Friday, December 08, 2006

Rauschenberg vs. Klein: HAPPENING Head to Head

The Pompidou Center in Paris set up an interesting juxtaposition. Yves Klein is long dead(1962)so we can only guess how he would have felt about it. Rauschenberg on the other hand, must have been amused if he made the trip. It wasn't subtle.

Historically speaking, Rauschenberg has nothing to worry about. He's a supernova in his own lifetime, a heavy hitter, a HEAVY weight. Yves Klein is not in his class. Still, "comparing and contrasting" the two, as we are invited to do by the French art establishment, was inevitable. Impossible to avoid. So pull out your score cards and let us begin!

Rauschenberg looked great. I mean GREAT. Beautiful work, beautiful installation. Rock solid. If not all the pieces we've come to know and love, most of them were there. By Job he looked like the master! Rauschenberg 1, Klein 0

Next door, however, Klein immediately took the advantage. SURPRISE? He was given the nicer space. Larger rooms, more beautiful and better flowing space, and windows, which let the space breathe. Rauschenberg's space felt like a closet. So chalk one up for the Frenchman. Klein 1, Rauschenberg 1

The thing about Rauschenberg looking great was a double-edged sword, unfortunately. The work looked too museum worthy despite its whole "happening" history. It certainly seemed "happening" in its day, but now it looked more calculating, like he knew exactly what he was doing. Klein, on the other hand, looked positively breezy; alive; daring; even hit or miss. But his hits looked fresh from the market, even today. Score a big one for Klein! What a surprise!

Most of this work is from the Fifties and early Sixties. I won't talk about what that means. Museums( the Louvre is close by) have a way of looking like mausoleums. Rauschenberg ended up looking like Rembrandt, not like anything we might find in one of the ICAs of the world. We might learn from him the way we would learn from Poussin. Maybe even down on our knees in front of the master. Now maybe it was the installation, the lighting, but the work looked that old and yellowed. Is that bad? It felt that way. Again, I was surprised and disappointed. I remember going to the Johns show at the old MoMA and feeling like the light had gone out of the work, work I loved. These guys had been heroes of mine as a teen in the Sixties. But not Klein. He seemed like some kind of showman/charlatan, giving his peers a bad name.

I have to add quickly that the taste question is another surprise. You figure the Frenchman is the one who is going to get bogged down in such bloody good taste. NO! Rauschenberg is the surprisingly tasteful one, it is just so hard to see past his rebellious nature. The work looks downright ugly most of the time, but the taste quotient is through the roof. Everything is so tastefully considered(too?) it is a wonder he could find the time to do what he did. The taste is furious! Fast as a cake walk. NOTHING is left to chance. Everything is immaculately considered. Calculated. Made to get him past or around or even up with de Kooning, Rothko, and Pollock.

Now Klein looked pretty damned good. Not at first, mind you. Still in the glow of Rauschenberg he looked shallow. Flat. One-dimensional. The same over and over again. Even slick. But then something happened I could not get around. Something I couldn't dismiss to preserve my old hero.

There is a famous picture of Klein that the Pompidou Center used to advertise the exhibition. They put it on posters, cards, and books. It shows him flying out the window with the sidewalk waiting for him. It it positively glorious. Icarus. His head is held high and thrusting forward, arms spread like wings to his sides, back arched and body behind him like a bird. It is the picture of the artist. The individual. The fool. The hero. The artist. Everything that it means. It is wonderful!

That thing I couldn't get around was that in Klein's paintings, almost prints, made by rolling naked women(yes, so FRENCH!) in his signature blue paint(IKB) and then on blank canvas, things did happen! Real accidents, visual mysteries that you couldn't put a finger on, just experience. These were REAL happening paintings. Yes, Klein was a conceptual artist, one of the first of his age, and not a painter, per se, but these paintings are paintings precisely because they are light as a feather. With a whimsical detachment that frees them. Almost like the sort of thing that kids make with spin art. Crap shoots. The kinds of things people find too easy to dismiss. Too just beautiful. But they got me. They flew through the air. THEY SOARED! Surrendering to them was an experience that slapped me in the face like a biting winter wind. And it woke me up! With a smile. I needed that! But maybe that's not art.

Maybe Rauschenberg wins for art. Maybe he IS the master. And maybe Klein was just a life thing. Too caught up in his blue freedom to carve out his place in art history. But give me life everytime!

Friday, December 01, 2006

Andre and Smith: Americans in Paris

What to make of these two out in front of the Louvre. David Smith and Carl Andre. Sr. and Jr. The Modernist leading the way to Minimalist. Smith taking up the torch of European Modernism(read Picasso), and Andre, what, the dead end, the killer, the cold hard last stop, the bridge too far. Ironically Andre looked the more comfortable of the two. Hiding in the grass. Snake in the grass. Cool. Elegant. Safe. Coiled. Invulnerable. Smith much more human, of course. How could he not be? Bold. And again, ironically, looking more American. A little awkward. Ill-fitting suit. A little showy. So the pioneer American sculptor looking a little out of place. As it should be. Andre, the preppie from Andover, very smart. Very smart. Too smart for his own good, thus he painted himself into a corner with his “floor tiles,” and really left himself nowhere to go. Really jumped with both feet fast and hard, claiming the turf for himself, but unlike LeWitt, unable to reinvent himself. More the sculptor, less the conceptualist. It is the old issue of “brand” and “branding” that gets so many artists in trouble. Establish the brand and you’ve got it made. Establish the brand and unleash the curse. The beginning end the end. Stella had a second act. Pretty amazing.

