Tangled Web

Thanks to art-bloggers From The Floor , DC Art News, and Bloggy for the mentions and links today.

For my friends here in Richmond who might be new to this, a good listing of art-blogs from around the country can be found at Dangerous Chunky. Click on "art portal".

Chop Suey!

Chop Suey Books will be hosting another Bizarre Market on October 30th. Chop Suey is a Richmond used-bookstore/gallery, with bargains galore. I recently bought the 1973 Whitney Biennial catalogue there, for something like $4.00. The 1973 Biennial was the first, and a lot's changed since then! A real surprise for me was seeing that recently retired VCU sculpture professor Lester Van Winkle had been included.

The Bizarre Market is a street market on the block behind Chop Suey, with people selling all kinds of stuff, including art. Last time I went I got one of Nicholas Kuszyk's cool t-shirts and a very strange little robot made by a guy named Eric Hall. It's reminiscent of a Star Wars action-figure, silver, about five inches tall, with articulated joints. Eric had about eight of these robots, male and female, that he had cobbled together from other plastic toys, putty, and I don't know what else. Looking at the robot now it's hard to figure out what the individual pieces are. Eric said he was making these robots as a hobby, and when I asked for contact info he wrote "toy guy" in parenthesis after his name, so I'm not even sure if he considers them art. Don't know if he'll be at the upcoming market, but that's the kind of stuff you can expect to find. I've got his phone number if anyone wants it. Oh yeah, the price. It was only $15.00!

This time the market is being held to help benefit Art 180, a group working to provide art related programs to Richmond youth.

Thomas Cole

Speaking of the New York Academy in Rome (see earlier post), probably my favorite New York artist to draw inspiration from a trip to Italy is Thomas Cole. I'm from upstate NY, and have always been a fan of what is generally known as the Hudson River School, but really became interested after seeing the American Sublime exhibition at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts a couple years ago. That show was terrifically invigorating, and I really enjoyed organizer Tim Barringer's lecture. If you get a chance, he's a great speaker.

The show included all five of Cole's Course of the Empire paintings, which were themselves inspired by his travels in Italy and Byron's Childe Harold. Here is a timely quote from that poem -

"First Freedom, and then Glory; when that fails, Wealth, Vice, Corruption."

Something interesting learned at the lecture is that the term Hudson River School was actually a derogatory term used by European artists of the time in describing the work being made in the States. If anything, Cole and his contemporaries would have most likely referred to themselves as Sublimists.

VCU Open Studios

I heard that VCU might not be holding an open studio night this year. That would be a disappointment.

VCU kids, why would you not want to do this? Last year didn't have the greatest turnout, but people still came, including Virginia Museum of Fine Arts curator John Ravenal.

Please reconsider!

Rome

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Another upcoming deadline you might want to consider is the Rome Prize, to spend a year at the American Academy in Rome. The deadline is November 1st, and it's a real long-shot, and if you don't live in NYC you can pretty much forget it. In fact, they should change the name of the place to the New York Academy in Rome.

2004/2005 Winners

Lucky DeBellevue, NY
Franco Mondini Ruiz, NY
Jackie Saccoccio, NY
George Stoll, CA

and the judges were:

Chuck Close, NY
Nayland Blake, NY
Paul Ha, MO (but he previously ran White Columns, so we'll call it NY)
Lyle Ashton Harris, NY
Barbara London, NY
Elizabeth Murray, NY
Martin Puryear, NY (although he is upstate)

So we had a grand total of seven New Yorkers choosing 3 New Yorkers and a guy in LA.

2003/2004 Winners

Diana Cooper, NY
Maria Elena Gonzalez, NY
Matvey Levenstein, NY
John Newman, NY

and the judges were:

Agnes Gund, NY
Dawoud Bey, Chicago!
Susan Crile, NY
Paul Ha, MO via NY
Barbara London, NY
Philip Pearlstein, NY
Jack Risley, NY

In this case we had six New Yorkers and a Chicagoan choose four New Yorkers.

