May 31, 2006
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Pulse 2006: Lost in Translation
STYLE WEEKLY: ARTS & CULTURE
May 10, 2006 Struggling to describe the impact of the digital age on art. "Pulse2006,” the 1708 Gallery Biennial, is the result of two years of conceptualizing, coordinating and blogging — yes, blogging — on the part of curators Peter Baldes and Kristin Beal-Degrandmont. The concept of the impact of the digital age on art is as simple and easy to communicate as those exams that demanded you eloquently describe the history of philosophy in a two-hour timed essay. Darn near impossible.So give the curators credit for trying. But given the complex theme — which is never clearly expressed in the program, online, or anywhere else — it’s hardly surprising that the show lacks focus. When pressed with the question of the exhibit’s theme, Baldes explains, “The screen world, the software world, informs this new visual.” Grasping for more specific words, he elaborates: “I’m going through the history of art again. I’m learning so much, and this is, in one way, a representation of that.” Which doesn’t tell you much. So we know it’s about the impact of the Internet — the catalog touts the curator’s blog (www.pulse2006.blogspot.com), created to facilitate communication, as the show’s most innovative aspect — but what else? A glance around the gallery clears things up a little. Works by six very different artists cover the walls and floor, and each piece integrates modern and traditional artistic processes. Particularly intriguing are three quilts by Californian Anna Von Mertens. Bands of Care Bearlike colors overlay backgrounds of white that are perforated with all-over, stitched patterns drawn from the artist’s experiences. One, for example, represents the currents of the San Francisco Bay. The juxtaposition of Old World methods of textile production (the colors are hand-dyed) and clean, geometric — dare I say modern — designs elegantly merges the old and the new. “Pulse2006” is visually coherent, even if its theme is difficult to nail down. The bands of color on von Mertens’ quilts harmonize with the color fields in Rachel Hayes’ installation sculpture and Chris Ashley’s “drawings” opposite the gallery. Hayes, the only local artist in the show, stitched translucent acid green and soft blue vinyl panels together to form a sort of tent — “a grown-up fort,” in the words of Baldes — which also forms a pattern on the supporting wall, cleverly fusing sculpture and painting. While Hayes’ work merges traditional techniques, such as sewing, with modern materials, Ashley’s work is all digital, all the time. The California artist/programmer uses HTML rather than charcoal and a monitor instead of paper to create his “HTML drawings.” To view them, point your web browser to http://chrisashley.net/weblog, where Ashley exhibits a different drawing daily, made entirely of HTML code rather than, say, JPEG images. Though the drawings seem to lose their novelty in the printing process, 1708 will have a digital installation to supplement the mounted paper versions. The show also features works by New Yorker Brad Hampton, who photographs his own paintings, alters them with Photoshop and reapplies them to the canvas, where they become abstract versions of their former selves. His fluency in modern and traditional techniques perhaps emphasizes the point of “Pulse2006” more clearly than does the exhibit’s own rambling program and catalog. Steve Karlik also gets it, simplifying his paintings to two contrasting color blocks and one wood panel, grain intact, in a lucid statement on the ability of color to create depth. If Hampton communicates the show’s point succinctly, Lisa Fletcher Rundstrom doesn’t know when to stop. Her ephemeral installation — “Long Hot Summers, Long Cold Winters,” a scattering of translucent, colorful bags filled with water and illuminated from below — creates a virtual landscape of mundane objects transformed into something beautiful. Yet their meditative quality is dashed by a visit to the artist’s Web site (which, as a link on the curators’ blog, is also part of the show), where Rundstrom’s statement mutilates the calm profundity of her works. Apparently there’s a “power struggle” going on between the “heroic notions of the art object” and “their anti-heroic fallibility.” Which doesn’t mean much. S “Pulse2006” runs through May 27 at 1708 Gallery, 319 W. Broad St. Call 643-1708 or visit www.1708gallery.org. |
http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=12312
RICHMOND.COM
Pulse2006, 1708 Gallery This Emerging Artist Biennial will feature work from six national artists: Chris Ashley, Brad Hampton, Rachel Hayes, Steve Karlik, Lisa Fletcher Rundstrom and Anna Von Mertens. Opening reception on May 5 from 7 to 10 p.m. Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday 1 to 5 p.m. |