David Smith, of course, like Pollock, clearly transcended and repaid his debt to Picasso. The spring board that turned swan dive in both cases. Both, however, enjoyed unfolding and evolving bodies of work. They did not just happen. Abstract Expressions was the “happening.” The ing was important. Andre’s work, like Intelligent Design, just happened. Didn't evolve like Smith. Made it more godlike and not Darwinian. More arrogant. More elite, and thus less approachable. Another reason Smith suffers a more human appearance by contrast. Andre’s grey flannelled cool from on high. Smith’s jaunty free spirit/maverick out alone in the universe, facing the elements on Bolton Landing.

Although they made unlikely companions, their association was fruitful. Americans in Paris. Old School and newer Old School. A thousand light years from Delacroix. They always say artists from different periods, from the past, would recognize their equals. I don’t necessarily agree. Issues of form can be transcendant, but other qualities may not be so sympathetic, and may not travel so well. Greatness as a transcendent force smacks of a kind of clubby elitism. Who decides? Delacroix was so “hot” and pushed the Romantic discourse so far left. Hard to deny something pretty great there. Andre is so classical, so right, so conservative really. I don't think he'll make it. Smith is out on his own. Out in space. Classical and Romantic at once. Maybe somewhere in between, maybe outside the discourse. Greatness in his bones. A free man in Paris.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Mystical Bits

Last night I was captivated by an airing of a lecture by Richard Dawkins at a southern women's college on C-Span. After the inevitable "now what?" let-down of the elections, whose outcome was of course very pleasing, this was just the ticket. An English gentleman lecturing about the absurdity of God and God-beliefs in small town America. While he had an excellent audience that was academic, and by and large very supportive, he was NOT singing to the choir. We are at times a nation of church-going, God fearing, mindless lemmings. This was fascinating. What was amazing at that moment was how civil he was most of the time. What was also amazing was that the questions were not all ridiculous. It was a very good dialogue for television. Much better than all the recycled tripe on Hardball! It would make a GREAT television show! This is something people are REALLY curious about. What do they believe? Are there alternatives? What if you like some of the rituals, community elements, and even some of the people, but don't adhere to the beliefs for a second? I suspect that there are a lot of these people. There better be! There are also people that are excluded from those things because they don't believe.

Why am I writing about this? What does this have to do with art? First of all, plenty, and second of all, because I have a few questions of my own, thank you very much.

Richard Dawkins is a supporter of the Brights' Net movement. Brights are essentially Atheists. Bright is intended to be a positive term for Atheists along the lines of the term Gay, and what it did for the same-sex movement. And we are talking movement. A political force if you will. Why? Because religion is controlling the discourse, not only in this country, but around the world! So naturally I am right on board.

The Brights will tell you right up front that:

"Our nations, cultures, politics, genders, occupations, interests, and so on differ widely. However, we are generally "“in sync" with one another because we share a worldview that is free from supernatural and mystical elements. We are set apart in a broad sense from those who have worldviews that embrace such elements, whether entities such as deities, or forces, or both."

First of all I think it's great what they are doing. It is a big thing. It is a good thing. A very distant second thought is that I don't think you can have a movement that is defined by what it is not. Well, maybe you can, but it is reactionary in nature then, and at a distinct disadvantage when trying to hold it's own against the fanatics. On the other hand quibbling about that it is like standing in front of the Grand Canyon and arguing about the color of the shoe laces on your boots. Again, this is a big thing. A good thing. So although I have a problem with the "free from" thing figuring up front so prominently, it is a minor issue.

How does this figure into art? Art for art's sake. That says it all. I believe Brights' Net is merely "Life for life's sake." THAT says it all. Very positive. What art for art's sake meant was precisely the same thing in that "free from" was implicit. Art for art's sake paved the way for Abstraction, which was self-identical, about itself, of itself, etc. and I think that this is relevant to the discussion of being Bright. Abstraction IS the real. No illusion. Real color, real line, real paint, real form, real real. Bright is the same. Real. Reality. No illusions. No false references. Natural law. No pointing over there; but instead looking right here, right now, sober and clear eyed and yes, free from supernatural and mystical elements. It is a commitment to free-thinking; finding reasonable explanations for what we don't understand instead of inventing myths and relying on superstition to ease our pain and confusion.

This is a very positive thing. For so long now we've been trying to fix religion. Reform it. Create new ones. Those of us who rejected it altogether in favor of Life, life for life's sake, were disenfranchised, shouted down, alienated. Richard Dawkins is the kind of voice in the wilderness that David Hume was, the big difference being that Dawkins is out talking about it with people, people all over the world. HE is BRAVE. David Hume didn't have to remember too far back to when people were burned alive for being merely reasonable.

There is no fixing religion. We've tried that. People who want the sense of community, the comfort of rituals, the interaction, the sense of belonging, the sanctuary, need to seek a more reasonable solution. (Ironically religion involves a ridiculous amount of imagination--too much!) Reasonable imagination would do. Bright is a brilliant and imaginative alternative.

