Alejandro Diaz via Culture Monster: … [Read more...]

From Manuel Fernando Rios: … [Read more...]

Unmonumental art  #154: … [Read more...]

Car consciousness took deepest root on the West Coast, where most of the artists who address it as subject matter have lived. In my version of this art history, everything began with Ed Kienholtz - Back Seat Dodge '38, 1964, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.Before I was 18, this piece was a news story, thanks to its chicken-wire figures having no-rent oral sex. Get a room? Cars are cheaper. To see it, you had to be 18 or an art history student. Being neither, I didn't qualify but remember thinking, any art the police don't want you to … [Read more...]

Isn't there suddenly a lot of this going on?Douglas Gordon:Tomoo Gokita from Ambach & Rice through Saturday.Sara Greenberger Rafferty at Ambach & Rice through Saturday.Gordon's is the most corrosive. Gokita, using models from Japan's Elvis cult dancers, gives their undoing a jaunty spin. And Rafferty's is a never-say-die image. Her model has taken a big hit, but she's still standing and ready to give back.Not so new, after all, the anguish, passion and death of the flesh.Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like … [Read more...]

He's the glue that held the University of Washington's print department together. Obit here. Tribute Facebook page here. Info about Sommers fellowship fund here.Saturday 11 a.m.-4 p.m.at the Tashiro Kaplan Bullding (310 S. Washington St., Seattle) is a print sale to benefit that fund. I have no information on who's in the show, but Sommers attracted a great crew. All prints by Sommers. (Item via Brian Lane.) … [Read more...]

From the artist's Web site:For many years I've been making my bed differently everyday. In this way I am able to combine my work life as an artist with my daily chores. It also gives me an opportunity to work with the same materials over time -changing them again and again, and seeing how many different ways I can remake them sculpturally as well as conceptually.Dick is at L.Street.Fine.Art till July 20. … [Read more...]

Don Asmussen, Bad Reporter from SF Chronicle via Rooney O'Neil. … [Read more...]

Nothing illustrates the vast plurality of contemporary art more than the fact that these two medicine cabinets exist at the same time. Damien Hirst: Whiting Tennis (Link to artist talking):Detail:Hirst is cool, Tennis feverish.  Hirst's form is armored, Tennis' vulnerable. Tennis' assemblage of his models for sculptures isn't intended a medicine chest, which is where the comparison breaks down. His elegant gray box is more like a church. Like Robyn O'Neil's (here), his overal effect is silent, engaging a private implosion. I value both … [Read more...]

Robyn O'Neil's graphite drawings open a pit under your feet and fail to comfort as you fall. Her version of hell is silence. It's as frightening as any gargoyle leering at the medieval faithful as they entered their Gothic church. Abandon all reason, you who enter here. (Click to enlarge; more images at Tony Wright.)Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.OthelloDetail below. She owns this. One of two drawings in Supramundane at Ambach & Rice through the weekend. They cannot be reproduced … [Read more...]

When Alison Elizabeth Taylor was the subject of feature story last year in the New York Times, Tyler Green asked why:In the last year there have been probably 100 Chelsea shows of 35-year-old-ish artists with so-so CVs. So why has the New York Times decided that one Alison Elizabeth Taylor is worthy of a long profile? (Note that I'm re-creating the NYT's HTML coding, ha ha.) I mean, there's nothing wrong with Taylor or her work (which appears to be the lovechild of Fred Tomaselli and Stephen Balkenhol), but why her and not 100 other artists?! … [Read more...]

A factor in Seattle's cultural DNA is the tendency to underplay. While a steady (and welcome) influx of people from diverse cultural backgrounds has made this inherent aversion to fuss less noticeable, it remains a key factor in the city's identity. In art circles, working hard to get noticed is still perceived as lamentable.In Greece, the same thing is known as avoiding the evil eye. If two Greek mothers meet on the street, one might say,  "What an ugly baby." The other might reply, "Yours also."  Praise attracts the jealously … [Read more...]

(Photo/Alex Stonehill)In October of 1980, marinating in joy and alcohol, I staggered down the cobbled streets of Pioneer Square right after I'd scored a job at the paper and sang softly to myself, "I'm in the PI." Only the PI would have hired me, an instinctive fantasist with no prior newspaper experience. I  learned from the staff how to be one of them. Today, if somebody asked if there's a journalist in the house, I'd feel comfortable raising my hand.Following its March 17 demise, the PI continues online as a ghost of its unruly and … [Read more...]

The Dogon believe that women hold up the sky. As graces, they also hold up Duke Ellington. (Robert Graham.)In mapping, they are the heart of any geography. (Jena Scott)They are the focal point in a field of flowers. (Jennifer Zwick)They make the landscape more beautiful. (Susanna Bluhm)Even in shadow, they dominate. (Pinaree Sanpitak, suggested by Gala Bent)Once you're looking for them, you see them everywhere. (Jennifer Campbell, suggested by Marianne Wu.)Carrying that kind of cultural weight makes them ripe targets for the fetishist. (Woody … [Read more...]

