artalk

Herb and Dorothy

2010-03-23T02:29:00.000-07:00

www.herbanddorothy.com

glenn sorensen

2010-03-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

cezzane

2010-03-13T00:18:00.000-08:00

"When the color is at its best, The shape looks better too.

The contrasts and the resemblances in the colors,
Here is the secret of the drawing and of the shapes".

moshe Kupferman

2010-03-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

Moshe Kupferman

http://www.kupferman.co.il/

fruehsorge gallery for drawing,

2010-03-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

Why Drawing?

Drawings were long relegated to a inferior status among artistic media, overshadowed by "major" representational work.

Yet it is precisely the unfinished,provisional and vulnerable nature of drawings that makes them so appealing and illuminating.

As a medium, drawing allows the artist to work in a freer, more direct manner, unfettered by the difficulties and resistance that some more intractable materials present.

It is a medium of reflection,an instrument of self-reassurance and analysis.

A few years ago,the Berlin Academy of Arts put on an exhibition titled " Drawing is Another Kind of Language."

And, indeed, it is a language that is difficult to translate into other idioms. It is, however, possible to get an idea of which rules of "grammar" it operates by.

http://www.fruehsorge.com

Frank Badur

2010-03-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

"My works have no specific purpose nor do they follow a predetermined goal. They carry their meaning within themselves."

http://www.frankbadur.de/

http://www.fruehsorge.com/

max charvolen

2010-03-11T02:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.documentsdartistes.org

Wes Mills

2010-03-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

jeff koons

2010-03-11T00:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.jeffkoons.com/site/index.html

Pat Steir

2010-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Monika Grzymala

2010-02-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

artriver

2010-02-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

great collection of rare art prints in most reasonable prices. in impressed...

http://www.artriver.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?

Souther Salazar

2010-02-10T01:20:00.001-08:00

Souther Salazar Interview from Scion ART on Vimeo.

i like his statement about how we live in a world that holds a place for art.

Pierrette Bloch

2010-01-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrette_Bloch

Gerhard Richter

2010-01-21T04:57:00.000-08:00

great videos on his super detailed website. lots of interesting stuff
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/

rachel Whiteread

2010-01-21T04:27:00.000-08:00



http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/172

Thelonious monk.

2010-01-21T04:13:00.001-08:00

you seem to follow a certain line here. interesting. its like 180 degrees from were i am but thats what i like about it.
it reminds me this interview i red with Thelonious monk.
he was asked - can you defined the difference between jazz and classical music. there isnt . he said

2010-01-15T07:45:00.000-08:00

that is a beautiful painting. i'm impressed..

Forrest Bess

2010-01-10T15:17:00.000-08:00

"I term myself a visionary painter for lack of a better word. I can close my eyes in a dark room and if there is no outside noise or attraction, plus, if there is no conscious effort on my part—then I can see color, lines, patterns, and forms that make up my canvases. I have always copied these arrangements exactly without elaboration."

Throughout his life as an artist, Forrest Bess strove to invest a personal symbology with meaning, developing a complex visual vocabulary to accompany his obsessive devotion to beliefs and theories that alienated him from the mainstream.

http://www.forrestbess.org/index.html

Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle
Painter, fisherman, visionary, eccentric - Forrest Bess lived his life in obscurity, at an isolated bait camp off the East Coast of Texas. From 1949 through 1967, Bess showed at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City, (along with artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko). But Bess' art was only part of a grander theory, based on alchemy, Jungian philosophy, and aboriginal rituals, which proposed that hermaphrodism was the key to immortality. Narrated by actors Willem Dafoe and Ruth Maleczech the documentary combines the beauty of Bess' art with the drama and tragedy of his personal life. Interviews with people who knew Bess, including art historian Meyer Schapiro (his last interview) and Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman brings life to this forgotten artist. "Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle" is a fascinating look at one of America's most unusual artists.

P R O D U C E R & D I R E C T O R: Chuck Smith
D I R E C T O R & C A M E R A : Ari Marcopoulos
C O L O R / B & W, 4 8 M I N U T E S
2 0 0 0

http://www.checkerboardfilms.org/Films/bess.html

Jørn Utzon

2010-01-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B8rn_Utzon

agnes martin quotes

2010-01-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

Agnes Martin Interview (20:00 version, 1997) from Chuck Smith on Vimeo.

Agnes Martin (March 22, 1912 – December 16, 2004) was a Canadian-American painter, often referred to as a minimalist; Martin considered herself an abstract expressionist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Martin

"I think everybody is born to do a certain thing. And they ought to study themselves, find out what they like and what they don’t like and everything, and try to find out exactly what they’re supposed to do. Everybody’s rushing so much in this life they don’t take time to really look and find out what their response is, even to their own work."

"Artwork is a representation of our devotion to life," Agnes Martin once wrote. "The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective."

