11.30.2002
BarnesWatch Update: (Apparently) Lincoln University allies make a
stealthy legislative attempt to scuttle the move of the Barnes and to continue their (near-) abdication of responsibility to the works in the collection. Fortunately, they fail.
posted by Tyler at 12:58 PM
BarnesWatch Update: (Apparently) Lincoln University allies make a
stealthy legislative attempt to scuttle the move of the Barnes and to continue their (near-) abdication of responsibility to the works in the collection. Fortunately, they fail.
posted by Tyler at 12:58 PM
BarnesWatch Update: (Apparently) Lincoln University allies make a
stealthy legislative attempt to scuttle the move of the Barnes and to continue their (near-) abdication of responsibility to the works in the collection. Fortunately, they fail.
posted by Tyler at 12:58 PM
BarnesWatch Update: (Apparently) Lincoln University allies make a
stealthy legislative attempt to scuttle the move of the Barnes and to continue their (near-) abdication of responsibility to the works in the collection. Fortunately, they fail.
posted by Tyler at 12:58 PM
Two bits of weekend reading and two head-scratchers:
* The Chicago Tribune's Alan Artner on
why we put Lincoln on a million stamps instead of art.
* MAN fave Christopher Knight on
early Mondrian in Dallas.
* All art schools should have a
page like this.
* Would someone explain to me why
Slate doesn't have a visual arts critic? We get
six people analyzing The Sopranos but they don't have a visual arts critic?
posted by Tyler at 10:03 AM
Two bits of weekend reading and two head-scratchers:
* The Chicago Tribune's Alan Artner on
why we put Lincoln on a million stamps instead of art.
* MAN fave Christopher Knight on
early Mondrian in Dallas.
* All art schools should have a
page like this.
* Would someone explain to me why
Slate doesn't have a visual arts critic? We get
six people analyzing The Sopranos but they don't have a visual arts critic?
posted by Tyler at 10:03 AM
Two bits of weekend reading and two head-scratchers:
* The Chicago Tribune's Alan Artner on
why we put Lincoln on a million stamps instead of art.
* MAN fave Christopher Knight on
early Mondrian in Dallas.
* All art schools should have a
page like this.
* Would someone explain to me why
Slate doesn't have a visual arts critic? We get
six people analyzing The Sopranos but they don't have a visual arts critic?
posted by Tyler at 10:03 AM
Two bits of weekend reading and two head-scratchers:
* The Chicago Tribune's Alan Artner on
why we put Lincoln on a million stamps instead of art.
* MAN fave Christopher Knight on
early Mondrian in Dallas.
* All art schools should have a
page like this.
* Would someone explain to me why
Slate doesn't have a visual arts critic? We get
six people analyzing The Sopranos but they don't have a visual arts critic?
posted by Tyler at 10:03 AM
11.29.2002
11.27.2002
Ten Art Books You Want for ChristmasBooks must have been published in 2002 to qualify.
1.)
Barnett Newman mostly by Ann Temkin. This is the heaviest book of the year because the quality of the paper is that good. Fantastic presentation of the bigger Newman works too.
2.)
Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting by Robert Storr. Skip Storr's fatuosity. Look at the pretty pictures.
3.)
Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse by Kenneth Wayne. Haven't bought it yet.
4.)
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth, by lots of people. Simply beautiful.
5.)
Urgent Painting, by Laurence Bosse, et al. The catalog from the Euro-show of contemporary painting. Great book design, good images, interesting essays/interviews. Must-own, especially for artists.
6.)
The Prints of Vija Celmins, by Samantha Rippner. MAN has a talent crush on Vija.
7.)
Catherine Opie: Skyways and Icehouses by Opie and Douglas Fogle. Speaking of crushes...
8.)
An Ideal Syllabus, edited by Mr. Roberta Smith. Dozens of artists, curators, critics, etc. are asked what books they most recommend. Jerry Saltz puts them together in this mini-book. My favorite find of the year.
9.)
Rural Studio, by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean. Great idea, interesting (but short) essay and simple images.
10.)
Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle by lots of folks. Rare images.
And finally,
today's sign that the apocalypse is upon us.
posted by Tyler at 3:31 PM
Ten Art Books You Want for ChristmasBooks must have been published in 2002 to qualify.
1.)
Barnett Newman mostly by Ann Temkin. This is the heaviest book of the year because the quality of the paper is that good. Fantastic presentation of the bigger Newman works too.
2.)
Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting by Robert Storr. Skip Storr's fatuosity. Look at the pretty pictures.
3.)
Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse by Kenneth Wayne. Haven't bought it yet.
4.)
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth, by lots of people. Simply beautiful.
5.)
Urgent Painting, by Laurence Bosse, et al. The catalog from the Euro-show of contemporary painting. Great book design, good images, interesting essays/interviews. Must-own, especially for artists.
6.)
The Prints of Vija Celmins, by Samantha Rippner. MAN has a talent crush on Vija.
