tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29794008518802309972011-11-27T16:17:22.989-08:00the art life is the good lifeCRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comBlogger841100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-80843646219737450842011-03-02T16:29:00.000-08:002011-03-02T16:53:45.552-08:00

Today President Obama awarded the National Medal for the Arts to Mark di Suvero.In a stiff and awkward ceremony, Obama made an absolutely painful speech trying to justify the arts and humanities. One can only hope that the Ford mentality which demands efficient and practical purpose for all things would loosen its grip on the American sensibility, but I suppose it is what makes us Americans...

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-13873193742597132012011-02-24T17:14:00.001-08:002011-02-25T22:04:22.873-08:00

This month was about meat.From the series My Funny Valentine, 2010 by Anja Tanner.The continuing carnation of Victoria Reynolds, Couchon Verni, 2010, showing at Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. And out of the past but ever powerful, a series of eighteen photos of Suzanne Lacy with beef parts in a complex and amazing show about the body at Jancar Gallery in Los Angeles.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-89657648509007037372011-01-28T14:40:00.001-08:002011-01-31T14:59:43.653-08:00

Heart of the MatterLet me say this:Eva Hesse was a formidable artist. Powerful, intense, capable. And even though people didn't always understand what she was up to, they sensed the boldness in her work, and at a time when women were barely given a nod she held sway, made her mark. By 1963 she had had her first one-woman show; by 1968 she had gallery representation. Two years after her death in

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-51847299274947061332009-12-31T15:06:00.000-08:002010-01-05T13:58:44.614-08:00

Close the door on 2009, but before it is forgotten I remember these moments of brightness.1. The year began and ended with really fine group shows at David Cunningham Projects, SF. Trying to Cope with Things that Aren't Human(Part One) I wrote about here. Jigsawmentalama was just as good, a kitchen-sink (as in everything but) of a show turning on the idea of transformation, mutation, things being

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-80598713111436926712009-09-08T15:18:00.000-07:002009-09-08T16:36:27.930-07:00

Texturizing is not a word. But it sounds like tenderizing and tantalizing, and yet points to texture, so why not? Texture is what I liked best about a wonderful show of black, white, and spare work at Jancar Jones Gallery, SF. Sean Talley creates works that look like prints, but are drawings—no, sculptures, really, made with very fine graphite dust. They look like this:The edges are precise and

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-41841541844332880492009-09-04T19:17:00.000-07:002009-09-06T10:59:25.551-07:00

Lately this is how I've been feeling...But then I went to David Cunningham Projects, SF, and I felt better all over. Talking to yourself is very important is the title of an installation by Pawel Kruk. Talking to yourself is very important especially if you know who's who in the conversation.Kruk has previously created videos in which he impersonates famous persons. Larger Than Life, for instance

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-59592476529920912009-07-21T17:54:00.000-07:002009-07-25T17:42:00.282-07:00

Oh I missed the show! I wish I could have been there—Susan O'Malley at Ping Pong Gallery, SF. But such is life. And, evidently, not being there was just where I needed to be.Being here now, I can tell you it made me happy (Be Happy Now) to discover someone else out there thinks these pithy, optimistic statements are worthy of re-casting as Art On The Walls. I would have loved to have been there

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-3082321414765460342009-07-17T17:52:00.000-07:002009-07-17T20:07:13.759-07:00

TED, the wonderful Technology, Entertainment, Design conference people hosted Daniel Libeskind in February. His talk, online here, is a lot like his designs, exploding with enthusiasms, stretching sometimes to keep with the theme. So although I might quibble with his list of 17 words which inspire his architectural dreams, I came away, yet again appreciating the expression of his vision.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-76940564201574235412009-07-16T14:37:00.000-07:002009-07-25T17:45:28.277-07:00

Dry Thirst of Honor is one of the photos in a show that has surprised me with its staying power, some two weeks after I saw it. The work is by Chris Gentile. The show is at Gregory Lind Gallery, SF, and the title is Reincarnation Blues.This is St John. I'm not sure if the image here conveys the photograph there, but that, curiously enough, is part of what the work is about.Start at the beginning.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-82907933137733851142009-07-02T16:08:00.000-07:002009-07-03T13:58:53.249-07:00

Today I learned the derivation of the name Buffalo chicken wings. I had always imagined buffalo, as in bison, but no, it is Buffalo, as in upstate New York, place of the original stingy hot sauce with blue cheese dressing on the side.Buffalo is in the Rust Belt which means as a city, it has been in decline along with other massive-industry centers like Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Detroit, steel and

