February 28, 2006
28. Edward Teller
Edward Teller, (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
Rewrite: In the San Francisco Galleries 1-8 (after Donald Judd)
In early February I began quoting short reviews that Donald Judd wrote for Arts Magazine in the late 50's and early 60's that were eventually compiled (February 13, 2006) with some explanation of context and my attraction to the writing. Certainly, Judd's writing could be terse and his judgments harsh, but what I found attractive was his dense use of form and language and his willingness to say what he thinks. I thought it was a useful example; the New Yorker magazine does something similar each issue: paragraph-sized reviews say a fair amount in few words, the difference being from Judd's that the judgments aren't typically as severe, and instead are a little less decisive and more open-ended. Many of the essays I have written in the past year have been well over one thousand words, many approaching two thousand or more. I wondered if I could effectively write in a shorter form, and write about more exhibits.
On February 18 I made the rounds of the downtown San Francisco galleries. Quite often, this is an experience that leaves me feeling dissatisfied because it seems to me much of the art misses its mark. At the same time, I think I usually have a pretty decent ability to look into work and see what mark it is supposed to hit, to see what someone is honestly trying to get at. I assume that, for the most part, just about every artist has some honest intention, even if the artist can't articulate it, or the intention is barely apparent, and even if the art doesn't work- otherwise, why bother? So I thought, "Why not write about that?"
With Judd in mind I walked the SF galleries, and as I looked I began to wonder what would happen if I removed any filters I have, or as much as I could, and simply said what comes to mind about the art, and also about the places where it's shown, the milieu. Isn't that as much a part of the art? Contemporary art is a minefield of judgments and nuance, earnestness and sleight of hand, attempts to fly and splat landings. Is the artist sincere or ironic? Does skill matter or doesn't it? Does a body of work in a show have to look like a product line or not? What is the place of craft and care these days? What is the appeal of photography? Does drawing matter? Are certain forms of art dead and gone? What are my biases considering my generation, my education, my background, my art, my day job, the number of hours I have in a week? What exactly is the thickness and vulnerability of the membrane between what I think art's purpose is and it's place in the commercial world? What are the contradictions regarding art's purpose in a commercial setting? What comes first, form or theory? Why are there so many artists? Why is there so much photography and drawing that looks to me like illustration? What is the effect of an attractive gallery's interior over one less attractive? How does the friendliness of staff or the gallerist affect judgment? If I'm hoping to show at a gallery will I pull my punches? Don't I really just want to be friends?
I wondered: what if I consciously remove the filter that can make for manners, and kindness, and wanting to say something nice, and just let myself write, let myself say whatever came to mind? What if I shot from the hip, went with my gut, wrote from impulsive first impressions and memory? What could I have to say after seeing over twenty shows within three and a half hours or so? What if I wrote about what I saw with no chance to go back and look again, or perhaps even to look that closely to begin with? What if I deliberately avoided being easily positive, or a cheerleader, or failed to see the effort in someone's work? What if I just didn't care if people judged me for the way I thought of the art I saw?
It is curious to me that, for the most part, this review format led me to some quite negative writing, sometimes hard and dismissive, other times flip and dishy. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. Certainly, it has something to do with the art I viewed, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think it has to do with a general unhappiness with what I see in commercial galleries. Perhaps it has to do with an unhappiness with the whole enterprise. Perhaps it has to do with an unhappiness with myself (even though I swore off writing about myself personally in a weblog many years or so ago). Maybe I just felt like reveling in a little dirt.
Or maybe, it's all just a little arbitrary. Maybe it's simply too easy to go one way or another. Does it really matter? What if, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all? What if I rewrote my reviews and gave them a little nicer spin? There's a good way to blow one's credibility, if it isn't already gone after all this curmudgeonliness.
Below are the reviews, before and after. On the left is the original review I wrote, and on the write is a cleaned-up, nicer review.
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Exhibits seen that I did not write about: Heather Marx- Michael Arcega: Getting Mid-Evil, February 2, 2006 – March 11 Rena Bransten- Matthias Hoch, Ari Marcopolous, January 19 - February 25 Takada- Laura Paulini, February 18-March 28 Newmark- Contemporary European Abstraction, January 31 - March 25 John Berggruen- Selected Works, January 7 - February 25 | |||
February 27, 2006
27. Washington Gubernatorial Election, 2004
Washington Gubernatorial Election, 2004, (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
February 26, 2006
26. History of Portugal (1777-1834)
History of Portugal (1777-1834) (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
8. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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Read a post from 20060228 for explanation and context.