"When I decided to paint, I knew I didn’t want to paint about this world, & nature. I wanted to paint abstract. The most obvious abstract emotion is happiness. So I paint a lot of paintings about happiness. I paint about happiness, innocence, & beauty: the feelings that we have that go beyond the world, that have no worldly cause"

"All my work is above the line. I don’t paint anything depressing (laughs.) To live above the line, you have to think ‘I want to be good. I want to be good every minute.’ And you only pay attention to things that you like, you know. When you go to the museum, you just look at the paintings you like. You don’t look at the ones you don’t like, stop & criticize, and all that."

"Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork... we all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly."

"People think that they have to understand art, but that’s not right. Understanding is, you know, the bind. Contradiction & correction, that’s all…oh boy...”

"Well, sometimes I paint about tranquility. I have a lot of paintings about tranquility. It doesn’t matter where you are – if you bring your mind to a stop you’ll feel a light, delicate happiness. That’s tranquility. You’ve stopped."

"You don’t have to listen to anybody about anything. Whatever you want, you get.”

"Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings."

"Happiness is being on the beam with life - to feel the pull of life."

"My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind."

"To progress in life you must give up the things you do not like. Give up doing the things that you do not like to do. You must find the things that you do like. The things that are acceptable to your mind."

"When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection."

"Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern. They are immeasurable, completely lacking in substance. They are perfect and sublime. This is the subject matter of art."

Robert Ryman

2010-01-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

my google image grids collection

2010-01-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

grid quotes

2009-12-31T06:45:00.001-08:00

regarding my latest interest of grid based works here are few quotes from this lovely grid designers site

http://artofthegrid.com/index.

made by this talented graphic designer:

http://www.astridstavro.com/

Admit constraints: then, having admitted, fill with discovery.
ANTHONY FROSHAUG

The secret of a grid's success is not so much its structure as the imagination with which it is used.
ALLEN HURLBURT

A design should have some tension and some expression in itself. I like to compare it with the lines on a football field. It is a strict grid.
In this grid you play a game and these can be nice games or very boring games.
WIM CROUWEL

The power of the grid is to lift the designer outside of the protective capriciousness of the "self" by providing an existing set of possibilities, a set of rules.
ELLEN LUPTON

Grids do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in relation to the content.
We never start with a grid. We start with an idea which is then translated into a form, a structure.
LINDA VAN DEURSEN

Beauty will result from the form and the correspondence of the whole, with respect to the several parts, of the parts with regard to each other, and of these again to the whole; that the structure may appear
an entire and complete body, wherein each member agrees with the other, and all necessary to compose what you intend to form.
ANDREA PALLADIO

I'm actually an untidy person. I'm not ordered at all. In some senses
I have to use grids to bring some order to the chaos that's whirring around in my head.
HAMISH MUIR

To say a grid is limiting is to say that language is limiting, or typography is limiting. It is up to us to use these media critically
or passively.
ELLEN LUPTON

The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropiate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an
art that requires practice.
JOSEF MULLER-BROCKMANN

I still reserve the right, at any time, to doubt the solutions
furnished by the Modular, keeping intact my freedom, which must
depend on my feelings rather than my reason.
JOSEF MULLER-BROCKMANN

The grid, like any other instrument in the design process, is not an absolute. It should be used with flexibility, and when necessary it should be modified or abandoned completely for a more workable solution.
ALLEN HURLBURT

The use of the grid implies
the will to systematize, to clarify
the will to penetrate to the essentials, to concentrate
the will to cultivate objectivity instead of subjectivity
the will to rationalize the creative and technical production processes
the will to integrate elements of colour, form and material
the will to achieve architectural dominion over surface and space
the will to adopt a positive, forward-thinking attitude
the recognition of the importance of education and the effect of work devised in a constructive and creative spirit.
JOSEF MULLER-BROCKMANN

There are various reasons for using the grid as an aid in the organization of text and illustration. Economic reasons: a problem can be solved in less time and at lower cost. Rational reasons: both simple and complex problems can be solved in a uniform and characteristic style. Mental attitude: the systematic presentation of facts, of sequences of events, and of solutions to problems should, for social and educational reasons, be a constructive contribution to the cultural state of society and an expression of our sense of responsibility.
JOSEF MULLER-BROCKMANN

Order is the actual key of life.
LE CORBUSIER

Where there is no order, there is chaos.
FRA LUCA PACIOLI

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
ANTOINE DE ST.EXUPERY

Daniel Hafner

2009-12-30T01:27:00.000-08:00

http://hafner.artfolder.net/

What do the majority of minutes consist of? Hans Rudolf Reust in Dialogue with Silvia Bächli

2009-12-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

What do the majority of minutes consist of?

Questions to and from Silvia Bächli

Hans Rudolf Reust in Dialogue with Silvia
Bächli, Published in: Silvia Bächli – Studio.
Exhibition Catalogue Museu Serralves,
Porto, 2007, p. 141-150; translation from
German: James Gussen

The following questions put by Hans Rudolf Reust to Silvia Bächli were sent and answered by email. Then, on 10 November 2006, a lengthier conversation took place at a beach café in Porto.
Subsequently, the texts were revised.

+ Viewed over the longer term, your work seems to be marked by a great continuity with a few,
mostly subliminal but enduring changes. This makes the question all the more intriguing as to
whether or not a paradigm change can be distinguished at certain points in your work. As for
instance at the changeover from the constellations of smaller drawings to large formats, which are presented as pictures in their own right. Are there any “key works” that denote important
developments?

