In and around New York

The power to feel /  by mirena

Painting is an active language. Pollock once told De Kooning "You know more, but I feel more". To feel and to observe are the two most powerful weapons an artist uses.. on himself. When you are out in the world you really see, you dissect the world down to the particles and reverse back through to the whole to construct a mental image, however distorted. You later bring these images to the canvas. In front of the canvas, you feel. To observe and to feel are somehow in a quantum entanglement, the better you observe, the better your ability to feel. You see a brick for what it is and then you really see it, for what it isn't, a sort of stereo vision which overcomes the senses. That's why if someone feels one, an artist feels ten. You need that feeling powers ten in order to get the feeling flick through to the brush ( or whatever tool is there ) and via the paint - onto to canvas and from there to the viewer. The feeling needs to have that power in order to travel.

The confusion is that art is about learning how to draw or paint, that ability to render some ( or even strange ) reality. I think art is about learning how to feel. To feel is a powerful narcotic and immensely seductive. It is the blue pill, and the red pill simultaneously.

Careful! Some bugs still in this one. /  by mirena

Pace Gallery in Chelsea mounted an amazing Social Media show but their Iphone App Fakes literally took my breath away... laughing. "The exhibition  features the first presentation of works from the David Byrne’s new Apps series from 2011. The works are advertisements for witty applications authored by Byrne that speak to the rapid proliferation of apps for the iPhone and other smart phones.."

The Seven I's of Why I Paint on Paper by Michael Brennan. A Manifesto of sorts. /  by mirena

It has been long since I read something that I feel is close to my own practice and how I feel about paper, drawing, my work, the world and my footprint on matter. And here is what Michael says:

"I went to paper after rethinking Thoreau’s Economy and reading about sustainability in From Cradle to Cradle.

I decided to work smaller because we live in an era when dumb things are getting larger (televisions, SUVs, McMansions) and smart things are getting smaller (smart phones, smart cars, smart cards). The generation behind me has been described as “platform agnostic”, meaning they’re willing to watch a cinematic wonder like Lawrence of Arabia on a palm-sized screen. I also prefer the face-to-face engagement that smaller works require—that is the modern interface.

I work exclusively in black and white because I like absolute contrast, and participating in the larger, global tradition of monochromatic painting.

I acknowledge that paper is the perfect surface.

I have come to loathe the wealthy and prefer to make high quality works more cheaply that anyone might afford.

I have become bored with the “grand manner” of painting and its heroic trappings. I felt that my most recent paintings were really drawings masquerading as paintings. Lastly, I’ve always been attracted to simpler, not minimal, more direct means of making art.

I have long maintained that if the artist isn’t surprising himself, he’s most likely not surprising anyone else."

Profound Richard Tuttle /  by mirena

"I have had two or three non-art thoughts in my life..."
"Art sustains polarities that cannot be sustained in the (real)world."
"Art accommodates the mystic."
"Art provides the viewer with the experience of reality. Art performs a "blimp". A line becomes a primary thing... Presents itself."
"A miracle belongs to the viewer."
"When you make art you access the back part of the brain(the animalistic part of the brain), and the animalistic gives us relief."
"The relationship between art and the viewer is a relationship more profound than marriage, than parent/child relationship. There is no pain, destruction and a reason for fear."
"Trust your work."

Abstract Expressionist New York /  by mirena

What a stunning exhibit at the MOMA tonight. I am not going to say it was well curated as I am not going to say MOMA is a good museum. It was genius, brilliant, inspiring world class art. I personally rediscovered Pollock and not because I found something new, I found the artist rediscovered himself. That's bravery in art and has very few masters. The paintings loved being together and brought out the best in each other. Just like mass and energy, energy brings more paint and more paint bursts with energy. What an opportunity to be with art, to feel it's power to change.

Jackson Pollock at MOMA Abstract Expressionist New York

Loft and Found /  by mirena

They say in New York, you learn something new every day.

Recently I had to move some of my things across town. Once The taxi driver saw my luggage he refused to take me. With all my things on the sidewalk I had to beg. And he grumbled. I kept loading my things - and we got going... and once we reached a really bad neighborhood, the car broke and stopped. We were in the midst of a sea of cars swerving left and right around us. There was a moment of silence and something in me told me that the Driver and I were there to learn a lesson.

The taxi driver was in sheer panic. Then, amidst all the traffic, a person from the streets approached us. After a conversation I could not hear The Driver took out some dollar bills, handed them to the stranger and the stranger disappeared from sight. We knew we may never see the bills or the guy again, and waited. In a few tense moments the stranger appeared, crossed the sea of cars towards us holding a tube of car oil. The oil went in the car, the car started, we thanked the stranger and he smiled from ear to ear, his face transformed in a bliss of goodness.

Well, all this is not news in New York. The matter was that after this incident the Driver's attitude turned 180 degrees, he became the nicest person, talked to me about doing good things to others and ultimately helped me with my luggage once we got home, made sure I was ok and safe. And I remember he told me: "In New York, you learn something new every day". I think Driver, Stranger and I all learned a lesson that day.

What is the matter? /  by mirena

I spent some time at the Brooklyn museum with Kiki Smith's drawings, ink and glitter on cream colored paper, and with large Egyptian reliefs and works in stone done millennia before the word art was invented. What is it in art that moves so ? What is in a Picasso print, what transpires in a B.C. marble, what is in a Vatican fresco and a Dying Slave? What's the Black in a black Goya painting, what's eating us in a Bosch, where is the De Kooning woman going on her bicycle, which anonymous artist painted the thousand hands of this Shiva? Why does Monet shimmer, why is that man with an apple for a face, how many birds do you see in an Escher, why is the triangle of light in Rembrandt so mysterious? Where is the light in a Vermeer coming from, why are there 500 species of flowers in a Botticelli, why am I going around in circles trying to find out where the wind is coming from that is blowing these cypresses, and why is mouth and flesh in a Bacon so maddeningly beautiful? Why is art so beautiful?

A poem written by Mirena Rhee during the wash cycle at the corner laundromat.

World cup /  by mirena

Lee Bul cybersculpture st Lehmann Maupin I am not into sports but grew up watching soccer just like other kids grow up watching cartoons. So on my way to Lehman Moupin I stop by a LES bar to take a look - USA is playing England and I have a Stella Artois while we suffer a goal.

I am on my way to see a gallery on the Lower East Side which has work by a Korean artist who comes from a "cyber architecture" background. I am interested to see the work in person and find out if it is a linear translation of a digital creation.

In art, as in games and life, controlled spontaneity is difficult to master. 201 Chrystie St., New York, NY 10002