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-21349710572035211392009-06-24T14:01:00.000-07:002009-06-27T20:25:57.460-07:00

This is one way to picture a mighty, massive California oak tree. It's an impression.Another way is to take multiple scans using some sort of mapping software, then process the data in Dreamworks to create a light display, like a sprinkling of luminescence, tracing the tree's contours, turning and spinning, creating an animated picture that is at one and the same time on the surface and on the

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-69417207910517149072009-06-03T15:36:00.000-07:002009-06-17T21:43:11.599-07:00

Okay. Stop the Music. I know that this blog is in a sorry state. The hits are way down because we are not posting very often. I have looked at this blog, and have not felt like writing anything about art recently. This world totally, totally, totally fucking sucks and I am very disheartened. Why do I want to even talk about art when George Bush and his fascist minions are turning our country into

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-11198013202824624112009-05-02T20:08:00.000-07:002009-05-02T20:21:12.400-07:00

Art in America Magazine, April 2009 edition.Yayoi Kusama courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.Elad Lassry courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-8715936845203360352009-04-24T12:03:00.000-07:002009-05-02T20:21:00.881-07:00

The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, is showing Nine Lives (Visionary Artists from) LA. I want to write about three out of the nine, one third, except, I've already written about Victoria Reynolds here and I don't have much else to say, so it is two out of nine, which is... what's the word for two-ninths? To keep with the tabulation, this is the fifth Hammer biennial exhibition of LA artists. Nine

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-11917234262690861522009-04-01T16:52:00.000-07:002009-04-10T17:51:52.043-07:00

I was so looking forward to this show. Nick Cave' Sound Suits at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. When I saw press photos of his sparkling beaded costumes I thought, The Fishgod has returned!This dancing man knows fabric, texture and design, costume and theatricality—and he has a penchant for amassing, archiving, and recreating the sequined detritus of last year's party and your great

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-89585415375924998412009-03-29T16:49:00.000-07:002009-04-11T00:08:59.168-07:00

"You got it," Steven Wirtz said to me. "I'm so glad you got it!"Oh yeah. I got it.And the poster. I want to tape it to my wall.Like I said to the gallerist who said encouragingly, "We have payment plans..."—"Free. Right now, free works for me."Steven Wirtz (he's so nice) is showing new work by Melanie Pullen. Remember how she created crimes scenes, down to the last gritty detail in the dark back

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-11254955814330081782009-03-10T21:06:00.001-07:002009-03-17T14:40:49.545-07:00

This is Steven Cohen, performance artist.Not just your usual gender-bending monster-mime drag queen clown.No. Nor your ordinary homo-probe, eros-busting, crazy-assed Jewish shaman-priest. With a prosthetic leg. Or horn feet even.No. This is Steven Cohen, performance artist, out of South Africa.Didn't expect that, huh? I didn't either which says something about my own assumptions about what comes

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-83772953371832131452009-03-06T13:32:00.000-08:002009-03-06T16:02:59.279-08:00

Just as painters from the 16th century onward (Titian, Rembrandt, Fragonard, Turner, Cézanne, and de Kooning, to name a few) began to foreground their medium and make it almost as much a subject of their pictures as what the painting nominally represented, photographers, over the course of the last 50 years [—] have been doing the same.Reading this in an article by Peter Plagens in Art in America

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-68140742123220649432009-02-23T15:37:00.000-08:002009-02-27T23:26:14.574-08:00

I ducked in out of the rain and into the Jonathan Solo show at Catharine Clark Gallery, SF. Like walking into a white cloud, not exactly diversity-heaven, but diversity dream, an alternate dream world where anything is possible.I say white cloud because these precious, precise, hand-drawn images are placed in vast vacant spaces of cream paper—a lot of light and space around these extraordinary

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-63857108415092311892009-02-10T20:20:00.000-08:002009-02-16T20:32:09.133-08:00

I've been thinking about this show I saw at Queen's Nails, every time I hear some song from the 80s... Thinking about what it means to feel sentimental about a song, about sentiment in music, about conditioning experience.As part of the extended reach of the 2008 California Biennial, Queen's Nails Projects hosted D'nell Larson an LA based artist who works with video, performance, installation.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-86011814974663399602009-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:002009-02-10T23:31:57.304-08:00

Sometimes I wonder about the timing of things. Insects for instance. Butterflies here, crickets there. Not exactly the same, and to a different purpose. But still.What I am on about is two very different shows that connected yet bounced off each other in a very... unsatisfying way. The Haines Gallery, SF, is showing new work by Binh Danh including three of his signature leaf-portraits and a