I've always felt very positive about art. Some people think it can be a religion. It is something better. It is a place that demands that we look and feel and think about the world around us, and then take that and celebrate it.Wartss and all. That we appreciate it! That we do it HARD! It locates us where we are, when we are, how we are and what we are. Even who and why we are. The path. The true path. The razor's edge. Accepting the challenge. Embracing the challenge. Keeping it real. Always learning. Always taking the hard fork in the road. True. No mystical bits. Just LIFE. Sounds pretty Bright to me.

That said, what does it mean? That said, what someone wants to believe or not believe is their business. No exceptions. So getting all excited about a reasonable world is just as absurd as believing in the Easter Bunny. Life is not reasonable. Reasonable, like every other ideal is, up to us. Like justice or charity or civility. How many times have I been wrong trying to right a wrong. Makes me shudder to think. My shoulders bunch up and a wave of "sorry" comes over me. Two wrongs. Wrong every time. I already regret ragging on religion.

It is hard to treat love reasonably. I've seen it done, and the results were anything but reasonable. I'm not even sure it's worth trying to accomplish. Reasonable is not warm. Reasonable is not comfortable. Not supposed to be. But don't we need comfort. Am I going to deny the comfort religion, with all its supernatural and mystical elements, can bring to the lonely, the poor, the lost, the confused, the downtrodden, the betrayed, the forgotten, the abandoned, and misunderstood? After all, who knows? It is very hard to practice the reasonable, even for those who preach it, just like it is hard for those who preach virtue. For every priest or evangelical who fail themselves and the ones they were meant to love and protect, there are the reasonable ones who go down in flames obsessing over some crush. Something they can't control. I've seen it. I've seen Oxford Dons taken down by aninfatuationn that was anything but reasonable. So so much for the church of reason. Fact is, we're on our own, and where ever we find sanctuary, well, any port in a storm. Good night and good luck!

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Express your YES!

Express your yes! This means having a positive attitude about what you do, what you believe, what you support, what you dream. It does not mean being defensive about these things. That's a no. Zidane. Don't Zidane anyone or yourself for what you do, believe, support, dream. The headbutt is not the answer. Yes is the answer. Don't let a jerk make a jerk out of you. Yes is the answer. Is it hard? You bet. It is the only way to go? Absolutely.

You see it with those in the extreme everywhere. They explode or implode. Yes is the answer. If you are an artist, give yourself the yes you need and leave the no behind. When you do the no, the rebel, you join yourself at the hip to the thing you are trying to get away from. Yes keeps you free. Are there consequences? Yes. Are they worth the price? Absolutely. When you have that yes you are always ready to go your own way. No is a negative force the way defense is a negative force. Who can tell who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in a fight. No one. It stinks. Peace. Yes. When you get involved with fighting war, you are Zidane. You've stepped in shit. You become part of the shit. For what it's worth, as an artist, you also spare yourself the incessant need to put other artists down to lift yourself up, which is a defensive and negative action. You will free yourself from that game, the need to opine, the need to be strident, and the yes will restore your energy in a positive and creative direction, so that you can be your true self, true TO yourself, and your work, and others!

I did not rebel against school when I was a boy. I just didn't give it power over me because I had too many other things that were important to me, that I wanted to do, that I had a yes for. Did I suffer the consequences as far as the school was concerned. Of course. I didn't care. I had a great life. School sucked. I gave it no more than was required by law. Of course school doesn't have to suck, but there is no getting around that it is a breeding ground for bullies, children AND adults(teachers, administrators, custodians, etc.). All of this is hard. The only way to flourish, to grow, to be happy, to do something truly good, is to express your yes!

Friday, October 06, 2006

On Paper

You know the sports aphorism that if games could be won on paper then there would be no point in playing them. The truth is that not only do they not get won on paper, but that this is the whole point of playing the game. As much as we try to achieve things on paper, and there are people dedicated to figuring out how to make that happen, it just doesn't make any difference. If you can't factor in everything( you can't), and all it takes is one unfactored event, well... then the best laid plans of mice and men...

Does this happen in the art world? ALL THE TIME! Does it frustrate people? YOU BET!

Do you get it? Well, you see it with designers, architects, engineers, etc, all the time. They conceive it on paper and then in REAL life: it sucks. EVERY TIME! About thirty years ago someone in the art world coined the phrase: site-specific(ten years before that it was just called "going with the flow"). I don't know who. Who are you? It was like identifying gravity. There all along, but someone gave it a name. We're good at that. Anyway, there you have it: site-specific. What does that mean?

Well, in the art world it was limited. Limited to a specific site( a gallery, a museum, a landscape, a city space, etc.--it spawned what we now know of as Installation Art). It meant that all the decisions that went into making something happen, into making a work, a work of "art," were made in that particular time and space, in the place where it would exist--as much as humanly possible. Unfortunately, as a result of this limitation, in the end it was naturally limited to this specific idea and experience. But the real meaning is much larger. When you create something within the space(and time!) it is meant for, rather than on a drawing board somewhere, you feel the space, you rely on feeling the space, and you respond to everything about it. You don't just see it in your mind's eye, you feel the energy around and between things, below and above things(this means light and temperature, and sound, and color and texture, as well as history and function and so much more), and you not only surrender to it, you embrace it, you honor it, you serve it, you celebrate it( all the feng shui rules and recipes can't cover it--you have to BE there)! And that is huge! A huge difference, and huge distinction, a huge chasm between the two. It makes all the difference in the world.

