Jeff Koons, Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha and I

...all at Postcards From The Edge - A Benefit for Visual AIDS. January 25-27, 2013 @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co - 530 West 22nd Street, NYC.

The 15th Annual POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE Featuring artworks by Mirena Rhee, Ann Hamilton, Donald Baechler, Kara Walker, Dana Schutz, Bjarne Melgaard, Marilyn Minter, Burt Barr, Kiki Smith, Ed Rusha, John Baldessari, Louise Fishman, Arturo Herrera, Ida Applebroog, Ross Bleckner, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Katherine Bernhardt, Nayland Blake, L.J. Roberts, Marcel Dzama, Catherine Opie, Tony Feher, Mary Heilmann, Jim Hodges, Julie Mehretu, Jeff Koons, Robert Longo, Moyra Davey, Bill Viola, Jane Hammond, Lawrence Weiner, Kay Rosen, Jack Pierson, Louise Lawler, John Waters.

A few great things - Damien Hirst's Spot paintings, The Happenings at Pace

I had heard so much criticism about Damien's Spot paintings before going to the three New York shows, that I had the sneaky suspicion I am going to love them. They gave me pleasure - pleasure is hardly an argument - you either like having it or not. The flavor colored paintings made me want to lick every single dot, were named after various chemical substances and defied Jerry Saltz's argument "You see one, and you really have seen them all." In fact, they all tasted different. When I think of Damien - I also can't help but think of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hey, if that artist's intent is to make a lot of money - that is not a reason to reject the work - although this is not my intent but can't speak against that being someone else's. The spots aren't things by themselves and they do not create a traditional artistic value (via the artist's hand ). We all know from math that a dot cannot be defined as having a substance, it's a destination. Each room of the three Gagosian galleries was brilliantly hung - thus all the paintings in a room worked together with scale to triangulate space and create a giant, Three-dimensional musical piano ( you know, the toy ones - i had one when i was a kid ).

It was a pure pleasure to indulge in the simple language of color, to occupy the space within the dots and just listen to the music.

When I think of Damien - I also can't help but think of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hey

The exhibition Opening at Pace gallery's Happenings: New York, 1958-1963 was packed with the Who's Who in the art world today. Although the crowds for the most parts obscured the actual show - I think it was more or less the point. The exhibition opening was, all over again, a Happening on its own.

Works by Jim Dine, Simone Forti, Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, Carolee Schneemann, and Robert Whitman.

Anonymous

This piece was inspired by a climbing wall I saw in Brooklyn. A climbing wall is usually littered with tiny boulders of various shapes and sizes and your climbing path is marked and color-coded with tape. Say, black tape with a stripe designates a VO, a beginner's path, a dark red could be a V6, a path for only experienced climbers. I thought the climbing wall was a good metaphor for life, with the tape off.

This piece went this past weekend to Cheim & Read's Postcards from the Edge.

Postcards from the Edge benefit for Visual AIDS is this Weekend

I am participating in Postcards from the Edge benefit for Visual AIDS with a very special piece.. Hosted by Cheim & Read, 547 W 25th St, New York

The Preview Party is tonight: Friday, January 6, 2012 from 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Benefit show: Saturday, January 7, 2012 from 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM Sunday, January 8, 2012 from 12:00 - 4:00 PM

100 percent Ultra Violet

I went to Ultra Violet's studio this past weekend to take photographs of her and her work. Ultra Violet said the first person she met off the boat ( arriving from France in the 60's ) was Salvador Dali.  She became his muse, and later on, became a muse to Andy Warhol and a superstar in his Factory.

The Art of Occupy Wall Street.. now that it's gone

Yesterday I went to Liberty Plaza and took photographs of The Art of Occupy Wall Street. Including Lego OWS and the very special Octopi WS by the guy who Paints Outside his Own Box.

A few more digits

Painter Scotto Mycklebust, is putting together Revolt magazine, an art-talk large format, limited edition paper. I am heading down to Occupy Wall street to take some photographs for the first issue.  Also saw De Kooning show at Moma for the second time.. barefoot because my shoes were too tight and I couldn't think properly. I took the shoes off, and this being New York, no one seemed to care except that I gained a different perspective.. could be the height but this time I loved De Kooning's last paintings.

The power to feel

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.

I have a thing for this particular shade of brown.. and this particular shade of brown has a thing for me. A conversation with R. Serra

at Gagosian gallery.

Careful! Some bugs still in this one.

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.

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

Quotes from tonight's Richard Tuttle artist talk at Columbia's Miller theater, co-presented by Columbia University Institute for Religion, Culture, & Public Life and Columbia University School of the Arts Visual Arts Program:

"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."

Roxy Paine, no more words

Roxy Paine at James Cohan gallery

Roxy Paine at the Met ( last year )

Abstract Expressionist New York

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.

Loft and Found

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.

A portrait

What is the matter?

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.