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-82733014463648863252009-01-30T18:00:00.000-08:002009-02-09T16:09:29.949-08:00

The sage returns to the original: a block of wood. A block of wood can be made into tools, but tools cannot be made into a block of wood.—MenciusBefore a block of wood is split, it can take any shape. Once it is split, it cannot be round if it is square. It cannot be straight if it is curved. Lao-Tzu tells us to avoid being split. Once we are split, we can never return to our original state.—Sung

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-13793229609915112992008-12-31T17:04:00.000-08:002009-01-09T00:09:54.690-08:00

The sun is setting on the last day of this difficult calendar year. For days I have been trying to wrap my head around the year's art events, searching out some way of framing what I saw and what I liked. What I really feel is relief it is over.But in sifting memories, notes, postcards and brochures, something emerged. This was a good year for video. (and film. Video and film. I lump it all

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-45757292907291772012008-12-12T21:45:00.000-08:002008-12-14T17:10:53.349-08:00

I can't tell you, I was so excited to read in the SF Bay Guardian that the Paul Thiebaud Gallery was showing a set of paint sketches by Franz Kline. Oh my.By far my favorite painter of the American mid-century scene, I am always happy to see his work, but here an opportunity to see something personal as well. Sketches are like that, personal, because they are the precursor to finished work, done

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-13491732068068265892008-12-04T13:43:00.000-08:002009-01-09T16:05:35.664-08:00

24 Hour ClockNam June Paik120 seconds for 24 pictures. Playing with time, shuffling along.—at the de Young Museum, SF.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-73179557184955063992008-12-02T18:17:00.001-08:002009-02-03T20:10:58.991-08:00

New to me any way.HumbleIn the new* Humble Arts Foundation group show, there's a portrait of potted plants. Intrigued, I learned more about the artist. Peter Happel Christian explores the nexus of landscape, representation, perception and history through conceptually driven photographs that include elements of sculpture and performance art. What does that look like exactly? Like this:Site in

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-71446937710331886822008-11-25T18:49:00.000-08:002008-12-05T16:31:25.338-08:00

Artists in conversation. Video to video. Picture to picture.At Queen's Nails Projects, SF—an off-site extension of the California Biennial 2008 this year curated by LAXART—Kelly Barrie's video Astral Fields faced Mary Kelly's Antepartum.Antepartum is a Super 8 film, 1:30 minutes long, made in 1973 of Kelly Barrie in utro-in the belly-moving hidden in the full-term pregnant belly of his mother,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-52221111965875394482008-11-23T23:47:00.000-08:002009-09-08T16:44:33.157-07:00

I passed a chunk of concrete on the sidewalk. It was a chunk of concrete. I remembered how in the gallery, inside the two plastic pots was a chunk of concrete. This was an artwork.Don't you love art?!It is a beautiful thing.I saw this artwork by Bill Jenkins at Jancar Jones Gallery (SF), a special set-aside place for having special art moments. You don't need a password to enter the gallery, but

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-1549454110566679412008-11-18T19:47:00.000-08:002009-06-06T13:45:49.325-07:00

The Fan: Damien Hirst on Francis BaconI think Bacon is one of the greatest painters of all time. He's up there with Goya, Soutine and Van Gogh: dirty painters who wrestle with the dark stuff. He's complicated. It's not essentially about formal skill or technique or dexterity. It's about belief. I believe! And the struggle, the sense that you somehow grunt your way though it by sheer will. That's

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-77716699604762355502008-11-01T19:51:00.000-07:002008-11-05T21:40:30.526-08:00

This, that, and the other led to the an online encounter with my new fav-o-rite photographer, Chris Jordan.My discovery coincided with the announcement of the winner of the Prix Pictet, a new global prize celebrating the work of both professional and amateur photographers. Awarded last week in Paris, the Prix Pictet is the first competition of its type to focus on the global issue of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-51426736741127574832008-10-24T19:50:00.000-07:002008-11-06T17:45:41.535-08:00

The Dutch have been thinking about the Midwest. The US Midwest. In collaboration with the Smart Museum of the University of Chicago, the Van Abbemuseum (in Eindhoven, Netherlands) has created an introduction to the art of "an unknown part of a well-known country." Heartland features works by artists and institutions of the region either side of the Mississippi River.I love the idea of tapping

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-83859182025115989582008-10-14T17:17:00.000-07:002008-11-04T12:33:38.449-08:00

