Culture

I don’t have a good system set up for these one-time events on ArtCal yet, so here are some pointers for the weekend.

• Tom Moody will have a performance tomorrow night (Friday) as part of his show at artMoving. He says, “The event starts at 8 pm. I’ve adapted some music pieces for live playing, and I’ll be showing bigscreen versions of some of my videos. In between pieces I’ll be talking about drum machines and ‘visual artists invading music.’”

• Flux Factory is having a works on paper benefit on Saturday, 6-10pm.

• Shoshana Dentz will give a talk at Triple Candie at 3pm on her mural on the building’s facade on Sunday at 3pm.

May Wilson

Check out Hotel Chelsea Blog on May Wilson’s work in a group show at Pavel Zoubok. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetite.

Leaving her home, her husband, and her children in the suburbs of Maryland, May Wilson moved to New York in middle age to become an artist. She checked into the Chelsea (later living next door at the Carteret) and became a real American success story, teaching us by her heroic example that you’re never too old chuck it all and start over again; you’re never too old to live your dream.

We can now see May Wilson’s art for what it is: a radical rejection of the leave-it-to-Beaver motherhood and the manicured-lawn, two-car-garage, All American suburban nightmare. Babydolls and teddybears and toasters, knives and forks, keys and zippers: these are the objects that enslave you. And May Wilson enslaves them right back!

May Wilson was a woman ahead of her time, capturing the Zeitgeist of the present era in New York history. As the city becomes increasingly gentrified, she says to these parents and dogs owners: not everyone shares your devotion to these creatures and the way of life they represent. And for those of us who dissent from your dubious received wisdom, those of us who prefer art and books to dogs and babies, remember that New York is where we have come to escape.

Ed Alcock for The New York Times
While the Orangerie museum was rebuilt around them for six years, Monet’s waterlily paintings, too large to move, had to remain in place in the oval rooms built for them in 1927.

While reading about the renovated Musée de l’Orangerie and its Monet works in the New York Times today (yes we consume the dead tree version in our household), I spotted this in an adjacent column, regarding some movie about code and a certain renaissance painter:

To limit exposure in the age of blogs and constant leaks, both Sony and Mr. Grazer’s company, Imagine Entertainment, decided to forgo test screenings, a form of market research usually considered critical to fine-tuning a picture.

In the past, Mr. Howard has said he would be loath to release a film without it. In a 1998 interview with CNN about test screenings, he said: “What I would hate to do is put the movie out there, find out that the audience is confused about something or upset about something that you could have fixed, and go, ‘God, I had no idea they’d respond that way.’ “

I find this a brilliant example of the difference between Hollywood movies and art.

[image from the New York Times website]

Judy Glantzman
Untitled, 2004
Oil on canvas
90 × 80 inches
[installation and detail views]

We visited this show a couple of weeks ago, but I just now had time to write about it. We are lucky to have two small drawings by her.

I found it interesting that the press release talks about Bosch and Picabia. When I saw this painting, particularly the faces at the bottom, I thought of the use of skulls as necklaces in the Tibetan work I’ve seen recently at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Mandala (Center and Circumference)
Chakrasamvara
Central Tibet
1600 – 1699
54.61×44.45cm (21.50×17.50in)
Ground mineral pigment on cotton

This is a detail. I don’t know if the link will work for every browser, but here is the page for it.

The New York Times article on the opening of the museum explains the symbolism of the skulls:

SKULLS AND SEVERED HEADS — Lacking soil for graves or wood for funeral pyres, Tibetans practice sky burial: bodies are left on a charnel ground for vultures. Senior monks meditate there overnight, contemplating impermanence. Skull necklaces are tokens of struggle in the war with Mara, the demon king.

Related: James on the show.

[image of Mandala from the Rubin Museum’s web site]

The latest ArtInfo interview is with Zach Feuer, and he addresses the story we’ve all heard about requiring collectors to donate a work to a museum in order to get a Dana Schutz painting.

What’s the truth of the story that you would only sell Dana Shutz’s paintings to people who said they’d donate them to a museum?

No, that’s not true. We had one show where we gave priority to people who were willing to donate work. The idea was that as soon as they donated the work, we would replace it very quickly, so they could have another one. But when things were really crazy and there were 20 famous collectors pushing for the same work, we said, “OK, who’s going to give it to the museum?” and that was who we sold it to. We’ve done it with a few artists.

We want the work to be in public venues, and we don’t want it to be sold and resold a million times over, so we sell to people who are closer to patrons than to dealers. And there really a lot of those collectors out there, who are patrons.

The market pressures on artists really can be awkward, and the strongest artists ignore it completely, but it really sucks when two people want the same painting. It’s great for me because I can sell the painting, but it’s an awkward thing because one person always feels less important. It’s a big challenge for us to make every collector feel important and still be reasonable about the demands on our artists.

I also found the part about the gallery’s current focus interesting:

Does your artists’ success mean that you’re besieged by young artists wanting you to show their work?
 
It’s less than it was two years ago. It’s easier for young artists to approach an emerging gallery. I don’t think we’re as approachable as some of the galleries who’ve just opened up on 27th Street. And it’s actually less of my focus now. I’m not going to graduate school openings anymore or open studios. I’m really trying to focus on mid-career artists at this point, so it’s not so much of an issue.

Of course, I wouldn’t consider artists as young as his “mid-career” yet.

I’m amused that the photo shown with the interview seems to be from the same series as the ones used for Bill Arning’s interview on Oliver Kamm’s blog. That blog post‘s title? “Token Heterosexual Art World Superstar Bear Of The Week — Armory Edition.”

Related:

Jules de Balincourt, Land of Many Uses, 2003

We bought this Jules de Balincourt painting from Zach in 2003.

I’m happy that many people are fans of ArtCal, and the so-called value of “accuracy” is occasionally mentioned. ArtCal may have a mailing list now, but only Douglas Kelley brings writing like this to our inbox.

Here is Douglas on drugs, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Glenn O’Brien:

Glenn O’Brien, I believe, understood that The White Powder School is not
for most people, probably 99.9% of most people, however there are rare
individuals such as Keith Richards and Jean-Michel Basquait for whom
certain Schedule IV prescription pharmaceuticals, as well as the
traditionally universally contracinded in all cases contraband psycho
stimulants and depressants are indispensable essential commodities of
life like food, paint, canvas, or guitar strings. And history often
remembers these individuals by the great periods of their most extended
peak output wherein they so colossally dwarfed the production of anyone
else, certainly in quantity, but more importantly in supreme sublime
quality that all the slightly less talented are left scratching their
heads, wondering what were we doing all that time?

Jean-Michel Basquait: King of The White Powder School

If you ever meet an artist as talented as Jean-Michel Basquait with such
a chemical romance, just put the drugs under the door and leave the art
supplies in the hall, and come back in the morning and collect the art,
no questions asked. It’s highly unlikely that you ever will, so with
that understanding, always stay away from drugs kids and stay in school!