Theatre as Pictorial Space
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| The Rothko Room, Fondation Beyeler, Basel | Robert Zandvliet: Untitled, 1997, egg tempera on linen, 241,5 x 376 cm, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg |
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| René Daniëls: A Hot Day in the Lighthouse, 1984, oil on canvas, 130 x 170 cm, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg | Hiroshi Sugimoto: U.A. Playhouse, New York, 1978, photograph, Private Collection |
February 25, 2006
25. Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
7. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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February 24, 2006
24. Flag of Mexico
Flag of Mexico (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
6. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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February 23, 2006
5. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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February 22, 2006
22. History of Merit Badges (Boy Scouts of America)
History of Merit Badges (Boy Scouts of America) (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
Joe McKay in NYFA Current
Written for NYFA Current, February 2006:
Introducing... Joe McKay
Joe McKay’s extremely diverse body of work includes live color mixing sessions to approximate a fading sun; screenings of accidental videos made with digital cameras; and the website Prereview, where he reviews movies that haven’t yet come out. As versatile conceptually as he is materially, what drives McKay’s work is social interaction—his pieces usually require viewer interactivity to make them fully come to life. Here, Oakland-based artist and weblogger Chris Ashley introduces the media art of Joe McKay. Over the course of five evenings last fall, in a field behind Joe McKay’s studio at the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay, small groups gathered to watch him paint the sunset. During the first night only a few people were present, but word got out and the crowds grew for successive presentations of Sunset Solitaire. Facing west, McKay manipulated a small controller box with three sliding switches, one each for red, green, and blue. Connected to a laptop and running the Director program, the box enabled him to mix horizontal bands of color. The resulting image was projected onto a free-standing building in the field, all under a darkening sky. The audience watched as McKay attempted to match his digitally painted sunset, mixed live, to the real sunset as it slowly and quietly transitioned from blue to orange to fiery pink before finally fading to indigo. Appearing side-by-side, the actual and projected sunsets sometimes merged and sometimes remained jarringly distinct. An exhilarating meeting of pastoral and technological was found in the wonder and pleasure of watching a gorgeous sunset in the company of others, and the fugitive illusionism achieved when McKay’s simulated sky momentarily matched the real one to produce a seamless vista was awe-inspiring. Even documented as a 30-minute DVD, the work contains startling moments when the blend of elements from the natural and digital worlds is hypnotic and truly sublime.
Sunset Solitaire references computer games, of course, in this case one played by an individual and watched by others, but there are a range of other associations. The Hudson River School painters and Mark Rothko’s glowing rectangles readily come to mind, as do the evocatively nostalgic memories of drive-in movies (for those of a certain age) or less anxious manifestations of ’60s light shows (for those of another certain age). While presenting Sunset Solitaire McKay becomes a deejay who mixes color rather than sound. There is a sleight of hand at work when he matches the fading sun’s color exactly; an effect that’s pure trompe l’oeil. One might think of Vasari’s anecdote about Giotto painting a fly on one of Cimabue’s paintings, which the older master tried to shoo away, or of Alexander the Great's horse neighing in recognition at the portrait painted by Apelles. McKay calls Sunset Solitaire an "intervention" rather than a performance. Perhaps this is because he responds to different environmental conditions that can’t be reliably replicated each time he presents the piece. Or perhaps it is because it is the viewer who usually performs interactively with his installations. No matter the label, Sunset Solitaire exhibits a complex layering of characteristics common in much of McKay’s recent art. McKay grew up near the City of London, Ontario, and lived and worked in New York for ten years before moving to San Francisco in 2004. His exhibition record includes many solo works as well as collaborations with San Francisco artist Kristin Lucas and Toronto artist Sally McKay, his sister. In his recent work McKay uses computers other equipment as sculptural components and recontextualizes video and game imagery in unexpected ways. A piece of technology might be exploited for purposes other than that for which it was originally designed or because it was badly designed to begin with. In some works, elements of relatively “new” technology—a computer tower, a monitor, or the carriage from a printer—look old and obsolete, rejected and falling apart. In some of McKay’s recent Kinetic Computer Sculptures, images appear and actions occur peripherally, like in a new untitled work in his studio where a projected figure on a wall is briefly glimpsed from the corner of one’s eye but promptly disappears when one looks back at it. Another kinetic sculpture with the working title Search and Rescue is best described by McKay: “…a computer-driven motor with LED attached is illuminating the insides of an opened Mac tower. A monitor lying on its side displays an image of the computer and light from above, capturing the erratic motion of the motor, as if there was an overhead camera. On the monitor, however, the motor and light rotate faster than the “real” motor inside the computer. This discontinuity is a clue to the fact that there is no camera, and adds to the tension in the piece.” Splayed out on the floor as if unceremoniously—even violently—dumped and forgotten, it’s easy to experience a surprisingly emotional reaction to the traumatized equipment, which is deepened by the subsequent sense of invasive and poorly synchronized surveillance and the viewer’s inability to completely explain what is happening. Operating at the edges of what we think this consumer technology should and should not do, McKay’s art leads us into the gap between expectation and evidence, challenging the viewer to consider what one sees and how the technology works. But unlike the Wizard of Oz behind his curtain, McKay has thrown the curtain away and places the apparatus of his works before us without concealing his tricks.
