Two Coats of Paint

Adolph Gottlieb lamented the end of the underground --in 1966

2012-01-25T14:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I went to The Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle where Joseph Marioni is having an elegant solo show of monochromatic paintings through the end of the weekend. The Phillips, which opened in 1921, was founded by Duncan Phillips, a champion of Modern art and, particularly, American artists, many of whom he knew personally. Adoph Gottlieb must have been one of his friends because this unusual Gottlieb entered the Phillips collection in 1963--the year it was made. I looked up Gottleib, who with his wife Esther Gottlieb founded the Gottlieb Foundation to support struggling artists, and found this interview with Andrew Hudson for a 1966 Washington Post article called “Gottlieb finds Today’s Shock-Proof Audience Dangerous."

Gottlieb: I think the situation today is similar to the period when Surrealism became important in France and Europe and the only painters who were able to continue working in the tradition of Cubism were those who were the originators and initiators of the movement. It wasn’t possible to have a really significant second generation of Cubist painters. What happened was that the younger painters who were able to contribute something went into another direction, which happened to be Surrealism. And I think a similar thing has happened today: That the so-called New York School, or Abstract-Expressionists, consisted of a group of painters who were about my generation and they are the legitimate practitioners of their concepts. But when so many young painters became involved in trying to carry out some of the ideas of Abstract Expressionism, it became rather academic.

Hudson: A sort of manner…?
Gottlieb: Yes. It was like Andre Lhote doing Cubist paintings of football games, and it became second-rate, and it was necessary for painters to develop other ideas. Now, I think the point is that Surrealism also had certain popular elements that could appeal to a large public like the postcard color, the use of realistic, naturalistic techniques, as in Dali- so that this was a kind of dilution of the values that had existed; there was a lowering of the standard that Cubism had. It just so happened that it wasn’t possible to do anything, to use Cubism as a springboard, let us say. I don’t think any movement ever is a springboard for another movement.

Hudson: It has to start again.
Gottlieb: Yes. The tradition of modern art is a tradition of revolution: there’s one revolution after another – for better or for worse. And I think that’s what we have today: there’s been a revolution, the older Abstract Expressionists can legitimately continue working in their way, but young people have to find some other way.

Hudson: Do you think sometime or other there’ll be another revolution somewhere.
Gottlieb: There is one now and there will be others. I think that one of the problems is that today what we are witnessing is the development of art in a democracy, and this never existed before. The idea of a democratic art which can reach many people ultimately must be a notion of some kind of mass culture. And this is the dismal aspect.

I don’t know if it’s possible for artists to feel that they can even go underground any more. We felt that we were living in an underground; we felt that we were a bit outside of society and, in a sense, outcasts. If such a mood could develop among artists, this would be a good sign – but I haven’t seen any signs of it. They all want success more than achievement.

I think one of the sorriest examples is that of two young artists – who I guess are taken rather seriously – recently collaborated on a scheme to use a computer go find out what people really liked best. The computer told them, for example, what color combinations people liked best, what shapes they liked best – and on the basis of this information they jointly made an object. I think the idea was to make it so that it could be duplicated. Obviously this is a different spirit than what has happened in the past with artists who are serious an independent.

What’s unfortunate is that nobody seems to be in a position to make a criticism of what’s going on, about standards being lowered, and having false ideals…We have a lot of young critics, and the young critics feel that the way to succeed in their own area is to espouse and support whatever it is that’s catching on, and if they can be the first ones to proclaim it, they can then become another Clement Greenberg, perhaps. They try to ride on the tail of whatever seems to them to be the art which is viable at the moment.

You have a situation in the art world that’s become like show business; and, after all, if you’re in the museum field, or if you’re an art writer, there has to be a great deal of grist for your mill. You’ve got to be putting on shows all the time, which will draw the public in; and you also have to have new material to write about. Suppose that you were convinced that in the last 30 years or so there were only a handful of artists who were making an important contribution, and these were the ones who were worth discussing. You wouldn’t have much to write about, let us say, if you were writing for a magazine.

I think that at least two thirds of the vast new art public that we have today has never made a serious attempt to study art; they only know about art because they’ve started going to some exhibitions in the last three years, and they’ve read some reviews in newspapers or art magazines. And that’s their total knowledge…

But, of course, I don’t have a really objective view of what the art situation is. I think that some of the dealers might be in a better position to evaluate; they see the artists coming in with work all the time.
The other thing is that I don’t really care too much, because there isn’t anything that at my stage of the game I can do about it – I have to concentrate on continuing to work out my own problems. In other words, my path has been determined over the years: I believe the only thing I have to do is stay with my own direction.

Related Two Coats post:
Abstract Expressionism at MoMA
"Artists less celebrated, whose work used to seem flatfooted and obvious to me, now scan as forward-thinking. What I once considered lesser paintings because of the color, composition, brushwork, or surface quality have come to look fresh and challenging in their visual awkwardness. Adolph Gottleib’s symbolic contrivances, William Baziotes’s acidic color, Hans Hoffman’s clunky palette knifery, and Clyfford Still’s jagged edges are more in tune with the uncomfortable aesthetic decisions painters are making today...."

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A makeshift studio in Georgetown

2012-01-25T13:07:00.009-05:00

Since I'll be spending more time in DC, and I have to paint for two upcoming shows, I turned the apartment into a makeshift studio.

The natural light, ceiling height and wall space in the apartment are excellent, although I can't work on too many things at once unless I spread out into the rest of the place--which is often the case. In my new work, I"m thinking about the monumental sculpture I saw recently at the National Gallery's Sculpture Garden.

I just started three 60 x 72 inch unstretched canvases. Working with acrylic pigments and binders, I can work on small sections of the paintings on the tabletop. I'm alsoworking on a stack of canvasboard studies (at right) and small drawings (on floor).

Jason Andrew and DC artist Maggie Michael stopped by after Austin's opening at Heiner.