May 30, 2006
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May 29, 2006
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May 28, 2006
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May 27, 2006
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May 26, 2006
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May 25, 2006
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Gainsborough's "Study for Diana and Actaeon"
A few weeks ago I saw an exhibition, Judging by Appearance: Master Drawings from the Collection of Joseph and Deborah Goldyne, at the SF Legion of Honor. This collection is huge and wonderful, with many terrific examples. One piece, a Gainsborough landscape drawing, has been on my mind since I saw it. As far as I know, no image of the drawing is available online, and I'm sure my memory of the drawing is poor. I believe it is from the early 1780's and is made with his typical drawing materials: cream or buff paper, black and white crayon or chalk, and ink wash. Seeing the drawing spurred me to look closer at Gainsborough recently, which I'd intended to do more of anyway since I had recently written about his painting Mrs Fitzherbert, also at the Legion, in a brief essay called Gainsborough's Brushstrokes, and also since a year ago when I wrote Thomas Gainsborough: How Modern?, about his The Mall in St James's Park in the Frick Collection, New York.
In Gainsborough (Thames & Hudson, 2002) William Vaughan writes that in comparison to many of his figural and landscape, which we may now superficially see as sentimental, the contemporary eye:
"...might find it easier to appreciate the other apsect of Gainsborough's work that seemed to contemporaries to mark out his genius. This was his drawings. Gainsborough was a natural draughtsman of great verve and facility. Whether he is making a direct study of some natural form-- such as a tree or a cat relaxing-- or mapping out a spirited imaginative composition, he amazes and delights us with the brilliance of his line and the aptness of his markings. He, himself, saw this as the most personal and intimate side of his art. It was a sign of this that he would never sell his drawings, and only gave them to friends as tokens of affection. He was also insistent that it was the individualism of his handling-- whether in painting or drawing, that made his 'genius' most evident."
In The Art of Thomas Gainsborough : "A Little Business for the Eye" (Rosenthal, Michael. Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Arts. Yale University Press. 2000) three studies are reproduced for an unfinished history painting called Diana and Actaeon, a genre rare for Gainsborough. The drawing below, Study for Diana and Actaeon, in the Huntington Library collection, is a terrific example of what Gainsborough could do. "Verve" is a good word for what is going on here. The same kind of mark and energy seen here are what draw me towards the Goldyne drawing, Mrs. Fitzherbert, and The Mall in St. James's Park.
In particular, see the two details below of the trees on the left and right. In the left example look at the short, looping, swirling calligraphic line; there's real economy and character here. These marks are very distinctive and compelling, just slight strokes and flicks. Compare the right side, where the dense buildup of ink and white chalk suggest trees thick with leaves hanging over the group below, to the left side, which is open, airy, and spacious. The figures feel solid, and the water they stand in is reflective. The tree in the left detail is like some feathery peacock on display. In fact, the two tree trunks on the left are almost figurative, and vaguely threatening in a very seductive way. Of the two trunks on the left the right one is scaled to the figures, and bent over, beckoning as if to join the figures (and one sees in other studies of the same scene that, indeed, that tree isn't a tree, but is Actaeon!). But the tree on the absolute left is on dazzling display, opulent and preening, obviously enticing the figure in the center of the composition, and perhaps causing a little hesitation in the rest of the company. Much of this strange narrative, and the tension that comes from it, is created by the kinds of marks that Gainsborough makes. This is an incredibly rich little drawing.
Artists Interview Artists: my turn
The interview I participated in as part of J.T. Kirkland's Artists Interview Artists project has been published as of today at Thinking About Art. Eileen Wold from Washington, D.C. asked the questions. The questions I posed were answered by Michael Grayeagle in an interview published on May 7, 2006.