The audience’s shared experience of Sunset Solitaire is more passive in comparison to the active audience involvement that is key to much of McKay’s other work. Audio Pong, which McKay calls an “audience participation performance duet,” is a remake of Pong, one of the earliest video games, although McKay’s version is controlled by microphones instead of joysticks; the louder the player talks, the higher their paddle goes. The Color Game engages two players using slider switches who try to match colors projected in increasingly complex patters. Big Ups is a site-specific installation encouraging players to jump on an electronic doormat to propel the image of a ball as high as possible on a TV monitor; one’s reward is a larger and heavier ball. In these works, just as in Sunset Solitaire, interaction and a shared social experience are McKay’s goals. The viewer is engaged not just to see the work, but to also make it happen. Technology is often blamed for the alienation of people from their work and from each other, but McKay employs it as a poetic means to initiate human interaction—with one’s senses and with one another. Chris Ashley is an artist and educator who also writes about art. He has recently exhibited at Gallery Siano, Philadelphia, and at Landesgalerie/Landesmuseum in Linz, Austria. He will show at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA, in May 2006. Recent talks include panels at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and -empyre-. Images of his art, including his four-year weblog project using HTML to make images, and more writings are at http://chrisashley.net. He lives in Oakland, CA.For more information on Joe McKay, visit:
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4. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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Read a post from 20060228 for explanation and context.
Jacob Lawrence/Thomas Nozkowski
 Jacob Lawrence: Harriet Tubman Series, 1939-40, Panel #9 Gift of the Harmon Foundation, Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia |
 Thomas Nozkowski: Untitled (8-45), 2003, 22 x 28 inches, oil on linen on panel |
 Thomas Nozkowski: Untitled (8-67), 2005, oil on linen on panel, 22 x 28 inches |
 Jacob Lawrence: Card Game, 1953 The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, © Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence. Courtesy of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation |
I can't be the only one seeing the connections here. And I think these connections go deeper than the surface-- image, pattern, rhythm, intricacy, directness; I think there is something more social and political at work, though more overt in Jacob Lawrence, and more abstract but definitely present in Thomas Nozkowski. Maybe I can find time later to say more about this.
February 21, 2006
3. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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Read a post from 20060228 for explanation and context.
February 20, 2006
2. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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Read a post from 20060228 for explanation and context.
February 19, 2006
19. James T. Aubrey, Jr.
James T. Aubrey, Jr. (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixel
1. In the San Francisco Galleries (after Donald Judd)
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Read a post from 20060228 for explanation and context.