This figuring stuff out on paper plays out everywhere. On Wall Street, in the Pentagon, in Fashion, and as I said, in Sports--and in the minds of people young and old. How many times did I go out with someone who was great on paper and a dud in real experience. MY FAULT. No one else's. They weren't really a dud, just not the person for me. I never listened to my feelings. I remember that Richard Tuttle tried to explain this to me but was ill-equipped because he hadn't quite put it together. He put it in terms of doing the best thing instead of the right thing, the right thing being, I guess, right on paper. The other thing, the best thing, had to do with this larger idea of site-specific. It is not just being "in the moment." Even that is too limited.

This is larger. The sort of stuff when you put time and space together. You can see a long way, and a long way AROUND. Shades of Vonnegut. Is there something to be said for paper? Maybe, but I can't really say one way or the other. What it reminds me of is when I was moonlighting(Addison) as a young art critic. People would tell me what their work was about "on paper" and all I wanted to say was "Huh?" And then when I asked them what was really going on they would explode from inside with all this emotional stuff. None of this "juxtaposition" crap. The same was true when they showed me their sketches. All I could think was: wow! this is where it really happened--the finished piece is just an empty shell. As a result, I tend not to do sketches, ever really. I try to make it all happen it the work. It either happens right there or it doesn't. Have I done work I liked from sketches. Yes, but mostly because something ELSE happened.

I know this is a little different, but it is connected.

I saw a card for a show called SHOCK. Hello? Talk about setting yourself up for a fall! You've given it all away on so many levels, surprise being a critical one. It is like telling someone you're going to hide behind a door and say boo! SCARY! Also connected.

I heard yet another artist ragging about how all the work(except THEIRS!) really sucks. Because someone else is showing or selling or getting written up-- and not them. It is not supposed to be this way: ON PAPER!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Guilty As Charged!



Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Get it going on!







Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Love and Art; Power and Money

If you're going to do anything sweet in this world, of course, you're on your own. It doesn't register on any scale. As they say, money talks and everybody listens. The way things are. No point in being unhappy about it. You have to like it. It does not mean however, that there aren't other ways to go. And doing something sweet, for the love of it, well, that has it's own reward, and you had better see them for what they are.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

You Get It After You're Dead!





Sunday, March 26, 2006

The Fork in the Road; The Razor's Edge

I ran into a couple of artists yesterday. One in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Same thing. Frustrated about their careers. Leon Polk Smith liked to say that if he had to he would pay money to be an artist. The fact is, every artist does pay. They invest money in studio space and supplies that they will never get back.

Stay close to the source. You find God in nature and in life, not in churches. The same is true of art. You have to stay close to the light. Every second an artist spends worrying or obsessing about their career the farther they get from the light. The world is filled with temptations to take the wrong fork at every turn. We compare, we score, we want more. It may be natural, but it's the wrong fork. It is simple math. You do the work. Without the work you have nothing. With the work you have everything that matters. The rest is crap, and it lures us with promises that are static illusions. Visions of grandeur, visions of glory. False evidence that we matter somehow.

Those two artists I ran into are gifted. Art is a gift. For giving. I just wanted to slap them. SHUDDUP! STOPPIT! Quit wasting your time and mine talking about stupid shit. If they could only hear themselves. Sure, they do another kind of math. The exposure game. The more exposure they get, the more chance they have of making it. Never happen. You can't force life. All you get is resistance. Be grateful for what you have if indeed you have some time during the day when you can do the work.

Sharing your work is a blessing as well. It is part of the process. Find ways to do it, but don't be pushy. Let the horse drink when it feels like it, all you can do is get it there. Better to make sure the water is good, clean, pure, drinkable, worth drinking and so on.

That's the deal. The razor's edge. It is not only sharp for a reason, we are supposed to keep it sharp. Every minute. And every choice we are faced with, every dilemma, every spot we find ourselves in, we are challenged to do the right thing, make the right turn, make the right choice, by ourselves, the best we can, with the best tools we have, and our best judgment, and our biggest heart.

Thursday, March 23, 2006









Tuesday, March 14, 2006

NEOAB: Settled Abstraction

Before getting into the abstraction of the last twenty-five years, NEOAB, or neoabstraction, I would like to rant a little about another one of those negative ideas that get passed down unchecked, along the line that having a mind of your own or doing what you feel like are bad things. IMPRESSIONABLE. You know, how very impressionable he or she is, and how sad. Like this is a bad thing. That a person is moved by something or someone. Too sensitive. Too willing to listen. To consider trying something different, outside one's normal sphere of experience. It falls in the same camp as INFLUENCED. These are in direct conflict with the other two I just mentioned. If you have a mind of your own and do what you feel like, you are probably less impressionable and less likely to be influenced. Nonetheless, the idea that one could or would be influenced by forces outside oneself is not even worth discussing. We are nothing if not a lump of clay shaped by the world around us. But the idea that being unimpressionable would be considered a virtue is mind-boggling. That being easily impressed is a sign of bad character, that being influenced is a sign of weakness or perhaps a lack of character. The real question should be about which forces we allow to make an impression on us, and whether we are influenced by positive or negative energy.

