Sunday, March 14, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Painting 3/7/10
Started reading Stella's Working Space this weekend. And I thought I was having an original thought thinking about the Baroque and contemporary abstraction! I am really glad this was recommended to me. Also reading a little summary-type book on Mannerism. For some reason I had a tough time in the studio this weekend--I was just off. So, I spent more time mixing paint around than painting. Made some really cool grays. Played around with an orange-red underpainting (thanks Melissa!). Did some reorganizing, some thinking...
I'm becoming fat from not exercising, so I ran for 40 minutes and did a 40 minute exercise DVD. Felt better after that.
I sold a painting this week, which is a good thing, but not such a good thing, because I had to replace it at the gallery, and that took time... I tried unsuccessfully to build a frame for a small piece (I really don't like woodworking), and finally ended up bring over some older work.
I did this work when I was pregnant and thinking about and looking at things floating in the Rio Grande, particularly in the early evening when the surface is quite reflective. I was also feeling fragmented at the time...and imagining bits of paper tossed onto the surface and moving there.
I'm planning to have a more productive time in the studio this week. I got some "administrative" stuff out of the way last week. Kind of stewing on things right now...
I'm becoming fat from not exercising, so I ran for 40 minutes and did a 40 minute exercise DVD. Felt better after that.
I sold a painting this week, which is a good thing, but not such a good thing, because I had to replace it at the gallery, and that took time... I tried unsuccessfully to build a frame for a small piece (I really don't like woodworking), and finally ended up bring over some older work.
I did this work when I was pregnant and thinking about and looking at things floating in the Rio Grande, particularly in the early evening when the surface is quite reflective. I was also feeling fragmented at the time...and imagining bits of paper tossed onto the surface and moving there.
I'm planning to have a more productive time in the studio this week. I got some "administrative" stuff out of the way last week. Kind of stewing on things right now...
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Agnes Martin Gallery at Harwood Museum
Last weekend I spent two days in a small guest house overlooking a small stream in Dixon, New Mexico. I discovered I'm a whiz at Blockus; I love falling to sleep to the sound of running water -- and I finally got to see Agnes Martin's paintings in person.
Seven of Martin's paintings are at The Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico. They are hung in a separate room, resembling a small chapel. The seven-walled room is dimly lit, an occulus overhead bathing the room in a diffuse, blueish light.
I tried so hard in the dim light to discern the surface, to see the brushstrokes. There was something there, hovering, but I couldn't pin it down. For some reason I'd expected thick surfaces -- like a Malevich. Instead, I found bands of washes in paleish blue-gray, matte, yet shimmery vibrating like the surface of water. And pale, neutral yellow-brown whites. It was work that you had to wait for. Sitting in the center, under the oculus, looking at these seven paintings became a meditative experience. Perhaps Martin successfully engages the viewer in not-thinking. Yet, she titles her work...
Here is a video of a 1997 interview with Martin:
Seven of Martin's paintings are at The Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico. They are hung in a separate room, resembling a small chapel. The seven-walled room is dimly lit, an occulus overhead bathing the room in a diffuse, blueish light.
I tried so hard in the dim light to discern the surface, to see the brushstrokes. There was something there, hovering, but I couldn't pin it down. For some reason I'd expected thick surfaces -- like a Malevich. Instead, I found bands of washes in paleish blue-gray, matte, yet shimmery vibrating like the surface of water. And pale, neutral yellow-brown whites. It was work that you had to wait for. Sitting in the center, under the oculus, looking at these seven paintings became a meditative experience. Perhaps Martin successfully engages the viewer in not-thinking. Yet, she titles her work...
Here is a video of a 1997 interview with Martin:
Monday, March 1, 2010
Critical Theory 2 Response
Jill Christian
Advisor: Deborah Davidson
Group 2 - Critical Theory II Paper
28 February 2010
Trace and Index
Wayne Thiebaud, speaking about his relation to art theory in an interview with Turps Banana, says, “It seems to me that while they are interesting they are, maybe, a little too much like Jell-O. Every theory is good to a point, marvellous [sic] constructions. But what finally counts is what the painting physically is. And that is something I don’t think words can ever do (Smith, 12).”
How does theory relate to the physical act of creating an aesthetic object? Or to the act of viewing and interacting with an aesthetic object? Are words ever sufficient to describe either experience? What is lost in applying theories developed around language-focused sign systems to visual arts? What is gained and how can these theories help us understand and talk about art? Can these concepts provide me with a new lens to focus on my own work and the work I look at as an artist?
The Critical Theory II readings deal with the ideas of marks, traces, signs, stains, indices as a way to talk about how aesthetic marks might operate and create (or not) meaning. In particular, the readings focus on the nature of photography and drawing as traces and indices. As a reader new to these concepts, all utterly abstract, linguistically based, and seemingly unrelated to the actual process of painting. Or are they?
