me a good answer, as far as it went. He said artists keep the size and shape of the work in mind as they work on it. This makes sense here since he chose the frames.

I should have asked him about the glass, because that influences his work much more than the frame does. His work, so intimate and so involved with surface and subtle color, is more affected by glass than most. Maybe he considered that with these prints. Maybe he used the glass -- the reflections and glossiness -- to make the images even more subtle. But I feel the loss of intimacy with the work is a problem. After all, glass literally separates you from the print.

In any case, it’s unlikely Tuttle intended the frames in a show of about a dozen works on paper, mainly from 1972, at the the Craig Starr Gallery. For one thing, during this period, Tuttle hung his work unframed. And these frames are particularly obtrusive: antiqued gold in most cases, and one (“Blues Overlapping”) a shabby silver frame with a deep box for a mat.

I don’t want to bash this show -- it’s engaging work from one of his best periods, and it only required a little extra effort for me to overcome the frames. I just want to make a point about what I call “the Fluxus paradox.” Art sometimes radically changes when it leaves the care of the artist. Fluxus art was casual, non-precious and unpretentious. Now that it’s been painstakingly preserved and carefully framed, or displayed (under guard) in glass cases (see the Fluxus Preview, 4th floor, MoMA), the work has become formal, precious and pretentious -- i.e. just the opposite of the original intent.

Los Angeles Art of the Sixties

The Los Angeles “Cool School” is getting a lot of attention lately. It's a loose group of about a dozen artists working in Los Angeles in the sixties, famous for very refined surfaces (“fetish finish” was one term applied to them) and very simple, minimal work that often dealt with light. It’s possible all this new interest was triggered by “The Cool School,” a 2008 movie, but maybe there’s something about the uncomplicated beauty of the work that’s refreshing today -- or most likely, it’s just a coincidence. Whatever, there are three or four places (depending on who is included in the “School”) showing this work now:

David Zwimmer , “Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960-1970.” It includes work by Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Laddie John Dill, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, Helen Pashgian, James Turrell, De Wain Valentine, and Doug Wheeler.

Franklin Parrasch, “Ronald Davis monochrome painting from the 60's.” Parrasch has focused on LA art of this period over the years, exhibiting Joe Goode, Ken Price, Peter Alexander, Billy Al Bengston and others.

PS1, as part of their encyclopedic exhibition “1969,” re-created a 1969 MoMA exhibition of new acquisitions by Larry Bell, Ron Davis, Robert Irwin and Craig Kauffman.

And a show of the much under-appreciated artist of an older generation who usually isn’t associated with “The Cool School” but has some similar concerns, John McLaughlin at Greenberg Van Doren, recently review by Roberta Smith. I haven’t seen it yet, but he’s one of my favorite California artists.

When I lived in LA, I didn’t much care for “The Cool School.” I thought it was too provincial and kind of thin. And even when the work had more substance (Irwin and Kauffman), I felt the miraculous beauty was a little cheap. I mean, of course you're going to be amazed by Irwin’s floating disk -- very Zen and all. I was also put off by the artists (not Irwin) who, for the most part, acted like anti-intellectual, macho, art stars. (One of these artists once told me, “I don’t look at art, I just make it.”) I wanted something more substantial, tougher both intellectually and emotionally. For me, at the time, the best artists in LA (Diebenkorn excepted -- who wasn't really considered an LA artist) were Davis and Charles Garabedian (a topic for another post). (LA also had an exciting art-architecture scene inspired by Frank Gehry.)

Ronald Davis, “Monochrome Painting From The 1960's”

Franklin Parrasch Gallery, January 6 – February 20, 2010

I never thought of Davis as fitting into the LA “Cool School,” but the Parrasch show changed my mind. Not that I now realize Ron was an anti-intellectual jerk and his art was thin. Not at all. I loved this show. Davis wasn’t particularly friendly with these artists, and certainly wasn’t considered to be part of “the cool school,” but the sensual silky surfaces of this work, and the ethereal color -- still gorgeous 45 years later -- make me think there is some connection. Of course Davis went in a very different direction -- to illusionistic work done in 3-point perspective -- work just hinted at from the two point linear perspective of this work.