One of the absolute worst things one can say about an artist is that they are heavily influenced. It is downright mean and practically indefensible. There is not an artist alive who has not been heavily influenced. The greatest artists were probably the most influenced. I just heard a story about the great Miles Davis, whose wife turned him on to rock and roll and Hendrix, and how it changed his life and his music. De kooning, Pollock, David Smith, Rauschenberg and everyone else, were influenced by Picasso, who made no secret of his influences and took it a step further by acknowledging that they were self-conscious influences, that he didn't borrow, he stole. Nevertheless, the worst thing you can still say about an artist is that they are influenced, period.

Consider the people in this world upon whom nothing makes an impression. The unimpressionable. The unmovable. By anything, especially the unprescribed, the unique. Things like children, nature, animals, art, music, literature, etc. Two things: first, what a shame; second, STOP making a virtue of the affliction.

Because if you are going to get anything out of this life you must allow yourself to be touched. The hope is in nature, in love, and in art. Let them make an impression.

Now on to NEOAB.

The very first Modern abstractionists were an absolute lot. Malevich. Mondrian. There were hard line, hard edge for a reason. They were trying to be clear about a new language. They were starting out with building blocks. Lego. The work had a graphic quality because the language came from a graphic place. The inspiration which shaped their images came from places like design and topography. They were not interested in the wilder or even more nuanced side of the language because it served no purpose. Rational clarity was imperative if this new language was to survive. It was no different than the kind of rigid severity required by the Pilgrims to survive their first few winters in the New World. You don't take any chances.

The abstract expressionist began by literally breaking down the hard line of such clarity in favor of exploring a more irrational, personal, emotional, poetic, gestural and fluid expression. They were influenced by impressionism, collage, calligraphy, and the can of worms that was opened by the world of psychology. They wanted to go down that rabbit hole and see what they could find. Dreams, the unconscious, the emotions, these were the stuff of the first generation of Abstract Expressionism, and they crossed the line. If you want an almost instructional example of this, look at the early work of De kooning. Everyone talks about the dissolve of the figure/ground relationship in these works, but one could more easily make a case for the break down of rational abstraction. De kooning would find an edge, cross it, find it again, cross it, again and again. He would do it until he had broken it down as much as he could and still have a painting/composition/picture.

NEOAB is not another generation of abstractionists exploring the language. That is over. NEOAB is the first and following generations of artists who accept abstraction as settled law. Indeed, if the abstract expressionists were frontiersman, NEOAB are the settlers who are building a life on ground those artists before them broke. Is there any virtue in being one of these settlers? Probably not. Virtue doesn't enter into it. NEOAB are not heroes like the original abstractionists. Those guys were giants, no question about it. I would never question that or try to diminish what they accomplished. Never. I have only respect and awe for them. Those of us who follow behind them have a different set of challenges, like keeping the curiosity, the wondering of it moving. It is NOT about refinement. It is instead about doing what it takes to expand. In some ways it could be considered a significant challenge. Like the war in Iraq, it is a question of winning the peace. It is also not about preserving abstraction. While we don't want to lose it, that is a job for historians, not artists. No, it is literally about settling it. Reinventing and reinvigorating it. Bringing new meaning to the language, new testimonials, new visions, new poetry. More than keeping it alive, bringing it new life. It is an evolution. Abstraction is evolving and will keep evolving.

Who are some of these artists? Joan Snyder. Bill Jensen. Jonathan Lasker. Jennifer Reeves. Thomas Nozkowski. Elizabeth Murray. Howard Hodgkins. Jessica Stockholder. Porfirio DiDonna. Richard Tuttle. Have they been around? Yes. Have they been doing this for a while? Yes. Is it settled abstraction. Yes. Is it good. Yes.

So what's the point? Dead End? Beating a dead horse. Scratching the same ground? No. Scratching the surface is more like it. Each of these artists brings their own vision to the language, like jazz, or even english. Since abstraction is indeed evolving, these artists bring that vision to the larger collective that is abstraction. Define abstraction. Well, that's another blog.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Love&Art on Bow Street

I think we are all well aware of what the dangers of individualism are. We hear them all the time. We get beat up by them all the time. We have cautionary tells to guide us, or better, keep us in line. In line. That's the thing. And that is what this is about.

The group, that is any group, family, institution, community, town, government, peer, company, workers, partiers, you name it: the group, they will you tell you that first and foremost the individual "just does what he or she feels like doing(without regard for the group), that he or she is SELFISH.

Most of us accept this as gospel. We might even accept it with shame: "Yes, I am selfish."

We might go a step further and live with that shame and accept that we are bad and that we might never change.

What gets lost in all of this, and I'm probably cutting to this too soon, but feel compelled, is that no one ever questions the group's selfishness. SELFISH. The group is, let's face it, selfish on a LARGE scale, but because it wields the power of the group, it goes unchallenged and unchecked. The only example we have in our entire culture of the negative and selfish nature of the group is when we speak of adolescents and "peer pressure." When we say those words everyone knows what I'm talking about. "Peer pressure" is the most frightening pair of words in the mind/life of a parent. Maybe as scary as the word "war." Scarier.