++ You’re quite right: changes enter my work quite surreptitiously, they creep in...
Often I only detect the signs in retrospect.
My work develops in a spiral.
Motifs slowly emerge, become more frequent, experience their zenith, pale, and mostly return in a slightly changed form after hibernating.
There are no harsh breaks – although there was one: in 1982 I resolved from one day to the next to stop making diary-like pen and ink drawings in A4 format books. Each book consisted of self-contained stories and observations, and later the individual pages were removed from the books and arranged geometrically in rectangular blocks. Suddenly this was no longer possible, I had to drop the practice. It was getting too one-sided, too narrational. There were repetitions that were getting rather thin. The visual ideas were no more than a husk, without any inner questions.
But essentially the idea of working in periods (pink, blue, cubist, etc.) strikes me as quite absurd. I don’t feel comfortable focusing on one goal.
I find it constricting to make a beginning, to continue the process logically to the end, to conclude it and only then embark upon the next step.
You can never finish anything, at the most look where it’s taking you and how long you can stand it, how long it still grabs you. It may suddenly come to an end, as my experience with the A4 books showed me.
I want the whole spectrum from all around, I want to be able to turn on my own axis.
There are interesting things to pick up on in all directions, everywhere.
There has been one constant from the very start: space.
Good drawings are larger than the format decreed by the edge of the paper.
The drawings are like sculptures, looming to various extents into the space in which we move.
The white walls, the space, are an inseparable part of the image field.
Since that caesura in 1982 I use paper in various whites and yellows, in differing, mostly small to medium formats. The whole range of black and white techniques is allowed.
The finished drawings are hung at differing heights to produce a tight, densely packed score of sounds on the walls.

These clusters remind me of the notation for Gregorian chants.
The simultaneity of things, states, vibrations, etc., corresponds to the way I see my surroundings and what is within me: various levels that mutually colour one another.
I am less and less interested in narratable stories with a beginning and an end.
The ephemeral between the stories, the tone are becoming more important to me, with all their gaps, all that is unsaid, the allusions, the pauses... The stories without a beginning and an end, which cannot be tamed by words.
Beginning with the whole figure, my interest is in homing in more and more on the skin.
The distance is diminishing.
In 1994 I chanced upon another, slightly thicker paper.
That inspired me to give the unsuccessful drawings a second chance by sluicing them with water. The old traces were drowned by the water and covered by new traces.
This response to something that had been there already resulted in far more abstract linear formations, which otherwise I would never have dared to produce.
Playfully I discovered a few forms connected with objects, which I nevertheless can trust.
These works are unable to establish cluster links with one another. They are too similar.
That is why they always hang side by side in a very classical row. These works come in addition to the others to expand the possibilities.

1996: standing in the central room at the Kunsthalle Bern were a number of glazed table display
cases in which drawings from various years had been grouped according to family resemblances:
an attempt at order with fuzzy edges.
This new view of my collection prompted similarities, but also revealed the big differences in what was supposedly the same. Placed next to each other, the ever-returning motifs reveal how dissimilar they are.
Questions can be addressed to the drawings according to concrete criteria (e.g., all “clothing”), as well as painterly (“frayed”) or technical ones (strictly “linear drawings”), or on the basis of formal similarities (“crossed” or “loops”).
Even though kindred motifs emerge among the smaller pictures, I never produce similar works one after the other.
I jump from one idea to the next; every drawing is something different to the one before. It’s simply impossible for me to stick to one single theme.
Repeating something amounts to trying to force something which it is better to allow to happen. Otherwise your thoughts remain stuck and won’t exert themselves.
That at least is the notion, the dogma I cherished for so long – from 1983 to 2000.
It seemed impossible to restrict myself to one area, to one sole possibility.
In the smaller drawings I keep playing games with myself: after a pale drawing I have to do a dark one, or one with unbroken lines. Precise observation has to alternate with the slurring lines of a noise: time and again doing something different to before, without giving up what had preceded, taking everything with you and slowly developing it.
This has been one of my principles over the years.
I want to forget what the drawing with the leg looked like from yesterday – so that I can try it again.