7.)
Catherine Opie: Skyways and Icehouses by Opie and Douglas Fogle. Speaking of crushes...
8.)
An Ideal Syllabus, edited by Mr. Roberta Smith. Dozens of artists, curators, critics, etc. are asked what books they most recommend. Jerry Saltz puts them together in this mini-book. My favorite find of the year.
9.)
Rural Studio, by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean. Great idea, interesting (but short) essay and simple images.
10.)
Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle by lots of folks. Rare images.
And finally,
today's sign that the apocalypse is upon us.
posted by Tyler at 3:31 PM
Ten Art Books You Want for ChristmasBooks must have been published in 2002 to qualify.
1.)
Barnett Newman mostly by Ann Temkin. This is the heaviest book of the year because the quality of the paper is that good. Fantastic presentation of the bigger Newman works too.
2.)
Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting by Robert Storr. Skip Storr's fatuosity. Look at the pretty pictures.
3.)
Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse by Kenneth Wayne. Haven't bought it yet.
4.)
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth, by lots of people. Simply beautiful.
5.)
Urgent Painting, by Laurence Bosse, et al. The catalog from the Euro-show of contemporary painting. Great book design, good images, interesting essays/interviews. Must-own, especially for artists.
6.)
The Prints of Vija Celmins, by Samantha Rippner. MAN has a talent crush on Vija.
7.)
Catherine Opie: Skyways and Icehouses by Opie and Douglas Fogle. Speaking of crushes...
8.)
An Ideal Syllabus, edited by Mr. Roberta Smith. Dozens of artists, curators, critics, etc. are asked what books they most recommend. Jerry Saltz puts them together in this mini-book. My favorite find of the year.
9.)
Rural Studio, by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean. Great idea, interesting (but short) essay and simple images.
10.)
Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle by lots of folks. Rare images.
And finally,
today's sign that the apocalypse is upon us.
posted by Tyler at 3:31 PM
Ten Art Books You Want for ChristmasBooks must have been published in 2002 to qualify.
1.)
Barnett Newman mostly by Ann Temkin. This is the heaviest book of the year because the quality of the paper is that good. Fantastic presentation of the bigger Newman works too.
2.)
Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting by Robert Storr. Skip Storr's fatuosity. Look at the pretty pictures.
3.)
Modigliani and the Artists of Montparnasse by Kenneth Wayne. Haven't bought it yet.
4.)
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth, by lots of people. Simply beautiful.
5.)
Urgent Painting, by Laurence Bosse, et al. The catalog from the Euro-show of contemporary painting. Great book design, good images, interesting essays/interviews. Must-own, especially for artists.
6.)
The Prints of Vija Celmins, by Samantha Rippner. MAN has a talent crush on Vija.
7.)
Catherine Opie: Skyways and Icehouses by Opie and Douglas Fogle. Speaking of crushes...
8.)
An Ideal Syllabus, edited by Mr. Roberta Smith. Dozens of artists, curators, critics, etc. are asked what books they most recommend. Jerry Saltz puts them together in this mini-book. My favorite find of the year.
9.)
Rural Studio, by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean. Great idea, interesting (but short) essay and simple images.
10.)
Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle by lots of folks. Rare images.
And finally,
today's sign that the apocalypse is upon us.
posted by Tyler at 3:31 PM
Updated roll call on the DC contingent heading to Miami Basel: Lorraine Adams, Karyn Caplan, Jason Falchook, Sarah Finlay, Me, Kimberly Gladfelter, Jason Gubbiotti, James Huckenpahler, Maggie Michael, Patrick Murcia, Dan Steinhilber. If any MAN readers will be there, speak up on the comment board...
posted by Tyler at 2:56 PM
Updated roll call on the DC contingent heading to Miami Basel: Lorraine Adams, Karyn Caplan, Jason Falchook, Sarah Finlay, Me, Kimberly Gladfelter, Jason Gubbiotti, James Huckenpahler, Maggie Michael, Patrick Murcia, Dan Steinhilber. If any MAN readers will be there, speak up on the comment board...
posted by Tyler at 2:56 PM
Updated roll call on the DC contingent heading to Miami Basel: Lorraine Adams, Karyn Caplan, Jason Falchook, Sarah Finlay, Me, Kimberly Gladfelter, Jason Gubbiotti, James Huckenpahler, Maggie Michael, Patrick Murcia, Dan Steinhilber. If any MAN readers will be there, speak up on the comment board...
posted by Tyler at 2:56 PM
Updated roll call on the DC contingent heading to Miami Basel: Lorraine Adams, Karyn Caplan, Jason Falchook, Sarah Finlay, Me, Kimberly Gladfelter, Jason Gubbiotti, James Huckenpahler, Maggie Michael, Patrick Murcia, Dan Steinhilber. If any MAN readers will be there, speak up on the comment board...