Here are Maggie, Austin Thomas and Brooklyn artist Adam Simon. Don't forget to check out Ad's show at Valentine this month.

DC artist Dan Steinhilber looks on as I shamelessly treat one of my dogs like a toy. Photo by Jason Andrew (I promised to give him credit!)

Austin is saying something brilliant. That's Elissa Levy's hair in the upper right corner!

Part Shih-Tzu, part Maltese. So handsome and earnest. Another excellent Jason Andrew photo.

The next day it snowed! Here's a picture of the lovely courtyard outside my windows. The landlady says the building used to be a brothel back in the day. So much history (and scandal) in DC...

Studio Visit with Joan Waltemath

Images of 2011 work in the old studio

2011 Interview at Studio Critical

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Barry Reigate's political geometry

2012-01-24T08:13:00.006-05:00

While doing some research the other day, I ran across work by British artist Barry Reigate (b. 1971). In London Reigate is primarily known for his lecherous cartoon imagery of disembodied breasts and Disney characters, but geometric forms like cubes, spheres and pinwheels are also embedded in his large-scale paintings. In his October 2011 exhibition at Paradise Row, Reigate included geometric sculptures and earnest gouaches of geometric volumes, and I wondered if he was in transition, perhaps moving away from the pop culture references. According to Reigate, the gouaches, which have underlying political content, are not just studies for the larger paintings, but are works in themselves.

Taken from children's statewide math tests that are used to measure children's progress and thus the effectiveness of the schools, the geometric forms are part of a language system that Reigate believes bends truth through the use of statistics. Reigate took the test images and drew them on graph paper, removing them from their original statistical language and bringing them into the realm of modernist abstraction. In the sculptures, Reigate pushes the shapes from the original equations into freestanding, structural objects.

"When I was making these pieces, there were ‘riots’ going on outside and kids were burning down buildings on their school holidays," Reigate said. "All our government kept going on about was healthy social structures while the physical ones were being burnt down. So there is this whole social-political thing going on in regards to education and the social (the government kept talking about the ‘underclass,' families on welfare, no one working and poor education). There is political content within the work but only layered aesthetically, ornamentally, within the structural content amongst so many other things."

Reigate is in the process of opening an experimental space called City of London Art with his friend Alastair Mackinven. The gallery won't represent artists, but will focus on the critical, thought-provoking work that commercial galleries aren't showing.

Barry Reigate, studio snapshot, 2011

Barry Reigate, Untitled (Equations), 2011, mixed media on linen, 400 x 230 cm.

Installation with paintings, sculptures and gouache geometry studies on paper, 2011.

Barry Reigate, Gouache and pencil on graph paper, 2011.

Barry Reigate, Untitled painting, (Equation 4), 2011, mixed media on linen, 210 x 156 cm.

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From the Gardner's collection: Anders Zorn

2012-01-22T17:10:00.010-05:00

Last week the long-anticipated Renzo Piano wing opened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. For the first time in its history, the Gardner will have space for both temporary shows organized from the collection and exhibitions of contemporary art. Curator Oliver Tostmann, who I ran into at a gallery reception in DC this week, told me that he plans to focus on singular masterpieces from the collection, borrowing work from other museums to put the objects in context. His first exhibition centers on a work by Anders Zorn (February 18, 1860 – August 22, 1920), the artist who painted the full length portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner that hangs prominently in the original section of the museum.

Zorn, whose brushwork and subject matter recall those of John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925), studied at Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, Sweden from 1875-1880. Famous during his lifetime for portraits, nudes and depictions of water, Zorn's paintings are included in collections at the Nationalmuseum (National Museum of Fine Arts) in Stockholm, Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Zorn Collections in Mora (Dalarna County, Sweden), a hometown museum dedicated to Zorn, was opened in 1939.

Anders Zorn, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice, 1894, oil on canvas, 91 x 66 cm.

The backstory: While visiting the Gardners in Boston in February 1894, Anders Zorn made an etching of Mrs. Gardner, which neither of them considered to be a complete success. Later that year Zorn and his wife visited the Gardners in Venice, staying for several weeks as their guests in the Palazzo Barbaro. He attempted again to make a portrait of Mrs. Gardner, but continued to struggle with the task. One evening, Mrs. Gardner stepped out into the balcony to see what was happening outside, and as she came back into the drawing-room, pushing the French windows open, Zorn exclaimed (according to Morris Carter): “Stay just as you are! That is the way I want to paint you.” He went instantly for his materials, and then and there the portrait was begun. (Source: Richard Lingner, "Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 215.)

New gallery space at the Gardner. I think that's the original building outside the window. "Yes, it’s designed to have the visitor step in and actually experience the gardens while they’re inside. You can see through the glass out to the gardens, and of course you can see the palace itself. But if you step in a little further and you look left, you can see the working greenhouses. Piano has said that the building is about light and sound, and you can certainly feel that." --Director Anne Hawley on WBUR

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Here are images of three other Zorn's in the collection at the Gardner Museum.

Anders Zorn, The Morning Toilet, about 1888

Anders Zorn, Omnibus, 1892

Anders Zorn, Portrait of Mrs. Grover Cleveland, 1899.

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BONUS VIDEO: Shot in Zorn's charming country house in Sweden (now a museum), the video includes images of his collections and his log cabin studio.

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Quick study: Batman, love advice, internships, and the new videographer in town

2012-01-22T15:40:00.026-05:00

"Batman Returns," Joyce Pensato's show at Friedrich Petzel, was in Time Out New York's Top Five and listed as ArtCat's Top Pick this week. Incorporating color in her new paintings, Pensato presents crazed images of Batman, assemblages of toys, ephemera, stuffed animals, and photographs. Looks good.

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The January issue of Art in America just arrived here -- better late than never. Faye Hirsch writes about Arlene Shechet's clay sculpture. "With an awkwardness so skilled it becomes elegant, Shechet demonstrates a mastery over everything that can go wrong in ceramics, harnessing wrongness to endless expressive possibility." Thanks, AiA, for putting it online.