How does it really look?
How does it feel from inside?
How do I see it in other works?
In 2003 I worked together with the publisher Lars Müller on Lidschlag.
The book consists of two hundred drawings from 1983 to 2003.
Each year I put aside 50–150 works from this “fund” into my own collection, the “Lonely Island”. These are drawings which didn’t find a place in exhibitions or that are so contrary I wanted to keep them, as well as works that have a special meaning for me.
So the big challenge was to work through this pile of 2000 drawings and make a selection of 200 to 300, so as to visualise the period from 1983 to 2003 in chronological and linear order as a process of gradual change – leafing through the time.
Cinematic thinking, lines of tension, ease of legibility, movements to and fro, breaks, references to previous works, faltering vortices and calm flow: a montage of images taken from 21 years. For me the project encompassed a completely new (temporal) dimension with infinitely more “words” that were supposed to become “text”.
What had changed over the years?
What had remained the same?
What have I forgotten again, dropped?
How did new things come about?
Have the tonalities changed over the years?
Which story or stories can be told in this way?
Apart from the original drawings, another important aspect of my work over the years has been
the shots I take of my studio.
The photos capture ephemeral constellations and the relations between drawings placed next to one another, which sometimes only lasted the length of a particular work situation.
So one task has been to look through my collection of negatives and pick out informative views.
With the book now finished and in my hand, I can set out on this retrospective.
I have discovered a great deal that had been started, and which could be worked on.
Suddenly I am taken by the idea of daring the impossible and attempting a bolder gesture which would nevertheless be repeatable.
Large paper (200 x 150 cm) demands a totally different kind of physical effort.
One can manage to draw an unbroken line for two metres without interruption.
But a longer movement can only be executed by taking a step and thus by a visible interruption in the line.
Every line must be filled with presence, like a good dancer who extends right beyond her fingertips into space.
Suddenly I can appreciate this new method, and find that the repetition involved in drawing the same again and again is anything but a restriction.
Flower stems become lines, intersecting traceries of lines, parallel bundles of lines.

I knew of Agnes Martin when I was twenty-two – only later did I come to appreciate her.

Even if nowadays my drawings often have non-figural cast – they are still closely linked with the
body.
Crossed lines can be stars in the lines on one’s palms, layered up lines are warm blankets
(blankets of snow, of clouds), rectangles with snaking lines are houses and paths, verticals and
horizontals open up a space to see through, step through, a hazy border, a passage. One thinks of
something figural, although none of the drawings point with any certainty to that.

+ Your practice of constantly drawing seems to be directed by a very definite, tuned-in awareness of the world, and not one that is vast and incalculable, but more the understandable world in your closer vicinity. This awareness precipitates into unshakeable images, to stills of other, inner, at any rate, invisible movements...

++ The everyday and normal seem to constantly bewilder me, seem to keep posing new questions:
what do fingers look like? (Study closely.)
What do feet look like under a chair? (Imagine something without seeing it.)
The best drawings are when I can put myself physically into my perception, when I can feel myself into it.
What places are there that can’t be filled out?
How does the back feel? (Looking from within.)
What did I walk past yesterday? (Recalling a route, walking and standing still.)
What do diffuse thoughts look like? (Groping through a fog.)
What does one remember and where are the white spots?
Where does virgin soil begin?
What can be depicted when avoiding sensationalism?
What remains without TV reality, summit conferences and a woman with a heart?
What do the majority of minutes consist of?

My drawings are beams of light cast onto careless, insignificant motions, fusions of objects,
overpaintings of once commenced and since abandoned figurations, noises, notions; continents
between what is closest by.
I allow the furthest extremes to falter and flow next to each other.
Drawing is experimenting, groping one’s way and playing.
My work is like speaking out loud. One tries something, changes the emphasis, tries it with a different sequence of words, at a different volume.
Sometimes a sentence will hit the mark, it captures what you had dimly suspected.
In the best case you discover something that is a better fit, is more surprising than what you had
expected.

Which makes it possible for even words to literally intervene in what happens in a
picture, as in a drawing from 2001: “what / how is / once again / how again / once again / ever
again / and once more”, or in a gouache from 2005: “distant shores / – / old dykes / horizons /
mountains of clouds”, or in another gouache of the same year: “everything is gone / no more / sea/ – / where to / – / come back / sit down / stay here”.
The works have to be “unleashed, but personal to the point of intimacy" (Eva Hesse).
Often the main occurrence is not happening there directly on the paper but more to one side, before or after.
The concern is with traces of a presence that once again becomes ephemeral the moment it is
seen.
An important precondition for this is forgetting.
Because it is only the impossibility of remembering every detail that allows similar questions to be asked again, and with that other aspects be brought to the light of day.
Every work must have something unfinished about it, a possibility for the viewer to join in, slip inside, pick up the thread.
“Drawing is searching for the right tone, for a formulation that rings true, and which I cannot tell beforehand how it will look” – to gently misquote Fernando Pessoa.

In your question you write about “unshakeable” images: Do you mean by that “fitting” images,
ones that have to be, as they are, or do you mean motionless? I tend to see my pictures as if they
could change at any moment, like fickle weather, stop being the same as they were as soon as one
ceases to look for a moment. What had just seemed clear is suddenly dubious.

Drawing is the first, the most important step in your work. But then you begin right away with a
second movement: studying and selecting, and then later with linking up pictures into
constellations.

I always have the same approach with the small drawings: draw, leave to them dry, collect them
together and press, then sort them out: the good ones are hung up on the wall, the duff ones
thrown away. The middling ones are put in folder B. With time, some wander from the B to the A
category on the wall, and some from B into the waste basket, and some from A go to B or directly
to C. This method allows me to view and judge my works with a cooler distance.
I only make one or two ensembles, fixed constellations of drawings each year, more than that
seems impossible. If they followed on too quickly from one another they would become too similar.
That doesn’t seem to be the point.
The process of building up an ensemble often takes weeks.
The first three or four pictures I hang up give direction to the work.
Suddenly there is a thread running through them, even if initially the melody I set up is still very unclear and hazy.
A finished constellation is complete when it has a plan for hanging it, in which the heights and the spacing are fixed right down to the nearest half a centimetre.
Finally each ensemble is given a name: alles weg, Solilja, twelf, uma, left sleeve, Drift, L., indisch, abrikosentraeerne findes, Karola, belonging, Ammassalik, för, Tibet, Ida, quittengelb, etc.

