MFA Show

The MFA show was curated much better than the BFA show. Not only did they group the work well, but it seemed like there was more space to view each artists work, which might be why it seems so much more successful. I liked that it seemed to be grouped a lot by medium. The sculpture was in one room, photos in another, painting, and then a few mixed areas. The right pieces got the individual rooms; the large photos, the installation with film, and the set of figurative and abstract paintings in the back room. The hanging walls right when you walked in did a good job of channeling the viewer not only around the space but focused you on certain works, like the set of photos to the right when you walk in the door. I also felt like things were grouped well based on their size and vertical/horizontal orientation. The one room had a line of many smaller and more horizontal photos and paintings and I felt like this strengthened all the work because nothing felt like it was out shadowed. I loved the dptych of the park in the main room on the left wall-not only was it great painting but it fit the wall nicely and then led you to the two really big abstract paintings at the back. There just seemed to be more harmony with this show a opposed to some of the others we have viewed.

Grad School...

maybe...
-SVA
-James Madison
-Tisch
-Tufts
-University of Maryland
-Pensacola Christian College Division of Communicative Arts
-SCAD
-Arizona State

"Seven Days" Reading- Chapter 3

-The quality of "invisible" architecture for an Art Fair creates an environment worthy of the art-in this case Art Basel's main exhibition space is a black glass box on the outside and a clear-glass circular courtyard on the inside-ceilings are high enough for them to go unnoticed, the walls are strong enough to hold heavy work, and the quality of lighting is clean and natural

-Don Rubell on experience with collecting "First if an artist is going to make one good work, then there is no sense in fighting over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision."

-What is collecting art for the right reasons?? Love of art, desire to support artists-not about being rich, privileged, and powerful. Collecting is an "art" itself-a lifetime process. Rubell's attitude is that it's a privilege-there is more to it than the money. They truly love art.

-Barbara Gladstone is not about just selling work-to differentiate genuine collectors from speculators she would rather have in-depth discussions about the artist's work- it is very hard to do at the fair

-"Hard buy" Galleries don't just surrender work to the first comer or highest bidder. Demand for a work takes consideration of how prestegious a location is-the goal is to enhance the artists reputation.

-Galleries discover and develop artists, dealerships trade in art objects

-Artists don't view the Art Fair the same as gallery owners or collectors. John Baldessari,artist, doesn't like that quality of art depends on the monetary value. He wants to do his own thing and change his art whenever he wanted not base it on a "market"

Marvelli Gallery

I chose a exhibition of photographs by Mariah Robertson. Her works are considered to be experimental dark room prints that are impossible to replicate. They are very rich and saturated in color and appear paint-like at times from her washes of chemicals. They balance between being representational and abstract with layers of quilt patterns, palm trees, city streets, cars, and nudes.

What drew me to the work was that it was obvious that it was more about the process than the image. You can see the layers-the guts of the process of making the image. Where as I feel I have a very calculated approach to putting together an image, Robertson is very care-free and experimental. She is not afraid to let it get messy.

"Seven Days" Reading- Chapter 6

- In order to maximize his impact and pursue a number of interests Murakami also runs a company- Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd. and he was responsible for a lot of the Louis Vuitton designs. He really isn't interested in the company, but needs it as a means to make more and more and bigger and bigger pieces.
-Murakami has painting assistants that he oversees. They do the painting and document the layers for him to see. But he does have a desire for these assistants to atleast be able to launch their own careers
-He has another studio in New York linked to his studio in Japan by iChat- both similar: tidy, white walled, and silent
-Murakami says his weak point is he can't work on just one thing at a time. He gets bored doing only one project. I think that's true of many artists.
- "Anywhere, anytime." Murakami does not have a preferred thinking space or a "heart" of his studio. A studio is supposed to be a site of intense contemplation, but Murakami insists he can do that anywhere.
-Murakami has no real home, just a bed in his studios. He works long hours all week and just naps. He is really into his work.

Exhibition Review

I went out with the intention of going to the George Billis Gallery in Chelsea because I wanted to look at Adam Normandin's work. His very geometric approach to painting highly detailed trains and engines caught my eye because my work has very much to do with detail. When I arrived the gallery was closed, but I ended up finding 2 other shows in particular that I found even more interesting.

