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Friday, September 26, 2003

Let your fingers do the arting

 

post from Judith Schaechter

Regarding the posts about the fibers shows at Abington and Spector Gallery you ask [in a post dated 9/15/03]: Is all this labor-intensive art a reaction against found object conceptualism? I think most people who develop a preference for labor-intensity are not doing it as a reaction, response or critique of anything but due to strong personal compulsions--like an abundance of anxious energy, a deep belief in a work ethic or sheer love of hands-on involvement with materials.(Image is from medieval manuscript, "Book of Kells.")
Many self-defined crafts people develop their ideas primarily through hands-on involvement and trust that their hands (and eyes) are equal participants with the brain in the creative process. The tension between conceptual vs. craft art is as basic as our anxiety about the mind vs. body--and neither conflict is going any place soon. The disparaging of craft in fine art has a lot to do with politics of "value," discomfort with our bodies, mistrust of our senses and a desire to avoid anything that smacks of manual labor.
--Judith Schaechter is a regular contributor to artblog. You can see her work at Claire Oliver Fine Art.
permanent link  roberta 9:38 AM
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Upgrade those costs, Ditta replies to Franklin

 
Actually I'm not sorry about not having to slide work anymore but the costs you're talking about are costs after the fact of buying a scanner, a cd burner, learning Photoshop and assorted other technology and that's assuming you've already got a relatively modern (or should I be saying contemporary) computer. Cheap eventually but not cheap right away for everyone - in time or money.

And what about the cost of the new digital camera I'll have to get when I can't buy film anymore? The future is probably glorious but perhaps not a bargain. (For more on this thread, see posts dated 9/24/03 and 9/20/03)

--Ditta

permanent link  roberta 9:14 AM
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Thursday, September 25, 2003

Cooking with Baker

 

Meanwhile, I wanted to know what else was cooking with Curator Baker, who always seems to have his hand in multiple projects in and out of town. (See post below for more.) First off, he told me what’s next at Morris. Coming in December is an installation by Fleisher Challenge winner Michelle Oosterbaan who, Baker says, will “discombobulate” the space. She’s going to build some ramps and change the space and make work on the walls and....to be continued. (Image above is Oosterbaan's wall piece at the Delaware Museum of Art Biennial.) Then in February, Adam Cvijanovic, whose wallpaper piece in "On the Wall" at the Fabric Workshop depicted a suburban backyard.

Baker chauffeured the artist around town so he could photograph things for use in his Morris piece (Cvijanovic makes paintings on tyvek based on photographs, then translates them into wallpaper). So what’d they see? Apart from the PAFA building, they looked at the Liberty Bell (groan) and, Baker’s idea, the SS United States, a rusting hulk of an ocean liner docked on Delaware Avenue near Home Depot. “I thought he might like that,” said Baker. (Image is Cvijanovic's "Backyard.")

Baker is doing some freelance curating and writing. He wrote the catalog essay for “Beautiful Losers,” a travelling skateboard show he hopes he can find a way to bring to town. And he’s working on a project at Dumbo in May, a group show called “Heroes, Villains and Average Joes.” “It’s a portrait show...portraying the self,” he said. Philadelphia artists Virgil Marti and Max Lawrence will be in the show. “Max paints villains,” he explained.
permanent link  roberta 5:20 PM
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Approach the bigness

 

I caught up with Alex Baker at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts the other day. Baker, Curator of Contemporary Art and overseer of PAFA’s contemporary project space, the Morris Gallery, keeps it fresh over there, which is good since upstairs, all they seem to be showing nowadays are exhibits on the American flag and portraits of George Washington. (I guess when they fill the spot left vacant by Sylvia Yount, now at the High Museum, they’ll get back in gear.)


At the moment, Los Angeles artist Monique van Genderen’s vinyl and enamel collage paintings are giving the Morris a breezy, upbeat ambiance. They work especially well with the (drumroll) shiny, brand new wood floor. Yes, the dark, green rug of yore is gone, bring on the era of Swiffer and the bright acoustics.

Baker fundraised a bunch to make the floor happen and it’s mighty fine.

Anyway, van Genderen’s mix of color, shape, line and texture give her abstract pieces great, intimate moments as well as some that are sized for a billboard above I-95.

These works are as open as the prairie. But far from feeling overbearing or oppressive, they are charmingly sly and insinuating. You accept their bigness and don’t feel squeezed by them.

If this is painting, it’s big, without being bombastic, and communicates on some human level that makes a difference. If I had to compare van Genderen with a contemporary artist, I think I’d use Jeremy Blake whose works are also paintings of a sort, and humanly approachable. (All images are from van Genderen's PAFA wall installation. Last image is a detail.)

permanent link  roberta 4:45 PM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Agh, continued

 

Good point, Ditta, and while we're on the subject, you might find Franklin's take on slides vs digital media of interest. (See artblog.net) He does a little math calculation based on 25 applications for teaching jobs, each requiring 20 slides of work and comes up with a $500 cost (and very little possibility of getting a job --1/250 chance). But if you put the images on cds instead of the obligatory slides, the cost would be $8.75 ...and presumably the odds of getting the job would still be 1/250, so at least you're ahead a little money. (Image is that pretty new $20 bill.)
permanent link  roberta 3:24 PM
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post from Ditta Baron Hoeber

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Its not just the no more slides its the no more color photography printers either.