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M/E/A/N/I/N/G, A Journal of Contemporary Art Issues, 25th Anniversary Edition, edited by Susan Bee and Mira Schor (and featuring one of my essays) is now available for Kindle.

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Don't miss art critic Ben Davis's "The Art Lover," a hilarious column at ArtInfo concerning love and/or art. Last week gallerist Allegra LaViola asked for dating advice. Ben says don't be shy--if you have a question about love and/or art just ask him.

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College Art Association is looking for an editorial intern. "Intern assists with administrative and editorial tasks in the publications department of the leading professional organization for artists and art historians." Fifteen hours a week for either stipend or credit.

Art Fag City is looking for interns. "Ideal candidates have a strong interest in visual art and digital media, are proficient in MS Office, Quickbooks, and Excel, and possess excellent writing skills." I imagine a sense of humor might help, too.

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Joanne Mattera posted her essay for Textility, an exhibition she co-curated with Mary Birmingham at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. "Textility was conceived in Miami last December. That’s where Mary Birmingham and I, standing by chance in front of an Arlene Shechet clay sculpture with a surface that can only be described as velvet, noted the significant number of textile-esque works we had been seeing in booths and hotel rooms throughout the fairs: knitted paintings, painted quilts, metal tapestries and more...."

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Hyperallergic reports that Joann Kim Núñez of art blog Updownacross is partnering with Skillshare, the online marketplace for offline classes, to build a Creative Arts program.

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The next generation: Check out a video report of Austin Thomas's opening at Heiner Contemporary in DC made by seven-year-old Grant (a la The James Kalm Report). Go Grant!

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Horrifying photo of the day

2012-01-20T14:52:00.004-05:00

Child exploring a Richard Serra at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Green light: Peter Halley in Portland

2012-01-20T08:13:00.004-05:00

On Sunday, "Prison," Peter Halley's first exhibition in the Northwest, opens at Disjecta, a non-profit space in Portland. The site-specific installation is a digitally generated mural of repeated prison icons, covering three walls of Disjecta’s 3000 square foot gallery. As in previous work, the project unites Halley's interest in visual and architectural systems, but the new work attempts to create an immersive experience that weds the "geometry of the social with the mall-level spectacle of saturated fluorescent color."

"Prison" is essentially a collage of simple studies for Halley's prison paintings, lit with green colored theater lights. The background is printed in an olive green and the line work is dark magenta. Halley says he wanted to create “a gloomy, Samuel Beckett interior of endless prisons.”

For previous site-specific installations, Halley has delivered mural-sized variations of his vibrantly-colored geometric conduit imagery, which he links to the deconstructionism of Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault and the social experience of space in our society. The "Prison" installation marks Halley's first attempt to incorporate theater lighting into the mix, which seems to add a compelling emotional component to his hard-edged, resolutely cheerful abstraction.

Peter Halley, installation view of "Prison." When viewers stand in the middle, I hope they can hear the lights hum.

Peter Halley's wallpaper for "Prison."

Peter Halley installation, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2007

Peter Halley installation at Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow, 2006.

"Peter Halley: Prison," curated by Jenene Nagy. Disjecta, Portland, OR. January 22-February 25, 2012.
On Friday, January 20, 7 pm, Halley will give a lecture about his work at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Related posts:
Peter Halley's grim vision
James Kalm Report in Peter Halley's studio in 2011

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Bill Jensen lightens up

2012-01-19T14:26:00.006-05:00

In his new work, Bill Jensen gets reductive, working in a large-scale triptych format with a limited palette. Here's the James Kalm Report coverage of Jensen's exhibition at Cheim & Read, where, understandably, Jensen doesn't want to talk about the paintings on camera. The paintings look sublime.

Bill Jensen, installation view.

"Bill Jensen," Cheim & Read, New York, NY. Through February 18, 2012.

Related post: Bill Jensen's long and winding nature trail
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Stopping time: On Kawara and Danica Phelps

2012-01-19T12:43:00.008-05:00

On Kawara and Danica Phelps, two single-minded artists obsessed with documenting life, are on view in New York this month. David Zwirner has over 150 of On Kawara's date paintings spanning 1966 to the present (known collectively as the "Today" series) hanging in both galleries, and Brennan & Griffin is presenting Danica Phelps new series, "The Cost of Love."

For the past ten years, using a signature system of brightly-painted stripes, Phelps has charted her income, expenses, and debt. In "The Cost of Love" she focuses on the recent breakup with her longtime girlfriend. Using the court papers and documents from the subsequent financial fallout, Phelps has produced an emotionally fraught series of panels that don't track the passing of time in the same way that her earlier work did, but rather chronicle the phenomenon of loss.

On Kawara, on the other hand, creates calmer, more philosophical paintings that meditate on the nature of human existence. In 1966 he started painting dates, meticulously centering handpainted white, sans serif letters and numbers on monochrome canvases. For the artist, who has made the paintings in more than a hundred different cities, each date evokes a specific location, and a scrapbook with facsimiles of clippings from local newspapers is included in the exhibition. His monk-like dedication is astonishing--I can't imagine making the same painting (give or take the subtle variations) for more than forty years. On Kawara's endeavor is smart and thought provoking, but Phelps works emphatically from emotional necessity.

Danica Phelps, The Cost of Love (Paragraph 6), 2011-12, gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper mounted to panel 44 x 26 inches

Danica Phelps, installation view at Brennan & Griffin

Danica Phelps, The Cost of Love (Paragraph 6), 2011-12, detail.

On Kawara, installation view at David Zwirner. July 16, 1969--only three years into the project.

On Kawara, installation view at David Zwirner.

"Danica Phelps: The Cost of Love," Brennan & Griffin, New York, NY. Through February 12, 2012.

"On Kawara Date Painting(s) in New York and 136 Other Cities," Zwirner, New York, NY. Through February 11, 2012.

