Diana Al Hadid

The AIM show I saw a couple of weeks ago has been reviewed in (the Westchester edition of) the NYTimes by Benjamin Gennochio, who has some very positive things to say about Diana's work -

"A wonderful installation-sculpture by Diana Al-Hadid (born in Syria, living in New York City) disrupts the prevailing two-dimensional bias. Prominently placed in the middle of the main room, it looks like an outsize disintegrating phonograph or a melting marzipan flower of some sort. Frankly, I have no idea what it is. But it announces a young artist of unusual imagination and creativity. This is by far the most ambitious, thoughtful and original work of art here."









Gennochio also like another piece I talked about, Alison Ward's funny burlesque wolf video -



"Alison Ward invites us to step into a peep-show booth to watch short films of go-go dancing predators chasing seminaked women through the woods. It is a spoof of horror movies, partly, but also a caricature of childhood fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks. Framed mock movie posters surround the viewing booth, announcing coming attractions. I can't wait to see them."

AIM 26, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse (at165th Street), through July 2. Information: (718) 681-6000 or bronxmuseum.org

Gertrude Abercrombie, again maybe, plus

Yesterday I included a bunch of stuff after those Gertrude Abercrombie paintings, but then it all got lost somehow. I will try again.

Those two paintings posted below were not included in the excellent show of Chicago artists (Ivan Albright, Roger Brown, Jim Nutt, Ray Yoshida) I saw at PAFA last week, I found those two pictures after looking her up. Abercrombie was represented by Self-Portrait of My Sister, 1941 and Girl Searching, 1945.

I also took crummy illicit cell-phone shots of the Suellen Rocca and Barbara Rossi paintings. Mike Martin, you would have liked that Barbara Rossi; it's acrylic under plexiglass, with many many little dots and dot-lines painted on top of the plexiglass. There is space between the plexiglass and the painting, so all the tiny dots cast tiny shadows. Kind of Jonathan Lasker, kind of Jovi Schnell, in braille.

It is nice to return to a city you haven't lived in for many years and run into people everywhere. Chuck More was sitting on the steps of the PAFA Museum, waiting for a friend. His gallery has closed, I think he is now dealing privately or something. It was SUPER to see my old figure drawing teacher from PCA, Al Gury, inside the museum. I hadn't even noticed him, he was walking by and recognized me. Al was an EXCELLENT teacher, so encouraging and supportive. A favorite. Al is now the head of the painting department at PAFA! Wow!! Al said that another one of my favorite teachers from that time is also teaching at PAFA - Renee Foulks. The title is not quite correct (unless she changed it) on her gallery's website, but that's me in one of those drawings! That's weird to see.

Also ran into Lamont Steptoe on the street and learned that he was a 2005 American Book Award recipient! Lamont and I made the pilgrimmage to Ground Zero together in October 2001. Lamont has been at it for a long hard time. Congratulations to Lamont!!

RELATED: Roberta's post on the show here, curator Robert Cozzolino's response here.

Gertrude Abercrombie

Just spent a long time on stuff that got DELETED!!! Ugh, I hate that!

Short Version: This is Gertrude Abercrombie.

More later... maybe...

Marshall Glasier, for FB

Marshall Glasier.

Matt Connors via Barry Hoggard, plus

Matt Connors painting photographed and first posted by Barry Hoggard. I didn't get anything from this when I saw the show, but looking at Barry's photo I am into it. Why? Sometimes I see things I like on-line that are disappointing in life, and vice-versa. I should have looked at these Connors paintings longer, I think. Barry also has some good photos of the Chris Dorland paintings.


Elana Herzog piece photographed by Barry Hoggard. This is one of the artists I liked from Surface Charge.

dArt

dArt international on... Richmond.

Three articles -

Steve Rockwell's main article on... Richmond, here. Recent VCU grad Steve Jones has an article on VCU, but no link. VCU visiting artist Cece Cole reviewed at VCU's Solvent Space (link is NYArts, which published the same review; the dArt article doesn't have it on-line).

I think we can safely say that Richmond has been covered. No stone was left unturned!