posted by Tyler at 2:56 PM
11.26.2002
Artnet.com has a Miami Basel
rundown, but doesn't mention Artpoint. PR failure or Artnet.com oversight?
posted by Tyler at 4:47 PM
Artnet.com has a Miami Basel
rundown, but doesn't mention Artpoint. PR failure or Artnet.com oversight?
posted by Tyler at 4:47 PM
Artnet.com has a Miami Basel
rundown, but doesn't mention Artpoint. PR failure or Artnet.com oversight?
posted by Tyler at 4:47 PM
Artnet.com has a Miami Basel
rundown, but doesn't mention Artpoint. PR failure or Artnet.com oversight?
posted by Tyler at 4:47 PM
I think that this
LA Times story ran over the weekend (or at least it went up on the LAT website over the weekend) and I read it and quickly dismissed it. The story reads like a bit of chest-puffing civic boosterism.
As I've surfed the arts web this week though, all the sites I read regularly (ArtFORUM, ArtsJournal, ArtKrush, etc. ) are linking to it, so I might as well get my two cents in.
If a paper I respect as much as the LA Times can sink to being a Chamber of Commerce organ, so can the Washington Post. Therefore, memo to John Pancake: there should be a DC version of this story. It should be a little more critical (perhaps examining why big DC collectors such as Robert Lehrman don't spend much time in/on DC's galleries) but if the LAT can do this story, so should the Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. All three cities have arts scenes in the tier below NYC and LA.
Here's the news peg for the Post and other papers: Miami Basel and the participation of local galleries in the first major non-NYC US art fair. (Last year's post-9/11 mini-Basel doesn't count.) I can't believe I haven't read about the DC invasion of Miami in the Post yet.
posted by Tyler at 12:49 PM
I think that this
LA Times story ran over the weekend (or at least it went up on the LAT website over the weekend) and I read it and quickly dismissed it. The story reads like a bit of chest-puffing civic boosterism.
As I've surfed the arts web this week though, all the sites I read regularly (ArtFORUM, ArtsJournal, ArtKrush, etc. ) are linking to it, so I might as well get my two cents in.
If a paper I respect as much as the LA Times can sink to being a Chamber of Commerce organ, so can the Washington Post. Therefore, memo to John Pancake: there should be a DC version of this story. It should be a little more critical (perhaps examining why big DC collectors such as Robert Lehrman don't spend much time in/on DC's galleries) but if the LAT can do this story, so should the Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. All three cities have arts scenes in the tier below NYC and LA.
Here's the news peg for the Post and other papers: Miami Basel and the participation of local galleries in the first major non-NYC US art fair. (Last year's post-9/11 mini-Basel doesn't count.) I can't believe I haven't read about the DC invasion of Miami in the Post yet.
posted by Tyler at 12:49 PM
I think that this
LA Times story ran over the weekend (or at least it went up on the LAT website over the weekend) and I read it and quickly dismissed it. The story reads like a bit of chest-puffing civic boosterism.
As I've surfed the arts web this week though, all the sites I read regularly (ArtFORUM, ArtsJournal, ArtKrush, etc. ) are linking to it, so I might as well get my two cents in.
If a paper I respect as much as the LA Times can sink to being a Chamber of Commerce organ, so can the Washington Post. Therefore, memo to John Pancake: there should be a DC version of this story. It should be a little more critical (perhaps examining why big DC collectors such as Robert Lehrman don't spend much time in/on DC's galleries) but if the LAT can do this story, so should the Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. All three cities have arts scenes in the tier below NYC and LA.
Here's the news peg for the Post and other papers: Miami Basel and the participation of local galleries in the first major non-NYC US art fair. (Last year's post-9/11 mini-Basel doesn't count.) I can't believe I haven't read about the DC invasion of Miami in the Post yet.
posted by Tyler at 12:49 PM
I think that this
LA Times story ran over the weekend (or at least it went up on the LAT website over the weekend) and I read it and quickly dismissed it. The story reads like a bit of chest-puffing civic boosterism.
As I've surfed the arts web this week though, all the sites I read regularly (ArtFORUM, ArtsJournal, ArtKrush, etc. ) are linking to it, so I might as well get my two cents in.
If a paper I respect as much as the LA Times can sink to being a Chamber of Commerce organ, so can the Washington Post. Therefore, memo to John Pancake: there should be a DC version of this story. It should be a little more critical (perhaps examining why big DC collectors such as Robert Lehrman don't spend much time in/on DC's galleries) but if the LAT can do this story, so should the Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. All three cities have arts scenes in the tier below NYC and LA.