You can draw your own conclusions, but my opinion is that it's all pretty much fixed, they all know each other and/or are somehow invested in each other's work, and if you live in Nebraska and have spent the past couple months researching Rome to best explain in your proposal how important it is in this stage of your career that you be in Rome, you're a sucker.

Are you listening, artists of Miami, Los Angeles, Texas, DC, Chicago, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Seattle, and everywhere else?
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Opportunities

I've just started this blog, so forgive me for posting these opportunities so close to the deadlines.

Sculptors, you might want to look into the residency program at Sculpture Space. The deadline is November 1st.

And a sculptor who has recently left Richmond for New York, Kai Vierstra, is showing at Smack Mellon. Kai is one of their 2004 studio artists. If you are interested in applying for a studio at Smack Mellon or would like to go see Kai's work, learn more here. The deadline is October 30th.

Berkenblit vs. Birch

In the corner on my left, showing at Anton Kern Gallery, she brings a professional record of 11 solo exhibitions, more than twenty years of group exhibitions, and a successful sideline as a fashion designer, ladies and gentleman, please welcome, Ellen Berkenblit!

And in the corner on my right, the challenger, fighting out of the Bellwether Gallery, with four solo shows already to his credit, please give a big welcome to... "Mighty" Ion Birch!

But really, is this a reference to something I'm not aware of?

Rochester Contemporary

ROCO is looking for a new director. Information on applying can be found here. Rachael, you're in Rochester, aren't you?

Ota Museum

I've been putting together my application for the Ota Museum's research grant. I don't know if they get many applications from artists, I think it is mostly academics that apply, but I'll give it a shot. Meant to apply for this last year but didn't get it together in time.

The Ota Museum of Ukiyoe is one of the nicest small museums in Tokyo, with a fantastic collection from which they mount changing exhibits. Last time I was there I saw this piece by Hiroshige, "Futami Bay in Ise Province", of the Shinto shrine Futamigaura. Futamigaura, which might be translated into English as "the wedding rocks", consists of two rocky outcroppings just off-shore, one larger than the other, which have been bound together with ropes. This is one of those famous places so popular with Japanese artists, and you can get a better idea of what I'm describing by taking a look at this print by Hasui. A couple of my own pieces inspired by this place, or rather the idea of the place and Hiroshige's print, can be seen here and here.

Ukiyoe is most often translated as "art of the floating world". "Yo" is world, and "e" is picture or art, but I'm not convinced that the "uki" part was originally understood as floating. "Uki" can also be translated as fleeting, meaning ephemeral and transient, and seems much more in keeping with Japanese and later Impressionist sensibilities. This may be a case of an early mistranslation that has stuck, as "uki" does primarily mean float.

The best way to go is to take the Yamanote line to Harajuku Station and head down Omotesando, the museum will be on your left, up some steep stone steps.

Cremaster at The Byrd Theatre

All five of Matthew Barney's Cremaster movies are going to be shown at The Byrd Theatre at the end of the month. If you don't know the Byrd, it's a 1928 movie palace, in gorgeous condition, which shows second-run movies for only $1.99! Last week they had Spider-Man 2 and I think now they're playing The Manchurian Candidate and The Village. I am super excited to be able to see one of the Cremaster movies in such a beautiful theater. Thank you for putting this together!

Hit this link for all the info.

New American Paintings

Hey Mid-Atlantic painters!

The next annual deadline to submit to New American Paintings is October 31. This is great exposure, I've even seen it in bookstores in Tokyo, and have known a number of people who've been included. Some of them have been contacted by gallerists to be included in shows, and some never heard from anybody. The first time I saw Laylah Ali's work was when she was featured on the cover. Shortly after that I was in Boston and able to see some of her work for real at the Miller-Block Gallery, which happened to have a summer show up including an emerging artist named Amy Cutler. Both of them were in the last Whitney Biennial, and I had an early opportunity to get something relatively cheap and blew it! Aaargh!

As for New American Paintings, I've entered a few times and have yet to get in, but I 'll keep trying!

Andy Warhol

My friend Al started this site, Japander, of mostly American celebrities endorsing products on Japanese television. He's been threatened with lawsuits from Meg Ryan and Leonardo Dicaprio, so they might not still be on the site, but the best one of all is this one of Andy Warhol selling a television.