In "Notes on the Index," Rosalind Krauss says, “Nothing could seem further apart than photography and abstract painting, the one wholly dependent upon the world for the source of its imagery, the other shunning that world and the images it might provide…As paradoxical as it might seem, photography has increasingly become the operative model for abstraction (Krauss 210).” According to Krauss, this operative model “involves reduction of the conventional sign to a trace, which then produces the need for a supplemental discourse (Krauss, 211).” This reduction can occur because of the nature of the trace and the index. Looking for a unifying element (other than style) in the “willful eclecticism” of 1970s art, Krauss identifies a common way of relating to the index, as indicated by a “pervasiveness of the photograph as a means of representation” and “the photograph combined with the explicit terms of the index (206).”
To understand Krauss’s argument, it is important to remember that the index has two meanings. In the first, the index is a trace, imprint, or residue of something, which has a physical connection to its referent (for example, a footprint, a photograph). In the second, the index acts as shifter. The index/shifter is a “category of linguistic sign which is ‘filled with signification’ only because it is ‘empty’ (Krauss 197).” As Newman states, “The index is also…a certain kind of empty linguistic expression that derives its sense from the context in which it is performed, such as ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘now,’ and the personal pronouns (94).” This makes possible the kind of shift Krauss sees in DuChamps use of the readymade – A shift made possible by the concurrent advent of photography and the development of an abstract pictorial language (Krauss 206). Similarly, the photograph itself can be viewed as a readymade; an index or relic of a specific moment in time. For Krauss, “It is about the physical transposition of an object from the continuum of reality into the fixed condition of the art-image by a moment of isolation, or selection (206).”
But how does this change when one begins to speak of the actual marks contained in a drawing or painting? Does it make sense or help to understand or talk about painting and the types of marks that occur in painting using the principles of semiotics? How is meaning relayed through mark and gesture. An alternate view is proposed by James Elkins in What Is Painting.
Elkins talks about how “art history lacks a persuasive account of the nature of graphic marks, and that limits what can be said about pictures. If a sign, as Charles Peirce said, is ‘something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity’(1) – a formula as vague as it is compact—then every mark in a picture is also a sign: every brushstroke, pencil line, smudge, and erasure must function as a sign and have meaning. In practice, that would spell trouble for accounts of pictures which take ‘sign’ to mean the forms made out of the marks – such as, in the typical examples, figures, scenes, and narratives. For the most part – and with important exceptions in all periods and subjects – art history has concentrated on the larger-scale forms, or on the large-scale properties held by groups of marks, such as facture and ‘handling’ (Elkins 3).” Elkins proposes thinking about marks as “subsemiotic”. “In the end,” he says, “semiotics shrinks the notion of what a picture is, assimilating pictures to texts and overlooking their painted strangeness (Elkins 5).”
It is also interesting to think of the shifter/index, with its contingency in terms of empathy, and the ability to relate to “the other”. Speaking of the difference between painting and photography, for example, Thiebaud says, “Photography, as I see it, is made from everything into something. Painting starts with nothing and has to find something. So in a way
photographs are made from the outside in, and painting is made from the inside out, and for me it seems to miss that very important aspect in painting – namely empathy (Smith, 5).”
The definition of empathy is “1. Intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another person. 2. The imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself (The Random House College Dictionary).” There is a connection in the characteristic of the index as shifter to switch between I and you positions. Jean Fisher seems to support this, in her discussion of drawing saying “The movement of drawing, the instant of art, is a mobilization of the creative will, of a vision that transforms material as it abolishes the subject-object distinction and opens the self to the possibility of otherness. Insofar as it is capable of generating a new perception of the world and a reinvention of both language and the subject, the instant of art has potentially a profoundly ethical dimension (Fisher 225).”
The process of painting, and the physical touch by the artist’s hand relates to the index through touch. Like the physical trace or imprint, the mark of the brush becomes and index of the individual artist and the energy or life causing the mark-making. Thiebaud says, “….painting is a metaphor of the body, in terms of equilibrium, skin, texture, chemical organization – but also musculature…Since painting is a dead, still object it doesn’t move, so you have to enliven it, it seems to me, with your sense of a perception of physicality, which you then transfer to enliven a work. If that’s missing, you are then, whether you like it or not, in an area of a kind of taxidermy (Smith, 5).”
Returning to the question of the role of theory in art making, I feel that Thiebaud is correct: theory can inform and deeper understanding, but in the end, at least to the artist, it is the physical act that is important. James Elkins, in What Painting Is states:
Painting is alchemy. Its materials are worked through without knowledge of their properties, by blind experiment, by the feel of the paint. A painter knows what to do by the tug of the brush as it pulls through a mixture of oils, and by the look of colored slurries on the palette. Drawing is a matter of touch: the pressure of the charcoal on the slightly yielding paper, the sticky slip of the oil crayon between the fingers. Artists become expert in distinguishing between degrees of gloss and wetness—and they do so without knowing how they do it, or how chemicals create their effects (9).