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Support online arts writing (and promote your organization at the same time)

2012-01-19T09:14:00.011-05:00

This week I'm pleased to announce that Two Coats of Paint became a member of the Nectar Ads Art Network, which includes the powerhouse art blogs Hyperallergic, Colossal, Art Fag City, and Rhizome. I urge readers to support online arts writing by placing advertising with the network, which boasts over 1,000,000 highly-targeted pageviews per month. The cost is very reasonable (downright cheap!), and the ads, which are carefully curated for quality, will guarantee that your exhibitions, products, and organizations will be promoted to the most progressive members of the arts community. I particularly encourage MFA programs and university galleries to buy advertising on the network. Raising the the visibility of your program will benefit faculty, graduates and alumni, and also help recruit talented students. Artists should urge their galleries not just to send press releases to influential bloggers (we get hundreds every week), but to join the conversation by advertising on our sites. If readers don't support Two Coats of Paint through advertising, I may have to torture readers with a Kickstarter campaign.

Contact Veken Gueyikian to discuss promotion options (he has plenty of great ideas) and rates.

Here's a little screenshot from the video I made for a Kickstarter pitch last year. With enough support through advertising, readers may never have to watch it.

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Gallery 764: In the Artist's Studio

2012-01-18T20:38:00.003-05:00

This week the Metropolitan Museum opened the renovated American Wing, which features twenty-six galleries on the second floor. Using coved ceilings, skylights, and architectural detailing, the museum has created a contemporary interpretation of nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts galleries.The Met's collection boasts amazing holdings by pre-modern American painters, including John Singleton Copley (Daniel Crommelin Verplanck), Gilbert Stuart (George Washington), Thomas Cole (The Oxbow), Frederic Edwin Church, (The Heart of the Andes), Winslow Homer (Prisoners from the Front), Thomas Eakins (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), and John Singer Sargent (Madame X).

But my favorite is Gallery 764, which features paintings of artists at work. The gallery is a reminder that art practice evolves--artists haven't always worked the way we work today. Here are some images and their stories (via the museum's website).

Matthew Pratt (1734–1805), The American School, 1765, oil on canvas, 36 x 50 1/4 inches.

"The picture depicts a scene in the London studio of Benjamin West, who is generally agreed to be the figure standing at the left. Based on comparisons to self-portraits, Pratt is the man at the easel, an accomplished portrait painter. The identities of the other artists represented in the picture remain uncertain, but they are younger and they draw rather than paint. The composition explores the academic tradition as carried out among Americans in late-eighteenth century London."

Samuel F. B. Morse (American, Charlestown, Massachusetts 1791–1872 New York City), Susan Walker Morse (The Muse), 1836-37, oil on canvas, 73 3/4 x 57 5/8 inches.

"The full-length portrait of Susan Walker Morse (1819–1885), the eldest daughter of the artist, was painted during the crucial years of the invention of Morse's telegraph (ca. 1835–37). The painting shows the girl at about the age of seventeen, sitting with a sketchbook in her lap and pencil in hand with her eyes raised in contemplation. Although traditionally described as a Muse, the figure is more likely a personification of the art of drawing or design. Morse drew on the full extent of his European training, taking from the works of Rubens and Veronese in what was to be an ambitious farewell to his career as an artist. Stymied by a lack of financial success, he abandoned painting for science and inventing. This painting was first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1837, where it won enthusiastic praise. Susan married Edward Lind in 1839 and moved to his sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, returning often to New York to spend extended periods with her father, who had been left a widower when Susan was just six. She gradually grew less and less happy with her husband and plantation life. Lind died in 1882; in 1885, Susan set out to return to New York permanently but tragically was lost at sea."

Kenyon Cox (American, Warren, Ohio 1856-1919 New York City), Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1887, replica 1908, oil on canvas, 33 1/2 x 47 1/8 inches. Sorry, no story about this one.

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The thoughts and scrawls we leave behind

2012-01-18T10:42:00.009-05:00

In Bushwick, artist and Italian literature Ph.D Paul D'Agostino organizes projects in his apartment that usually involve selected artists' interpretations of obscure reading materials. His charming curatorial statements (and email blasts) are like a gentleman's correspondence from the 1800s (or even earlier). Here is the text for his current show, "Dissolution, or Resolutions:"

A simposio exhibit (for all and sundry) As 2011 dwindles down and away, and as 2012 waits with prophesied tumult at bay, we at Centotto invite all of you to compose a simposio ode thereto. Well, not really. More simply, while simposio exhibits are typically born of a text and generate a new one, the textual components of this show will work a bit differently. That is, the initiatory text will arrive in your mind – as a thought or two about 2011, or as resolutions or predictions for 2012 – and the show's ultimate text will be the thoughts and scrawls you leave behind. A large scroll will be present to accommodate your musings on whether you found 2011 to be particularly dyspeptic – politically, climatically or seismically, for example – and on whether you think 2012 will really bring about The Great Belch (or whatever you want to call it). The scroll will be furled up post-closing, and we'll call the group-thunk simposio done. Then we'll stow it away somewhere for probing inquirers to come. Clearly (or not), the primary visual tenor of the show will be conveyed via artworks loosely or resolutely related to ideas of dissolution or resolution.

The show, which features plenty of small, scrappy paintings, is up through Sunday, and features work by Steve Harding, Mila Dau, Paul Gagner, Julie Torres, Layton Hower, Vilaykorn Sayaphet and Carmen von K. Stop by the closing party on Friday night, add your thoughts to the scroll, and sign up to receive Centotto's excellent email announcements.

Here are some installation images I took when I stopped by on New Year's Day.

Paul Gagner

Layton Hower

Steve Harding (on back wall)

Julie Torres and Carmen von K

And isn't that Austin Thomas surveying the goods left around the dumpster outside Centotto's building...?

Related posts:
Rolling Conversations this Friday night in Bushwick

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Can anyone paint spots like Damien Hirst's assistants?

