Saltz lecture tomorrow...UPDATED: post-lecture

Jerry Saltz is lecturing at 4:30 tomorrow (10/4), at VCU. University Student Commons Theater, 907 Floyd Ave.

Jerry still doesn't like Marlene Dumas.

UPDATE 10/04/06: he said he was going to lecture on content- which i wish he would have - but instead he did a general talk about being an artist, how to be an artist, stuff like that. he was very entertaining and charismatic, funny, self-deprecating, a total ham.

...talked a lot about the artist's obligation to be in the public, get seen somehow; fame. the need to be in cities. i'm pretty he sure he reads artblogs.

...he said he was almost fired a few weeks ago? the paper changed ownership? his own precariousness... and temporary-ness in the scheme of things. he thinks joan acocella is a great critic.

...about how a pollock drip painting endures, how it "gives off more energy than it took to make", and how pollock was a terrible artist who willed himself to be good.

...talked about the triple candie's david hammons and cady noland shows. very not into it, nor into triple candy's current show entitled "the trouble with triple candie". said they should just call it "the trouble with our genitals", or something like that. interesting how dismissive he was, but also interesting that it is on his mind so much and bugging him. i think those remarks about triple candie were fairly off-the-cuff.. unintentionally revealing.

...said that he is the first and last matthew barney fan (meaning he is still a fan, the only one). remembered first seeing a barney climbing/vaseline video in a group show around 1990, and being struck.. calling his wife over. she looked at it for a minute or two, said "guy stuff", and walked away.

... said john ravenal's artificial light show at vcu's anderson gallery includes two artists he had never heard of, one of whom he really liked... but never got around to saying who.

is he going to write about the show? i hope so and i hope not... so because it is a good show and deserves coverage, not because i don't like the idea of critics writing about shows they are paid to visit. it isn't like he paid his own way down here, and did the vcu studio visits and lectures for free, right? it becomes too much like paid pr. i have covered all this before... maybe if he includes it in a write-up of other richmond art things, okay.

RELATED: Joe Fyfe on the Triple Candie show

also... I had put this link up originally, with the Marlene Dumas link, but took it down because it seemed so confrontational and i have been trying to be nicer and in control... but i will put it back up for his own good, because he had so much to say about the perils of navel-gazing.

WHAT DID YOU THINK?

what is it?

What is it??

Okay, I will tell you. It is the projection of a lightbulb sitting on an overhead projector.


What is it??

Answer below:


This is how I did it. With my pen that is like a dog.

i knocked on his door

I knocked on his door.

Well... first I called two phone numbers on the signs and got prayer lines that didn't know who he was or what I was talking about... then I called the number looking for the sign stealer and let it ring about twenty times and nobody answered... THEN I went up and banged on his door for a while, but nobody came... then I wrote a note and put it in his mailbox... then finally as I was leaving he answered the door.

I was hoping to put one or two of his signs in a show I am organizing, but he isn't interested. He's a little bit interested, or maybe curious, but not enough to take any of them down, and says he doesn't have anything extra inside. His main concern is catching the sign stealer, and making sure I am not the sign stealer. The current sign stealer... as people have been taking them, intermittently, for forty years.

Once he was convinced that I am not the sign stealer, he went back inside to get a warmer shirt on and came out on the porch to hang out and talk. He said he has a hobby... he can guess anybody's age, height, and weight, within three years, an inch and a half, and five pounds. He was off by eight years and two inches, but claimed he got two out of three right because he backtracked and said height within two inches.

He also said "I'm a poet. I can make a rhyme, anytime, on a dime"... long pause... "that's a fact, Jack"... followed by "I know you're name's not Jack, I just said that for the sake of the rhyme".

After that it was all about Jesus and The End of the World. It was funny because he would be preaching and then segue into something real-world, like sports or catching the sign stealer... "He is an angry and jealous God, and I'm gonna get that sign stealer". It really bothers him that someone would take them.




Sign stealer, you are bad!!

Revitalized for New American Paintings, maybe

.
The recent Wendy White thread on PaintersNYC had someone asking about New American Paintings...