February 18, 2006
18. Political Integration of India
Political Integration of India (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixel
February 17, 2006
February 16, 2006
16. Shielded Metal Arc Welding
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Shielded Metal Arc Welding (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
February 15, 2006
Galileo Galilei (b. February 15, 1564, Pisa, Italy)
It's the birthday of astronomer Galileo Galilei, born in Pisa, Italy (1564). By the time he was in his forties, he had made a decent name for himself as a scientist and an inventor. He'd developed the idea for the pendulum clock. He developed the hydrostatic balance which weighed precious metals in both air and water. He discovered that all objects, regardless of their weight, fall at the same speed through a vacuum. Though many doubted this discovery, he proved it by dropping objects of different weights from the tower of Pisa, proving that they would land at the same time. But despite all these discoveries Galileo still hadn't made it big. He was sick of working at a university. He wrote to a friend at the time, "I am always at the service of this or that person. I have to consume many hours of the Then, in the summer of 1609, Galileo heard a rumor that someone in Holland had invented a device called a spyglass which allowed people to see things up close from a distance. As soon as Galileo heard about it he cursed himself because he'd had a similar idea years ago but he'd never followed up on it. He knew that the Italian government would be interested in such a device for military purposes. So he decided to try to make one himself before anyone from Holland could travel down to Italy. If he could present it to the government first, he would get the credit. According to Galileo it only took him twenty-four hours to design his own telescope, Even though he hadn't invented the telescope, it was Galileo's design that made news across Europe. Galileo had finally achieved his dream of fame and fortune. He might have left it at that, but he kept improving upon his design, making his telescope even more powerful. And then, one night, in the early fall of 1609, Galileo was looking out the window of his house when he saw the moon rising. Suddenly, he got the idea to look at the moon through the telescope. It was the first time in history that a human being had seen the moon in such detail. Galileo was shocked to discover that the moon's surface wasn't smooth, but covered with craters and cavities. He spent the next two months observing the moon on every clear night, jotting down sketches of what he saw. When he was satisfied that he'd seen enough of the moon Galileo kept improving and improving the power of his telescope so he could see more and more details of the sky. He eventually designed a telescope that could magnify up to a thousand times. It was this telescope that he was using on the night of January 7, 1610 when Jupiter became visible for the first time that year. That night, Galileo saw three stars, arranged in a straight line next to Jupiter. He observed them over the next several days and found that they changed position in relation to Jupiter every night. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that these must be moons revolving around Jupiter. And if moons could revolve around Jupiter, then Aristotle's theory that everything revolved around the earth was incorrect. This observation provided evidence for Galileo spent the rest of his life writing about these ideas, even though they got him into big trouble with the Catholic Church. By the end of his life, he was living under house arrest, his books banned, but he would go down in history as the first person to show, through direct observation, that our planet was not the center of the universe. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® |
day—often the best ones—in the service of others." He was always strapped for cash and constantly asking his friends in the government to help get him a raise. What he wanted more than anything else was to invent something that would make him rich and famous.
even though he'd never seen one. And the telescope he designed was actually better than the one from Holland, more than twenty times more powerful. He presented it to the government and they rewarded him with a lifetime appointment to his university post, with double the pay.
he turned his telescope on the stars. He was amazed to find that in areas of the sky where previously a half dozen stars had formed a constellation, he could now see hundreds of new stars. And some stars that he had looked at all his life, when seen through a telescope, turned out to be clusters of different stars.
Copernicus' theory that the earth revolves around the sun.
February 14, 2006
14. I Want to Hold Your Hand
I Want to Hold Your Hand (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
Three Piece Installation
Three Piece Installation
(L) Untitled, 2004, watercolor, 10 x 8"
(M) Don't Know How 1-9, Set 1: Slippage, 2004, inkjet print on paper, 11 x 8.5" (original 2004, HTML, 278 x 214 pixels)
(R) Untitled, 2004, watercolor, 10 x 8"
February 13, 2006
Donald Judd Reviews 1-10
For example, in Arts in November 1960 wrote fourteen reviews-- six of those were in the 100-150 word range, five were in the 50-75 word range, and three were long single-sentence reviews.
Judd wrote in an Introduction in 1974 (italics mine):
"The job with Arts provided most of my money until the last year (1965). I wrote criticism as a mercenary and would never have written it otherwise. Since there were no set hours and since I could work at home it was a good part-time job. It took three or four days to see the shows, and perhaps a week or so off and on to write the reviews, which I always put off until the deadline. I can't type. Sigrid Byers, another and later assistant editor, sometimes helped with that. I don't remember the pay and the different reviewing schemes too well. I think I was paid 180 dollars a month for quite a while. The rent on my loft was 100 dollars. The few articles (that he wrote besides reviews) were a great help, especially in the summer (when there were fewer shows to review). In the letter hiring me (Hilton) Kramer gives the rate at the time: "For a review of 300 words the rate is six dollars; for 150 words, four dollars; for a one-sentence review, three dollars." The magazine was always poor; I felt that Kramer and (James) Mellow paid as well as they could. Obviously art critics should be paid much more. That's one of the things seriously wrong with the activity.