Thanks dArt! Congratulations must also go out to Joe Seipel, for his selfless promotion of... Richmond art and artists! I think. Throw that man a towel!

what?!? no anaba mention???

Halprin Was Here.

This is where Richmond's Lawrence Halprin Fountain and sculpture garden used to be.

Here comes trouble. I'm hungry! Let's chow down on some art!

Lawrence Halprin's Ira Keller Fountain, in Portland.
Lawrence Halprin's Levi Plaza Fountain, in San Francisco.
Lawrence Halprin's Freeway Park Fountain, in Seattle.

Lawrence Halprin Fountain Saved!.... in Olympia.
Lawrence Halprin Fountain Saved!.... in San Francisco (not the Levi Plaza one, a different one).

Maybe we can make up for this by having Maurizio Cattelan bury something under the new museum, I mean, three-story glass atrium? Wow, what a coup! A Maurizio Cattelan! Buried right under our own three-story glass atrium!

PAFA visit, #1

Went to the PAFA Museum on Sunday, maybe the most gorgeous museum ever? I've visited many times, but this time I was visiting with an architect, and she pointed out all sorts of things I had never thought about or noticed; like the exposed red I-beams with their little white flower flourishes, the vestigial outlines of removed chair rails, the fact that some of the woodwork was not original and that the "wood-grain" we were looking at was in fact trompe l'oeil painted to match the original stuff nearby. She even (with permission) opened and closed the pocket doors.

Every architect with hopes or plans to ever design a museum should visit this building. Frank Furness was a STAR, and he created something over-the-top EXTRAORDINARY, but it is also a great place to see art (form follows function?). We couldn't help but think about the gazillion dollar VMFA expansion - and how they have completely maxed out their window/glass allowance, the triple-height atrium, and the destruction of Lawrence Halprin's fountain and sculpture garden. Someone please update me if it has somehow been saved, or if you have destruction photos you would like to anonymously send.


This painting is INCREDIBLE. Please understand how good it is by knowing that this photo was taken with the same shitty cell-phone camera used for most of my photos, and look at the clarity and light. It is a big painting.


It's like Richter, one hundred years before. I don't have my notes with the artist's name, I'll have to update later.

UPDATE: Daniel Ridgway Knight(1839-1924), Hailing the Ferry, 1888, Oil on canvas, 64 1/2 x 83 1/8 in.


Noah's Ark. Noah detail. Penguin. Everything is solid.

UPDATE: Charles Wilson Peale, Noah and His Ark (after Charles Catton), 1819. Click on that title to see a non-cellphone image.


See the bat? See the whale's spout?


Horace Pippin, Abe Lincoln, the Good Samaritan, 1943. Saw a great Horace Pippin show here years ago. I think that might be the show being reviewed in Sarah McEneaney's imagined portrait of Ed Sozanski, that is definitely a Pippin in the background.

Look at that Black Avenger in this Horace Pippin painting. That is so weird. I'd like to see that on Monument Avenue.


Edwin Dickinson, Andrée's Balloon, 1928. Click on the title and then click on that image to see it much better.

more later...

PLUS: Did you know that Frank Furness nominated himself for the Congressional Medal of Honor... and WON!

Edna Andrade

After Saturday morning's race I jumped on my bicycle to hurry home for a shower and catch a ride to Philadelphia. The Art Alliance was closed for the day but they were setting up for a wedding reception so I got to see that Carson Fox is included in a small group show there. Carson's show at 1708 Gallery opens April 7th. Also saw that Susan Jamison is featured on the cover of the Mid-Atlantic edition of the Gallery Guide! Congratulations, Susan!

After the Art Alliance I walked down the street to the Print Center and saw an exhibition of Edna Andrade prints. Edna was born in 1917 and is still painting. She's well-regarded in Philadelphia but NOT NEARLY as well-known elsewhere as she should be. Her next show at Locks Gallery opens April 21st.


Moon Clouds, 1970 - yes, my colors are not the greatest; can i get a blog sponsor to buy me a camera?


Silver Turn, 1971 - i think these prints are $1,600 apiece, from original editions of 35.