The first was at the Nancy Margolis Gallery- Maysey Craddock. Her work consisted of architecture and nature in which most of the buildings or telephone lines were being taken over by roots and plants. The images were based on photos, but she had simplified them down to their essentials. The forms become a little more abstract in their reduced form, but her hand is soft in the background and layering techniques so that the beauty is not lost in the hard edges of all the shapes. The photograph of the area is what drew her in, but she wanted to see what her hand could express out of it. I found myself agreeing with that for my own work. I have these cityscape images and they are so complex and beautiful, but I like seeing what I really see once I start to put my own hand to it. I want my painting to resemble the architecture, so I don't want it to become abstract in that regard, but the way I unmake and remake the buildings by the forms that I see with my eyes becomes a really abstract process.


At Axelle Fine Arts I saw a large show of Albert Hadjiganev. Also someone who considers himself a minimalist, Hadjiganev captures the moments of daily life and landscapes with only a few elements. He paints almost sensitively. His hand is soft on the canvas. He uses a palette knife and seems to wipe away most of the detail to create a mysterious environment filled with grace. The images are dream like. He had a few cityscapes too. They had a sketchy unfinished quality with attention to flatness and space, reserving the most detail for the foreground or places to draw your attention and wiping out other parts softly to push them back. It was interesting because I tend to paint everything in my cityscapes so the idea of wiping things out is something I may try.

Interview with Fran Eber

AM: So what you just said is you like to break it down and then make a small area bigger and bigger?

FE: Right to actually take a small image and blow it out, to keep growing something so that I can understand this small tiny little piece of information rather than just what the whole looks like. That may be the whole of it, but in terms of what I'm looking for, I'm looking to break down the tiniest infintessional piece of it and then I can then recreate it in my own terms, not resemble it. I want to deconstruct it as well, but not reconstruct it the same way. Like if I was deconstructing a body, I'd put the feet on the top. So that it really doesn't resemble what the original looked like or have the original intention, but it could now represent what I want it to mean.

AM: So where does the subject matter come from? Did you start with photography before you painted? Or was it a dual pursuit?

FE: No, its actually, I used to be in advertising and graphic design so that was behind it-and only a few years ago I started painting. And in the process of painting I found -the the world of advertising and design while the commercial aspects, while its lucrative- it just wasn't enough. So I really wanted to look at “what else”. Cause you know life is short, what the hell, you know you just kind of gotta do what it is you feel is necessary to your own existence and so painting was that way. I dabbled in painting and photography and artist book. I mean, I sort of wanted to see where I fit and saw there was pieces of each that could belong to me or that I could belong to. So I'm not discounting anything. It's like I'm letting everything be ok. While photography-I think that stems off of that advertising mentality- to commercialize the image and to do that make the image super important. The importance is no longer the image the importance is the lines the space between the lines- what it is, is no longer important.

AM: So when you lay this down you have an image in mind- Do you use one of your photographs?

FE: I have an image in mind and I'm sort of recreating that image, but sort of as quickly as my hand will do it so that I'm not restrained by it. I don't want to paint it exactly. I want it to free me up. This shows more freedom it shows the hand shows the environment. It works with nature because I use gravity to help pull the paint.

AM: So do you have a process in mind in terms of the colors and how you are going to lay it down or do you just go based on your instinct, which color comes next or what you feel like needs to get added?

FE: I think that the color process at least in terms of photography was valuable but you know I want to sort of lose the color process in the painting part or limit it. To be more restrictive is to have more freedom and to, you know, continue with the photography there's something very satisfying in working with photoshop thats different. It's serving a different part of the creative process and its feeding the simplicity. Cause you know you need to get that out some way.

AM: So are these (Photoshopped prints on canvas) going to become paintings?

FE: These are paintings. I think of them as paintings because the process as they go through as photographs changes them and they are no longer photos. Its digital painting. You get to the point where you get to understand- like you understand the paint brush- the medium and so photoshop and digital tweaking is another type of art. Like with a brush, how you use it and what you can bring into it. But it doesn't replace this (gestures to painting), sometimes the hand needs to move, the hand needs to represent work.

Annotated Image #2

Cary Markerink & Theo Baart
"Untitled"
Snelweg, Highways in The Netherlands, 1996

I like this photograph because of the saturated colors of the sky over the highway. It creates an artificial landscape that is as beautiful as rolling hills or mountains would be at sunrise or sunset. I like the trailing lines and the lights that draw your eye back. You feel a quiet rush as you look toward the horizon.