In a broader context, Mary Ann Doane in her article, “Indexicality: Trace and Sign: Introduction,” proposes that “Cultural production today seems to be haunted by anxieties surrounding the status of representation in what has been described as our ‘post-medium condition.’(1).” She claims that as the digital has threatened photography’s (and other medias) status as “a trace of the real”. She continues, saying “The digital offers an ease of manipulation and distance from any referential grounding that seem to threaten the immediacy and certainty of referentiality we have come to associate with photography (Roland Barthes’s association of the photograph with the ‘absolutely, irrefutably present’[Camera 77] (Doane 1).” One role of painting might perhaps be, in its physical singularity, to reiterate its status of presence and “the real”. As Newman says, “we could place the emphasis on the fact that a gesture has been made, the fact that something has been left for us—a mark inscribed on a piece of paper, perhaps—by someone. We would thus receive the gestural mark as the trace of the other, without any need for that mark to be meaningful (Newman, 104).”
Works Cited
Doane, Mary Ann. “The Indexical and the Concept of Medium Specificity.” Differences 18.1 (2007): 128-152. Print.
---. “Indexicality: Trace and Sign: Introduction.” Differences 18.1 (2007): 1-6. Print.
Elkins, James. On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print.
---. What Painting Is. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Fisher, Jean. “On Drawing.” The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act. Ed. Catherine de Zegher. London: Tate Publishing, 2003. 217-226. Print.
Newman, Michael. “The Marks, Traces, and Gestures of Drawing.” The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act. Ed. Catherine de Zegher. London: Tate Publishing, 2003. 99-108. Print.
Pliny. “Book XXXV.” Natural History: Books XXXIII-XXXV, The Loeb Classical Library. Ed. G.P. Goold and H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. 151-152. Print.
“Empathy.” The Random House College Dictionary. Revised ed. 1982. Print
Smith, Colin. “The Difference Between a Wolf and A Dog: Wayne Thiebaud in Conversation with Colin Smith.” Turps Banana 3: 4-13.. PDF file. 5 Feb. 2010.
Advisor: Deborah Davidson
Group 2 - Critical Theory II Paper
28 February 2010
Trace and Index
Wayne Thiebaud, speaking about his relation to art theory in an interview with Turps Banana, says, “It seems to me that while they are interesting they are, maybe, a little too much like Jell-O. Every theory is good to a point, marvellous [sic] constructions. But what finally counts is what the painting physically is. And that is something I don’t think words can ever do (Smith, 12).”
How does theory relate to the physical act of creating an aesthetic object? Or to the act of viewing and interacting with an aesthetic object? Are words ever sufficient to describe either experience? What is lost in applying theories developed around language-focused sign systems to visual arts? What is gained and how can these theories help us understand and talk about art? Can these concepts provide me with a new lens to focus on my own work and the work I look at as an artist?
The Critical Theory II readings deal with the ideas of marks, traces, signs, stains, indices as a way to talk about how aesthetic marks might operate and create (or not) meaning. In particular, the readings focus on the nature of photography and drawing as traces and indices. As a reader new to these concepts, all utterly abstract, linguistically based, and seemingly unrelated to the actual process of painting. Or are they?
In "Notes on the Index," Rosalind Krauss says, “Nothing could seem further apart than photography and abstract painting, the one wholly dependent upon the world for the source of its imagery, the other shunning that world and the images it might provide…As paradoxical as it might seem, photography has increasingly become the operative model for abstraction (Krauss 210).” According to Krauss, this operative model “involves reduction of the conventional sign to a trace, which then produces the need for a supplemental discourse (Krauss, 211).” This reduction can occur because of the nature of the trace and the index. Looking for a unifying element (other than style) in the “willful eclecticism” of 1970s art, Krauss identifies a common way of relating to the index, as indicated by a “pervasiveness of the photograph as a means of representation” and “the photograph combined with the explicit terms of the index (206).”
To understand Krauss’s argument, it is important to remember that the index has two meanings. In the first, the index is a trace, imprint, or residue of something, which has a physical connection to its referent (for example, a footprint, a photograph). In the second, the index acts as shifter. The index/shifter is a “category of linguistic sign which is ‘filled with signification’ only because it is ‘empty’ (Krauss 197).” As Newman states, “The index is also…a certain kind of empty linguistic expression that derives its sense from the context in which it is performed, such as ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘now,’ and the personal pronouns (94).” This makes possible the kind of shift Krauss sees in DuChamps use of the readymade – A shift made possible by the concurrent advent of photography and the development of an abstract pictorial language (Krauss 206). Similarly, the photograph itself can be viewed as a readymade; an index or relic of a specific moment in time. For Krauss, “It is about the physical transposition of an object from the continuum of reality into the fixed condition of the art-image by a moment of isolation, or selection (206).”
But how does this change when one begins to speak of the actual marks contained in a drawing or painting? Does it make sense or help to understand or talk about painting and the types of marks that occur in painting using the principles of semiotics? How is meaning relayed through mark and gesture. An alternate view is proposed by James Elkins in What Is Painting.