Here's the news peg for the Post and other papers: Miami Basel and the participation of local galleries in the first major non-NYC US art fair. (Last year's post-9/11 mini-Basel doesn't count.) I can't believe I haven't read about the DC invasion of Miami in the Post yet.
posted by Tyler at 12:49 PM
MAN hears that the letter I sent to the Washington Post (and
posted below) will run in the Sunday Arts section, space willing.
posted by Tyler at 11:19 AM
MAN hears that the letter I sent to the Washington Post (and
posted below) will run in the Sunday Arts section, space willing.
posted by Tyler at 11:19 AM
MAN hears that the letter I sent to the Washington Post (and
posted below) will run in the Sunday Arts section, space willing.
posted by Tyler at 11:19 AM
MAN hears that the letter I sent to the Washington Post (and
posted below) will run in the Sunday Arts section, space willing.
posted by Tyler at 11:19 AM
Next week MAN favorite
ArtKrush launches a diary of an artist preparing for her first solo show. Intro essay is up now.
posted by Tyler at 9:03 AM
Next week MAN favorite
ArtKrush launches a diary of an artist preparing for her first solo show. Intro essay is up now.
posted by Tyler at 9:03 AM
Next week MAN favorite
ArtKrush launches a diary of an artist preparing for her first solo show. Intro essay is up now.
posted by Tyler at 9:03 AM
Next week MAN favorite
ArtKrush launches a diary of an artist preparing for her first solo show. Intro essay is up now.
posted by Tyler at 9:03 AM
11.25.2002
From time to time MAN likes to "assign" museum shows to various venues around the country. The thinking is that some museums are great fits for certain shows and I love the thoroughness of a good museum show. I'll try to avoid plugging potential shows I have ranted about before (see Picabia, Francis). So here we go!
Phillips Collection, DC:
Morandi career retro. (Why didn't the Tate show come to the US?) Small intimate painters' paintings, small intimate museum.
National Gallery of Art, DC: John Marin career retro. LACMA did a Marin show in 1970. Most of the Stieglitz circle has been re-examined since then: Dove by the Phillips, Stieglitz (over and over again) by the NGA, Hartley in a show about to open in Hartford, Sheeler photos at the MFA Boston, etc.
The Met, NYC: Robert Ryman retro. Painterly modernist in a museum of mostly pre-modernist painters.
Albright-Knox, Buffalo: Jean Helion retro. From one overlooked French(-ish) modernist (Modigliani) to another.
MOMA, NYC: Italian Futurists group show. When was the last time you saw a Balla hanging in a US museum?
SFMOMA, SF: Sally Mann mid-career retro. Maybe the best permanent photo collection in the US, but of late they bore us with second-rate photo shows (see Adams, Ansel @ 100).
Readers? Suggest more on the comment boards.
posted by Tyler at 6:54 PM
From time to time MAN likes to "assign" museum shows to various venues around the country. The thinking is that some museums are great fits for certain shows and I love the thoroughness of a good museum show. I'll try to avoid plugging potential shows I have ranted about before (see Picabia, Francis). So here we go!
Phillips Collection, DC:
Morandi career retro. (Why didn't the Tate show come to the US?) Small intimate painters' paintings, small intimate museum.
National Gallery of Art, DC: John Marin career retro. LACMA did a Marin show in 1970. Most of the Stieglitz circle has been re-examined since then: Dove by the Phillips, Stieglitz (over and over again) by the NGA, Hartley in a show about to open in Hartford, Sheeler photos at the MFA Boston, etc.
The Met, NYC: Robert Ryman retro. Painterly modernist in a museum of mostly pre-modernist painters.
Albright-Knox, Buffalo: Jean Helion retro. From one overlooked French(-ish) modernist (Modigliani) to another.
MOMA, NYC: Italian Futurists group show. When was the last time you saw a Balla hanging in a US museum?
SFMOMA, SF: Sally Mann mid-career retro. Maybe the best permanent photo collection in the US, but of late they bore us with second-rate photo shows (see Adams, Ansel @ 100).
Readers? Suggest more on the comment boards.
posted by Tyler at 6:54 PM
From time to time MAN likes to "assign" museum shows to various venues around the country. The thinking is that some museums are great fits for certain shows and I love the thoroughness of a good museum show. I'll try to avoid plugging potential shows I have ranted about before (see Picabia, Francis). So here we go!
Phillips Collection, DC:
Morandi career retro. (Why didn't the Tate show come to the US?) Small intimate painters' paintings, small intimate museum.
National Gallery of Art, DC: John Marin career retro. LACMA did a Marin show in 1970. Most of the Stieglitz circle has been re-examined since then: Dove by the Phillips, Stieglitz (over and over again) by the NGA, Hartley in a show about to open in Hartford, Sheeler photos at the MFA Boston, etc.
The Met, NYC: Robert Ryman retro. Painterly modernist in a museum of mostly pre-modernist painters.
Albright-Knox, Buffalo: Jean Helion retro. From one overlooked French(-ish) modernist (Modigliani) to another.
MOMA, NYC: Italian Futurists group show. When was the last time you saw a Balla hanging in a US museum?
SFMOMA, SF: Sally Mann mid-career retro. Maybe the best permanent photo collection in the US, but of late they bore us with second-rate photo shows (see Adams, Ansel @ 100).