2012-01-17T14:01:00.004-05:00

Apparently so. In Roberta Smith’s NYTimes article about the Hirst spot extravaganza, she reports that the paintings are "nothing but fields of enamel dots, smooth discs of color applied to white canvases in orderly grids at intervals equal to the diameter of the discs. The discs can be any color, except the colors can’t repeat on any given canvas (though they come extremely close), and the people making the paintings choose the colors.”

Seems simple enough--right?

On Saturday, January 28, Two Coats of Paint is organizing a Spot Painting Workshop (no art making experience necessary). We will meet at Gagosian, 555 W. 24th Street, to check out the paintings made by Hirst’s assistants, then head over to the workshop (location to be announced) to make our own. For a small fee, Two Coats of Paint will provide all the supplies—or you can bring your own. After the workshop, we'll have a short exhibition, take lots of pictures, and then take our beautiful spot paintings home. For more information, visit the workshop information page.

Image above: A spot painting from the workshop of Damien Hirst, Ethyl Laurate, 2003, household gloss on canvas, 59 x 59 inches.Pne of more than the 1500+ paintings made by Hirst's assistants.

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Abstraction in early 2012: Allen, de Oude, Hathaway, Peterson, Sable, Sanín

2012-01-12T16:45:00.014-05:00

In geometric abstraction, doesn't it seem as though the brushstrokes are either masked and tightly drawn, or loose and drippy these days? At Deborah Brown's new Bushwick gallery, Storefront Bushwick, carefully composed masking and layering dominate the work of Gary Peterson, Halsey Hathaway and, in the back room, Rob de Oude. The three color-loving formalists' paintings have handsome, seductive color, hard edges and slow meticulous processes in common. The paintings are nothing if not beautiful.

At Heiner Contemporary, a relatively new gallery on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, DC, Chip Allen and Katherine Sable's gloriously handmade paintings trigger a more visceral response. Both painters ride the line between chance and control, Allen imposing painting parameters and Sable professing an interest in masculine/feminine dialogue (which, btw, I don't see in the work, but I love her Mary Heilmann-esque patterns nonetheless). The first time I drove by and saw one of Sable's big pieces in the gallery's window I nearly caused a multi-car pile up. The third painter in the Heiner show, Camilo Sanín, is engaged with precisely rendered lines and vibrantly-colored, rectangular shapes that would probably feel more at home with Peterson and Hathaway, but his work is an interesting counterpoint to Sable and Allen's more instinctual approach. All in all, a good, solid start for abstraction in 2012.

Halsey Hathaway, Better Me Than You

Gary Peterson, Don't Go Anywhere

Rob de Oude, Curvilinear Dissection/5

Chip Allen, Love and Living Creatures #1, 2011, oil on paper, 26 x 22 inches

Chip Allen, Love and Living Creatures #13, 2011, oil on paper, 26 x 22 inches

Installation of Chip Allen's paintings on paper at Heiner Contemporary.

Katherine Sable, Show a Little Ankle, 2011, oil on linen, 66 x 54 inches.

Katherine Sable, Fancy Goods, 2011, oil on linen, 30 x 30 inches.

Camilo Sanín, Estructura Subyacente 412, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 29 x 29 inches

Camilo Sanín, Initial Confluence, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

Installation of Camilo Sanín's paintings at Heiner Contemporary.

"Halsey Hathaway and Gary Peterson," Storefront Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY. Through February 5, 2012. In the back room: paintings by Rob de Oude.

"In Line/Out of Line," Heiner Contemporary, Washington, DC. Through January 14, 2012.

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The blind leading the blind: Predictions for 2012

2012-01-09T14:28:00.022-05:00

Seven predictions for 2012.

1. Arts funding will increase, although artists will be required to consider how an art project can contribute to the economic well being of the community. In grant proposals, artists should start writing about their art practices as “small businesses" that will help increase local economic prospects. In 2012, grant funders will reward communitarianism over personal vision.

2. Sculptural objects, as opposed to installations and ready-mades, will make a comeback. Look for a new generation of David Smiths and Mark di Suveros. But female.

3. Due to the continuing decline in teaching opportunities for artists and the research indicating that students studying art will have few job prospects, enrollment in MFA programs will decline. But the good news is that as the art market makes a comeback in 2012, new jobs will be created in the art service areas—art handlers, gallerinas, art writing, social media.

4. Innovative organizations like the VIP Art Fair,which just got a fresh influx of investor cash, and Art.sy will begin to convince skittish collectors that it’s OK to buy art online.

Nicole Eisenman, Q-Guess What’s Still Relevant, A-The Blind Leading the Blind, 2009/2011, ink and watercolor on paper, 10 x 11 inches

5. Thanks to the popularity of relational aesthetics, performance and video, artists are more inclined to step out of the studio in search of collaborative, interactive projects. In the painting community this means that solitary abstract painting will give way to collaborative, and possibly more figurative approaches inspired by the amazing de Kooning retrospective. I hope the student at the Brooklyn College final crits who decided not to see the de Kooning show because he was afraid it would influence his work changed his mind. Today is the last day.

6. Increasing numbers of artists will travel from Bushwick to Washington, DC, to present interesting, idiosyncratic projects...or maybe, now that I'm in DC for the next few months, this is just my own personal fantasy? No. Austin Thomas is having an exhibition and organizing a program of events at Heiner Contemporary this month. The opening is January 20!

7. Time will continue to fly at an accelerated rate due to the fast-paced nature of social networking media, Web 2.0, and our addiction to them. Artists will consider dropping out, shutting down their Facebook pages and closing their Twitter accounts, but they won't be able to because the art world is too hooked into it. If you’re reading this, you undoubtedly know what I’m talking about.