Dropping in at the de Young to see prints by Martin Puryear...I came across an early assemblage by Mark di Suvero. So here's another of his works to add to the list. Oh my. The room seemed barely wide enough for this piece, I couldn't back up far enough to get the whole thing in the picture. It's a baby sculpture compared to his later works, but still big—a conglomerate of tree trunk, phone pole,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-58107202153078312432008-10-01T14:22:00.000-07:002008-10-01T15:25:08.390-07:00

In April I wrote a piece that included some ruminations about Catherine Opie's new portraits of football players showing at Regen Projects, LA. I wasn't completely enthralled by them, felt something missing. Recently I read this bit of explanation in a NY Times review by Hilarie M. Sheets of Opie's mid-career survey taking place now at the Guggenheim Museum. Another current project is

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-60015678487430200552008-09-25T13:07:00.000-07:002008-09-30T16:33:36.765-07:00

Lest we forget.Reading a review by Richard Kalina in the September Art in America, I come across this passage:In 1946 an unnamed male critic (not Greenberg or Rosenberg) reviewing Louise Nevelson's first major exhibition writes, "We learned that the artist was a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a great

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-58931416136685057962008-09-11T12:56:00.000-07:002008-09-11T13:37:48.749-07:00

If you haven't seen this article, in today's NYTimes, you must! Jeff Koons in the palace of the Sun King! How fitting! Perfect!Divinely inspired, I'm sure!He says that the placement of his white marble rococo Self-Portrait in the same room as portraits of Louis XIV and Louis XVI was not a gesture of arrogance, “It didn’t have to do with my own ego, but it did have to do with the playfulness and

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-42397303861874580012008-09-09T15:56:00.000-07:002008-09-12T15:05:44.448-07:00

Rena Bransten Gallery, SF is showing recent photos by Matthias Hoch. They are beautiful and cold.An essay by curator Aimée Reed points out a tension in his pictures—a tension between an ideal and a lack—a lack of humanity.Hoch's new photographs (and video) concern Almere. Almere is a designed town in the Netherlands, a model modern village established in the late 70s with the express mission of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-10656897858170489262008-08-30T20:17:00.000-07:002008-09-05T11:53:23.692-07:00

First there's the egg.Then there's the sperm.The first spermatozoa that buggers its way into the egg, crosses a translucent membrane—the zona pellucida— that surrounds the ovum, and bzzzssstst!, there's fusion and a chain reaction which transforms the zona from penetrable to impenetrable. It lets one in, and then becomes a repulsing barrier. hmmmm, biology, so interesting.That mysterious membrane

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-75958623100542585652008-07-23T11:27:00.000-07:002008-09-06T14:21:36.142-07:00

When I went to see Bruce Conner's film, Easter Morning at the San Francisco Film Festival in early May, I didn't know he was ill. It was his producer who let on after the screening. This news gave further resonance to the film which is a reconstruction of an earlier effort—a resuscitation, like the title says, Easter Morning: new day, new life, resurrection. Shot in 1966, rediscovered,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-26564823857697524162008-07-21T13:34:00.000-07:002008-07-21T17:30:38.260-07:00

I feel as though the world is a friendly boy walking along in the sun. —Robert RauschenbergLess than two months before he died, Robert Rauschenberg's last series of prints were completed. They are the Lotus Series, a remembrance of and response to China, on view this summer at Greenfield Sacks Gallery, Santa Monica.These very beautiful, light and bright prints are composed of photos Rauschenberg

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-34726794260925355422008-07-17T20:07:00.000-07:002008-07-18T21:30:22.440-07:00

The things that can get in the way. Jury duty, for instance. And cats. Cat sleep-overs, I've learned, aren't about sleeping. This cat will talk all night long. That gets in the way. Of sleep for sure.Well I have things to say too. About art seen in LA.There was, to begin with, Make It Rain, a full-wall projection of a 5 minute, 32 second video by Julius Friedman at Patrick Painter. Footage of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-28957439422011790862008-06-30T11:28:00.000-07:002008-07-01T13:08:18.292-07:00

I had to ask. Are they real?Yes. These large-scale photos in the back room of the Hosfelt Gallery, SF, were real, of starlings swarming over Rome.See what I mean?I've seen footage of masses of birds swirling, undulating across some spring lake on the Serengeti, but something about these grainy black and white images struck me as surreal in a different, dark dream-like way. I fell into the

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-19196036536252322492008-06-23T18:35:00.000-07:002008-06-23T19:57:12.722-07:00

Great little 3 minute film by British director Jules Nurrish screened yesterday in the Transtastic selection of shorts about, by, featuring trans persons in Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. Transtastic, it was.Bend It is an art performance homage to Gilbert & George. Breast-bound artists Anat Ben David and Heather Cassils do the "bend it" trans dance atop pedestals.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-53139155385678960342008-06-22T13:28:00.000-07:002008-06-22T13:51:48.957-07:00