So if the idea of the group being selfish seems like some paranoid ridiculousness to you, think "peer pressure" and go from there. Think of all the billions of selfish and destructive things the "group" has come up with (individuals don't make war, for example, groups do.) Some of them are the most ridiculous things one could ever imagine. Let's make everyone take two years of say, algebra, so that they can become well versed in the practice of mathematical equations; and then let's make it critical to their future in life that they get it, and if they don't let's relegate them to low-paying jobs in the service industry because, yes, we've made mathematical equations the bar that will decide who moves on and who doesn't. Now tell me how many people you know use algebra in their lives EVER. It tells you what group has selfishly imposed itself on everyone else, and did exactly what it felt like doing.

Where am I going with this? Art. Art has always been tarred as selfish. A selfish act by the selfish individual. Decadent. It does nothing for the team. Useless. The word art has never crossed this president's mind or lips. It serves no purpose in the military industrial complex that is this administration's sole agenda. Art is the voice and will of the individual. The only one, by the way, who will say that the emperor is not wearing a stitch.  It is also easier for the group to justify any means to survive. Any means. It can lie with many mouths. In fact, I don't think we can count on the group for the truth. Too much at stake. The truth is the domain of the individual. Now don't get me wrong. The group does good. It is a given, it is a necessity, it is a reality. Group and individual, individual and group. They gotta get along.

But the group is an entity, guilty of the same things individuals are, just in larger numbers. Every individual has to be able to fend off the group in a given situation, just like with peer pressure. It might be about conforming to group expectations or group thinking. It might be about performing for the group expectations and group thinking. Many so-called individuals only represent and mouth group expectations and thinking. There was a time not that long ago, for example, when women and minorities were expected to think and act according to the dominant group's expectations and thinking.

Every young person that considers a life of art is bound to be greeted with a great deal of opposition from every quarter. Some of these greetings will attempt to attack their personal character for the choice they are making. Do I think that it is selfish to be an artist? Obviously the selfishness of the group does nothing to justify selfishness in the individual. What I do think is that we each have a life and that it belongs to us, no matter how much we might owe any group. If a life of art is an individual's choice, then who can argue with that? Art contributes to many peoples lives. I won't say everyone's. That would seem to be enough, however. It takes all kinds to make the world go round. Breadmakers, bridgebuilders, bankers, baseball players, and yes, bass players. We have room for it all. No accusations or recriminations. Go fourth and multiply is fine if you like math, but waxing poetic can outshine the stars.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

No Illusions





Wednesday, February 08, 2006

ANYTHING WORTH DOING...Is actually worth doing no matter how well you do it.

Think about it. Who decides what is well done? Your boss, your parent, your local newspaper critic, your average guy off the street? You may appreciate it when someone else appreciates your thing well done, and everyone likes to be appreciated, but what does it mean? It occurred to me immediately as a child that the obverse of "anything worth doing is worth doing well" was even more true, that anything really worth doing was worth doing badly, or just as well as you could, which may be really badly or who knows. Just as much of a cliche is the Van Gogh tale: but it fits. He loved what he was doing and no one else much cared, until now that is, and you can't get within three feet of his work without a museum guard backing you off. He may be the exception to the rule, but then again, who knows? Who knows is what it is all about. "Who." And "Knows."

There are two answers. You know, and nobody knows. Furthermore, why would you let some other mere mortal dictate your choices. People do, lots of people, all the time, and lots of other people want them to. The words "it is your life" don't occur to them. But it is your life, no matter who you are, and if it occurs to you that something seems worth doing, then by all means it is worth doing no matter how well you do it. In other words, anything worth doing is worth doing badly. If that offends someone else, then that falls into the category of their problem. And they are entitled to that.

Someone asked me yesterday, how do you hang your work out there. How do you keep from being hurt?

Well, I've been showing my work since I was ten in a "professional" context. The older I get, however; the more I embrace amateurism. Not that I don't appreciate a professional dentist or airline pilot, but in the area of the creative, I think it keeps things in a healthier perspective. Professional artists and writers get a little stiff for me.

But back to the question. Well, it is a balance. You have to have a healthy opinion of yourself, perhaps even a high opinion. Of course professionals get a rigid high opinion of themselves that overcompensates for the subjectivity of things. It needs to be balanced, again. Everybody bleeds, everybody gets gas(sorry), and everybody needs to be loved. Everybody. Everybody has an up and a down side. Yin Yang. Make room for your bad self and then you can work on it. Make room for your good self and you can appreciate it. Not too high or too low. I hang my work out there for those who might appreciate it. Do I think it is worthwhile? That is understood. Does anyone else have to think it is worthwhile? No. I may not like that someone thinks I'm a lousy painter, but I would fight for their right to their opinion. Because that is what it is. Opinion. It is not knowledge. No one can know what is good or bad. They just have an opinion. The greatest people in their fields all have their detractors, which is as it should be. You can't take opinions either way. If you do you give up your freedom. Of course this does not mean you can't consider someone else's point of view. Again, that is your choice. But it is just their point of view, and it is skewed thus, and it may or may not work for you even if it works completely for them.

So I take it all with a grain of salt. The good and the bad. I've had people at the top and the bottom go both ways and it was pretty much the same. Take it in stride. Stay close to what makes your motor run and work hard to keep it running. Up and down can take you out of your groove(when does a groove become a rut?). Rudyard Kipling wrote a very wise poem about it(If).