"Seven Days" Reading- Chapter 2

-p48 each student has set up camp. This is so true for me in a crit, having my own necessary means to focus. Everyone is listening and respectful to their classmates, but the room is full of activity of the individuals.
-The notion of falling apart in a crit as part of the process of learning is very true. Josh starts out not knowing exactly what he wants to say-He even starts to get tired and dejected from trying so hard to explain himself until he finally figures out what he wants to know about and gains a better grasp of what he is actually doing with his work when he can finally verbalize it.
-p54- Reminds me about our class conversation about whether work should speak for itself. Mary Kelly says "never go to a wall text...learn to read art for yourself."
-I agree that sometimes as an artist you don't know what you have done and other peoples comments help you understand your own work on a conscious level.
-p55- I think I need to learn to be put on the spot better so I don't get defensive- I want to do as Jones says " develop a thick skin and see criticism as rhetoric rather than personal attack."
-Notion of being critical of yourself not being harsh, but having a heightened awareness that allows you to not simply make everything cliche. Criticality is not a negative word.
-p 67 "have that mysterious blend of complete commitment to your decisions and total openness to reconsider everything." That should be our goal as artists.
-p72 beauty in art is sometimes found in the struggle to make it
-It is interesting that the author found the crit to be a piece of performance art in its own right

Chelsea Gallery Visits

The Andrea Rosen gallery showed Josiah McEiheny's work and I think what I liked best was the fact that his work (which was architectural) was laid out in a progression of prints, photos, and the sculpture that was very logical for viewing his work. It was like I was back in architecture school looking a a layout for a final crit. The entry room contained a few prints of sections and plans of a building as if it were the beginning stages of something to be built and then was followed by the main gallery room that contained his three dimensional works and some photos. The centerpiece was his eight foot skyscraper sculpture and then on the wall were related sculptures as if he had focused in on a detail of his main piece. The relationship of the prints, photos, and sculptures made it easy to move around the room. In a back room was another smaller show about using beautiful color to convey ugly images. For some reason a few of the pieces were hung bellow eye level and I didn't feel like there was a good reason for them to be.

At Robert Miller, Barthelemy Togou had too much going on in the one space. Though it was kind of separated into different rooms the photographs, video, watercolors, and installations was too much to take in. It was very obvious he was trying to make a political statement and too predictable that throughout all his media he was using the softness of some of his art like the drippy watercolors and installation to try to soften his hard and violent images.

Mitchell Innes & Nash showed Enoc Perez's very architectural paintings. The gallery had columns down the middle of it and instead of an obstruction I loved it. It focused me on sections of the wall. I leaned up against them and looked at each painting-I was really able to focus on the paintings as individuals and then step back and see them as a whole. The columns were like blinders if you so chose to step between them. Perez's style was loose, soft, and colorful, but it built incredibly detailed spaces. I recognized almost all the buildings. I really loved the palette too.

The Aperture Gallery was my favorite. I was surprised by the show which I figured were going to be "landscapes" as in rural country and yet they were urban and industrial-artificial landscapes. The scale of the photos was awesome to me and the way the gallery was set up with an inner and outer wall to revolve around made a clear path as to how to navigate the work. I liked that the images were grouped yet scattered. It was organized, but seemed free flowing.

The Luhring Augustine Gallery didn't interest me in terms of the work by Janine Antoni, but the space combined with the nature of the work was cool. The first room contained images, the second room had a video and sound, and the third room had images. The gallery was linked by long corridors between and without that sound in the middle gallery I don't think I would have been curious to continue.

I was glad to see so many shows having architecture- I felt like everything could help me with my paintings.

First Set of Reference Photos

Spent Sunday down in Little Italy on the last day of the San Gennaro festival and the night at my friends apartment in the Gramercy Park area. It was a total experiment with a new camera, but I really like the images. Took a bunch from the roof top of his apartment on 3rd ave and the rest are from Madison Square Park.

Annotated Image #1

Paul Jackson
"New York Nightlights"
40"x26"
Watercolor
February 2005

I love seeing watercolors that appear so controlled and detailed. I see in this the unique perspective and detail that I want to use in my paintings. The extreme overhead perspective that tips the buildings outward add to the rushing effect.

Where to Start

For the first week of painting we had to bring in our most recent paintings to talk about. Hanneline also had us outline really concrete goals for the semester. I always find it weird to talk about my own work and what I see myself doing.

In painting I mostly enjoy the formal aspects over having goals of conveying a concept. I am mostly interested in light and contrast and what layering or leaving parts of the ground exposed does to the painting. I also like the idea of intricate patterns and highly detailed subjects. I break down images into shapes or maps of color rather than seeing it as the “subject.” The subject is built by layers of color-playing with different transparencies. I like painting to be a logical step by step breakdown that is very controlled. I like exactness.