--Ditta Baron Hoeber is a photographer who uses (used?) color photography printers.

permanent link  libby 12:58 PM
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News-ettes

 
Did you see...

Local artist Kate Moran gets nice play at Artnet in the Miami roundup by Nicole Davis. The writer captures Moran’s complex miniature world with words like stillness, natural beauty and, my favorite, "voodoo fetishist’s power."

Artblog contributor Astrid Bowlby gets a mention in the New York Times review by Ken Johnson’s of the current Drawing Center show..."bewilderingly complex" is what he calls Bowlby's work.


Henry J. Holcomb’s piece in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer business section talks about the renewal of Centre Square -- home of the Claes Oldenberg Clothespin. The big news for me came way down at the bottom where Holcomb mentions that as part of the spiff-up, my second-favorite philly sculpture, Milord la Chamarre, by Jean Dubuffet might be moved from what appears to be the dunce's corner out back of the building to somewhere more appropriate for a great work by a major 20th century artist. (Image shows Milord...not only is it in a corner but it's on a lift about 10 feet off the ground)

“If the city Art Commission is willing, Daroff and Campoli would like to move the Jean Dubuffet sculpture, Milord la Chamarre, now easy to miss on Market Street, to a more prominent place,” says the article. Twenty years overdue.


permanent link  roberta 9:44 AM
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Tuesday, September 23, 2003

The Columnist

 

Stephen Robin’s new public work, “A Walk through the Woods,” took me on a walk through the bowels of a PATCO subway station at 12th and Locust last Sunday. (Image right)

"Walk," which spiffs up a bunch of lowly support columns below ground at two PATCO stops in Center City (the other is at 15th/16th St.) is a thing of beauty so gorgeous and unexpected it’s a true gift.


The low relief, cast aluminum panels depict the flora of Pennsylvania and New Jersey as if caught under glass and bursting to get out. Soft-edged and welcoming, your first impulse is to touch them. (Detail left)

Normal subway behavior is to look down, up, away -- anywhere but straight ahead where you might meet the eye of another human being. And keep your hands to yourself, as the good nuns say. But Robin’s columns, which are lined up like sentinels or other subway riders waiting their turn to pass, invite your gaze. You can look them in the eye, even cop a feel.

Nature’s irrepressible energy is a complete anachronism in this underground environment. And that makes it all the sweeter.

Robin, who shows his sculpture at Gallery Joe and is known for his large, contemplative, public projects which use motifs from nature (see detail of "Federal Triangle Flowers" a Washington, D.C. piece) has endowed the underground space with grace and uplift.
permanent link  roberta 12:17 PM
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Sunday, September 21, 2003

Clay's a popping

 

When I stopped in to see Rain Harris’s “Gilding the Lily” last Tuesday at Temple's Tyler Gallery the artist’s work was in the middle of a photo shoot. The ambiance was perfect. The pop, pop, popping and flashing of lights seemed just right for work that’s sexy as a starlet preening on the catwalk. (See detail from "Ebb")

Harris’s porcelain poison bottles, enthroned on matching porcelain shelves surrounded by matching porcelain medallions and backgrounded by matching wallpaper -- are beyond gorgeous.

They’re gorgeous taking a nose dive into kitsch -- Jeff Koons without the hard on or Kate Moss in a Calvin Klein Poison perfume ad. But unlike kitsch, which aspires to comfort and the quick telescoping of an idea, Harris's new work is a complex mix that stings as it sings.

It’s the deathly dark side of pleasure.

Harris, a Clay Studio resident artist and Leeway award winner, was dressed like the antithesis of her work -- a worker bee in bib overalls and a t-shirt. She told me that the wall pieces grew out of her frustration with pedestals as showcases for her work. A truly extreme reaction but one that makes sense for work that has moved from the floor (in large pieces that resembled botanical forms ) to the wall with subject matter shifting from the garden (and the origins of poison in deadly flowers) to the boudoir's receptacles that house the poison oils.

There’s always been an anthropomorphic quality to the work. These highly-charged, female or in some cases hermaphrodite forms (neither teapots nor vessels), all non-functional except in the realm of symbol -- are a royal court of characters -- and another echo of Versailles on the local scene.

Millenial longing for the past or perhaps just a rummaging around in old stuff to find a way to the future, either way installations like Harris's insinuate more than broadcast, their message a jumble as complicated as today's front page with its warm fuzzy human interest story and news of the latest car bombings from Iraq. It's must reading.
permanent link  roberta 10:33 AM
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