What would I really like to have happen as a result of my work? I'd like people to feel like going there, and I would like them to have a worthwhile time, whatever that is. But they can go on not go, and I'm fine with that. It is the old, you can lead a horse to water thing but you can't make them drink. That is how it is supposed to be. They only drink if they want to. I don't invest too much in their reaction either way. Do I feel like to be appreciated is to be understood. Yes. Would I like it? Yes. But again, I don't let it affect me too much most of the time. Do I hate being ignored. Sometimes, but it goes with the territory. Freedom means responsibility, and if I want the freedom, I have to want the responsibility.

But I'll go back to the beginning. Painting is worth doing to me. I am really into it. Could I be the worst painter on the planet? Of course. I've gotten a thumbs down from my father for most of my life. I didn't let it stop me. Why? I like to paint. I think it is worth doing. Why? I can think of a couple of reasons right off. I like color. I like that it affects me but I don't know why. I like beginnings. I like the blank slate. It is like the bow of a boat with nothing but open water out in front. I like making something. I like mushing paint around and seeing what happens. I like the way paint tells me things and helps me to see things. I like the way it feels. I like being a part of the language of paint, and painting and the history of painting. I like connecting with the first person that ever did a cave painting to tell a story or express a feeling or idea. I like the way you can take it in all at once, that it is spatial, not linear.

Now what about the people who are confused? The people who think that they are empowered, entitled, equipped, enlightened enough to decide how well people are doing what they are doing it and whether they should be doing it at all? There are a lot of these people, and more are being born everyday. What do you say to them? Nothing. They are entitled to their delusions. They are bullies and like any kid knows, the best thing to do is ignore them. Walk away. I spent too much time fighting bullies and I suspect it made me one too. Don't fight. Walk away if you can. What do you do when you see them hurting someone else? Well, I hate to say it, but I still try to stop them if I can. Mostly I feel pity for them, but I believe in protecting and defending the frailer of us. Which is why I went back to teach at RISD. To shepherd the more fragile sensibilities that wanted to be artists. In the end I had to leave them to their fate, however, because RISD is for artists who want to get ahead( I did), and so you get what you deserve. You can't have it both ways. If you want to play with the big boys, it is a rough game, and someone is going to get hurt. If you want to just be an artist, well find somewhere and go do it. You don't need to play the game. If you think doing something is worth doing then do it. If your parent, mate, sibling, teacher, boss, whatever has a problem, again, it is their problem.

So that's what it's about. I do what I do because I think it is worth doing. I hang it out there to make the connection. Either I do or don't connect, but at least I made the first one with myself. For what it's worth, I think painting can be like music or nature, and work its magic whether people are paying attention or not. Do I think it's magic? Yes, to me that is what magic is. And it is worth doing because I think so.

PS It is understood that we are not talking about something that is hurting someone else, I mean REALLY hurting someone else, not just "disappointing" them. You have to know right and wrong. That is understood. Where that line comes into play is something you will have to decide.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Bows Art





Tuesday, January 17, 2006

More about Tuttle

In 1977, just about thirty years ago, I left an Alex Katz lecture at Brown University in disgust. He was all business man, all merchant, and I had no stomach for it. I had very intense ideals about art and a bad taste for money. I was reeling. Was this what it was all about? Was this what I had to look forward to as an artist in America? What were my options? Would I be holed up in some institution like my old teachers. I had graduated from RISD six months earlier and I was looking for something. I have a son who is a painter and six months out of school and I see it in him. It is a tough time. Terrifying freedom. Terrifying. Forget two roads in a wood. Try, looking up from the bottom of a very deep hole in the ground. This was not paper/plastic, this was God please send me a sign. It has been my experience that we always get one.

As if by some magic from the Magus a man was standing outside the lecture hall. He looked like a hillbilly. He was hard and withered in appearance, like a smoker, wearing a cheap flannel shirt, the kind that is printed, not woven, and maybe a hoodie and some bad jeans. He was standing under a sign that said Richard Tuttle. I might have said hello or nodded but walked past him into the List Gallery and what happened next changed my life forever. I have never been more excited by an exhibition before or since. Maybe a visit to the studio of Leon Polk Smith.

In this vast gallery space were almost invisible little pieces of shaped paper partially stuck to the wall, below eye level, with watercolor on them, and then pencil lines that left the paper and traveled close by onto the walls. They usually had his fingerprints on them, which was curious. How could his hands have been that dirty? Anyway, I was thunderstruck. Dumbfounded. I looked at each one closely and then again, and then went out and approached the man under the sign. It was Richard Tuttle.

We spoke for a long time. Mostly I listened. He had a lot to say. People poured out of the lecture but we kept on. He spoke quietly so I had to lean in and direct an ear towards what he was saying. One of the things that I remember him speaking about that evening was that there are diamonds everywhere and people are picking up garbage. He also said I looked like I was living under a cloud. Eventually he was expected to join the school president for dinner, so I walked him there and he told me he would rather have dinner with me, and that he was sorry to have to end our conversation. Then he gave me his address in New York.

And so began the only real mentorship I ever engaged in, and it was by accident and it was intense. It started out with a heated correspondence and then a year later, with his encouragement that included putting me in touch with his landlord, I moved to New York. I did not, as it turned out, take him up on his offer to dig in on 11th Avenue, a wasteland at the time. Instead I moved in with my brother on Central Park West, and he didn't approve.