Readers? Suggest more on the comment boards.
posted by Tyler at 6:54 PM
From time to time MAN likes to "assign" museum shows to various venues around the country. The thinking is that some museums are great fits for certain shows and I love the thoroughness of a good museum show. I'll try to avoid plugging potential shows I have ranted about before (see Picabia, Francis). So here we go!
Phillips Collection, DC:
Morandi career retro. (Why didn't the Tate show come to the US?) Small intimate painters' paintings, small intimate museum.
National Gallery of Art, DC: John Marin career retro. LACMA did a Marin show in 1970. Most of the Stieglitz circle has been re-examined since then: Dove by the Phillips, Stieglitz (over and over again) by the NGA, Hartley in a show about to open in Hartford, Sheeler photos at the MFA Boston, etc.
The Met, NYC: Robert Ryman retro. Painterly modernist in a museum of mostly pre-modernist painters.
Albright-Knox, Buffalo: Jean Helion retro. From one overlooked French(-ish) modernist (Modigliani) to another.
MOMA, NYC: Italian Futurists group show. When was the last time you saw a Balla hanging in a US museum?
SFMOMA, SF: Sally Mann mid-career retro. Maybe the best permanent photo collection in the US, but of late they bore us with second-rate photo shows (see Adams, Ansel @ 100).
Readers? Suggest more on the comment boards.
posted by Tyler at 6:54 PM
New
Five Things.
posted by Tyler at 9:10 AM
New
Five Things.
posted by Tyler at 9:10 AM
New
Five Things.
posted by Tyler at 9:10 AM
New
Five Things.
posted by Tyler at 9:10 AM
11.24.2002
The Washington Post
ran this letter in the Arts section this morning (it's the second one). Eye-roller. So I wrote a letter to the Post in semi-response:
Dear Editor,
Leor Galil’s Nov. 24 letter about Art-O-Matic unintentionally points out why Art-O-Matic is an exhausting abomination. There is a reason that 98 percent of the 700 (700!) artists in Art-O-Matic are unknown: their work isn’t very good. Virtually all of DC’s art stars (from young artists such as Chan Chao to veterans such as Robin Rose) don’t’ show at Art-O-Matic because it celebrates mediocrity at the expense of quality. While the masses are herded toward Art-O-Matic, this year’s best show of DC-born contemporary art will take place 1000 miles away: at the Miami Basel art fair from Dec. 5-8.
As the Post has highlighted in recent essays and reviews by Blake Gopnik, Jessica Dawson and others, DC has an exciting and emergent contemporary arts scene. New local galleries such as G Fine Art and especially Fusebox are gaining international attention. (Mr. Galil dismisses them as expensive, but it’s free to walk into a gallery and to enjoy its works.) A show that is about numbers and inclusion rather than quality only wastes resources and prevents DC from having art events that rival those in New York and Europe.
In place of this Festival of the Forgettable, DC needs a curated event that regularly spotlights up-and-coming local art stars such as Jason Gubbiotti, Jason Falchook, and Maggie Michael. (The “Bay Area Now” show currently on view at the Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco is an excellent model.) Instead, the public’s skepticism about the quality of contemporary art is reinforced by the shabby mish-mash at Art-O-Matic.
Sincerely,
Tyler Green
P.S. This is a good time to remind readers who, like me, want changes in the Post's coverage of the contemporary arts scene. The email address of the relevant editor is pancakej@washpost.com. Please write!
posted by Tyler at 2:20 PM
The Washington Post
ran this letter in the Arts section this morning (it's the second one). Eye-roller. So I wrote a letter to the Post in semi-response:
Dear Editor,
Leor Galil’s Nov. 24 letter about Art-O-Matic unintentionally points out why Art-O-Matic is an exhausting abomination. There is a reason that 98 percent of the 700 (700!) artists in Art-O-Matic are unknown: their work isn’t very good. Virtually all of DC’s art stars (from young artists such as Chan Chao to veterans such as Robin Rose) don’t’ show at Art-O-Matic because it celebrates mediocrity at the expense of quality. While the masses are herded toward Art-O-Matic, this year’s best show of DC-born contemporary art will take place 1000 miles away: at the Miami Basel art fair from Dec. 5-8.
As the Post has highlighted in recent essays and reviews by Blake Gopnik, Jessica Dawson and others, DC has an exciting and emergent contemporary arts scene. New local galleries such as G Fine Art and especially Fusebox are gaining international attention. (Mr. Galil dismisses them as expensive, but it’s free to walk into a gallery and to enjoy its works.) A show that is about numbers and inclusion rather than quality only wastes resources and prevents DC from having art events that rival those in New York and Europe.