I've been very bad at applying for things and getting slides made since starting this blog, especially things that require slides and writing checks. This set of 2005 paintings has been viewed almost three thousand times(!), what do I need to apply to stuff for? A lot of those needs are being met right here. BUT.. that person's cautious strategizing has energized me to maybe apply again, or at least to let everybody else (Mid-Atlantic region) know about the upcoming deadline - 10/31.

Following are some artists you've probably heard of that have been featured in New American Paintings since sometime 1999, with links to their included work. There are probably more that I missed, and I'm really curious who may have been featured 1993-1999, but they don't have that old stuff on-line. All the images are from their featured work -

Laylah Ali, Tim Bavington, Astrid Bowlby, Jane Callister, Janice Caswell, Jason Coates, Elizabeth Cooper, Amy Cutler, David Deutsch, Angela Dufresne, David Dupuis, Eggo Eggebrecht, Margaret Evangeline, Franklin Evans, Joyce Kim, Mel Leipzig, D. Dominick Lombardi, Matthew Fisher, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Jim Houser, Susan Jamison, Matthew Day Jackson, Kim Mccarty, Mike Martin!, Jiha Moon, Tina Newberry, Laura Newman, Chris Norris, Michael Oatman, Danica Phelps, Bruce Pollock, Sam Prekop, Alexis Rockman, Lisa Sanditz (twice!), Anne Seidman, James Siena (twice!), Jered Sprecher (and six years ago), Ryan Steadman (twice!) Danielle Tegeder (twice!), Bradley Wester, Wayne White,

AND... last but not least...


Wendy White!! This is from six years ago. It's interesting because her statement talks about exploring new materials, and mentions starting to work with spraypaint.

RELATED: on being rejected from New American Paintings, December 2004 (someone interesting in the comments, who?)

Artificial Light

Artificial Light, curated by John Ravenal, is at VCU's Anderson Gallery through October 29th. I'm glad I went to the opening, with all the people, and also later on when it was mostly empty. Most of the work in the show is better experienced without a crowd.

This show is so dark... I didn't know John Ravenal had such a dark side. I think I was expecting more of a mellow new-agey experience, like a Turrell or that big sun, but this show is political.

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla are showing a frankenplant being given just enough stimulus to keep it alive, the blue light emitted from a non-stop upward flow of Jenny Holzer's truisms - "symbols are more meaningful than things themselves", "the idea of revolution is an adolescent fantasy". This plant will now do anything that Jenny Holzer commands.


Iván Navarro has two black-light neon chairs, side by side in a pitch black chamber. Totalitarian design, awe and dread.


This is the shadow of an electrical cord cast by Nathaniel Rackowe's Dead Reckoning. He's built a corridor along which a bare electric bulb slowly tracks back and forth; as the bulb travels loops of slack cord are pulled up and the shadow noose tightens.


The corridor.


There are slats in the corridor, not wide enough to pass through, but you can walk all around the whole thing as shafts of light sweep through the space... LOOKING FOR YOU.


Spencer Finch's Kaaterskill Falls is the one piece that was better experienced with a crowd of tourists and tiny honeymooners. I like this piece (especially with people), but whereas before I was thinking this was the odd piece out, now I am thinking of it as the perfect complement to the rest of the work in the show. Interrogation, torture, and execution... with an American classic. Kaaterskill Falls is in the first room, so it is both your first and last impression of the show.

maybe more later... ?

paintings

This is my new favorite place to hang my paintings, underneath the face of Jesus. None of these are done, I am waiting for a sign.


The Face of Jesus!!

Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson is showing at Reynolds Gallery. Sorry about these photos, the color is much brighter in reality. Opening the door and seeing those two paintings on a bright day... they were very crayola.

These pieces are done on two or three sheets of layered mylar... the pooled paint could be on the front surface, on the reverse, or somewhere in the middle... also the drawing. They are hung a little bit off the wall, and the color I most noticed at the reception was the reflected oranges, purples, and yellows on the white walls behind the pieces. Kind of like light through stained glass.

The second visit was the one where I was struck by the bright crayola colors, and the scribbliness. These seem so refined, and then so child-like. They are also sort of creepy.. I start to see ghosts.. I don't know why but I start to think "cemetary", maybe because of all the orange and yellow Halloween stuff I'm seeing at the stores now. I've had this reaction before to Ron's colors though, thinking they were vampirish, from the batcave, and that was in a February.