Since these constellations are usually made for very specific spaces, their dimensions are often a
big headache.
The amount of space available at another location never tallies with the ideal, even if
one can put a couple of creases in the large groups.
It is often impossible to hang an ensemble because the wall is too short.

+ With your recent large formats, which have more autonomous play within them, this second
movement of piecing together no longer seems so important....

++ There’s no way you could create constellations with different heights using the large drawings.
In that respect you are right: here one has to stick to making and hanging them up for a certain while to ensure the pictures can also withstand time.
Whenever they are shown at an exhibition they enter new neighbourhoods, in every new situation they have new partners.
The search for the right neighbors is not, however, simply a concern for me with the ensembles, but with any exhibition.
I don’t simply arrive with a couple of works.
I always examine the possibilities for sequences and links beforehand in my studio.
The whole exhibition is already set up in a 1:50 model, and then I check once again at the location whether my proposal actually holds its own with the reality there.
My interest in intervals, rhythms, syncopation, sound intensity, compactions, weight, emptiness – whether inside of an ensemble or in a completely different space with lots of individual drawings – remains unchanged.

Something is missing if one stubbornly hangs my pictures at the same distance to one another.
There should be a correspondence between the drawings and the way they are shown: fast and
slow lines, pausing and dancing, tense and flowing. The drawings go beyond the edge of the paper, which is mirrored by their presentation.

I still regard clearly set plans to be an indispensable help for ensembles with small elements on
different levels.
This precision is not some added extra, but gives the required stringency.
All that is needed with larger formats is a couple of recommendations: hang them asymmetrically, with varying intervals between the drawings...
People who are familiar with the work and have an eye not only for the paper, but also the whole wall and the whole room, will come up with good solutions.

So the constellations of smaller drawings on the walls have been fixed.
In the Kunsthalle Bern you put out tables which each had their own principle of arrangement. Would it be possible to take the same stock of drawings and find different arrangements that were on an equal footing?

I won’t touch an ensemble once it has been put together and given its plan for the hanging. There are two ensembles that offer two possibilities for the way they are hung: Ammassalik and L.
The many individual drawings which are left over from the ensembles can be hung side by side in a line, or arranged in table display cases according to family resemblances.
The arrangement on the table changes from one occasion to the next, and only is settled once it is sold.
Depending on the question involved, a drawing (such as two legs in chequered knee-length socks) may appear on the table “crossed lines” and later on the table “clothes”.
I often develop new families from the same, slightly expanded stock of material for new exhibition spaces.

The list of aspects, which swing between free formal (“frayed”) and figurative approaches (“finger”) is illuminating.

+ Could you add to this list? Are there any more of these aspects?

++ Yes, one could add a number of examples to the free formal ones: brittle / splintery, cloudy,
silhouettes, figure and ground: the alternation between figure as the major element and the white background as leading actor, crossed lines, eights (curls in the form of the number 8), turning inside out, loops.
Or examples of concrete elements: clothes, arms and fingers, zoo, writing, paths, tugging, codes, eyes...

In les ingrédients I worked differently: I took a drawing as my starting
point, split it up into different parts (wavy lines, button eyes, parallel lines, intersections, long
flowing lines), and looked for a new drawing that fitted each of the parts.
The tables are open- ended: they require easily legible as well as very distant forms which would be very difficult to read as still belonging together.
These “far-flung relatives” have to be included so as to avoid a self-contained pigeonhole.
The drawings are to retain their iridescent potential.

It is normal practice to ask about affinities to other artists.
But it is clear that our generation in particular does not wish to get bogged down in debates about programmes.
But that is why I would be particularly interested in what you resolutely dislike in art, what you reject, where you mentally draw the line.

What I resolutely dislike is virtuoso art that is nothing more than that: accomplished, but hollow
and empty.
This superficial virtuosity is too informed.
And I don’t like pathos or people dully chewing over the realities in the media, sex and crime. I’m also uninterested in headlines and current affairs. I similarly dislike having to confront kitsch through the means of art.

Art doesn’t have to physically overwhelm me.

Expressive screaming has to measure up to the subject that is depicted.
What I find really appalling? When people are enlisted to perform seemingly voluntary
actions which they otherwise would never do; or art that wishes to show us the vileness with which we apparently treat one another; or voyeurism, spoon-fed to us in the protected sphere of an art space.

What really puts me on edge: this mostly roundish-oval, organic, abstract commonplace language.

The Idiom has already existed for some time, and keeps on cropping up: wadded, harmonious,
beige, slightly melancholy, but with a large serving of snugness; accompanied by unclear,
imprecise verbiage in the most general terms.