According to an editorial of Kramer's in September 1961 the reviews were to become selective. A list for September 1962 that I still have gives 48 shows assigned and seen. Sixteen were reviewed. Forty-eight seems high and may be because (Sydney) Tillim was not reviewing shows that month. Fifteen reviews a month seems to be the average. Evidently before September 1961 all shows were seen and reviewed. The 1962 list indicates that we still saw everything but chose the better ones to write about. I believe that later we didn't see everything.
When I started browsing through The Complete Writings I was struck by the quantity of reviews, and I was especially struck by the briefest reviews where Judd would describe some image, or color scheme, or textures used, and then make a decisive final pronouncement about what was good or bad about the work. He said if he liked something, didn't equivocate if he didn't, and he always had reasons why. Increasingly I found him to be a good and fair writer, concise and clear. He might come across as harsh because he actually makes up his mind and says so. One may not like his opinions, but if you read his writing you begin to know where he is coming from.
The last two chapters of Jed Perls' New Art City convincingly, for me, pairs the unlikely duo of Judd and Fairfield Porter. Both were artists who also wrote about art. They were independently minded, perhaps a little difficult, and looked for art that wasn't more of the same, that had a reason to be. While they might appear to be in opposite corners of the room they each held informed standards of quality in art and expressed surprising insights.
The last ten days I have posted some of Judd's shorter reviews; they are all gathered on a single page. Typically, these shorter reviews are also negative ones, as better art would justify a longer review, but they are quite lucid, saying much in a few words. I thought it would be interesting to pull a few of these out to see what kinds of things Judd would identify as general failings. I think what I gather most from the following excerpts is Judd asking, "What's the point, why bother?"
- ...technical proficiency and very litle evident purpose.
- ...slashed and excoriated, for the most part without vigor or even brutality...
- ...a change from the round patches passively placed to post and lintel patches placed passively...
- Despite some variation in the color the works have the similarity of being without it.
- ...the arrangement of the boxes is as thoughtless as the tombstones which they resemble.
- There's a lot of this in Europe and it's terrible.
- ...harmonious but abecedarian...
- I don't see what they see in Da Silva's work.
- ...the sensation is without reason since there is no large organization to which it is integral...
- ...some trouble and less virutosity would have improved the show.
February 12, 2006
12. Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg Address (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
10. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts Magazine, February 1964 Robert Liilala: Black enamel, sometimes with bright colors bled into it, has been spread over bright grounds masked out with a few stripes of tape. The enamel and the contrast of the lines and the areas are snazzy, but facile. Liilala has a great deal of technical proficiency and very little evident purpose. (Brata, Jan. 3-23) Page 115. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 11, 2006
11. Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)
Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
9. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "Review and Previews" Art News, October 1959 Stuart Gilden [Artzt; Oct. 3- 13] uses established abstract techniques to convey little; his vocabulary exceeds his knowledge of its meaning. All of the paintings are slashed and excoriated, for the most part without vigor or even brutality. Prices unquoted. Page 4. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
Why isn't William T. Wiley an Art Godfather?
William T. Wiley was born in 1937 and is still working hard and making good art. Here's what I want to know:
- In the day and age of Dana Schutz, why isn't William T. Wiley cited as an important predecessor?
- Why isn't Jack Hanley showing William T. Wiley as a forefather of Chris Johansen? Anton Kern Gallery? Derek Eller Gallery? Whatever, I'm just picking names.
- Who has made the connection between Amy Sillman and William T. Wiley?
- Why isn't William T. Wiley selling for top top dollar in Chelsea as art that is now?
- Does Amy Cutler know William T. Wiley's work?
- Why can I so easily substitute any of these artist's names with a bunch of other artist's names (Nicole Eisenman, Hilary Harkness, even Marcel Dzama, and so on) and still ask the same questions?
- Pick any "top" young artist doing figurative, illustrative, sensitive, personal vision kind of work- why isn't William T. Wiley their Jackson Pollock or Jasper Johns?
- Why isn't William T. Wiley an Art Godfather?
- Is it because he lives on the West Coast in Northern California, near San Francisco (Woodacre, or thereabouts, in Marin County)?
- Born in 1937- is he an old fart?
- Too political?
- Too Zen?
- Too Hippie, too back to nature, too roughin' it, too folksy, too country, too idiosyncratic?
- The art world is allergic to puns?
- Doesn't go to the right parties?
- His galleries aren't well situated and aren't getting the light shined on him enough?
- Not enough critical literature?