(i might have mixed the titles up)

YOU NEED TO CLICK ON THOSE IMAGES TO SEE THEM BETTER.

Sesom was here. Plus... did it!

Walked into a bathroom Friday night and saw sticky evidence of the existence of Sesom. He is seeping into the world, maybe, looking for vegans to recruit. The colors in reality are better - yellow, white, and pink. I need a real camera.

PLUS: Did it! I ran a 10K Saturday morning. I never ran in a race before.

time: 00:49:13!!!
overall: 1391 (out of 20,000+)
overall in division: 177 (men, age 35-39)
overall in gender: 1131

Trenton Doyle Hancock

Wow. I really loved the Trenton Doyle Hancock show at James Cohan. Energetic, exuberant, fun, funny, inspiring, exciting, grand.


Painting, drawing, and collage. That chair leg and skeleton foot are felt or something.


Big... Foot.


Here is the big foot at an angle. The most colorful toenails are THICK with paint.


An explosion of stuff. There is an ongoing story to all this, something about vegans and mound-meat, the Blestian Room, someone named Sesom and his band of converted vegan disciples. I think there is a war. Lots of buckets of paint marked MM that made me think of Mountain Man. A text about Sesom's strange color experiments and conversations with Painter (is it you Painter? are you in league with Sesom?). So nice to be in someone's make-believe world, and to bring some of my own make-believe world into it, and leave reality. I was wondering if I would run into my old friend Humberto.


The above piece at an angle; covered with paint, painted and collaged black canvas, felt, plastic plates, peanut butter lids, bottle caps. There are holes in the canvas.

His resume still includes his participation in a 1995 juried student show; the juror was Tom Moody!!!

Christoph Ruckhaberle

Very much enjoyed the Christoph Ruckhaberle show at Zach Feuer. Was he included in the Leipzigger show at Mass Moca I saw and couldn't get into? If so, he must have gotten better.

- the wavy wobbly arm of Frightened Young Man, seated, with yellow spatters, dirty patterns, and green paint, like chewed gum, stuck to his sleeve.

- the distorted, three-fingered, warped wrapped wavy green dancing Butzemann (Troll).

- the blue-faced strangled Reading Lady, spidery Tambourine Man's bottomless black round eye, the ice-cool blue hypnotic chair nails and pink pink ear in The Party.

- all the masks. Those looked like so much fun to do.

This show is up until April 8th. Lots of good fun weird fussy messy painting.

OH! I forgot to say. Ross Bleckner and friend came in and chatted with Zach while I was there. Ross seemed the more star-struck.

chelsea, march 2006, #3

Wade Guyton at Friedrich Petzel - a small room full of big "paintings", looked great, even very close together. They aren't really painted, the linen (is folded first?) is fed through color printers. Lots of printer's errors - things smudge or drag or blur - make them interesting. Heart As Arena has more info and photos.

I spent some time looking at the one above, thinking about how on one side the white circle looked like positive space and on the other side it looked like negative space, and in the middle it all sort of layered. The two blacks, the left and the right, are not the same; one side is a little more faded. This was an abstract painting, a goofy face, a moonlit night, a hole-y building.


Robert Appleton at Paul Sharpe - he painted longing and make-believe.


Laurie Hogin at Schroeder Romero- she can really paint fur! Check out that skull, I saw A LOT of skulls in Chelsea. Cheese skulls, helmet skulls, sad helmet baseball skulls, many many skulls.

in and out real quick: Rachel Whiteread at ?, Tony Oursler at ?, Alois K. at Plus Ultra (the light was really strange in a bad way in there, is that the way it always is?), ? at DCKT, ? at Boesky, ? at Stux, ? at Rare, ? at Freight & Volume. Some others, but can't remember who and where.

not in long enough: Forest movie at Cynthia Broan (only saw the last 20 minutes of the main movie), Phil Collins movie(s) at Tonya Benekder, Kara Walker movie at Sikkema Jenkins. Many good videos in Chelsea. Enjoyed the David Guinan interviews at Alona Kagan (sorry to see Colleen Asper's painting badly lit). Loved Cao Fei at Lombard-Fried.

missed!: Judith Linhares, Jules Olitski at Paul Kasmin!! others i'm sure.