The one above is like an orange skull.


Here is a ghost, rising up from a misty cemetary. Boo!


Upstairs are some pieces on panels. The one on the right is nice.


Like a body, but not a fresh one. A few days later... grey and leaking.


The strips that Ron uses... usually colored on one or both sides.


Thumbs-Up from Eric Sall! Really!

art market

old Richmond art market.


new Richmond art market.


Page Bond Gallery has opened at 1625 Main Street. This space is huge, so Chelsea... more Chelsea than most of Chelsea, even. Page's husband is an architect, I think he designed the space.


I'm not getting too close to the art with these pictures - not into any of the artists she shows - except maybe Andras Bality. You can go to the website and see all of the artists and their work.

too interesting not to note: Page and Sandy's daughter's father-in-law is the president of the Robert Lehman Foundation.

as seen in RVA!!!

Hey! I'm in this month's (September) issue of RVA Magazine! Goest is also in this issue!

RVA is now FREE, and if you are not in the RVA you can see the whole issue here, as a PDF EBOOK (scroll down to see each page).

RELATED: Goest on anaba 3/10/2006, 3/12/2006, 6/15/2006, 6/19/2006.

Paul DiPasquale

Paul DiPasquale's Neptune, installed at Virginia Beach. This thing is awesome.. look at how Neptune is palming that turtle! That turtle is like, "Uh oh, I am about to get DUNKED".

Some interesting comments left on that last post on Paul DiPasquale. Bill Gusky said it reminded him of Ray Harryhausen flicks from the '60's... Beq mentioned Salvador Dali, probably in reference to his Dream of Venus.

I am still impressed thinking about how he got the Arthur Ashe statue up. What would DiPasquale do here? Neptune kind of reminds me of Puppy.

Jack Kirby

Very happy to see Jack Kirby in the NYTimes on Sunday, and that the Masters of American Comics show has come to NYC; at the Jewish Museum and the Newark Museum (that's a pain, two different places). The Jewish Museum has a concurrent exhibition called Superheroes: Good and Evil in American Comics... Yay!

No Hal Foster or RF Outcalt, included... oh well, can't have everything. Versions of Outcalt's The Yellow Kid have shown up in my stuff... here and more literally here, for example. Kirby inspiration many many times.

Here is an interview with exhibition co-curator Brian Walker.

RELATED: Jack Kirby on anaba - 10/14/2004, 4/5/2005 (Jack Kirby and Grandma Moses should be in the Whitney Biennial), 7/14/2005, 12/13/2005… PLUS – the Meatballs of Others exhibition!!!

some older paintings

I'm scanning some slides of older paintings. This one isn't very old... it's from 2003. The slide isn't the greatest, but I love this painting. My brother and his wife have it now. There is a rainbow in the background... toooo many rainbows and skulls in painting was talked about on PaintersNYC the other day.


Here is a detail of the center of the painting. Tiny tiny cut-paper figure crossing a tiny tiny bridge of thread.

Here is another rainbow one. I don't have any slides of this painting; the people who own it are selling their house, and I went to the open house last week and took this picture. They also have Rosemarie Fiore, Susan Jamison, Bruce Wilhelm.. and others. It was interesting to see their old art and prints with the newer stuff. Definitely thanks to John for creating and guiding local collectors.

No nice slide of that second rainbow painting, but here is a good detail shot of the figure... and here it is with Peter Halley!


Honeycomb is from 1999. This is the one Lois Dodd posed in front of, while it was still in progress, at the Vermont Studio Center. Last time I saw this painting it was hanging in Plum Gallery... I don't own it anymore.


Here is a detail of Honeycomb.

I can't believe I can't find any skulls in any of my paintings! I think these two images from the twenty-piece One Day in the Garden are the only ones... can that be true? Oh! Here is one, kind of, from way back. There must be more.

Rie is the star of all of these... she is the little figure on the bridge, the figure under the rainbow, the face in Honeycomb, the happy attackers in that second One Day image. She is the bees knees!

RELATED: Tom Moody looks back at his old work too!

two things

There are so many things I mean to post and never get around to, until it is (almost) too late.