All images from WilliamT. Wiley, one of Artnet's Artists'Works Catalogues
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What Beast is in the Middle East? Number Due A , 2002, charcoal and acrylic on paper, Size h: 31.5 x w: 37.5 in / h: 80.01 x w: 95.25 cm
Painter's Block, 2004 , acrylic on canvas, Size h: 60.5 x w: 84 in / h: 153.67 x w:213.36 cm
What Beast is in the Middle East?, 2002, mixed media, Size h: 77 x w: 90.8 in/ h: 195.58 x w: 230.63 cm
Drifting Net, 1987, acrylic and pencil on canvas, Size h: 99.5 x w: 165.75 in / h:252.73 x w: 421 cm
Studio Space, 1975, acrylic on canvas with charcoal, Size h: 83 x w: 80.7 in /h: 210.82 x w: 204.98 cm
World at Large, 1975, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, Size h: 90 x w: 98 in /h: 228.6 x w: 248.92 cm
February 10, 2006
10. Apple Macintosh
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Apple Macintosh (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
8. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, Dec. 1963 Raymond Parker: Most of the paintings in this show are a change from the round patches passively placed to post and lintel patches placed passively. The work is composed, but the composition is rudimentary. A couple of paintings bulge slightly. (Kootz, Oct. 22- Nov. 9) Page 107. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 09, 2006
9. Mount St. Helens
Mount St. Helens (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
7. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, April 1960 Byron Browne: "Tawdry" is the condign adjective for Browne's paintings. The Fallen Angel is a mélange of anatomy suggestive of the dissolute sentimentality of John Carroll, of shreds of Picasso at his most glib, increased, and of touches of simulated Abstract Expressionism. A little orange or green is appliquéd to non-descript grays and browns. Despite some variation in the color the works have the similarity of being without it. (Grand Central Moderns, Mar. 19- Apr. 7) Page 16. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 08, 2006
8. Sydney Riot of 1879
Sydney Riot of 1879 (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
6. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, April 1963 Anne Truitt: There are a number of boxes and columns, both simple and combined, in this exhibition, and a large slab. The colors are dark reds, browns and grays, very much like Ad Reinhardt's color. The work looks serious without being so. The partitioning of the colors on the boxes is merely that, and the arrangement of the boxes is as thoughtless as the tombstones which they resemble. (Emmerich, Feb. 12.-Mar. 2) Page 85. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 07, 2006
7. Sino-German cooperation (1911-1941)
Sino-German cooperation (1911-1941) (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
5. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, March 1965 José Antonio Fernandez-Muro: Fernandez-Muro was born in Spain, is Argentinian and is now working here. His patinated paintings sanctify manhole covers and the lids of recessed valves. Relief rubbings of a couple of these are placed above and below the center of a painting. The background is a dark glaze, and the glazes run into the indentations of the waffle patterns. There's a lot of this in Europe and it's terrible. (Bonino, Feb. 9.-Mar. 6) Page 169. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
Camtasia demo: Making an HTML drawing
Camtasia demo: Making an HTML drawing (4.6mb Flash file; opens in new window)
February 06, 2006
6. Hurricane Dennis
Hurricane Dennis (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
4. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, January 1960 A. Chubac: The collages excel the oils and caseins, which are either ocular personages, those of Miró or Klee, or rectangles indebted to De Staël. A. Chubac is conspicuously French. Torn strips of tan paper, in one collage, some in arcs to impart circularity, are superimposed over a soft collection of red, blue and magenta so as to appear negative. That is harmonious but abecedarian. (World House, Dec. 15.-Jan. 9) Page 10. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
The State of Art History 101
Today, professors say, Art History 101 is a popular class, filled with students, mostly female, who think that newer media, outsider art, and their own cultures are underrepresented in their texts. These students tend to know less about history and classical mythology than the students of Janson’s era, and they are telling their professors that they feel completely overwhelmed by the amount of material they have to memorize.“The standard textbooks do not begin to address our needs,” says Silver. Despite the reprintings and the minor changes to the canon, “the art-history survey text has remained virtually unchanged for half a century or more. In the meantime, students who take art history have become increasingly diverse—with interests more engaged with gender or social issues than a generation ago—and they have wider backgrounds.” At Penn, the art-history survey class has been reworked to include not only painting and sculpture but prints, maps, photography, and cinema, “to highlight the rise of a public sphere of visual culture, culminating with TV and the Internet,” Silver says.