Here are the best bits of an article in today's NYTimes that addresses the slippery slide of working for money, power, fame. And likewise, whether money, power, fame can effect change for the good. Bear in mind that semantics are not addressed, e.g., in my previous sentence, what determines "the good" ? In the context of this article: good is humane treatment of workers, environmental

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-22997822109355668402008-06-17T14:17:00.000-07:002009-07-17T19:33:24.353-07:00

I've been waiting for the fence to come down and the new Contemporary Jewish Museum to open. The blue cube has been peaking over the fence for months, winking.The blue cube is the Yud portion of the extension, designed by Daniel Libeskind, enlarging the original 1907 brick power substation refurbished as museum. Another portion, the Chet, runs down the middle. Together, yud and chet spell L'Chaim

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-91136468668896884902008-06-14T18:48:00.000-07:002008-06-19T16:05:52.541-07:00

There was something familiar about these paintings and it wasn't that I'd seen Griff Williams work before. Nor was it the overlaid stencils, that technique of adding patterns onto narrative paintings to give the requisite look of deconstruction. (Yes there is an academe and they're all producing stencils.) No, it was the paint-by-numbers segmentation. I could almost smell the paints, in their

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-51649152845758876682008-06-06T16:24:00.000-07:002008-06-06T17:26:20.658-07:00

As if right on cue, after I write about the Berlin Memorial to the Homosexual Victims of the Nazi Era, the news has it that lesbian kissing is unacceptable in Seattle sports arenas. So there you have it—homophobia rears its ugly family-friendly head (just one of this many-headed monster's lip-smacking, fire-breathing faces) and screams: "Oooo, girl-kissing is icky!"Right on. You know the drill.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-73279624572575865962008-06-04T15:39:00.000-07:002008-06-04T18:59:20.245-07:00

In 2003 the German Parliament (finally) approved the motion to build a monument in Berlin to memorialize the homosexual victims of the Third Reich; Michael Elmgreen and Imgar Dragset won the design competition which was unveiled May 27. Their design lifts an element from the vast, solemn, monumental Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe created by Peter Eisenmann. It is one massive block (

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-18600076358792523312008-05-22T14:25:00.000-07:002008-05-22T14:47:14.811-07:00

Patrick Ireland is dead! Long live Brian O'Doherty!Pic courtesy of the NYTimes.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-55225455084058285202008-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:002008-05-28T18:43:28.935-07:00

May 15, 1948: the state of Israel is established, a home for the displaced. May 15, 2008 makes 60 years of Nakba, catastrophe: the displacement of Palestinians to accommodate homeless Jews of Europe. The Chosen People were chosen to occupy the land making refugees of thousands.How appropriate then a show of photographs of the tormented ground called Broken Promised Land at Robert Koch Gallery, SF

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-13393508262478411482008-05-07T19:59:00.000-07:002008-05-27T21:29:29.223-07:00

Sometimes it seems like Mike Brodie takes all his photos at the golden hour when everything is enhanced by the reddish light of the setting sun. How else could the most mundane, the most gritty, be so luscious, so attractive? Why else would I too want to be there, on the edge of the—what is it?—boxcar?—perched on the iron ledge just a few feet from the gravel and rails. It's that, the golden rays

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-877826985802478332008-05-01T13:47:00.000-07:002008-05-22T13:51:13.810-07:00

More on cities. Once I'd written about Hickok and Wang and their cityscapes, it came to my attention that there was another city installation worthy of note.Save Manhatten 03 by Mounir Fatmi was presented at the Venice Biennial 2007. It is the third in a series. Save Manhatten 01 was a cityscape constructed of books, all of which were written on the events of 9/11, except two copies of the Koran.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-6369595619408433542008-04-24T18:14:00.000-07:002008-05-19T18:44:30.699-07:00

Well, check it out—Jeff Koons on top of the roof, NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art! Chocolate heart candy, twisty-balloon dog (gold), and Winnie-the-Pooh coloring book page, all bigger than life, up there, open to the sky.Top of the world, Jeff, top of the world!Pics courtesy of The Independent and The NYTimes.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-73983090413398876722008-04-22T15:25:00.000-07:002008-05-21T14:50:28.264-07:00

I confess. I dismissed the whimsical work of Jeff Koons.It was, in fact, only last year that I began to pay attention to what he has been doing all these years. Paying attention is getting to know is becoming familiar is one of the deepests acts of love.I let Jeff Koons into my heart.If I sound a bit evangelical it is to the point: Art Saves and Koons' art saved me—as was his intention all