In place of this Festival of the Forgettable, DC needs a curated event that regularly spotlights up-and-coming local art stars such as Jason Gubbiotti, Jason Falchook, and Maggie Michael. (The “Bay Area Now” show currently on view at the Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco is an excellent model.) Instead, the public’s skepticism about the quality of contemporary art is reinforced by the shabby mish-mash at Art-O-Matic.
Sincerely,
Tyler Green
P.S. This is a good time to remind readers who, like me, want changes in the Post's coverage of the contemporary arts scene. The email address of the relevant editor is pancakej@washpost.com. Please write!
posted by Tyler at 2:20 PM
The Washington Post
ran this letter in the Arts section this morning (it's the second one). Eye-roller. So I wrote a letter to the Post in semi-response:
Dear Editor,
Leor Galil’s Nov. 24 letter about Art-O-Matic unintentionally points out why Art-O-Matic is an exhausting abomination. There is a reason that 98 percent of the 700 (700!) artists in Art-O-Matic are unknown: their work isn’t very good. Virtually all of DC’s art stars (from young artists such as Chan Chao to veterans such as Robin Rose) don’t’ show at Art-O-Matic because it celebrates mediocrity at the expense of quality. While the masses are herded toward Art-O-Matic, this year’s best show of DC-born contemporary art will take place 1000 miles away: at the Miami Basel art fair from Dec. 5-8.
As the Post has highlighted in recent essays and reviews by Blake Gopnik, Jessica Dawson and others, DC has an exciting and emergent contemporary arts scene. New local galleries such as G Fine Art and especially Fusebox are gaining international attention. (Mr. Galil dismisses them as expensive, but it’s free to walk into a gallery and to enjoy its works.) A show that is about numbers and inclusion rather than quality only wastes resources and prevents DC from having art events that rival those in New York and Europe.
In place of this Festival of the Forgettable, DC needs a curated event that regularly spotlights up-and-coming local art stars such as Jason Gubbiotti, Jason Falchook, and Maggie Michael. (The “Bay Area Now” show currently on view at the Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco is an excellent model.) Instead, the public’s skepticism about the quality of contemporary art is reinforced by the shabby mish-mash at Art-O-Matic.
Sincerely,
Tyler Green
P.S. This is a good time to remind readers who, like me, want changes in the Post's coverage of the contemporary arts scene. The email address of the relevant editor is pancakej@washpost.com. Please write!
posted by Tyler at 2:20 PM
The Washington Post
ran this letter in the Arts section this morning (it's the second one). Eye-roller. So I wrote a letter to the Post in semi-response:
Dear Editor,
Leor Galil’s Nov. 24 letter about Art-O-Matic unintentionally points out why Art-O-Matic is an exhausting abomination. There is a reason that 98 percent of the 700 (700!) artists in Art-O-Matic are unknown: their work isn’t very good. Virtually all of DC’s art stars (from young artists such as Chan Chao to veterans such as Robin Rose) don’t’ show at Art-O-Matic because it celebrates mediocrity at the expense of quality. While the masses are herded toward Art-O-Matic, this year’s best show of DC-born contemporary art will take place 1000 miles away: at the Miami Basel art fair from Dec. 5-8.
As the Post has highlighted in recent essays and reviews by Blake Gopnik, Jessica Dawson and others, DC has an exciting and emergent contemporary arts scene. New local galleries such as G Fine Art and especially Fusebox are gaining international attention. (Mr. Galil dismisses them as expensive, but it’s free to walk into a gallery and to enjoy its works.) A show that is about numbers and inclusion rather than quality only wastes resources and prevents DC from having art events that rival those in New York and Europe.
In place of this Festival of the Forgettable, DC needs a curated event that regularly spotlights up-and-coming local art stars such as Jason Gubbiotti, Jason Falchook, and Maggie Michael. (The “Bay Area Now” show currently on view at the Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco is an excellent model.) Instead, the public’s skepticism about the quality of contemporary art is reinforced by the shabby mish-mash at Art-O-Matic.
Sincerely,
Tyler Green
P.S. This is a good time to remind readers who, like me, want changes in the Post's coverage of the contemporary arts scene. The email address of the relevant editor is pancakej@washpost.com. Please write!
posted by Tyler at 2:20 PM
11.22.2002
Couple of retro notes courtesy of
Artnet and a few other things on my mind:
* The
Vuillard retro coming to the National Gallery in January will have 230 pieces in it. Mondo show.
* Marc Chagall retro on the way! Opens at SF MOMA in July 2003 after a stop in Paris. 80 canvases, 40 works on paper.
* I enjoyed
this ArtFORUM.com review of
Bay Area Now 3 @ the Yerba Buena Arts Center. DC
needs a show like this. And I mean exactly like this.