And there you have it, really. Approval. What I soon discovered was that he didn't approve of a lot of things. He made up his mind hard. He called it being severe. He was probably the most thoughtful and intelligent person I ever knew, but he was also incredibly judgmental, even mean. After a while it got to be too much. He thought I wanted a mentor but I didn't. I was thinking friends. The friend thing is funny of course. It has gotten me into trouble a lot. Just wanting to be friends when people think and sometimes are even afraid that I wanted more. To be friends means a lot to me. I never knew much about it and wasn't very good at it. Coming from a divorced family that split everyone up, and having moved around so much, going to thirteen different schools before college, and then even transferring in college, I just knew about being on my own.

Richard went to the trouble of trying to teach me about a lot of things. If we talked about art, it was more about what goes on between the lines, and I liked that. I still do. His biggest obsession was pride, and for good reason, he had a lot of it. He worked me over with it, because I had it too, of course. Everyone does, but it was easier for him to deal with his own by focusing on me. He would question everything. The stamp I put on a letter. It was filled with pride. It was the one the postman gave me, but that didn't matter. That never got in the way of a lecture. He would read so much into it. If I accepted that stamp, then I was guilty. Apparently I should have been more sensitive and asked for another. I have been very careful about stamps ever since, but I am still limited by what is available, and for this I am tortured(not).

Another time he gave me grief for the jacket I was wearing. It was below zero and I had gone to meet him on 11th Avenue and walked there. I borrowed my brother's orange parka because I didn't own anything warm. I think I still got frostbite. But he chided me for the orange jacket. It was pride. I should have frozen. It didn't matter that it was my brother's coat. He had made up his mind.

And that is what this is all about. A mind made up. The good and the bad of it. Richard Tuttle made up his mind like no one I ever met. It is in his work. It takes a shape, it follows a line, an edge, a color. He makes up his mind. In art that is nine tenths of the law.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Richard Tuttle

Richard Tuttle has been in the news lately. Cover of Art in America. Whitney. And why not?

The man has always been something of a mystery. Especially to himself. Watching him connect the dots through his work is like listening to someone talk to themselves. You don't understand what they're saying, and for the most part you don't want to because it's private and personal. You accept the mystery. You like the mystery. You like that there is a mystery, and in the case of Richard Tuttle, that's just what you get.

The work looks like it might be intellectual and beyond you. If it is beyond anyone it is not because it is intellectual, however. It is because it is personal. It is emotional. Perhaps. There really isn't a word for it in english. Which suggests that I know some word in some other language. I don't. I'm just not ruling it out.

The work is difficult for Tuttle, and, by most people's standards, often painful. Is it complicated? Absolutely! But in the simplest terms he can find. He was never a minimalist, however. The guy is resolutely individual. The group is too glib. He makes Thoreau seem like a frivolous social butterfly.

First and foremost the work dances the razor's edge. Originality and freshness are so important, essential, everything really, that the challenge is, again, often painful. Sometimes the frustration when the work falls short is palpable. So why does he let it out there when that happens? Who knows? Maybe in the end that says more than if he nailed something. Maybe failure is more interesting than success. Maybe success, again, is too glib, too easy, not to be trusted. To him I was always the beautiful Addison Parks, taking the easy way out. What can I say, I grew up in Rome, he grew up in New Jersey. You cannot escape these things. I am always becoming Rome. He New Jersey. And he has made it a better place, while I have only danced around it, I suspect.

Tuttle has probably always enjoyed the role of idiot-savant. The work has that bewitching quality of keeping you guessing: it is either absolutely brilliant and sublime or just really dumb. But once you accept his genius you are still in danger of overinflating the experience. You can end up guilding the lily by assigning too much or just more than the "lily" will bear. Poetry is the thing closest to this work. The domain of the ineffable. If you can get there, or better, live there, you'll be fine. Because that is what this work locates, and that is where it lives. You can't get there be studying it, by being smart, by figuring it out, by trying to get on top of it, or even eating it. It is absolutely more about what you don't do than what you do do. DO-BE-DO-BE-DO! But you don't have to DO anything. Just let the work do it all. Of course that is doing a lot. I suspect you could dance with it, just as long as you let it lead.

After all, it is all energy. Poetry in color and shape, line and mark and texture. A voice finding itself in these things. Tuttles listens very hard. And that is good. And we can thank him for that.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Hard Drive

Some of us come into this world encouraged to fly. Others get squashed or blocked at every turn. So it goes. What happens as a result is that we adjust our innate drive accordingly. The flyers find it easy to surge into high gear. The squashed learn that their one recourse is to choose reverse. Reverse is hard to squash, hard to block. The flyers got a yes and give a yes. The squashed got a no and give a no. The flyers fight for possibilities. The squashed fight for the right to be wrong; because it is the only power they've ever had.

These are two sides of the same coin. Determination and stubborness. Force and resistance. They are essentially the same force but just moving in different directions. Determination moves forward. Stubborness moves backwards. There are stubborn individuals with the force of Alexander The Great, but their wheels are spinning in reverse. We all know people like this. It is just a question of changing gears. Getting out of reverse. Putting their bad beginning behind them, claiming their individual freedom, and demanding nothing less than a yes for themselves.

This is hard. Hard is good. Drive is what gets us to the top of the mountain, and getting there is more than half the fun. No one has to be climbed over to do it. It is not about being on top of the mountain or on top of anyone else. It is about the challenge and possibilities. The view and the stimulation. The growth and the becoming.