“How” is more telling than “what”.
The way something is made, the approach that informs it, is
more decisive than the chosen motif.
I am drawn more to a Romanesque chapel than the Sistine.
Sweeping barren landscapes – Iceland for example – with their primal emptiness fascinate me far more than tropical regions.
Drawing means leaving things out: a winter landscape with snow.

other texts on her work:
silviabaechli

Venice highlights

2009-12-17T03:05:00.000-08:00

I know i havent yet uploaded the Venice biannal photographs, i dont know if i ever will...
but i would like to tell u about the 'drawings' highlights for me, here they are:

1.
Silvia Bachli
is one of the best drawing artist i have ever encountered. her Venice pavilion left me speechless.
the power of her work is in the strength of her energy and the way it comes through the space. as if the works themselves are just footnotes to a bigger happening.
the silent confidence , maturity, positiveness, awareness, originality, authenticity in which she approaches the exhibition situation is so unfamiliar and very inspiring...
http://www.filialebasel.ch/silviabaechli/netscape_start.html

2.
Susan Hefuna drawings.
pure poetry on paper.
simply working on large series of small papers, expression through construction - reminded me of my work....
http://www.susanhefuna.com/

3.
Raffi Lavie at the Israeli pavilion
as many of his students i adored him
anyway, being at the Israeli pavilion i felt very exited and so proud..
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=dTZ&um=1&q=raffi+lavie&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

Sister Corita Kent

2009-11-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

i so love her work. im so envy at people that know how to bring life issues into their work. not that i think that mine dont. actually i dont believe anything like that exist. but still. i wish i could bring love into my work. is there love in what i do? i wonder..

http://www.corita.org/

Thomas Bewick

2009-11-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

i just love ABC books. [well calenders as well] here is a very early example. i love the sepia ink and the images..
this one was made by Thomas Bewick (1753-1828)

Thomas Bewick is considered to be the finest of all English practitioners of wood engraving. He and his younger brother John (1760-1795) illustrated a number of books that were read by children from the late eighteenth century onwards. His most famous book was The History of British Birds (1797). Charlotte Bronte, in Jane Eyre, has her heroine reading the book and being gripped by the vignettes of English country life that accompany the text. The Bewicks were celebrated for their use of light and textures - especially on animals - an effect they achieved through the use of the "white-line" engraving technique (see Mahoney). According to the OCCL, Thomas Bewick "not only raised the art of wood engraving to the highest level, but was also the first person to make the work of the illustrator as important in books for children as the text."

read more

heimo zobernig

2009-11-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

google image

Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

2009-10-31T02:34:00.000-07:00

Im opening a series of posts on women artists, i never meant to do this, but here it comes anyway. basically i would like to believe a good artist is a good artist whatever his gender is, but lately i seem to appreciate more and more art made by woman i guess there is nothing new about that, but still im going to try to shine some light on this agenda.
anyway , i start here with this Bauhaus artist, her work moved me but then her portrait hooked my eye, i will read further abut her and let you know, for starter here is a preview for her current retrospective expo, and a beautiful drawing :

google image results

Bergson Henri

2009-10-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

"This work, by Professor Bergson, has been revised in detail by the author himself, and the present translation is the only authorized one. For this ungrudging labour of revision, for the thoroughness with which it has been carried out, and for personal sympathy in many a difficulty of word and phrase, we desire to offer our grateful acknowledgment to Professor Bergson. It may be pointed out that the essay on Laughter originally appeared in a series of three articles in one of the leading magazines in France, the Revue de Paris. This will account for the relatively simple form of the work and the comparative absence of technical terms. It will also explain why the author has confined himself to exposing and illustrating his novel theory of the comic without entering into a detailed discussion of other explanations already in the field. He none the less indicates, when discussing sundry examples, why the principal theories, to which they have given rise, appear to him inadequate. To quote only a few, one may mention those based on contrast, exaggeration, and degradation.

The book has been highly successful in France, where it is in its seventh edition. It has been translated into Russian, Polish, and Swedish. German and Hungarian translations are under preparation. Its success is due partly to the novelty of the explanation offered of the comic, and partly also to the fact that the author incidentally discusses questions of still greater interest and importance. Thus, one of the best known and most frequently quoted passages of the book is that portion of the last chapter in which the author outlines a general theory of art. "

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4352/4352-h/4352-h.htm

Interview with Ky Anderson

2009-09-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

How would you define your latest work?

I have started my recent series of works on paper with a different approach, I limited my color pallet to blues and greens. I felt in my previous series I was hiding behind color and not discussing what was really going on with my paintings. My paintings were stuck in what I felt was an uncomfortable transition, from an abstract landscape and representational imagery to total abstraction. If I go too far in either direction the painting doesn't feel right. Limiting my color pallet helped me refine the balance between the two. Something clicks when the balance is just right, I find it the most interesting.