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-70392546957521932772008-04-20T15:50:00.000-07:002008-05-14T18:44:06.872-07:00

You want to know what else I saw in LA last week?Not too much.But it only takes one.In this case it takes three. Count on the Rose Gallery to have a show to save a trip to Bergamot Station from being a complete let down. (It depresses me that so many galleries could collectively have uninteresting shows. Not bad, but blah. Track 16, another sure-bet, was closed for installation.)Rose Gallery was

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-58544100898158151592008-04-17T22:20:00.000-07:002008-05-07T22:27:48.243-07:00

BCAM at LACMA (Broad Contemporary Art Museum at Los Angeles Country Museum of Art) was a great place to be on a hot-hot-hot, as in swelt-er-ing hot day. —Unseasonably hot? Depends on what season. We're in the season of climate melt-down and so, mid-April, it was hot hot hot in LA.The Broad Museum is the newest addition to what they are now calling the LACMA complex. Like any complex, it is a

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-57590211805996102872008-04-03T14:06:00.000-07:002008-05-01T15:32:30.987-07:00

So here's a question. What's up with building the city out of tinker-toys?Okay, not tinker-toys (I'll bet it's been done) but jello, pots 'n' pans.Headlands Center for the Arts resident finalist Liz Hickok builds a miniature San Francisco in jello. She phtographs and videotapes the cityscape as it morphs, melts, decays.Visiting Chinese artist Zhan Wang creates a room-sized San Francisco out of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-82694944062455064502008-04-01T23:43:00.000-07:002008-05-02T12:12:09.667-07:00

Today I saw a short video from 1969 called East Coast, West Coast starring Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. Holt plays uptight East Coaster, Smithson is laid-back West Coast. It's all pretty awful, mostly because it is unscripted and unedited. Also on the bill was another piece that could have used some editing: John Baldessari's Teaching a Plant the Alphabet from 1972. I guess it wasn't really

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-50358201559794865572008-03-30T21:02:00.000-07:002008-04-30T18:10:10.190-07:00

I'm not going to mention everyone in the show The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art, Politics at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. Suffice it to say that this is a substantial introduction to the currents in the contemporary wave of feminist art. What is gratifying is that this is the third West Coast show in a row of feminist art (Wack! at Geffen Contemporary LA and Small Things at New Langton,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-30801561998889328622008-03-29T19:01:00.000-07:002008-05-14T16:30:00.891-07:00

It begins with a bang, literally, and doesn't let up. 95 minutes of a masterful, funny, bloody mess of a movie. If I hadn't seen it in an art-house would I have enjoyed it as much? As it is, I saw Summer Love: The First Polish Western by Piotr Uklanski at SFMoMA and enjoyed it immensely. Every twisted turn, every Westernism, every bloody god-awful painful violent act and evocative stance.What is

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-2676655274893076422008-03-20T23:06:00.000-07:002008-04-29T16:29:43.889-07:00

Joseph Beuys—Katharina Sieverding—Carolyn Radlo. Well not quite. But as I shook the hand of Katharina Sieverding this evening, I felt some kind of line if not lineage. Invisible line, threadlike, quantum-level vinculum. Two greats and a nought. I didn't know what to say, really. I can't really explain it either, the desire to make contact. I wanted to press the flesh of she who is the person

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-36764498555731802722008-03-19T15:37:00.000-07:002008-06-23T19:54:12.996-07:00

After seeing the kaleidoscopic yet enigmatic works of Gilbert & George at the de Young Museum, SF, I read some texts about them online. Despite their stated desire to make accessible art, ("'We want our art to speak across the barriers of knowledge directly to People about their Life and not about their knowledge of art. The 20th century has been cursed with an art that cannot be understood.") I

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-31238661162332638262008-02-29T13:16:00.000-08:002008-04-25T22:34:07.717-07:00

Statistics I read in today's news:IN PRISONone in 99 American adultsone in 36 Hispanic menone in 15 Black menone in nine Black men aged 20-34one in 355 white women aged 35-39one in 100 Black women, 35-39In Germany, 93 in 100,000 adults are in prison.In America, 750 in 100,000 adults are in prison.That's a lot of people given that the population of the US is currently 303,939,123. It is, in fact,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-11393502374481681052008-02-28T20:25:00.000-08:002008-04-25T22:12:51.258-07:00