* From a
1931 ArtNEWS review of Matisse: "Henri Matisse, while trying to be many things at many periods, has ended by becoming splendidly himself. . . ." That could be about Richter in 2002, no?
posted by Tyler at 1:00 PM
Remember the 1900: Art at the Crossroads exhibit at the GuggEnron a few years ago? 2Blowhards is reading the catalog and
compares a broader spectrum of turn-of-the-century art via JPEG.
posted by Tyler at 9:33 AM
11.21.2002
Miami Basel Update: MAN's travel arrangements are all set. I'll be arriving on the afternoon of Thurday the fifth and staying until Monday morning. MAN's HQ will be The Cadet Hotel, a block from the
artpoint setup and (I think) two blocks from the Miami Basel setup.
MAN will be traveling with laptop so look for daily updates from Miami! (And if you've got hot gossip about Miami or from Miami, be sure to share it with MAN!)
MANpals
Fusebox will be at ArtPoint, as will Baltimore's Gallery Four (the gallery home of Dan Steinhilber) MAN reader and comment board-regular Brian Sholis' gallery -- D'Amelio Terras -- will be in the main fair.
Other DC'ers going for the p
arty are: Patrick Murcia, Sarah Finlay, Jason Gubbiotti, James Huckenpahler, Jason Falchook, Maggie Michael and Dan Steinhilber. I believe that Kimberly Gladfelter and Karyn Caplan are still on the fence. Am I missing anyone? Any other MANfolk (MANiacs?) heading down? Tell us on the comment boards.
posted by Tyler at 1:57 PM
11.20.2002
I really enjoyed writing the below post on Bonnard and planned on making it the only post of the day as a way of driving traffic to it...
... but the preposterous and eternal brouhaha that is the Barnes beckons me (as always). So please be kind to me and read the long Bonnard post and comment on it. And I'll thank you by continuing to bore you with my fixation on the Barnes.
There is lots of news on the Barnes front today, some of it stupefying:
Former Barnes director
Richard Glanton suggests that the Barnes sell one of its masterpieces so that it can stay on the Main Line. Oh, sure. MoMA should sell Les Desmoiselles so it can pay for its new building. And the National Gallery should sell that big Calder sculpture in the East Building so it can put in a faster elevator.
The Philly Inquirer also has two new stories on the Barnes lawsuit.
Here's one and here's the
more interesting one.
Now, Bonnard is below...
posted by Tyler at 4:04 PM
One of the great luxuries in life is being able to see a really good art exhibit multiple times. Like, 20 times. I’m about halfway there on the terrific
Bonnard show that’s at the Phillips.
This is one of those things that non-art people can’t comprehend. They look at me like I’m nuts when they hear that I was at the Bonnard show… again. Can’t you see the whole show in one viewing, they ask. Well, no.
Friends of mine who are artsy only sort of get it. A painter friend of mine has a remarkable ability to spend less than a minute on a painting, to soak it up and to synthesize it just in time to reach the next painting. I can’t do that. I have to work harder at a painting to see everything that there is to see.
For art viewers like me, Bonnard is the perfect artist to return to over and over again. Hidden meanings, figures, moods, colors and cats reveal themselves only over repeated viewings. Seeing a show with different friends is part of this too. A friend with whom I saw Bonnard this morning pointed out the way shocks of color emanate away from a figure in Bonnard’s
The Terrace and confirmed I wasn’t going nuts by noting that a tray in the painting seems to hover in the air. There being about 10 other paintings in the gallery that houses The Terrace, a different friend focused on Nude in the Bathroom and its mysterious white breast.
I also find that it’s not just individual paintings that show me more and more. It’s whole rooms and whole themes that run through Bonnard’s work and the show. On the second floor, there’s a room that reeks sex. One nude is caught in the midst of a post-coital blush. A set of photographs Bonnard took of wife Marthe are nakedly erotic… but Marthe’s face is obscured in every single one. A rape scene on the panels of a screen starts so fetchingly that it’s easy to read it as mythological roleplay. And the drawings in Paul Verlaine’s Parallelement leave me reaching for a Dunhill.
Sex is in the background of many of the paintings on the second floor. In that one room, everyone’s about to have it or has just had it. In a number of other second-floor paintings, raw rivalries stemming from sex are on almost awkward display. Next time someone tries to tell me Bonnard personifies The Last Temptation of Impressionism, I’ll show them the tense, vicious paintings that Bonnard painted of wife Marthe and Renee Monchaty, his lover. (Look at
Young Women in the Garden, where Bonnard even allies a faithful pup with Renee and pits them both against Marthe, who is banished to blobular form in a nether corner of the painting. Or look at the other terrace painting –
The Terrace at Verrnonnet from the Met - that is in the main gallery. Is that Renee, ready to stab Marthe, whose distant gaze shows how unaware she is?) Bonnard an Impressionist? Bah. I can’t think of an Impressionist who tore down his wife in this manner.
A few weeks ago I thought that some of these mean Bonnards should be in one gallery so as to better highlight their tension. After this morning’s viewing I’m glad they aren’t – their intent is so obvious that a gallery filled with Mean Bonnards would be psychologically painful. I’m grateful that they’re sprinkled throughout the exhibit.