Eye Pushing Up
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

One Floating Above
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

Another side of my work that I am really enjoying right now is the constant layering that happens in some of my paintings. I paint one image, then paint it out, then paint another image and again paint it out until something suddenly clicks and the painting is complete. When I look at my paintings I know the history underneath the completed painting, I hope the viewer can sense the history as well. I am starting a new project now that takes this same style of working but I am applying it to linen and muslim. Painting on the linen, but instead of using white paint to cover past images I will stitch muslim on the surface to create layers of fabric and paint. I have not worked with loose fabric in years, so I am excited to see where it takes me. I love the color and texture of linen, its natural color complements my color pallet and also tones it down.

Hourglass #2
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

Underground Eye
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

Did you always want to be a painter?

No, but I’ve always painted for as long as I can remember. Art was a huge part of my childhood. I thought in high school that I would study math or science, but then at the last minute I went to art school. In art school I studied Fiber for two years and Sculpture for my last. I painted more at home than in school. Painting came so naturally so I wanted to learn other things in school. As soon as I got out of school I quickly fell into painting and drawing. I do feel that my education in Fiber and Sculpture adds to my painting.

Can you name 4 major artist who influences your work?

I love Louise Bourgeois and Martin Ramirez for their looseness when they draw and paint. They have an instinctual freedom I aspire to in my painting.

Louise Bourgeois

Martin Ramirez

I like Vija Celmins for her craft, and Unica Zürn for the way her drawings wander but still makes sense.

Vija Celmins

Unica Zürn

What do you plan for your upcoming exhibition?

I am preparing for a show at The Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri. They recently moved to a beautiful new space and I am excited to show there. The space is quite large so it is challenging me to work larger. I will show works on paper, the linen & muslim series and new oil paintings. I imagine the show to be a contrast of bright oil paintings and the simple natural muted colors of the linen pieces.

Can you elaborate on your art collection?

I am sentimental when it comes to my art collection. The majority of my collection consists of people I know and have known for most of my life. I identify the art with the person who made it. It comforts me and makes me feel at home to live with their work. On the other side of it, I often trade with other artists I do not know. I can’t say how rewarding it is to trade art. To get something great in the mail and also to cleanse myself of art that is pilling up around my studio. To view my art collection click here.

Here are a couple recent more paintings, here I have started working with red.

Three Points
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

Above and Below
2009
Acrylic and ink on paper
22"x30"

website-kyanderson.com

The Quiet Art of Cartooning

2009-08-27T02:11:00.000-07:00

i know i should write down my Venice Biennale impressions, but they are so many... so here is my favorite graphic novel artist: Seth,

The loneliness of the no-distance cartoonist

an-interview-with-seth-part-one

One art

2009-08-13T21:44:00.001-07:00


by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
American poets at www.poets.com poemhunter

e-flux

2009-08-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

e-flux is pleased to announce the opening of its reading room in New York on Friday, August 28th at 6PM. The reading room is a rapidly growing collection of several thousand books on contemporary art exhibitions open to the public at 41 Essex Street. The books have been donated by numerous art institutions and individuals from all parts of the world and reflect some of the more interesting developments in art of the past decade. e-flux reading room is open for research and study from Tuesday through Saturday, 12-6 pm.

Go visit!

' Luc Tuymans Captures the Moment ' By J. S. MARCUS / The Wall Street Journal

2009-08-13T03:49:00.001-07:00

"Q: How has the collapse in the art market affected what you do?

For me, it doesn't really matter, because there has been such a large investment in my work. The people who buy my work are part of the 1% who owns everything -- they lost something, but they still own a lot. Artistically, though, it can only help. The financial crisis will trigger a more content-driven way of dealing with art. The crap will detach itself from something that is really far more interesting, because people will think twice before they buy. And so I think the level will be heightened. You will have less money but more culture."

read the full interview

James Lee Byars / The Angel

2009-08-12T03:16:00.001-07:00

This September Yorkshire Sculpture Park showcases a spellbinding project by James Lee Byars (1932-1997), the beguiling artist known for work that touches upon philosophy and poetry. The Angel (1989) is a group of 125 spheres of hand-blown Murano glass, set in graceful curves that resemble a Japanese Kanji character of the symbol for 'angel'. YSP presents this project, initiated for the 2009 Venice Biennale, on the original stone floor of the mid-18th century Bretton Estate Chapel.

Byars developed a visual style based on simple forms that have strong symbolism, much of his work existed only as short live performances. It is envisaged that the installation will be accompanied by Byars’ performance, Five Points Make a Man, in which a female performer touches five drops of water to the ground, repeating the action once the marks have dried. The five points indicate the body’s extremities and the concept that given any arrangement of five marks, the viewer will imagine the human figure.