I was reading the literature that accompanies the Enrique Chagoya retrospective Borderlandia at the Berkeley Art Museum. Hmmm, I said, I wonder.In his most recent work, Chagoya is playing with "reverse anthropology or reverse Western art history."Instead of a European artist appropriating artistic expressions by cultures from former colonies (i.e., Picasso 'appropriating' African sculptural forms

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-45701764035804285862008-02-22T15:01:00.000-08:002008-04-24T16:57:55.209-07:00

This photo of Ketu—K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth, located in the Karakoram range of the Himalayas on the border of Parkistan and China—cannot quite convey the incredible size, the grandeur of this great being. But as a portrait it is a likeness. And I like it.David Maxim likes such images too and for years he has been quietly working from such magazine and internet photos to create

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-73425438373400869972008-02-18T21:09:00.000-08:002008-04-23T12:44:05.920-07:00

Publisher Mat Gleason announces in issue #90 of his little art magazine Coagula that he has curated a show called 8 Under 28, a show he hopes "illustrates the death of media and pop culture as ubiquitous sources of content for contemporary art."huh.The show is at Gallery C in Hermosa Beach (of all places) and purports to be a harbinger of the new wave in art history. A "sea change," Gleason says,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-22667218635198942822008-02-17T12:30:00.000-08:002008-04-23T10:07:15.063-07:00

In LA there is a little newsprint magazine floating around, Coagula Art Journal. The writing, wry, ironic, sarcastic, silly and serious, is about art, making it as an artist, art in LA. I approve. In issue #90, Senior Columnist (that's his title, seriously. Another is Poet. And ... Spiritual Advisor.) Any how. Senior Columnist, Gordy Grundy writies about a new venture of his: The Fellowship of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-42417222711791259282008-01-18T19:58:00.000-08:002008-04-17T21:48:38.686-07:00

Small Things End, Great Things Endure, is a medium, well-done show of contemporary feminist artists at New Langton Arts, San Francisco. There's always some question whether art made by women is defacto feminist art by virtue of the maker and the inherent inequality she must overcome to have her artwork seen. If three percent of a group show are women artists, it is something to write home about.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-9213883049349982792007-12-26T14:29:00.000-08:002008-04-05T18:02:02.593-07:00

Winners of this year's Art Show Cake Walk (a.k.a. my personal favorite art sightings of 2007)More Barney! The Cremaster Cycle in it's entirety. Because you can never have enough Barney! (I know he believes this too, else his works wouldn't be so Big and Long, yah?) Since I hadn't ever seen them all, this was a real treat. (Thank you Red Vic Theatre.) Revisiting the endless car-crashing/smashing

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-78234907567497334582007-12-22T13:32:00.000-08:002008-04-03T14:18:26.193-07:00

Art is a Guaranty of Sanity, pencil inscription on pink paper by Louise Bourgeois. I received this in the form of a card for the holidays. Lifted my spirits, it did. Coming as it did at the dark time of the year, dark and cold. The sentiment an echo of my own year-end greeting years back when things felt particularily bleak. Two things you can count on: The Sun Rises. Art Saves.In a few days,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-71297648946344119702007-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:002008-04-25T13:45:12.072-07:00

Having written the previous post, I find myself still ruminating on the need for, the reasons for, the use of the word "alternative." Alternative is related to alternate: this or that, on or off. Alternative is defined, in fact, as one of two mutually exclusive options; if one is chosen the other must be rejected. Alternative is an oppositional word suggesting a binary situation. In common usage,

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-36163162065184914022007-12-05T16:43:00.000-08:002008-04-25T13:42:44.395-07:00

Maybe "alternative" is just a sentimental notion. It has long been useful for selling art, but with the market so flush, nobody even needs it anymore. Yet people still want it, and live it, and have a kind of faith in it: the "it" that can't be mass-produced, can't be packaged for museums, can't even be made to make sense. —Holland Cotter, New York Times, Dec.1, 2007Holland Cotter is writing

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-75213646415892731942007-11-17T18:42:00.000-08:002008-04-25T13:41:08.147-07:00

In the installation by Douglas Gordon at SFMoMa, Pretty much every film and video work from about 1992 until now. To be seen on monitors, some with headphones, others run silently, and all simultaneously, there is a video of a hand, palm forward, abruptly coming at the camera, again and again. There are a lot of hands in Gordon's works, but this one reminded me directly of Bruce Nauman's piece of

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-17627115644127657812007-11-09T12:06:00.000-08:002008-04-25T13:39:53.418-07:00

So what is it about sausages?There are 300 sausages suspended (with sheep, shark and cow) in Damien Hirst's new installation, School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity, and the Search for Knowledge, created for the lobby of Lever House, NYC. Meat, ground and encased, then encased yet again in formadehyde and glass.At the Moscow Biennale this year, the Blue Noses Group showed

