Studio and Art News

I haven’t posted much this week as I have started painting in my neighbor’s shed. It’s the first time I have used oil paints or had a studio in almost two years, so the internet just hasn’t been as important for me this week.

I forgot how much oils smell, but I also forgot how much fun they are. I like the idea of growing a painting, letting it develop over time, and not feeling pressured into finishing it at any point. So oils are perfect for me.. and I’m starting to like the smell again!

Anyway, here’s what has been happening lately..

• ArtInfo pops into the studio and mind of the scrap metal merchant and sculptor John Chamberlain. Here’s a quote by the man “I’m basically a collagist. I put one thing together with another thing. I sort of invented my own art supplies. I saw all this material just lying around against buildings and it was in color, so I felt I was ahead on two counts there.”
• Listen to the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones and the Tate Modern’s Nicholas Serota bestow praise on Cy Twombly.
• ArtDaily mentioned the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art auction in London where artist records were the theme of the night. Artists that achieved auction records were Jeff Koons ($25,752,051), Antonio Lopez ($2,760,863), Michael Andrews ($1,967,939), Gilbert & George ($3,765,275), Nicolas de Stael ($3,430,451), Syed Haider Raza ($2,537,587), Karin Mamma Andersson ($1,030,879), and Yan Pei-Ming ($2,046,512).
• NY Times talks about the Joseph Mallord William Turner exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They call it a “beast of a show” so it must be good. Here’s some JMW Turner paintings from the exhibition.
• Times Online talks about the book “Dalí & I: The Surreal Story” where the author Stan Lauryssens claims that half of all Salvador Dali works are fake. I hope the good half is by Dali as I think half of his work is average.
• Regional Arts NSW newsletter for July was published.

Rhyming van Ruisdael and Courbet

Before we get to the rhyme, your weekend bonus fun: Art critic Peter Plagens was featured on NPR quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! last week. I’m jealous. (And yes, I was on ‘Wait Wait’ once, but it was about eight or nine years ago and I was just a random call-in contestant.)

This morning’s rhyme — Pirkle Jones and Helen Torr — was almost certainly pure coincidence. This one I’m not so sure. Pictured at right is Jacob van Ruisdael’s 1665-1670ish Three Great Trees in a Mountainous Landscape with a River. It’s in the Norton Simon’s collection, and it’s completely terrific.

After the jump is my favorite Courbet, MFA Houston’s Gust of Wind. It seems possible — if not likely — that Courbet saw a print of the van Ruisdael.

Why is Everyone So Afraid of Beauty? Open Thread

In honor of Independence day, I thought I’d throw out a topic sure to cause some fire works. I’ll remind folks that while passion is fine and, in careful contexts, encouraged, boorish behavior directed at specific individuals who comment here or their art is off limits and will result in your comment being ruthlessly deleted without explanation or apology.

And with that nanny-state introduction, let’s get the ball rolling with a comment Donna left on the Studio Visit Strategies thread:

here’s how to get the art world to come clamoring to your studio… you say out loud in a mocking/taunting voice- why all the pointless, craftless, work that makes you think- how did they get in this show? that is long on the dialectic and short on something to look at? why is everyone so afraid of craft? because craft involves history and the fervor with which the art world avoids embracing history is like when you put a cat in a bath and all the fleas mob its head…

The knee-jerk conceptualism-loving art viewer in me wants to dismiss this question out of hand: “It’s not that anyone is afraid of craft so much as no longer as impressed by craft alone as they once may have been. In an age with a bounty of photo realistic painters and technology-guided sculptors making work so convincing you can’t imagine improving upon them…in an age with more sensitive abstractionists cranking out more personal interpretations than there are days in one’s life to see them all…in an age where the line between craft as “craft” and craft in the service of “fine art” has blurred to the point of being nearly meaningless…how can anyone expect craft unto itself to be seen as important as it once had been?”

Once I get all that out of my system, though, I slow down and think about the subject again. Does there exist a fear of “craft”? There is no doubt that craft took a backseat for many during the 60’s and 70’s, and I suspect that led to skepticism about craft-based work that may linger in certain quarters today, but from Grayson Perry to Josiah McElheny, from Oliver Herring (at least his earlier knitting works) to Louise Bourgeois, traditional craft is a serious part of the dialog.

But I suspect Louise Bourgeois’ sewing-based sculptures are not what some people mean by “craft.” What some people mean is craft employed toward the end of traditional ideals of beauty. Why is everyone so afraid of Beauty? is how I interpret that original question after some reflection.

The knee-jerk conceptualism-loving art viewer in me wants to dismiss this question out of hand: “It’s not that anyone is afraid of beauty so much as no longer as impressed by the more traditional ideas about beauty as they once may have been. In an age in which, via globalization, we’re being exposed to more and more images of people and places where our Western sense of beauty is perhaps seen as too sterile or contrived or oversimplified…in an age of air-brushing, plastic surgery, Disneyfied Times Square, Second Life, and eco-tourism…in an age in which heroes disappoint like clockwork, McMansions and Trump towers pass as luxury, and even the oceans are now polluted with continent sized island of plastic crap..how can anyone expect “beauty” unto itself to be seen as synonymous with “truth” as it once had been and thus as relevant?”

Once I get all that out of my system, though, I slow down and think about the subject again. Does there exist a fear of “beauty”? In so much as beauty equals truth, perhaps there exists a healthy skepticism of that idea, yes.

Consider this an open thread.

Rhyming Torr and Jones

I haven’t done any visual rhymes in a while, so I’ll do a couple today as an lazy way into the holiday weekend.

The first one pairs one of my favorite  paintings at SFMOMA — Helen Torr’s 1927ish Windows and a Door — with a Pirkle Jones photograph Garden Detail from 1947. Windows is on view now in the painting-and-sculpture galleries. The Jones is on view in the photo galleries (and after the jump).

(Incidentally, I don’t mean to suggest that Jones (who is a Californian) saw or knew of the Torr. SFMOMA acquired the Torr in 1980.)

Tuesday news and notes

• One of my pet issues surfaces in the LAT: Christopher Knight criticizes LACMA for fluffing Cheech Marin.
• The Indianapolis Museum of Art will not have to register as a pornographer after all, a judge rules.
• How Aperture books get made.
• I recently noted how much I enjoyed an early Carroll Dunham at MoMA. The Addison Gallery has launched a print retro.