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UES gallery crawl: Hirst, Wall, Bontecou, Picabia, Dodd

2012-01-09T11:37:00.025-05:00

Before checking out galleries on the Upper East Side the other day, I met Brece Honeycutt at the burger joint in Le Parker Meridien, where we were surprised to see a big Damien Hirst spin painting hanging over the desk in the lobby. According to the desk clerk, most of the hotel visitors are familiar with the painting not because they have any interest in the artist per se, but because they've read about the painting's million+ price tag in their guidebooks....

At Marian Goodman, Jeff Wall's mammoth photographs reference history painting in their size and early Modernist painting in their content, and indeed the press materials suggest Wall wants to "paint modern life." I was fascinated by the narrative images, but the landscapes were dull... just really, really big and highly detailed. "You have been there," the group photography show in the back room curated by Marie Muracciole, made me realize how much of the territory that used to be the exclusive domain of art photographers has been usurped by anyone with a camera phone and a Tumblr blog. In the 3rd floor gallery, there was a video projection but no chairs, so I didn't see the whole thing. I know it's an old complaint, but why don't galleries put chairs or benches in galleries so you can sit and take a good hard look at the work--especially video?

Jeff Wall, Boxing, 2011. On the check list, the medium is simply "color photograph." i don't have the dimensions, but it had to be at least 7 x 10 feet.

Further uptown at Freedman Art, Lee Bontecou presents Joan Miró-ish, spindly spacecraft, sci-fi-like creature-objects hanging from the ceiling. Her craft and inventiveness are remarkable, and I particularly liked the arrangements of small ceramics in the floor sandboxes, although I would have installed them differently, perhaps at table height like a diorama in a history museum. One had a tiny sailboat amid all the scary shells-with-human-teeth sculptures, recalling the trials and tribulations faced by the long-lost sailors in mythic odysseys. Bontecou's delicate graphite drawings lack the grit and angst evident in her three-dimensional work.

Lee Bontecou insallation at Freedman Art.

Ok, I'm just going to come out and say it: Francis Picabia's late paintings at Michael Werner were a big disappointment. Everyone (I'm talking to you, Joshua Abelow) has been raving about this show, but I thought it was awful. Although individual paintings are compelling, overall these clunky, kitschy paintings from the later part of Picabia's career don't deserve the second look they've been getting. The surfaces actually look better in JPEGs.

Francis Picabia, Etoile, 1947, oil on board, 25 1/2 x 20 3/4 inches

The standout show of the afternoon was Lois Dodd at Alexandre. In her eighties, Dodd continues to explore her familiar surroundings up in Maine, and in the best paintings she focuses intensely on plants and flowers, painting beautifully from observation without getting mired in detail. The color and brushwork are wonderful--quirky and assured, but hard to apprehend in JPEGs, so go to the gallery and have a look--the paintings are exquisite. I'll write more about Lois Dodd for the February ArtSeen section of The Brooklyn Rail, which I'm pleased to report, will be dedicated exclusively to painting(!).

Lois Dodd, Agapanthus, 2010, oil on masonite, 10 x 11 inches

Lois Dodd, Apple Tree Branches, 2011, oil on masonite, 15 3/4 x 13 inches

Lois Dodd, Queen Anne's Lace, 2011, oil on masonite, 20 x 17 inches

Brece in the Lois Dodd exhibition. Thanks, Brece, for organizing the afternoon.

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Guilty: Kicking off 2012 in Bushwick

2012-01-07T10:07:00.008-05:00

After spending most of December in Washington, DC, I was happy to be back in Bushwick on New Year's Day drinking mimosas at Jason Andrew's Norte Maar, Deborah Brown's new gallery, Storefront Bushwick, and Paul D'Agostino's Centotto. Here are some images from "Guilty/(Not) Guilty," an excellent show curated by arts writer Sarah Schmerler at Norte Maar, featuring work by Ellen Letcher, Francesco Masci, Alfred Steiner, and Pablo Tauler. Look for images from the other shows later this week. Note: The text below is lifted from Schmerler's statement.

The exhibition introduces four New York-based, contemporary artists who paint, draw, and make conceptual projects in methods that both take for granted — and re-cast —what society considers as being good, reasonable (and therefore valid) reasons for making a work of art.

Ellen Letcher: uses paint, not to depict her own imagery, but rather as an adhesive for affixing photos of consumer-goods (and other disturbing content!) ripped from mass-produced magazines and newspapers. She also co-runs a gallery called Famous Accountants in Ridgewood, where she shows new work by local artists.

Francesco Masci: Google surfer, classically trained Italian painter. He’s depicted (among other things) his girlfriend lying on a couch as a naked odalisque surrounded by raw meat; Twitter birds pooping on Charles Darwin’s head, and other phantasmagorical subjects with the accuracy of an Archimboldo.

Alfred Steiner: a copyright lawyer by day, Steiner bought a painting at CANADA gallery on the Lower East Side by Allison Schulnik (top image), and had a replica of it fabricated with a 3-D printer. Both, now considered a single artwork, are n the show.

Pablo Tauler: a dreamy sort of guy who knows how to rock a ballpoint pen. Born in Chile (and into Pinochet’s reign of terror), he had a tough time growing up as a teen in suburban Maryland. Now he transforms his memories into airy, luminous drawings.

Jason Andrew and Sarah Schmerler

"Guilty / (Not) Guilty," curated by Sarah Schmerler. Norte Maar, Brooklyn, NY. Through January 29, 2012. Additional artists are featured in the Project Room, including: Berlin-based Paulius Nosokas and L.I.C.-based Wade Schaming.

Related posts:

The James Kalm Report chats with Sarah Schmerler during the opening reception. Schmerler talks about the artists' work and the important role instinct plays in curating. Watch it: it's excellent. (Don't miss the recent NYTimes article about Loren Munk, the guy behind The James Kalm Report.)

Must read: James Panero writes about the Bushwick arts community in his January Gallery Chronicle column in The New Criterion.