Elkins talks about how “art history lacks a persuasive account of the nature of graphic marks, and that limits what can be said about pictures. If a sign, as Charles Peirce said, is ‘something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity’(1) – a formula as vague as it is compact—then every mark in a picture is also a sign: every brushstroke, pencil line, smudge, and erasure must function as a sign and have meaning. In practice, that would spell trouble for accounts of pictures which take ‘sign’ to mean the forms made out of the marks – such as, in the typical examples, figures, scenes, and narratives. For the most part – and with important exceptions in all periods and subjects – art history has concentrated on the larger-scale forms, or on the large-scale properties held by groups of marks, such as facture and ‘handling’ (Elkins 3).” Elkins proposes thinking about marks as “subsemiotic”. “In the end,” he says, “semiotics shrinks the notion of what a picture is, assimilating pictures to texts and overlooking their painted strangeness (Elkins 5).”
It is also interesting to think of the shifter/index, with its contingency in terms of empathy, and the ability to relate to “the other”. Speaking of the difference between painting and photography, for example, Thiebaud says, “Photography, as I see it, is made from everything into something. Painting starts with nothing and has to find something. So in a way
photographs are made from the outside in, and painting is made from the inside out, and for me it seems to miss that very important aspect in painting – namely empathy (Smith, 5).”
The definition of empathy is “1. Intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another person. 2. The imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself (The Random House College Dictionary).” There is a connection in the characteristic of the index as shifter to switch between I and you positions. Jean Fisher seems to support this, in her discussion of drawing saying “The movement of drawing, the instant of art, is a mobilization of the creative will, of a vision that transforms material as it abolishes the subject-object distinction and opens the self to the possibility of otherness. Insofar as it is capable of generating a new perception of the world and a reinvention of both language and the subject, the instant of art has potentially a profoundly ethical dimension (Fisher 225).”
The process of painting, and the physical touch by the artist’s hand relates to the index through touch. Like the physical trace or imprint, the mark of the brush becomes and index of the individual artist and the energy or life causing the mark-making. Thiebaud says, “….painting is a metaphor of the body, in terms of equilibrium, skin, texture, chemical organization – but also musculature…Since painting is a dead, still object it doesn’t move, so you have to enliven it, it seems to me, with your sense of a perception of physicality, which you then transfer to enliven a work. If that’s missing, you are then, whether you like it or not, in an area of a kind of taxidermy (Smith, 5).”
Returning to the question of the role of theory in art making, I feel that Thiebaud is correct: theory can inform and deeper understanding, but in the end, at least to the artist, it is the physical act that is important. James Elkins, in What Painting Is states:
Painting is alchemy. Its materials are worked through without knowledge of their properties, by blind experiment, by the feel of the paint. A painter knows what to do by the tug of the brush as it pulls through a mixture of oils, and by the look of colored slurries on the palette. Drawing is a matter of touch: the pressure of the charcoal on the slightly yielding paper, the sticky slip of the oil crayon between the fingers. Artists become expert in distinguishing between degrees of gloss and wetness—and they do so without knowing how they do it, or how chemicals create their effects (9).
In a broader context, Mary Ann Doane in her article, “Indexicality: Trace and Sign: Introduction,” proposes that “Cultural production today seems to be haunted by anxieties surrounding the status of representation in what has been described as our ‘post-medium condition.’(1).” She claims that as the digital has threatened photography’s (and other medias) status as “a trace of the real”. She continues, saying “The digital offers an ease of manipulation and distance from any referential grounding that seem to threaten the immediacy and certainty of referentiality we have come to associate with photography (Roland Barthes’s association of the photograph with the ‘absolutely, irrefutably present’[Camera 77] (Doane 1).” One role of painting might perhaps be, in its physical singularity, to reiterate its status of presence and “the real”. As Newman says, “we could place the emphasis on the fact that a gesture has been made, the fact that something has been left for us—a mark inscribed on a piece of paper, perhaps—by someone. We would thus receive the gestural mark as the trace of the other, without any need for that mark to be meaningful (Newman, 104).”
Works Cited
Doane, Mary Ann. “The Indexical and the Concept of Medium Specificity.” Differences 18.1 (2007): 128-152. Print.
---. “Indexicality: Trace and Sign: Introduction.” Differences 18.1 (2007): 1-6. Print.
Elkins, James. On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print.
---. What Painting Is. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Fisher, Jean. “On Drawing.” The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act. Ed. Catherine de Zegher. London: Tate Publishing, 2003. 217-226. Print.
Newman, Michael. “The Marks, Traces, and Gestures of Drawing.” The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act. Ed. Catherine de Zegher. London: Tate Publishing, 2003. 99-108. Print.
Pliny. “Book XXXV.” Natural History: Books XXXIII-XXXV, The Loeb Classical Library. Ed. G.P. Goold and H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. 151-152. Print.
“Empathy.” The Random House College Dictionary. Revised ed. 1982. Print
Smith, Colin. “The Difference Between a Wolf and A Dog: Wayne Thiebaud in Conversation with Colin Smith.” Turps Banana 3: 4-13.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Economy of means...
First day in the studio with paint. Assignment: a series of paintings using much less material and fewer elements, done slowly. Thinking of things that are too big for their space, too small for their space. Below are works in progress.