In case you don't speak Japanese, he is saying the names of colors, and then he says "pretty". It's hilarious!

Carolyn Henne

Last night I went to Carolyn Henne's artist talk at ADA Gallery.

First impression on seeing the show last week brought to mind the Mutter Museum or perhaps the trophy room of the hunter that killed Babar's mother, with amputated stumps made into seats and plant stands. The pieces on stilts or legs were especially disconcerting, simultaneously repulsive and cartoony cute. Those pieces sway when lightly pushed and I was able to experience that bit of surprise mentioned by Carolyn when I first saw one get pushed last week. The lower pieces are intended to be sat on. All of these pieces are malleable and feel like an artificial skin. Remember those action figure dolls, the Fem-bots and the Bionic Man, and you could roll the skin up their faces or arms? They feel like that.

The floor-to-ceiling column is intentionally squished in, folding a bit in places. Carolyn talked about how she is interested in "pressures". Internal forces pushing out creating forms, and the affects of external pressures on those forms. Like being squished into a room or sat on.

It was interesting to learn that these pieces can be considered self-portraits. Carolyn made a full body cast of herself some years ago, which she then gridded off and it sounds like cut into pieces. Carolyn refers to these pieces as "tiles" and I'm not clear if the pieces are more like slices or cubes, but they have been the building blocks of all her subsequent work. The pieces in this show are mostly made from tiles taken from her lower back, recast in multiples, rearranged and recombined. The spindly legs of the pieces I mentioned above are the same tiles in a smaller scale. The whole room is full of models of genetically engineered Carolyn-creatures turning their backs to us. I wouldn't want to be in that room during a lightning storm!

A woman asked how Carolyn would feel showing at the American Craft Museum, I guess because some of Carolyn's sculpture is functional and would therefore be considered craft. Didn't that woman watch the debates? Aren't we through with labels?

Iona Rozeal Brown

Tyler Green talks a bit about the development he feels is being made by Iona Rozeal Brown. I agree with Tyler in finding her work rather one-note. Hip-hop meets ukiyoe, Japanese girls in blackface. Brown bases it on her experiences with the ganguro phenomenon. But the ganguro she references was a blip on the fashion screen. I do remember seeing one girl in line at KFC or someplace who looked burnt to a crisp, but that black skin thing has been toned down. I don't think it was ever really about being black at all, but being "x-rays". Black hair gone blonde or white, white skin gone black, and super white eyeshadow and lip gloss, and those girls really were at the extremes of the trend. Most of them seemed to be going for some beach tramp look.

I did see something much different from the artist at Ty Stokes "Stop Bush!" show in Atlanta. Can't remember clearly enough to describe it well now, but it featured two women in burkhas holding guns. That was a nice surprise. It was also I think one of the few pieces in the show that had anything to do with Bush or politics. I heard that Bill Bounds, the owner of the gallery, just wanted to have an excuse to make "Stop Bush!" postcards. Good one!

Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby is one of my favorite artists and a big influence. Why isn't this stuff in art museums yet? It will be soon. If I had any money, I would buy a Kirby. Where can I see one for real? Probably at a comic book convention. Am I the only one that thinks Kirby may have been influenced by Japanese prints? Especially Hokusai and Hiroshige. Lot of parallels between American comics and ukiyoe.

Segal Foundation

Mailed in my application for a grant to the George and Helen Segal Foundation today. Wish me luck! Everyone else, keep them in mind for next year. I think they alternate years with awards to painters and sculptors. Next year will probably be for sculptors.

Today was also the deadline for the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. I've applied to this a couple times before, to no avail. I'll try again sometime, but not this year. New Mexico is beautiful beautiful beautiful though. I lived in Albuquerque for about seven months back in '94 and loved it. They have the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta there in October.

the meaning of anaba

I'm calling this blog anaba, the same name I gave my first solo show. Anaba is Japanese and can be understood as a special place known only to a few. Like a secret swimming hole that only the locals know about. It's a kanji compound word combining the character for hole(ana) with the character for place(ba), but "anaba" sounds a lot prettier than "hole-place".

test post

First test post.