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Quick study: Damien Hirst edition

2012-01-05T20:48:00.013-05:00

In a Radio Times interview this week, David Hockney (who was just appointed a member of the prestigious Order of Merit by the Queen) ripped into Damien Hirst, calling his use of assistants insulting to other artists. "It's a little insulting to craftsmen," he said. "I used to point out, at art school you can teach the craft; it's the poetry you can't teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft." He quoted a Chinese proverb that to be a painter "you need the eye, the hand and the heart. Two won't do." Once Hirst said he employed assistants to make works (such as the slew of spot paintings) because he "couldn't be fucking arsed doing it." (via The Guardian)

From the workshop of Damien Hirst, Bromchlorophenol Blue," 1996, household gloss on canvas, 2 1/2 x 3 inches

From the workshop of Damien Hirst, Eucatropine, 2005, household gloss on canvas, 34 x 34 inches

And, speaking of Hirst's spot paintings, as of Thursday, January 12, all of the spots will be on display at the Gagosian branches around the world. According to Carol Vogel in the NYTimes, Hirst has come up with a spot print ("dedicated personally to you") for anyone who visits all eleven shows: two in London, three in New York, one each in Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Athens, Geneva and Beverly Hills. Participants have to register online to get a special "Spot Challenge Registration Card," that gets marked by the gallerina at each location. “I figured it would be pretty difficult to visit all the galleries," Hirst told Vogel in an email. "Totally admirable if anyone managed it, so admirable in fact that I thought they would deserve a work of art, so we came up with the idea to do the challenge. I’d love it if people manage it. I remember the golden tickets in Willy Wonka, maybe it’s a bit like that.”

The link for the challenge that was posted in the NYTimes article was down for a while (second thoughts?) but seems to be back online. Am I the only one who thinks this would make a hilarious movie? Maybe Sarah Jessica Parker is looking for a new project...

UPDATE:
Greg.org calculates how long it would take and how much it would cost to participate in the Spot Challenge.
At Reuters, Felix Salmon posts a more luxurious itinerary that costs $108,572 for a 19-day itinerary.
At Star Wars Modern, guest blogger Jennifer Bostic submits a $13,206 itinerary for the hipster trying to make a profit.

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Joan Mitchell Foundation announces 2011 grant recipients

2012-01-04T11:47:00.006-05:00

Congratulations to the 2011 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant recipients! 25 grants of $25,000 each are awarded annually, by nomination only, based on "artistic merit and financial need."

Diana Al-Hadid, Brooklyn, NY; Nicole Awai, Brooklyn, NY; Keith Benjamin, Cleves, OH; William Cordova, Miami, FL; Cicely Cottingham, West Orange, NJ; Florine Demosthene, Brooklyn, NY; Daniel Douke, Fallbrook, CA; Julie Green, Corvallis, OR; Tommy Hartung, Ridgewood, NY; Janelle Iglesias, Provincetown, MA; Gary Kachadourian, Baltimore, MD; Simone Leigh, Brooklyn, NY; Andrew Lenaghan, Brooklyn, NY; Anne Lindberg, Kansas City, MO; Virgil Marti, Philadelphia, PA; Liz Miller, Good Thunder, MN; Jiha Moon, Atlanta, GA; Catherine Murphy, Poughkeepsie, NY; Sarah Oppenheimer, New York, NY; Kanishka Raja, New York, NY; Duke Riley, Brooklyn, NY; Chemi Rosado-Seijo, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Annabeth Rosen, Davis, CA; Jackie Tileston, Philadelphia, PA; Sarah Walker, Brooklyn, NY.

Image above: Joan Mitchell (1925 - 1992), PASTEL, 1991, pastel on paper, 30 x 23 1/2 inches. Courtesy of Cheim & Read.

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Upcoming: Joan Miró Retrospective at NGA in May 2012

2012-01-04T10:22:00.010-05:00

I was at the National Gallery a few weeks ago where I took this snapshot of Joan Miró's breathtaking triptych Mural Painting I–III (1962). It turns out the NGA is bringing the Tate's Miró retrospective, "Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape," to Washington in May. According to the press materials, the exhibition puts Miró's paintings in a political context, presenting work created during a turbulent and bloody period that included the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Under the political restrictions of Franco's Spain, Miró's paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s became a symbol of resistance to the oppressive regime. Miró's work has long been interpreted as charming and playful, but I've always seen a darker side to his odd creatures and spiky linework since I visited the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona several years ago.

The exhibition will be a good continuation of MoMA's 2009 exhibition of Miró's paintings from 1927-1937 (curated by Anne Umland) that looked a Miró's painting concerns and the radical experimentation he undertook after he declared, “I want to assassinate painting.” An excellent show, it nearly made my Top Ten List for 2009.

Joan Miró's breathtaking triptych Mural Painting I–III (1962) is extremely hard to photograph, but it's a fantastic painting.

Detail: Joan Miró, Mural Painting I–III (1962). Definitely click on this one to enlarge.

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How long does it take Brice Marden to make a painting?

2012-01-04T09:25:00.006-05:00

In this 2009 conversation with Harry Cooper, curator at National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, that was recorded at Brice Marden's (Manhattan) studio, Marden discusses drawing with sticks, being a guard at the Jewish Museum during Jasper Johns's retrospective, his early marriage to Pauline Baez (Joan's older sister), being Robert Rauschenberg's assistant, his intuitive process, why the lines don't go off the canvas, and more. At one point, Cooper asks Marden how long it takes to make a painting.

"How many hours are we talking?"

"Physically, it's not a lot of painting time," Marden replies. "It's not hours and hours...well it is hours and hours but it's not weeks and weeks...hours rather than weeks...because basically I work all the paintings at the same time."

"This is the first take. This probably takes about an hour."

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Year-end roundup: The IMAGES column, 2011

2012-01-02T20:18:00.002-05:00

In 2011 Two Coats of Paint started a regular feature called IMAGES to introduce readers to painters who I thought deserved more attention. Here are links to the ten painters featured over the course of the year. Click on the links to revisit the original posts.