I've been very interested in looking at artists who are dealing with an overabundance of information, and those who are dealing with an economy of means. It's all been loosely tied together for me in this idea of the Baroque (which I plan to research). Deb Davidson referred me to an article in The New Yorker by Peter Schjeldhal on the Bronzino drawing exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. In Then and Now, Bronzino at the Met, Schjeldhahl connects today's creative culture with Mannerism. He says, "As Mannerists toiled in the twilight of the Renaissance, so do we in relation to the modern age--the word "modern" having been torn from its roots to signify things that loom behind us. The cinquecento artists would be intrigued by one of our musical genres, the mashup: new songs cobbled from scraps of old songs. (It shares an arch intricacy with their most popular form, the madrigal.) The movie "Avatar" strikes me as Mannerist through and through, generating terrific sensations of originality from a hodgepodge of worn-thin narrative and pictorial tropes. Ours is a dissolving, clever culture of mix and match. We are ready for Bronzino."
Rather than send Bronzino into the "doghouse of art history" as Schjeldahl states other art critics have done throughout art history, and as early as in Bronzino's own lifetime (indeed, he calls Mannerism the "most commonly despised period in Western art history"), Schjeldahl lauds Bronzino's talents. He likens the positive aspects of mannerism to ribauldry, the burlesque -- and just plain old erudite fun. He cites "The Daily Show" and The Onion as examples of a common spirit of "taking glee in the absurdities of inescapable conditions".
The relevance of all art is judged not only in its own time, but from the times in which it is viewed. Schjeldhahl ends by saying, "It's unsettling to read such judgments, by smart men, on art that looks so good at present--as it does to a lively cohort of art historians who include the show's excellent curators...The old verdicts suggest a proactive condemnation--of our own era--which, for all we know, future generations may come to endorse. Meanwhile, we are doing the best we can in the twenty-first century, things being as they are; and anyone who wants our friendship had better be civil to Bronzino."
Food for my own thought. And so it may just be Mannerism, and not the Baroque, that has been nagging at me as something I'm feeling and seeing.
 |
| From February 2010 |
 |
| From February 2010 |
I've been very interested in looking at artists who are dealing with an overabundance of information, and those who are dealing with an economy of means. It's all been loosely tied together for me in this idea of the Baroque (which I plan to research). Deb Davidson referred me to an article in The New Yorker by Peter Schjeldhal on the Bronzino drawing exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. In Then and Now, Bronzino at the Met, Schjeldhahl connects today's creative culture with Mannerism. He says, "As Mannerists toiled in the twilight of the Renaissance, so do we in relation to the modern age--the word "modern" having been torn from its roots to signify things that loom behind us. The cinquecento artists would be intrigued by one of our musical genres, the mashup: new songs cobbled from scraps of old songs. (It shares an arch intricacy with their most popular form, the madrigal.) The movie "Avatar" strikes me as Mannerist through and through, generating terrific sensations of originality from a hodgepodge of worn-thin narrative and pictorial tropes. Ours is a dissolving, clever culture of mix and match. We are ready for Bronzino."
Rather than send Bronzino into the "doghouse of art history" as Schjeldahl states other art critics have done throughout art history, and as early as in Bronzino's own lifetime (indeed, he calls Mannerism the "most commonly despised period in Western art history"), Schjeldahl lauds Bronzino's talents. He likens the positive aspects of mannerism to ribauldry, the burlesque -- and just plain old erudite fun. He cites "The Daily Show" and The Onion as examples of a common spirit of "taking glee in the absurdities of inescapable conditions".
The relevance of all art is judged not only in its own time, but from the times in which it is viewed. Schjeldhahl ends by saying, "It's unsettling to read such judgments, by smart men, on art that looks so good at present--as it does to a lively cohort of art historians who include the show's excellent curators...The old verdicts suggest a proactive condemnation--of our own era--which, for all we know, future generations may come to endorse. Meanwhile, we are doing the best we can in the twenty-first century, things being as they are; and anyone who wants our friendship had better be civil to Bronzino."
Food for my own thought. And so it may just be Mannerism, and not the Baroque, that has been nagging at me as something I'm feeling and seeing.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Lumin Wakoa
"Everything That Rises Must Converge" Lumin Wakoa (2009), oil on canvas, 60x72in
I first saw this painter at the 2009 Boston Young Contemporaries exhibit:
Lumin Wakoa
I thought her paintings were the most intriguing and puzzling in the show.
I first saw this painter at the 2009 Boston Young Contemporaries exhibit:
Lumin Wakoa
I thought her paintings were the most intriguing and puzzling in the show.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Week 2 of 19
Commitment: Blog once every week. Week 1 was spent getting well after being sick, reviewing residency notes/recordings, writing my residency summary, and cleaning up my studio, and tax stuff. This week back to painting and beginning my critical theory paper.
In other news (for me)-- Margaret Atwood blogs: http://marg09.wordpress.com/.
She just posted the text of a speech she "would have given" at Davos, if speaches by artists hadn't been cut.
In other news (for me)-- Margaret Atwood blogs: http://marg09.wordpress.com/.