Some schools, such as Columbia and Wesleyan, have thrown out art-history textbooks altogether. Other schools still use them, although they find them seriously lacking. “Over the past 12 years, we have worked with, and been dissatisfied with, almost all of the major survey texts—we flood our students with too many places, titles, subjects, and dates,” says Levine.
February 05, 2006
5. Music of Nigeria
Music of Nigeria (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
3. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, December 1963 Vieira da Silva: These gouaches have fields, more or less, of small strokes placed rectangularly. The fields are often stretched as if the paper they are on had been. There is nothing new to this, and but it is usually passably well done. The colors are blue-gray and tan and are pretty inconsequential. I don't see what they see in Da Silva's work. (Knoedler, Oct. 15-Nov.2) Page 107. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 04, 2006
4. Comet Hyakutake
Comet Hyakutake (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
2. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, November 1960 Max Moreau: This is an extensive exhibition of an academic painter considerably better than the average; Moreau excels in modeling hands and depicting the shimmer of drapery and the translucency of fruit. But the sensation is without reason since there is no large organization to which it is integral, and that organization is required by history. (Wildenstein, Oct. 6-22) Page 25. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
February 03, 2006
3. Restoration spectacular
Restoration spectacular (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels
1. Review by Donald Judd
| Donald Judd "In the Galleries" Arts, January 1961 Gabriel Godard: The still lives and landscapes of this French painter are bright and juicy replicas of De Staël. The abridged structure of the compact surface of orange and blue slabs refers further back, to Cézanne. Some trouble and less virutosity would have improved the show. (F.A.R., Jan. 16-28) Page 30. Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 2005 |
Kenneth Baker on Christopher Alexander
Kenneth Baker has written a two-part article in the SF Chronicle and architect and retired UC Berkeley Professor of Architecture Christopher Alexander and his four volume work, The Nature of Order. Book 1 is titled The Phenomenon of Life, Book 2 is The Process of Creating Life, Book 3 is A Vision of a Living World, and Book 4 is The Luminous Ground.
Part 1 of Baker's article is Architect starts with idea that space makes life possible. Are you ready to have all that you know challenged?, and Part 2 is To be a good builder, you need a feel for what surrounds you. Christopher Alexander knows.
From Part 1:
In a nutshell, Alexander proposes that life is not merely in space but of it, an idea of potentially momentous force for critique and improvement of the built environment. "The idea that one part of space might have relatively more life, and another relatively less life," he writes, "and the idea that this distinction would not be based on the presence of biological organisms but might instead be inherent in the space itself according to its structure -- would challenge our beliefs about the world to the very roots." Alexander has sufficient scientific background to take his argument all the way and propose that the nature of space accounts for the occurrence of any life whatsoever in the universe.As in earlier books, Alexander suggests that builders and artists in traditional societies frequently possessed the kind of knowledge he has rediscovered and tried to reconcile with science's world picture. He boldly contends in Vol. 4 of "The Nature of Order" that his rediscoveries about the deep connection between life and space have made possible -- and always will -- buildings and other human creations that mirror a self-like quality of the universe as a whole, which some spiritual traditions call God.
From Part 2:
"Speaking as a builder," Alexander said, "if you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there. ... If you're working correctly, the feeling doesn't wander about. If you have a feeling-vision of the thing -- a painting, a building, a garden, a piece of a neighborhood -- as long as you're very firmly anchored in your knowledge of that thing, and you can see it with your eyes closed, you can keep correcting your actions. ... It's not a question of holding onto every little detail, but of holding onto the feeling."To skeptics of his methods he offers the following analogy: "There are some geologists involved with prospecting for oil and other hidden resources," he said, "who can pick up a rock and say, 'yes, there's oil under there.' A geologist who has been studying those kinds of rocks for 10 or 20 years is able to make that pronouncement. It isn't necessarily right, because we're all prone to error, but at least it's about something real -- whether that structure's there. That geologist has simply learned enough about the structure so that his ability to detect whether it's present or not is above average. It's really like that for the things I'm writing about, whether we're talking about artifacts from other times and cultures or whether it's a question of studying your own work and trying to determine whether you're going in the right direction. It's always this hopefully informed judgment about structure. If I'm working with clients, I try to bring them into that way of seeing things as far as I possibly can."
February 02, 2006
2. Adriaen van der Donck
Adriaen van der Donck (*), 2006, HTML, 340 x 220 pixels