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-53315644754527106342007-09-23T22:45:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:37:15.878-07:00

It is September. [Not really. It is October and I see I forgot to post this. Better late than never.]Earlier in the month, Julian Schnabel received the 2007 Gucci Group Award for remarkable film achievement. The Gucci Group agrees with little ol' me: Schnabel takes the cake. Upon receiving the award, Schnabel said, "Painting can be compared to life, but is about optimism and faith. Artistic

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-24020091078314502782007-08-10T18:52:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:35:33.057-07:00

Little art spread wide.Artists in Cellophane is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Art*o*Mat next week with a swap-meet party - with bands! - in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, tobacco country, where the good idea was conceived. Yessirreebob, art from a cigarette machine was a very good idea! spread now to some 90 locations nationwide, machines dropping art the size of a pack of smokes.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-74578359229300972852007-07-25T14:47:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:33:48.611-07:00

Let me get on the bandwagon.Julian Schnabel has built a building in NYC and the neighbors don't like it. Big news. Big building. Big color.Schnabel is a big artist. He needs those 18ft ceilings! Seriously, Schnabel is a great big artist, a great big filmmaker, a big man with vision and there is always complaint - frenzied even - about someone doing something that commands attention.Well it seems

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-76088704717316752272007-07-20T14:48:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:46:22.632-07:00

I stir up the gifts of the gods in me and around me, and I am blessed on every side with happiness, success, and true achievement.Well, with that affirmation let me return to this blog. (No, I haven't been sleeping on the job, but out of town, down at the mouth, otherwise occupied.) Let me stir up some good news that the Olympian (read true) gods are yet alive and living in ...London.My favorite

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-1260932304854029022007-06-26T23:19:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:38:12.861-07:00

Is there a theme here? Well, lessee. This blog is about art, art that I like, art that I take pictures of (or find pictures of as the case may be), and especially big art - that follows because I like big art. The theme(s) so far.And then there is Vonnegut. I have been re-reading Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. Champions take the cake, of course, win the prize, are favorites primed to

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-44021502278612105432007-06-22T17:31:00.000-07:002008-10-14T18:33:26.819-07:00

In San Francisco there is also di Suvero. This is not meant as a travel guide - I am just saying: In San Francisco there is also di Suvero. And like Richard Serra, his work is worth making pilgrimage to see. If not to big art, then to big trees. And mountains. For now I recommend making way to the waterfront and gazing upwards at the di Suvero planted there where he and his family first landed

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-10972716071862995612007-06-19T14:50:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:27:55.045-07:00

The Richard Serra retrospective in NYC. John Perreault went to see it. The next best thing to being there.Who is John Perreault? Art critic, curator, artist, poet, collector of books and ... dishware. On the scene since the mid-60s, writing erudite, clear-headed essays and reviews. He provides consistently intelligent insight into the various strands that make up the arts, exemplary of why arts

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-14996721227152733422007-06-09T00:27:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:26:49.763-07:00

Wouldn't it be something if Richard Serra's wife were named Vivienne? I mean just in keeping with things here. In this little world of my opinions? But no. His wife is Clara. Nice name Clara. But not Vivienne. Vivian neither.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-71285505148534257292007-06-08T18:44:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:25:34.095-07:00

Since returning to San Francisco I had it on my list to go see the Richard Serra at the Gap Headquarters building on the Embarcadero. But first the new Richard Serra at the new UCSF medical campus was unveiled. Quietly. Last time, it seems, there was an uproar about a Richard Serra being installed in a public space in San Francisco, so this time they just did it without a lot of fan fare. (Who

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-27193536548600684802007-06-07T14:14:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:23:57.505-07:00

My stylin stylist tells me he had a dance partner named Vivian. Wore a little twirling skirt. This said after we'd sat together and looked through the Vivienne Westwood catalog. Fabulous Viv in green satin, her man in lace. Vivienne the queen. We'd both been to the retrospective at the de Young (museum) and loved her cut-up, deconstructed, mixed and mashed, accentuated fabric creations that said

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2979400851880230997.post-5696638581024241792007-06-01T14:02:00.000-07:002008-04-25T13:22:16.056-07:00

Isn't Vivian a wonderful name? Sounds like vivacious. Vivienne Westwood. Vivian Gornick. I wonder if I would have been different with Vivian as my name. Vivienne. (yes) I wonder what it would be like. Be vivacious.

CRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785589374020505473noreply@blogger.com