She just posted the text of a speech she "would have given" at Davos, if speaches by artists hadn't been cut.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Residency 2 Summary
Jill Christian
Residency Summary
Advisor: Deborah Davidson
1 February 2010
Residency Summary – January 2010 – Group 2
Three major issues or areas of focus came to the fore during this residency: the need to do more work and become a better painter, the need to think more conceptually about my work, the need to find more contemporary painters to help situate myself in the present as an artist. (Wisely, someone also suggested: work hard, think hard, but don’t mentally defeat yourself.)
Opinions about which paintings worked best were split between the three types of work I brought: the figurative/gestural, the sticks/still lifes, and the looser abstract paintings. While I agree that working off the sticks as a formal vehicle is a method I will continue to use, I felt that Laurel Sparks correctly assessed that slowing down really is fighting against my nature. She also felt that there was strength in the paintings where I was able to be more inventive and risky in the arrangement of marks and range of application. The stick paintings are a good, but they also have a quality of being consistent and of “working within parameters”. Laurel suggested that I do paintings with much less material and fewer elements--slow down the call and response and the decision-making, but with very little information. I need to get myself away from the habitual way that I’m applying paint. It was a suggested that I work in polarities and disorient myself: make something that is too small for its space and something that is too big for its space. I feel that it is important for me to work in both directions this coming semester: continue with the stick paintings, and also experiment with drawing using alternative tools, and creating abstractions that translate photographs or other visual sources.
Related to this, a number of people suggested that I seem very rooted in modernism and the traditional medium-specific mindset of painting and that I need to get current and think in terms of what issues painters are working with today. I need to expand my reference beyond what I know, which is essentially abstract art before 1970 or so. Three areas to focus on are: history, theory, and whom am I connecting with right now. It was suggested that I start thinking about my work in terms of what theory it relates to, how I situate myself in relation to history, and start building a critique of my work within a contemporary context. It was suggested that I read, among other things, Frank Stella and Ed Ruscha.
More than one person said that I need to be more intellectual and conceptual about the work. There needs to be a philosophy and concept behind my art. Otherwise, it’s just about formal issues and personal preferences. It was suggested I ask the questions: “Why am I a painter?” “What is my relationship to the paint?” “What kind of surface do I want to end up with?” It was even suggested that before I sit down to do another painting, I think long and hard about these questions. Other advice suggested that I just get down to painting and let what comes naturally to me be my guide—experiment and do a LOT of painting. Laurel suggested that I focus directly on the painting process and figure out what “gets me there” so that I can paint in a way that I want to paint. I believe that I need to work with both issues at once. Stefan suggested to get out, sketch/journal daily; eventually patterns will emerge and become evident. This is a great way to allow my interests and work to lead my thinking. I appreciated the talk on “The Cult of the Personality” as well as Tony Apesos’s and Vincent Desiderios's talks, in part because of how these illuminated the ways in which the sources of ones ideas and ways of work – the decisions and choices one makes as an artist – are profoundly personal and reflect ones background, cultures, education, personal history, etc.
In the studio, I plan to make a lot of smaller pieces this semester, allowing myself to work fast. Some will be a continuation of my work with the still life, and will include a series of drawings with Sumi ink. I also plan to experiment with both filling up and emptying out the space in the canvas, experimenting with contents being too small / too big for the space, asking myself the question, “how do I make a painting out of very little? Out of a lot? Constanze suggested that I think about the medium I’m using – and try to think in a less medium-specific way. She suggested that I look at Rosalind Krauss’s book, Voyage on the North Sea, which I have begun reading. Some of Stefan’s suggestions related to this, including: construct collages of “the feelings”; create objects and work with ideas that represent a feeling; do some works completely without subject (but think about what your ideas are). It was also suggested that I do tonal studies, try new mark-making tools (sticks, hardware brushes (would give soft/diffuse marks), finger painting (the idea of pushing feeling through your hands). Other suggestions included drawing more, and considering monotypes.
Areas of research suggested include looking at artists who work with “overwhelming” means, versus artists that deal with economy of means (e.g., Agnes Martin – though I feel I need to also find much more contemporary artists). I am also interested in investigating the Baroque as it relates to today’s excess of imagery. I found a quote by Jaoa Ribas who said: “I’m also interested in a new internalism in painting, a solipsistic, hermetic formalism—Richard Aldrich coming out of Raoul De Keyser—an approach that’s contemplative rather than literal” (Douglas, Sarah. Field Guide: Interview with Joao Ribas. Modern Painters. February 2010. 16-17). I think this “hermetic formalism” might be one interesting avenue to explore and compare with other work that’s more related to saturated imagery and the digital.
Finally, Laurel gave me the advice to just be more confident and to start to learn to locate myself in terms of what I accept and what I reject. I was told that I work hard, I’m open to experimenting with new ideas, and so now I need to challenge myself to “know what I believe, and know what I reject” for my own work. And to also distinguish what I love that someone else is doing, but is not part of what my own work is about.
This upcoming semester I hope to work really hard and break out of some of the conventions and ways of thinking that are holding me back. As Laurel so aptly said in one of our talks, “Well, it’s not like you can do that just overnight. It’s a project.”