James Lee Byars at Milton Keynes Gallery and Venice Biennale

James Lee Byars represented by Michael Werner Gallery

Maarav

2009-08-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

Maarav (ambush) is an Online Israeli art and culture magazine. Maarav is one of the leading publications on art and culture in Israel and is the leading online art & culture Magazine in Israel.
Ma’arav was established in the beginning of 2004 and provides tools to those interested in art and culture – from theoretical discussions and debates to information on artists, exhibits, events, and technology.

http://www.maarav.org.il/english/

Chuck Close and Robert Storr in Conversation

2009-07-27T03:03:00.000-07:00

Chuck Close

Robert Storr

well Philip Guston i adore ever since... here is an interesting video : Chuck Close and Robert Storr in Conversation Hosted by College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts

Eva Hesse

2009-07-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

well i found this nice collection of her work
thanks for introducing her to me

frank ohara

2009-07-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

this poem came to me through the 20x200 site of Jen Bekman's project,
i often find there things i like:

Why I am not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it oranges. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

http://www.frankohara.org/writing.html

Silvia Bächli / Swiss Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

2009-07-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

silvia bachli is one of the best drawing artist i have ever encountered. her Venice pavilion left me speechless.
the power of her work is in the strength of her energy and the way it comes through the space. as if the works themselves are just footnotes to a bigger happening.
the silent confidence , maturity, positiveness, awareness, originality, authenticity in which she approaches the exhibition situation is so unfamiliar and very inspiring...

Sarah Oppenheimer: VP-41 / Art 40 Basel 2009,

2009-06-23T02:40:00.000-07:00

New York Times + International Herald Tribune : contemporary art special report

2009-06-13T04:35:00.000-07:00

yes, this is why i put the photo, it is my most XXX experience on this matter,
totally agree with you about the feelings issue.

check this report on the drawing situation:

La journaliste Alice Pfeiffer vient d’écrire une demi-page intitulée Getting creative in a downturn dans le dossier spécial que le New York Times et le International Herald Tribune ont dédie le 10 juin 2009 à l’art contemporain.

(…)
Serghei Litvin Manoliu, who presided in March over
another show, said, ‘‘The golden boy approach to art is
over.’’ His show, the 21st Century International Drawing
Fair, was a crisis-friendly, minimalist affair, offered unframed
works for around €300 (in fact, from €300 to €3000),
displayed on tables in abare, loft-like space in the hip Marais
district of Paris.
(…)
Unlike art produced mainly as a commodity for financial
speculation, Mr. Litvin Manoliu said, ‘‘drawing requires
excellent skills.’’ (…) ‘‘The art world had lost every criterion
of quality,’’ he said. ‘‘I believe this crisis is a fabulous opportunity
for the arts.’’

Drawing liberties in contemporary art / jonathan jones 'on art' blog

2009-05-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

Drawing is suddenly everywhere in contemporary art – Damien Hirst and Paul Klee are just two of the artists jumping the bandwagon – and thankfully, there is little respect for the rules.
>> read more...

Talking painting: dialogues with twelve contemporary abstract painters

2009-05-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

preparing myself to my upcoming artist talk i found this book,
glad to introduce:

Talking painting

Abstract painting continues to engage with a variety of problems and issues whose roots can be located within modernism and yet now reach beyond it. Talking Painting asks pertinent questions about recent abstract painting and its current status, bringing together twelve key practitioners with eminent critical theorists to provide "snapshots" of thought processes and attitudes, while also locating painting in a broader cultural and theoretical perspective.

Talking painting: dialogues with twelve contemporary abstract painters

By David Ryan

Edition: illustrated

Published by Routledge, 2002

ISBN 0415276292, 9780415276290

251 pages

Paul Heimbach and Ferdinand AHM KRAG

2009-04-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

hi ee, im glad you liked the poetry site, i thought you might...

and here is a french blog about drawing with the work of Ferdinand Ahmkrag - i post here his green work.

im going to take that map store picture, i promise.

and here is someone specific and into his own thing, i liked his way of thinking, he does fragile artist books for years now and his site is very different Paul Heimbach - do you know him?

very interesting CE, i never saw him before, thanks.
by the way, congratulation on presenting your work on the Satchi gallery at London!

best
yg

2009-04-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hi ee
i really liked that painter, some of his works is really moving.

I found this poetry site poemsoutloud.net
let me know if you like a specific one,
i chose this video:

I saw an amazing shop of old maps in Paris, i cant get over it.
apart from the fact that all the maps are amazingly beautiful, like the one in my first post, i was exited to see how they store the maps, working on papers myself i keep looking for the perfect organizing system, and here i was standing in front of the ideal solution, i couldn't believe my eyes. i have only this bad phone photo of it when its closed already, i will try to get back there to take a proper image.

bests
yg

The port of Amsterdam

2009-03-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hi ee
Here is an inspiring image to my taste
this is the map of Amsterdam done in 1698 by Frederik de wit
its on display now at the museum of New york City.
I am mostly impressed by the outline of the wall, red with blue and some orange, and its relationship with the upper headline, then we have the three Text Cubes, and the two kind of Royal signs, all embedded into this all over grid sometimes houses sometimes forests and the straight lines outside the walls, this is the exact amount of complexity I am trying to reach in my work. I also like the blue shape of the forest background on the bottom with the road on top of it, its like a package tied with a rope.
i find it easy for me to be impressed by flattened image, aside then maps and planes russian icons has the same impression on me, i like the way the frame is treated with a strong notion of what should be on top or on the bottom [earth, sky], i like that it is framed, by itself, i like that the element in the frame has a certain hirarchy [as opouse to all over composition i guess]
what do you think?
bests
yg.