This morning’s viewing partner said that she enjoyed Bonnard much more than Picasso and that the Phillips show reminded her of why. This reminded me of the disdain Picasso felt toward Bonnard. Picasso famously had no use for Bonnard’s vivid palette, for his periphery-focused compositions and thus found nothing to take from Bonnard’s work and to use in his own. As I was riding my bike away from the Phillips I understood another reason Picasso may have been angry with Bonnard: Picasso violently deconstructed women and the female form in many of his paintings. Bonnard did him one better; he psychologically eviscerated the very woman closest to him while simultaneously deifying his lover. (Renee merits three halos in two paintings in one gallery. One of Renee’s halos was added shortly after Marthe died.) It took 10 viewings and the right gallery pal for me to get to that thought. Can’t wait to see what I discover in the next 10 visits.
posted by Tyler at 3:32 PM
11.19.2002
I'm pretty swamped with work today so I haven't had a chance to do the post I wanted to do today: a discussion of Leo Villareal's "light sculptures" @ Conner Contemporary. So while I'm catching up on the future of the Democratic Party (ha ha), enjoy these LeoLinks:
* Conner Contemporary's
Leo Villareal page.
*
Leo Villareal's site at NYU, where he's a professor of digital media.
* A Villareal
installation at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art. (Note: Palm Beach 1, DC 0.)
* Villareal in
The Art Newspaper.
* Villareal + Amnesty =
shine02.
Tidbit: MAN hears that Villareal will be up @ Conner through Dec. 11, not Dec. 4 as previously scheduled.
posted by Tyler at 2:56 PM
11.18.2002
I was at a dinner party last night and no one believed me about there being a
700-year old Mickey Mouse fresco.
posted by Tyler at 3:21 PM
The number of errors in the succeeding post is staggering. I should be flogged. (Quite a reversal
that would be, eh?) If I make a small mistake, I usually correct it in the post, but given the sheer volume of mistakes, I'm gonna correct 'em here and continue with the train of thought I started below.
First, Lynn Nicholas' book won a National Book Critics Circle Award, not a Pulitzer. No Pulitzer for history was given in 1994, the year her book came out.
Second, Putlizer
did buy Bathers with a Turtle at an auction but did
not buy it from a private collector selling under duress. Rather a German museum was selling under duress -- forced to liquidate by a Nazi government attempting to rid the government of degenerate art. I still think someone should be looking at that 1939 sale though. It's chronicled in the first few pages of The Rape of Europa. Pulitzer and others bought and attended from the sale, but it was so notorious even in 1939 that luminaries such as Alfred Barr stayed away.
Errors done. What's next on this story? There's a great magazine story here, beginning with that 1939 sale (because the transactions were transparent, both in terms of the work's provenance and in terms of what was sold, to whom, etc.) and moving forward to identify pieces that the Nazis forced dealers and collectors to sell. Where are those now? How is the U.S. government approach to these works different fromthe Austrian approach? Is Lynn Nicholas still in DC? This would be a great Atlantic Monthly piece. MAN may also spend a little time on this one too.
posted by Tyler at 2:42 PM
I had a fabulous arts weekend (which I will write about later) but the most fascinating art news of the weekend was in the little-read Saturday New York Times.
The
NYT reported that Austrain police have seized a piece of art that was sold by a Jewish collector in 1938. He was forced to sell the work (and hundreds of others) under duress by the Nazi regime. From my understanding of the NYT story, while the Jewish collector did sell his paintings to a Nazi gallery owner, he did so because the Nazis made it clear that they would confiscate the works from him.
The NYT story is a little muddled, but the implication is clear: works sold under duress could be subject to new, widespread claims by the heirs of those who sold under duress.
Why is this a big deal? Dozens of prominent paintings in U.S. museums were separated from their owners because of Nazi-forced sales or auctions.
The Rape of Europa, Lynn Nicholas' Pulitzer-winning work about the Nazis' intervention into the art market, outlines that many masterpieces were bought by Americans and Europeans for pennies on the dollar at Nazi-forced sales. (Check back later this afternoon and I'll have more on this from Nicholas' book. BTW, I think Nicholas lives here in DC.)
For example, one such canvas -- Matisse's Bathers with a Turtle -- was purchased by publisher Joseph Pulitzer at one such auction. Pulitzer subsequently gave the canvas to the St. Louis Art Museum, which still owns it. Should SLAM return this canvas to the heirs of the person from whom Pulitzer bought it? Big issue.
posted by Tyler at 12:47 PM
11.17.2002
Two Blowhards has
a fun look at the range of the art scene in Santa Fe.
posted by Tyler at 2:18 PM
11.16.2002
Greg Allen corrects himself about the price
a Cecily Brown fetched at Christie's on Thursday. Instead of $48K, the winning bid was $17K (and $20K with premium). Suddenly CB got more affordable!
posted by Tyler at 9:44 AM 