Screen capture of Red Machine, 2006, HTML & animated GIFs (10 seconds, looped), 380 x 380 pixels
May 24, 2006
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May 23, 2006
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Gustave Courbet
Last year, at the SF Legion of Honor to see Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet! (22 January 2005 —3 April 2005), I wondered about the historical use of the palette knife. Did anyone before Courbet use it much to paint with? Perhaps I've found my answer. In the catalogue Courbet and the Modern Landscape for the exhibition of the same name which just closed at the Getty, Mary Morton writes (pp 6-7):
Courbet's fascination with painting technique was given free reign in the genre of landscape, a genre more open to experiementation than figural painting because it was not the heart of Acdemic practice. In contrast to the more routinized and methodical preactice of studio work, the freedom to leave the Academy and studio, sit outside alone, and record one's personal visual impression was part of th appeal of landscape paintings. Many artist continued to paint landscapes as a means of maintaining freshness in their studio work, but Courbet brought it to the center of his pictorial discourse. It was his ideal genre.Part of the excitement of Courbet's landscapes, and an essential feature of their modernity, is their revelation of process, of the artist's technical exploration. He often painted in large scale, working quickly and applying paint with a range of gestures and a variety of tools: large and small brushes, the palette knife, rags, even his thumb. His completed pictures were often roughly finished, intentionally defiant of the polished fini charateristic of Academic paintings. The self-effacing elimination of all traces of the artist's labor was antithetical to Courbet's project.
The lack of finish in Courbet's landscapes belies their technical complexity. Critics frequently referred to Courbet's unusal manipulation of dense amounts of pasty pigment, scooped up with the palette knife and smeared onto the canvas. For all of their surface texture, however, Corubet's paitings maintain a surprising smoothness. Though a painting like The Gust of Wind looks crusty and thick from afar, it is surprisingly even in surface. His technique involved building up layers of transparent glazes, and he scraped away paint as frequently as he applied it. At close range one can see primary, secondary, and tertiary layers laid bare, with regular adjustments made between them inspired by a referent in nature and/or exigencies of the paint itself.
Courbet achieved a range of nuance and drama with the palette knife that was without precedent in the history of painting. Traditionally, the knife was used to mix paint on the palette, not to apply paint to the canvas, a task considered too delicate for the knife's blunt edges. It was this tool that enabled Courbet to work on a larger than average scale, covering wide swaths of canvas quickly. The hard turquoise glow of Courbet's skies was achieved by the even coating allowed by the knife, as Courbet laid on paint much as the mason trowels cement into place. He also used the knife to create a distinct evocation of texture through scraping and scumpling paint, wet in wet and wet over dry. In contemporary criticism, Courbet's use of the knife was associated with his speed of execution, his spontaneity, and his vigor.
Gustave Courbet, The Gust of Wind (or the Approaching Storm(, ca. 1855, oil on canvas, 56 1/2 x 89 15/16 inches, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
May 22, 2006
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Don Relyea
Below: Don Relyea's automatically generated Space Filling Curve Generative Abstract Geometric Art, 2006
Below: My Mojave XV, March 16, 2003, HTML, 356 x 655 pixels (JPEG representation; more)
May 21, 2006
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May 20, 2006
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The GIF Show, again
A week ago I wrote about not seeing The GIF Show. In that post I copied and pasted from the gallery's hours from the gallery's web site" "WED - SAT 2:00pm - 6:00pm."
So I was thinking of running over today to see the show, and wanted to call ahead to make sure the gallery would be open, but now the hours have been changed. It now says:
WED - THU 3:00pm - 6:00pm
FRI - SAT from 9:00pm
by appointment by calling (415) 756-8825.
Are they making this up as they go along?
So now I've got a three hour window on two midweek afternoons, and apparently endless time after 9pm on Friday and Saturday, when this gallery adopts its "Wine & Sake Bar/Lounge" persona, which of course is the perfect time to get a clear view of the art.
Aargh, I may have to settle for curator Marisa Olsen's del.ico.us page that links to most of the pieces in the show.
Top right: Guthrie Lonergan, Non-stop Icon Marathon!
Bottom left: Olia Lialina, accordiol.gif
May 19, 2006
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May 18, 2006
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May 17, 2006
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May 16, 2006
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