Below is a summary of other suggestions and lists of artists to look, books to read, and exhibitions to research (and see if possible).
Artists
Richard Aldrich (http://www.marcfoxx.com/artist/view/1411)
Kristin Baker (Carol)
Robert Bordo (Laurel)
Marcel Broodthaers [Belgian, 1924-1976] (Constanze)
Cheryl Donegan (Laurel)
Howard Hodgkins (Laurel)
Jacqueline Humphries (Laurel)
Raoul De Keyser (Laurel, Constanze)
Per Kirkeby (Hannah) (http://www.michaelwerner.com/artist_8_main_1.htm)
Michael Krebber (Constanze) [http://greenenaftaligallery.com/artist/Michael-Krebber]
Brice Marden
Agnes Martin (Deborah)
Julie Mehretu (Oliver)
Georgio Morandi (Laurel)
Carrie Moyers (Deborah)
Albert Oehlin (Constanze)
Jackson Pollock
David Reed (Constanze)
Sterling Ruby (Carol)
Ed Ruscha (Rob)
Robert Ryman (Laurel)
Tiepolo (Jan)
Cy Twombly (Hannah)
Charline von Heyl (Laurel, Jan)
John Walker (Hannah) (shows at Nielsen/Boston; Kohdler/NY)
Reading
Bois, Yve Alain. Paining As Model.
Fer, Briony. On Abstract Art.
Freid, Michael. Theatricality in the arts.
Friedlander, Walter. Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism.
Godfrey, Tony. Painting Today.
Krauss, Rosalind. The Originality of the Avant Garde and Other Myths.
Krauss, Rosalind. Voyage on the North Sea.
Kuh, Katharine. Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art.
Kuh, Katharine. The Artist's Voice: Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists (2000).
Martin, J.R. Baroque.
Nickas, Bob. Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting.
Saccoccio, Jackie. What State Abstraction. BombLog (http://www.bombsite.powweb.com?p=6139)
Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.
Stella, Frank. Working Space.
Magazines
Modern Painters
Art in America
October
Shows/Online
Affinities:Painting in Abstraction, curated by Kate McNamara, CCS Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson
Bad Painting/Good Art, (exhibit, June 2008) MUMOK Vienna
Besides, With, Against, And Yet: Abstraction and The Ready-Made Gesture. The Kitchen. Nov. 11-Jan. 16, 2010. New York, NY. http://www.thekitchen.org/
Susan Rothenberg: A Particular Perspective (Jan. 22-May 16 2010, GOK Museum/Santa Fe).
Residency Summary
Advisor: Deborah Davidson
1 February 2010
Residency Summary – January 2010 – Group 2
Three major issues or areas of focus came to the fore during this residency: the need to do more work and become a better painter, the need to think more conceptually about my work, the need to find more contemporary painters to help situate myself in the present as an artist. (Wisely, someone also suggested: work hard, think hard, but don’t mentally defeat yourself.)
Opinions about which paintings worked best were split between the three types of work I brought: the figurative/gestural, the sticks/still lifes, and the looser abstract paintings. While I agree that working off the sticks as a formal vehicle is a method I will continue to use, I felt that Laurel Sparks correctly assessed that slowing down really is fighting against my nature. She also felt that there was strength in the paintings where I was able to be more inventive and risky in the arrangement of marks and range of application. The stick paintings are a good, but they also have a quality of being consistent and of “working within parameters”. Laurel suggested that I do paintings with much less material and fewer elements--slow down the call and response and the decision-making, but with very little information. I need to get myself away from the habitual way that I’m applying paint. It was a suggested that I work in polarities and disorient myself: make something that is too small for its space and something that is too big for its space. I feel that it is important for me to work in both directions this coming semester: continue with the stick paintings, and also experiment with drawing using alternative tools, and creating abstractions that translate photographs or other visual sources.
Related to this, a number of people suggested that I seem very rooted in modernism and the traditional medium-specific mindset of painting and that I need to get current and think in terms of what issues painters are working with today. I need to expand my reference beyond what I know, which is essentially abstract art before 1970 or so. Three areas to focus on are: history, theory, and whom am I connecting with right now. It was suggested that I start thinking about my work in terms of what theory it relates to, how I situate myself in relation to history, and start building a critique of my work within a contemporary context. It was suggested that I read, among other things, Frank Stella and Ed Ruscha.
More than one person said that I need to be more intellectual and conceptual about the work. There needs to be a philosophy and concept behind my art. Otherwise, it’s just about formal issues and personal preferences. It was suggested I ask the questions: “Why am I a painter?” “What is my relationship to the paint?” “What kind of surface do I want to end up with?” It was even suggested that before I sit down to do another painting, I think long and hard about these questions. Other advice suggested that I just get down to painting and let what comes naturally to me be my guide—experiment and do a LOT of painting. Laurel suggested that I focus directly on the painting process and figure out what “gets me there” so that I can paint in a way that I want to paint. I believe that I need to work with both issues at once. Stefan suggested to get out, sketch/journal daily; eventually patterns will emerge and become evident. This is a great way to allow my interests and work to lead my thinking. I appreciated the talk on “The Cult of the Personality” as well as Tony Apesos’s and Vincent Desiderios's talks, in part because of how these illuminated the ways in which the sources of ones ideas and ways of work – the decisions and choices one makes as an artist – are profoundly personal and reflect ones background, cultures, education, personal history, etc.