Liz-N-Val

It's Liz-N-Val!!!


Val Loves Liz.


by Liz-N-Val, on Liz.


by Liz-N-Val, on Val.


with Liz-N-Val!!!!!!!!!

Look at their work.

(i'm going to add more later, but it is time to go the gym and get home by 10 for Amazing Race)

UPDATE: i don't really have anything to add. the pinkies were eliminated.

Carla Knopp

Found another interesting artist in blog world. Carla Knopp (Indianapolis) left a comment on Bill Gusky's (Connecticut) Artblog Comments. I am thankful for the non-anonymous artist commenters.


Carla's self-portrait pictured above is a lot like (to me) my sort-of self-portrait. They both feature isolated wistful figures in fantastically rich remote landscapes.

Check out Carla's paintings!

P.S. Bill Gusky has updated his website. Looks good!

chelsea, march 2006, #2

Stephen Westfall at Lennon Weinberg - I liked every single one, but none of them quite as much as Dogwood, the piece I saw here last summer. I think because Dogwood made me think of Japan.

Jason Fox at Feature - Jason Fox kicks ass. This was so cool to see right after seeing the Stephen Westfall paintings next door. This painting is in the back and the guy let me look at it, and even pulled out a bigger older one that Fox had painted on the back of a Meyer Vaisman (they are former studio mates).

Everything at Feature was good - the current show in the front room is Lucky DeBellevue; James Wagner has a beautiful photograph here. The paintings are like something from Maurice Tuchman's The Spiritual in Art. Tyler Vlahovich is in the back room with interesting work.


Louise Fishman at Cheim & Read - I really liked seeing the little sailboat De Kooning homage in this painting. That's what it is, right? That's how I read it, anyways. Didn't like all of these paintings, some of them got to thick with brushstrokes and flattened themselves out or something. My favorite was in the back room, on the wall on the right. Can't find an image but it was called Ramon De La Vida Loca - it had a lot of variety of strokes and direction and action, and the space was the best. The lightest part was farthest away, the darkest parts closest; and the far away strokes were the sharpest, with the closest the blurriest. There was a big sweep coming down from the top, a little left of center. Like a gauzy curtain.

Lots of Louise Fishman talk on PaintersNYC and at Edna's.

Alison Fox at Sikkema Jenkins - Another sailboat, maybe(?). Okay, I have now seen enough Alison Fox paintings to know that I generally like them, and in this show she and Paula Wilson were my two favorites, although I didn't like the Fox image that was chosen for PaintersNYC at all, too cake-y. I like her colors and designs, sense of structure, and the seemingly casual brushwork. Some of these paintings get very complicated but they don't become weighted down (except for that cakey one).

The Paula Wilson's were freaky. On some of them all of the crinkly paper add-ons kind of got in the way for me, but on this big butt face one it works well.

The Matt Connors and Mark Handelman were both just completely blah for me, and Chris Dorland's stuff I always find boring for some reason, but not necessarily badly painted. Not sure what it is... the monochrome, the stifling feeling, the sterile settings? Can't get into them or get anything out of them.

They talk about this whole show on Fairy Butler's blog, lots of different thoughts in the comments. Most of them didn't like Fox's paintings, and did like Connors'.

chelsea, march 2006, #1

I saw a lot of stuff.


Inka Essenhigh at 303 - Some of these I liked and some not so much. I like the sense of grotesquerie and wondrousness, all of the attention to detail and the great amount of CARE. This one that was featured on PaintersNYC is full of little animals scampering away into the magic rubber plant forest; the blue painting of the woman in bed being pulled apart by white gremlins looked like a big broken blue egg.

Last June I talked about how recent Essenhigh work was making me think of some of the Ashcan School artists, including a link to this George Bellows. Now that I've seen the painting above I no longer feel like that was such a FAR OUT thing to have said (i noticed that an anonymous someone in the paintersnyc thread also made that connection).

Not so into the colors always. Too much of one color, tooo much blue, like everything is underwater. Maybe trying to make everything seem far away and slowed down?