Artists/Curators/Collaborators, propose a show at 1708 Gallery - 1708 Gallery invites artists, collaborative groups, & curators interested in proposing exhibitions at 1708 Gallery to do so at this time. 1708 is a cutting-edge, non-profit art gallery interested in all genres and contemporary approaches to art making.

Proposals are due for our next bi-annual review session at the gallery by 5pm, Monday October 2, 2006 for consideration during this fall’s proposal review session. Proposals are now being considered for the 2007/2008 season. Proposal Guidelines are on the 1708 web site: http://www.1708gallery.org/ under Exhibitions/Proposals.

LAST CALL to participate in JT's Artists Interview Artists project - I keep thinking I will do this, but... . Chris Ashley, Carol Es, Deborah Fisher, Joanne Greenbaum, Christine Tillman, and Douglas Witmer have all done it. Fiona Ross was just on it!!!

Don Crow

Don Crow is showing at Plant Zero. Some of these new works incorporate photographs... maybe photographs he has taken himself in Qatar? The photos are black and white, not glossy, printed on some kind of paper or foam. They have a dusty feel, or maybe that is just from all the dusty scenes being photographed.




This one is constructed like the pieces from his Reynolds Gallery show. All painted Kraft paper: painted paper frame folded and stapled over painted paper ground, stapled with painted paper shapes.

i wrote more but it has been eaten by the computer... aaargh. i am tired now. maybe tomorrow.

Gregg Carbo, Don Crow, and Amie Oliver are showing together at Plant Zero through September 2oth - ONLY THREE MORE DAYS!!

fartist sighting

I saw the fartist last night at the opening of John Ravenal's Artificial Light. The fartist is smooth; last time I saw him he was with some girls under Rachel Hayes' installation, now here he is taking an imaginary photo of a girl in front of Spencer Finch's Kaaterskill Falls (the colors don't show up in my photo, sorry). This seem so perfect, two children taking pretend honeymoon-like photos in front of artificial falls.

RELATED: Here is an interview with John on the show.

Bonus!: John Ravenal in Rachel Hayes' piece.

Travis Conner

Travis Conner is showing at Nonesuch this month. This is the second show of his that I've seen, and this one is as rewarding as the first.

The beautiful young girl rising up out of the water above is the daughter of the woman in the smaller picture.


These two are maybe my favorites. The one on the left is very hard to see, even in the gallery. It is of somebody jumping on a trampoline, but the trampoline is not in the picture and the person is bent over... with the sun in the background you can only make out arms and legs. It is just a blurry glimpse of an anonymous person, mid-air, enjoying life. The mostly bare trees and sunlight are very specific. I keep thinking about time and the passing of time with these works, especially this one. I like that it is a struggle to see.

The one on the right looks like cherry blossoms. In Japan we have hanami, everybody goes to spend the day admiring the cherry blossoms, they bloom and fall so quickly. The newspapers and tv even follow the "cherry blossom front", the wave of blooming blossoms from down in Okinawa up to Hokkaido.

painting

my painting.

FORGOT: forgot to say that this painting is a result of mentions of symmetry from the Erik Parker thread on PaintersNYC.

ALSO: Worlds in a world in a world in a sky in a sea beautiful and corrupt. lovely - someone sent an e-mail that said that. Thank YOU!

wooloo

Here is a nice site to put your work on - Wooloo. It's free, based in Germany. I can't believe I still haven't followed up on any of these other good sites yet... but here is the beginning of my Wooloo page.

Thanks, Whitney!

Diana Al-Hadid

Diana Al-Hadid is showing at Vox Populi, in Philadelphia, through October 29th. These look fantastic.








Roberta has some good pictures on her flickr set, maybe artblog will post on Diana soon. If I get to Philly I'd also like to see John Armleder at the Philadelphia ICA.

RELATED: previous posts on Diana - 4/12/2006, 3/26/2006, 8/12/2005.

Spahr Brothers

Sarah Alicia CAN'T BELIEVE she is sitting in a river of candy.


A stunned little prospector, panning for candy...


It's real!!!


Is it true? Am I dreaming? Am I really peeing in a river of candy?




The red disk is spinning around and he is being hypnotized... his head is spinning around following it. We are softly chanting "candy, candy, candy" in his ear.


If you have to see this show, make sure you bring babies.