In the studio, I plan to make a lot of smaller pieces this semester, allowing myself to work fast. Some will be a continuation of my work with the still life, and will include a series of drawings with Sumi ink. I also plan to experiment with both filling up and emptying out the space in the canvas, experimenting with contents being too small / too big for the space, asking myself the question, “how do I make a painting out of very little? Out of a lot? Constanze suggested that I think about the medium I’m using – and try to think in a less medium-specific way. She suggested that I look at Rosalind Krauss’s book, Voyage on the North Sea, which I have begun reading. Some of Stefan’s suggestions related to this, including: construct collages of “the feelings”; create objects and work with ideas that represent a feeling; do some works completely without subject (but think about what your ideas are). It was also suggested that I do tonal studies, try new mark-making tools (sticks, hardware brushes (would give soft/diffuse marks), finger painting (the idea of pushing feeling through your hands). Other suggestions included drawing more, and considering monotypes.
Areas of research suggested include looking at artists who work with “overwhelming” means, versus artists that deal with economy of means (e.g., Agnes Martin – though I feel I need to also find much more contemporary artists). I am also interested in investigating the Baroque as it relates to today’s excess of imagery. I found a quote by Jaoa Ribas who said: “I’m also interested in a new internalism in painting, a solipsistic, hermetic formalism—Richard Aldrich coming out of Raoul De Keyser—an approach that’s contemplative rather than literal” (Douglas, Sarah. Field Guide: Interview with Joao Ribas. Modern Painters. February 2010. 16-17). I think this “hermetic formalism” might be one interesting avenue to explore and compare with other work that’s more related to saturated imagery and the digital.
Finally, Laurel gave me the advice to just be more confident and to start to learn to locate myself in terms of what I accept and what I reject. I was told that I work hard, I’m open to experimenting with new ideas, and so now I need to challenge myself to “know what I believe, and know what I reject” for my own work. And to also distinguish what I love that someone else is doing, but is not part of what my own work is about.
This upcoming semester I hope to work really hard and break out of some of the conventions and ways of thinking that are holding me back. As Laurel so aptly said in one of our talks, “Well, it’s not like you can do that just overnight. It’s a project.”
Below is a summary of other suggestions and lists of artists to look, books to read, and exhibitions to research (and see if possible).
Artists
Richard Aldrich (http://www.marcfoxx.com/artist/view/1411)
Kristin Baker (Carol)
Robert Bordo (Laurel)
Marcel Broodthaers [Belgian, 1924-1976] (Constanze)
Cheryl Donegan (Laurel)
Howard Hodgkins (Laurel)
Jacqueline Humphries (Laurel)
Raoul De Keyser (Laurel, Constanze)
Per Kirkeby (Hannah) (http://www.michaelwerner.com/artist_8_main_1.htm)
Michael Krebber (Constanze) [http://greenenaftaligallery.com/artist/Michael-Krebber]
Brice Marden
Agnes Martin (Deborah)
Julie Mehretu (Oliver)
Georgio Morandi (Laurel)
Carrie Moyers (Deborah)
Albert Oehlin (Constanze)
Jackson Pollock
David Reed (Constanze)
Sterling Ruby (Carol)
Ed Ruscha (Rob)
Robert Ryman (Laurel)
Tiepolo (Jan)
Cy Twombly (Hannah)
Charline von Heyl (Laurel, Jan)
John Walker (Hannah) (shows at Nielsen/Boston; Kohdler/NY)
Reading
Bois, Yve Alain. Paining As Model.
Fer, Briony. On Abstract Art.
Freid, Michael. Theatricality in the arts.
Friedlander, Walter. Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism.
Godfrey, Tony. Painting Today.
Krauss, Rosalind. The Originality of the Avant Garde and Other Myths.
Krauss, Rosalind. Voyage on the North Sea.
Kuh, Katharine. Break-Up: The Core of Modern Art.
Kuh, Katharine. The Artist's Voice: Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists (2000).
Martin, J.R. Baroque.
Nickas, Bob. Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting.
Saccoccio, Jackie. What State Abstraction. BombLog (http://www.bombsite.powweb.com?p=6139)
Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.
Stella, Frank. Working Space.
Magazines
Modern Painters
Art in America
October
Shows/Online
Affinities:Painting in Abstraction, curated by Kate McNamara, CCS Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson
Bad Painting/Good Art, (exhibit, June 2008) MUMOK Vienna
Besides, With, Against, And Yet: Abstraction and The Ready-Made Gesture. The Kitchen. Nov. 11-Jan. 16, 2010. New York, NY. http://www.thekitchen.org/
Susan Rothenberg: A Particular Perspective (Jan. 22-May 16 2010, GOK Museum/Santa Fe).
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