Bruce Guenther, senior curator, Portland Art Museum:More than a decade ago, I saw a photo of of this tattoo and distinctly remember it being horizontal lines wrapping the torso. Subtle but all-encompassing. Turns out, instead of Agnes Martin, he's celebrating celestial navigation?  Pure abstraction? Cracks in ice? Himself, while his flesh remains well muscled? As he ages, he can be his own collapsing star. Related post here. (Thanks to LaValle for this picture.) … [Read more...]

In a time when finances are the major issue in the museum world, SAM's press release on new director Derrick R. Cartwright doesn't mention the subject. If he's a fund-raising wonder, he has declined to say so.As the director of the San Diego Museum of Art, he repeatedly described his job as presenting vital, challenging, aesthetically rewarding and socially relevant works of art. From SAM's press release:Over the past five years, Cartwright's leadership has bolstered San Diego Museum of Art's international reputation as a nexus for … [Read more...]

Whatever else artists draw, paint, photograph, build, whittle or glean from industrialized rubble, the subject of the human form is a constant, both in and out of the mainstream. Outside the mainstream, then, where the secondary market rarely exists and price points on transactions are not covered in the New York Times, here is a small list of portrait artists of whom few have heard. From none do I get the I've-seen-this-before feeling.(Click to enlarge.)Billy King, from his first gallery show in 25 years. He paints as if he's carving … [Read more...]

ViaAnd speaking of Mr. Elston, here's his response to this post about Boy Scouts, art and homophobia:My own experience with the Boy Scouts was formative. In 1967 I returned to Spokane, my hometown, coming from L.A. and on my way to Montreal. I was invited to participate in an anti-Vietnam War action by my good friend Jed Irwin, who was then the Curator of Art at Cheney Cowles Museum. The Boy Scout Jamboree was being held at Farragut State Park, Idaho. A small group was going to leaflet the visiting international Scouts. When we arrived, we were … [Read more...]

When painting themselves, artists tend to make their eyes their focal point, as befits their role - the one who sees.Artists don't give other artists the same break, which means, no matter how admired, others do not see as well. Compare Matisse's self-portrait with Derain's portrait of him, and the reverse: Matisse painting Derin vs. Derain painting himself. A self-portrait's focus on lips suggests a sensualist, although a focus on the lips of another   implies the subject is of no account. If the subject's teeth are showing, clearly, … [Read more...]

Visions of Virtual Culture, on FLYP: John Temple, the editor of the Rocky Mountain News, who recently presided over the end of his print edition, speaks with the voice of grim, very personal experience, but his message is neither defeatist nor gloomy, despite all he has just been through. One astute reader of Temple's comments wrote: "You could take most of John's comments, substitute the word 'museum' for 'newspaper' and the word 'curator' for 'journalist' and it would be equally true. How can museums and traditional print media learn together … [Read more...]

Old but still good. From Sharon Arnold via. (Click to enlarge.) Thank you, sane voters, that it didn't go the other way. … [Read more...]

The chief curator at the Portland Art Museum, Bruce Guenther, sports a full back tattoo -- thin, Agnes Martinesque lines wrapping him, like heartstrings pulled out. (Update: Faulty memory alert - not Anges Martin-like. See related post for photo.)It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that his museum is host to a skin show. From the press release:This summer, the Portland Art Museum will present a unique visitor experience exploring the art of tattoo and the impact of this artistic practice in the local community.Beginning today, … [Read more...]

Zoe StraussMark Mumford Clara Williams … [Read more...]

(All paintings/drawings by Seattle's Emilia Kallock. Click to enlarge.)1. Make playing cards for sale at high-end shops.2. Sew wedding dresses for the wealthy.3. Paint people's houses in a flattering light.4. Consider farming.5. Become a Skagit Valley river rat.6. Harness the energy of a cloud.7. Never underestimate your personal appeal.8. Invent a machine for turning dry grass into fire.9. Sleep through it.10. Try death. It has worked so well for so many. … [Read more...]

Via … [Read more...]

(Click to enlarge)Leo Saul Berk, Hot Spot, 2005, pen/paper, 42 x 92 inchesAnn Chamberlain, Wrist, 1998, pigment print, 20 x 16 inches … [Read more...]

Jesse Durost StaticKader Attia: Untitled (Empty Plastic Bags) Plus, Nancy Cohen, Hudson River School waterfall in blue fabric, from here. … [Read more...]

On her AJ blog Critical Distance, Laura Collins-Hughes confronts the sexism that never says die, here.Her starting point is an essay by Charlotte Higgins at the Guardian, here. Higgins asked Alstair Spalding, artistic director of London contemporary-dance center Sadler's Wells, why there were no female choreographers among the "raft of commissions" he's just announced for the coming season. He responded: It is something to do with women not being as assertive in that field. It's not that I don't want to commission them.If he only could, … [Read more...]

Tiny Art Director, so like real art directors as well as the people encountered when making public art. Since his daughter was two (she's now four), Bill Zeman has made drawings at her request, which she proceeds to critique. Soon to be a major motion picture, or, as the tiny art director herself says, "I want daddy to go away on a trip." (Via Slog.)The Brief: A mama snail and a baby snail The Critique: I'm sorry to say that you're worser than me. You gotta learn to draw as me. You just don't draw so well. Why do you think that is? It turns out … [Read more...]

Previous.Current from Specterart: … [Read more...]