Little sculpture in the hall of the building I stayed in. Like an Essenhigh.

Tomory Dodge at CRG - Every brushstroke was the same, I couldn't get into these at all. I liked the tube sock hanging from this cactus, and some of the colors.


Tara Donovan at Pace - Too much math. Edna liked it, and of course it is a spectacular piece, but walking around Polly Apfelbaum's Cartoon Garden was more fulfilling.

Michael Raedecker at Andrea Rosen - Overall, I guess I was (a little) disappointed because I was expecting to really love the show, and didn't. This red piece though, from a foot or two away, is ravishingly beautiful. Deep reds and lush decay.

Maybe my expectations were too high, or I need to go back and spend more time with the work. I think these are paintings that I would like more and more every day.


Daniel Johnston at Clementine - Went to this show ready to hate. Most of it was an awful waste of space, but some of them were strong. The person in the piece above is burning in hell and screaming "Please bring me back... I don't want to die. I don't want to be dead!".

The lack of editing was lame. The whole place was just one big ring of framed $2500 drawings. It could have, maybe, been a good show, but this just smacked attempting to cash in.


Diana Al-Hadid at AIM show- This is not a great picture of Diana's piece but it was taken at the opening and hard to get a good view of. I like that line that goes from the top of the blue painting, through Diana's piece, and ends at the hairline of the man on the right.

Whoah! Diana's name is on Artnet!


Alison Ward at AIM show - This video was very sexy, strange, and funny. It starts out in the woods with the music from the beginning of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song - just the "aaaaah.. ah, aaaaaaaah... ah" part, followed by panting. It's like someone is running through the woods, breathing hard, maybe being chased. Topless burlesque dancers appear and start dancing. They are wearing wolf masks. I can't describe it.

Swoon

This is the first piece of art I saw on my visit to NYC this past week. Spotted this Swoon wall piece from my window on the Chinese bus, coming into Chinatown from Richmond, then walked over and took the picture.

$60.00 Round Trip.

pretty landscape

pretty landscape.

DUMBO show

I'm included in an upcoming show at DUMBO -

"Work In Progress", D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center
Artists: Martin Bromirski, Tom Burckhardt, Chrissy Conant, Byron Kim, Joao Onofre, Douglas Paulson & Ward Shelley.
Curator: Jessica Hough, Curatorial Director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
March 25th-May 7th, Opening Reception March 25th, 6-9pm

"The exhibition provides an opportunity to glance inside the process of both art making and artist’s block, moments of acclaim and those of isolation. Here the artists have held up a mirror to themselves and generated work that reflects on their own lives"

This is the show I was talking about here, before I knew for sure what I'd be exhibiting, and my contribution is more than originally thought (and will include a painting or two).

Barry Hoggard has used one of my images for his ArtCal listing! Wow! You need to scroll down past the Chelsea listings to get to Dumbo. I guess that means I will need to include that painting in the show, which is GREAT because that is the same painting that swam in the ocean, received a thumbs-up from George Clinton, didn't sell at Aqua, and was represented by Matthew Marks. I enjoy things that happen to paintings after they are made, their "experiences" out in the world. This painting is having a FULL LIFE.

more museum

Collection of George Catlin paintings. Real liquidy fresh. These are from what he called his "Cartoon Collection", duplicates made of previous paintings that had been sold to pay debts.

This George Catlin is reminding me of this Joy Garnett.


This huge wall has been empty for at least two months. This would be a good spot to curate a little show of local artists. I'd put up Michele Arthur, Travis Conner, Tom Harte, Ron Johnson, Kirsten Kindler, Michael Lease, Me, Danielle Riede, Oura Sananikone, Bruce Wilhelm, and others - maybe salon style. I was very close to coming back with one of my own small paintings and just hanging it, but wouldn't a little temporary group show, with permission, be better? Please let me do it!!!

The other thought I had was extremely guerrilla, but can't you see a big Rats Rats Rats here? Don't do it, Rats.


This lobby area was disorienting. It was like I had been eaten by the museum. Where is the floor? Where is the wall? It was a Katharina Grosse moment.