IMAGES: Louise Belcourt

IMAGES: Michael Van Winkle

IMAGES: Christian Sampson

IMAGES: Clare Grill

IMAGES: Margrit Lewczuk

IMAGES: Thomas Berding

IMAGES: Cathy Nan Quinlan

IMAGES: Karen Schifano

IMAGES: Stephen Maine

IMAGES: Paul Behnke

Note: Thanks to my excellent new camera, readers can look forward to better photography in 2012 (!)

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Textility: Idiosyncratic materiality at the Visual Art Center of New Jersey

2012-01-02T13:37:00.018-05:00

To kick off the new year, I will have work in "Textility," a big exhibition at the Visual Art Center of New Jersey that brings together 28 artists who use (or reference) fiber and cloth in their work.

Co-curators Mary Birmingham and Joanne Mattera coined the word "textility" to describe a new sensibility that they divide into three separate categories: paintings without paint (and its corollary, drawing without pencil), textiles without thread, and idiosyncratic work made with a strong focus on materiality and process. I'm looking forward to seeing this huge three-gallery survey that goes beyond "fiber art" to explore ways in which fabric, fiber, and sewing are infiltrating contemporary art practice.

Participating artists: Joell Baxter, Caroline Burton, Sharon Butler, Mary Carlson, Jennifer Cecere, Pip Culbert, Elisa D'Arrigo, Grace DeGennaro, Barbara Ellmann, Carly Glovinski, Elana Herzog, Marietta Hoferer, Nava Lubelski, Stephen Maine, Lael Marshall, Derek Melander, Sam Messenger, Sam Moyer, Lalani Nan, Aric Obrosey, Gelah Penn, Debra Ramsay, Susan Still Scott, Arlene Shechet, Susanna Starr, Leslie Wayne, Ken Weathersby and Peter Weber.

The exhibition opens on Friday, January 13, 6-8pm. A fully illustrated catalog that includes essays by both curators will accompany the show. The exhibition runs through April 1, 2012.

Save the date: On Sunday, March 25, 2:00 pm-4:00 pm, join us for a talk with the artists and curators.

Exhibition announcement.

Here's my piece that was selected for the show: UniQlo, 2011, pigment, polymer, pencil, silver Krylon, thread, on canvas, linen and calico cotton, around 65 x 50 inches. Check out images of more work in the studio here.

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Idiosyncrasy: Philip Guston in 2012

2012-01-01T07:18:00.019-05:00

At the Observer, art critic Laura Cumming pairs the top ten New Year's resolutions with art work. My favorite is number ten, Stop Procrastinating, which features Painting, Smoking, Eating by Philip Guston from Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. A self-portrait, Guston lies awake smoking, with a plate of fries balanced on his chest, and, in the background, stacks of shoes loom (symbolizing his unfinished work) and brushes soak. Apparently, at this point in his life, excessive eating and a three-pack-a-day cigarette habit were affecting his health. That Guston made such personal yet powerful paintings about existential worry is something to think about this year.

Best wishes to everyone for a productive and painterly 2012.

Philip Guston, Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1973, oil on canvas, 197 x 263 cm

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The discourse: Helen Frankenthaler

2011-12-31T22:50:00.009-05:00

“Painting is very private and personal....There’s an emotional content, but I’m more involved in the light and color and drawing of a painting. I don’t set out to portray an emotion.”

--Helen Frankenthaler, 1972

While I was on vacation last week, I was sorry to learn that Helen Frankenthaler, 83, had died. She lived in a seaside home in Darien, Connecticut, and according to the New York Times, had struggled with a lengthy illness. Frankenthaler was best known for pouring thinned paint directly on unprimed canvas, creating big stains of thinned color, which later came to be known as Color Field Painting. I wasn't familiar with her achievements until I read numerous obituaries which credit Frankenthaler with building a bridge from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism. The image below is from a series of prints Frankenthaler made with Pace Editions in 2007. To my eye, it looks pretty damn contemporary for someone who has been painting since the 1950s. Perhaps the painting is all the same--it's just the discourse that has changed.

Helen Frankenthaler, Book of Clouds, 2007, aquatint etching, woodcut & pochoir with hand coloring, 35 5/8 x 68 1/4 inches, Printed by Pace Editions Ink, Published by Pace Editions, Inc., Edition of 30.

Grace Glueck writes in the NYTimes:

Refining a technique, developed by Jackson Pollock, of pouring pigment directly onto canvas laid on the floor, Ms. Frankenthaler, heavily influencing the colorists Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, developed a method of painting best known as Color Field — although Clement Greenberg, the critic most identified with it, called it Post-Painterly Abstraction. Where Pollock had used enamel that rested on raw canvas like skin, Ms. Frankenthaler poured turpentine-thinned paint in watery washes onto the raw canvas so that it soaked into the fabric weave, becoming one with it. Her staining method emphasized the flat surface over illusory depth, and it called attention to the very nature of paint on canvas, a concern of artists and critics at the time. It also brought a new, open airiness to the painted surface and was credited with releasing color from the gestural approach and romantic rhetoric of Abstract Expressionism.

Jerry Saltz writes at Vulture:

She blurred the borders between geometry, order, chaos, the body, atmosphere, and ground. She shunned the overemotional hysteria of Abstract Expressionism, pouring thinned, watered down, and turpentine-laden mixes of color directly onto raw canvas. Her structures and shapes were open, controlled by natural forces while also describing them. Her paint and canvass became one surface. This was a big deal back in the day. Edges evaporated; accident was visible; so were her means and intentions. Pooling paint created varying viscosities of thickness and thinness; paint dried into imagistic river beds, isolated islands, clouds, continental masses that all evoked landscape without depicting it or engaging any abstract sublime. There was no paint-flinging or implied dance around the canvas. There was picture-making, pure and simple. And beauty. Lots of it. Which of course made people run back to labels like feminine.

And that wraps up our posts for 2011. See you next year.

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