Richard Tuttle, “Constructed Relief Paintings, 1964 - 65”

Peter Freeman, Inc. Gallery, 3 November 2005 - 28 January 2006

Richard Tuttle’s “Constructed Relief Paintings” of 1964 and 1965 were made about the same time as Davis’s paintings, and they have a lot in common. Tuttle, like Davis, worked on relatively thick stretcher bars; they both made shaped paintings; they both applied many coats of paint to get the surface just right; and both used peculiar colors -- colors you can’t really put your finger on. Tuttle even showed at Nicholas Wilder, Davis’s gallery, in 1969. Of course Tuttle’s work was more concerned with the hand-drawn edge of the reliefs and Davis, as I noted, was concerned with 2-point perspective, but there was still a lot in common. Most likely, Davis and Tuttle were both influence by Frank Stella’s shaped paintings.

An interesting side note: the Peter Freemen gallery in Soho had an excellent show of Tuttle’s “Constructed Relief Paintings” four years ago, and I remember trying to decide if the top edges of the paintings were painted a lighter shade or it was just the lighting. Roberta Smith walked in and I mentioned it to her. When we asked the director of the gallery about it, she took a painting down to see it in another light (it was Roberta Smith after all), and we still couldn’t decide. I recently asked Tuttle about it (next post) and he had an interesting answer. The work was painted all the same color, but where the wood stretcher bars pressed against the canvas, the texture was subtly changed and reflected light differently. So once again, everything counts!

More Good Old Days

A friend of mine emailed me this photo from the home page of the Franklin Parrasch Gallery. I immediately knew it was Ron Davis’s work from the mid-sixties and I also easily recognized Ron Davis standing in the right foreground. But neither of us could place where it was. I figured because of the small space and the dressy clothing, it had to be some uptown New York Gallery. When I went by the Parrasch Gallery to see the show (more on that later) I was astounded to learn it was the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles.

The more I looked at the photo the more I remembered about the Wilder gallery and that time in Los Angeles. I was a student at UCLA’s Graduate School of Business and was in the process of transferring to the Art History Department (a story for another time). I was passionately interested in contemporary art and would get into intense arguments with my fellow students about such sophomoric things as “is there good and bad art,” or “the importance of the framing edge.”

I’d take a couple of buses (I was the only person I knew in LA without a car) to go to La Cienega Boulevard for the Monday night “Art Walks”. Eventually I met Nick Wilder who took me under his wing and taught me about contemporary art. He would pull out work from his back room and talk to me about it; he’d tell me about books and articles I should read; and he’d introduce me to artists, including a young student wunderkind, Bruce Nauman. He even took me and my wife to Laguna Beach once to meet John McLaughlin -- one of the high points of our lives in LA. And he introduced me to Ron Davis, who at the time was one of LA’s most famous artists. His work was on the cover of Artforum with an article by Michael Fried , and he showed with Leo Castelli.

Ron and I became good friends. I remember going to his home/studio in a scruffy part of LA, and later (when he became more successful financially) in Malibu where he had a house and later a studio designed by Frank Gehry (yet another story). He kept trying to talk me into becoming an artist. He said the way I wrote about art was the way an artist thinks about it. When I told him I couldn’t draw a straight line he told me that’s what rulers were for. We’d talk until 3:00 in the morning and, driving back very late (I was married and had a car by then) I remember telling my new wife that I wanted to be an artist and that if I wasn’t successful in five years I’d give it up. (That only lasted one year when I told her I couldn’t give it up successful or not).

Once, when Ron came by my studio and saw some drawings and tentative works on cheap paper I was doing, he told me if I wanted to make drawings I should continue doing what I was doing, but if I wanted to make paintings, make paintings. But the most important things I learned were from watching him paint. I learned that even the best screwed up, but really good artists (like carpenters) knew how to deal with their screw-ups -- including using them.

I’m writing this not just because it’s fun to reminisce (okay, that’s the main reason), but because I don’t think it’s possible for kids to have this kind of access and mentoring anymore. (And I haven’t even begun to relate all the other opportunities I had then.) I think the art world is just too big and too stratified, at least in New York and Los Angeles. Kids may be better off in a city like Philadelphia or Seattle where they might have more access, but access to whom? Would they be exposed to people of the ambitiousness, ability and knowledge, let alone generosity, that I was lucky enough to be exposed to? Artists have always gravitated to one city or another; I don’t think I’m being a provincial snob (although I am one) to say that the best artists (in the United States, anyway) want to be in New York or possibly LA.

And yet… and yet… young artists are so much smarter, talented, ambitious, hard-working and connected than I remember ever being. So who knows!!