Before this painting that "subject" has usually been my horse. I can render with paint pretty much anything photorealistically so it was always just a matter of what am I that interested in or in love with that I could paint it over and over again. But after last semester I was getting really unhappy with my paintings. They were going in an abstract direction where I was focusing too much on "what am I trying to say with this." I was trying too hard to make a concept when in fact I really just like to paint what I see and like. As soon as I let go of that I felt like I realized that the concept comes out of me doing what I do best- it can't be forced.

With this painting came a lot of experimentation, but it also just came down to me approaching it the way I used to when it was Painting I and we received basic assignments on what to paint. I painted what I saw. I created the image from other images and my own photographs with the help of a friend. And then I copied it in Cezannes manner of breaking down everything into shapes of color. The picture came apart as I zoomed in and focused on small areas. Things don't get identified by what they are but by the amount of light and the shade of color on them. I literally made myself maps of one color at a time and overlayed them. Focusing on all those shapes in turn made the big picture into something more than what I started with.

New York City happened to be my choice of subject because I was painting it with a person in mind to give it to, but the subject matter works with my ideas nonetheless. NYC is fast, its complicated. The people I know and the experiences I have there make me connected to it and its energy. I like getting into the details of it and although it is populr subject matter I feel I approach it in a way all my own. It's my picture of the city and the lights. It's me in a place I never thought I'd be and finding out that it looks much different than I expected.

That has been a theme in my life in a way anyway. Thinking I know the big picture, diving head first into the details, only to find I had no idea what the picture looked like in the first place. So I'm starting with what I know and we will see where it goes.

Alex Bag Video

Humorous and crazy scenes aside, I found the video a little sad. "Alex Bag" begins her first semester totally excited-she likes being understood by others, she likes her environment, she even likes just learning about texture, light, and shading- she is ready to work hard because she feels like she found where she belongs. But her initial excitement seems to only bring her farther to fall in her disappointment. She expresses what I think drives a lot of art students- "I just want to do what I want." She did have the chance to do whatever she wanted- and she ended up becoming admitedly like everyone else...

New Museum Visit

It still never ceases to amaze me how it can take all day to do very little in the city. I spent my Saturday morning at the MOMA for painting class looking at the James Ensor exhibit that is coming down soon and the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening at the New Museum and one gallery on the lower east side. I never even got to Chelsea to look at any of the shows at those galleries on my list.

I had never been to the New Museum before. I really liked the building itself, especially the top floor with the sky room that looks over the south end of the city toward the financial district, brooklyn bridge, and what would have been the world trade center towers (I thought of that particularly, it being the day after 9/11 and all). I could have went to the museum just for the view and was disappointed I hadn't brought my camera. I've been painting the city as sort of a new subject lately, so I'll have to go back to get some reference photos. That may end up being the focus of my paintings for my thesis exhibition- I still am caught between atleast 3 ideas...

Thinking about photography and going down to the next floor with David Goldblatt's photos couldn't have been more perfect. I read about his experience in South Africa and how he was trying to deal with time and how apartheid had touched the lives of the people there. His photographs were really breathtaking-especially the landscapes. Even more amazing was his attention to detail. One photo took your eye over grass hills in the foreground meeting a line of shack houses before rushing onward to rising mountains. The shambled houses are almost blended into the landscape as if they are at the heart of South Africa's past and would live on there. Another was of two huge grassy hills connected by an arched bridge. Very small compared to the landscape was a tiny person bungee jumping off the bridge. It was totally unexpected. His photographs definitely felt timeless. I'm not sure if it was his use of strong contrast in light and shadow, or his almost aerial perspective on the landscapes, but something about them escaped time. I don't know that much about photography, but his technique seemed to pull you right into the photographs.

Emory Douglass on the next floor was completely different. His very graphic caricatures were vibrant and shocking. The very illustrative linear cartoon like drawings made the Black Panther propaganda almost seem like a kids coloring book. They were simple and easy to understand.

The last show I saw was at James Fuentes gallery which is a bunch of blocks south of the New Museum. Jessica Dickinson, who is Marc Handelman's wife, who I had for painting last semester, had her first show. Our class had seen her paintings in studio last semester so it was neat to see them finished and in New York! Her paintings are built of layers of different patterns and shapes. From a distance they just seem like nice abstract paintings, but up close you can see the intenseness that went into building it up, sanding it down and altering each layer. You can also see that she is informed from some everyday objects like windows or patterns in nature like wood grain, so it gives it somewhat of a subject, but not really. There is a lot of physicality to the paint and therefore gives it a feeling that the time it took to create each painting is somewhat tangible. She is someone who knows a lot about the process you go through to really figure out what you like doing and experimenting with in your work.