Look, See

8. The last light at the end of the branch

7. The last light at the end of the branch

Financial Times: Is fame the art world's biggest lottery?

Financial Times: Is fame the art world's biggest lottery?
By William Packer
April 27 2004 18:02

(BTW, this article mentions Raoul De Keyser)

There are plenty of painters of real accomplishment working in as modern and abstract a mode as one could wish, who never achieve the support of any public gallery or institution, if they are perhaps a shade too old, their gallery is not quite advanced enough, their work is no longer seen as "cutting edge" or their face don't fit.

6. The last light at the end of the branch

5. The last light at the end of the branch

4. The last light at the end of the branch

3. The last light at the end of the branch

2. The last light at the end of the branch

1. The last light at the end of the branch

Notches & Spaces I-VIII

Source

David Reed on painting and emotion

David Reed in conversation with Katy Siegel, October 2001
(from Making Waves: The Legacy of Lee Lozano)

KS: How can painting be emotional without being expressionist?

DR: It's one of the strengths of painting that you aren't coerced into having emotions; you decide to have them. It's not like film. I get weepy at some of the most embarrassing movies. I can even get patriotic, and I'm ashamed of myself. But some of those patriotic emotions come from having a sense of community with other people. You can have those kinds of feelings looking at a painting, too, but in a way that's not coerced: You can choose to have them.

Raoul De Keyser at Whitechapel, London

Artforum:

Raoul De Keyser
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Through May 23

Raoul De Keyser bloomed late in Belgium, beginning an astonishing forty-year career at the age of thirty-five. The curators have put together fifty paintings from the early '70s forward, mixing older works among recent ones. The largely abstract canvases often begin with a simple, domestic image overlaid with gesture, monochrome, or a grid. For De Keyser, who explores painting's expanse rather than cataloguing its finite categories, nothing is inevitable, and many things seem possible?a state of affairs that feels right, right now.

Katy Siegel

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Grace I-XII Compilation

Cy Twombly at Serpentine, London

Although studded with a bit of hyperbole, as pointed out by Tyler Green, Jonathan Jones' Guardian review of Cy Twombly's works on paper at Serpentine, London (this link, not being unique, will eventually refer to whatever current show is there- bad that it's not a unique, persistent link for Twombly) is a longish piece that sets the scene for post-AbEx painting and Twombly's place in it as a third leg of a trio also comprising Rauschenberg and Johns, with Twombly's place, he posits, not fully appreciated within the US.

Twombly at 49th Biennale di Venezia, 2001

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Raoul De Keyser

I've posted about Raoul De Keyser twice on this weblog (1, 2), and am happy to see Artblog's mention of him and pointing to a Guardian review of his current show at Whitechapel, London. For more images see David Zwirner, NY, and Zeno X, Antwerp.

And Roberta at Artblog may be right- the Guardian seems to have good coverage, but increasingly to me NYT visual arts coverage isn't very inspiring. Holland Cotter on Asian art is usually good, but most other contemporary reviews don't thrill me. I'm not sure, though, if it's the writers or the art they're writing about, or, more likely, some of each.

Brent Hallard

Brent Hallard has a new online exhibit, Six. And his Tokyo Notes is always worth looking at.

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Chris Knipp: Bungling the "War on Terror" and Dreaming of Reelection

Chris Knipp: Bungling the “War on Terror” and Dreaming of Reelection (excerpts)

If Iraq is Bush’s Vietnam, it’s America’s Vietnam too. A recent report by UPI’s Mark Benjamin points out that in addition to the nearly 700 American deaths (not to mention 10,000 Iraqi ones), there have been 18,004 evacuations, which represent 11,700 US military patients. And Bush has not witnessed one funeral or greeted one returning injured soldier...

The global situation for Bush has altered dramatically in other ways. After a lively campaign with a number of well-qualified contenders, John Kerry has emerged unquestionably as the Democratic Party’s strong opponent to Bush in the November election. The train terrorism attack in Spain that killed 190 rapidly led to the defeat of José Maria Aznar by the socialists, thus losing Bush his major European support....

Despite a presidency that has been little more than an endless reelection campaign (relieved of course by long holidays in Crawford), Bush’s stock has not done well this year (though it has shown a slight rise recently). According to Gallup, “If an incumbent's job approval rating falls below 50% in an election year, then it historically has been the death knell for that president's re-election chances. . . Right now, Bush is on the edge.”

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Grace I

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