Waves
Posted: June 27, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Private Collections | Tags: art, art blog, arts, Edo, Katsushika Hokusai, life, Maggi Hambling, orgasm, sea, sex, waves 10 CommentsYou will be tossed. Which way would you like it?
Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa from “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”; 1823-29, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Hmmm. . . big fan of the Japanese version, tense. Heroic. But my vote’s for Hambling’s fearsome sensuality. No explanation needed on this one friends – you are on your own.
Maggi Hambling, Rising wave, 2009 © Maggi Hambling
I am the shifting shingle you approach with stealth
then in the dark moons of you curves I am tossed, lost, displaced with greedy lover’s tongues and lips
You suck me in and in again we rise together, we rise together, then float safe on liquid breasts until the dance begins again and you thrust deep and my resistance is low
dissolve, dissolve
no defence against your relentless advance
I am but a ghost of the shore disappeared in you
Hambling, 2008
Optic
Posted: June 15, 2012 Filed under: Museums, Private Collections | Tags: art, art blog, arts, East meets West, landscapes, landscapes in the chinese style, Philosopher, pop art, Roy Lichtenstein, song dynasty, surprise 2 Comments
Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape with Philosopher, 1996
Surprise! Near the end of his career, Lichtenstein turned his dots to breathtaking use in a series inspired by works from the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Several are on display now at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of a sweeping retrospective.
He abandons his traditional primary colors in favor of a sky blue palette. Transforms his flat graphic style to meditate on depth, distance and the illusion of spaciousness. Eternity floating before our eyes.
Stripped down, the tight pixel pattern harmonizes with the spare eastern aesthetic. The graduated dots, fifteen different sizes, create scale and distance. With the tiny orange philosopher as the only figure to give us a non-dot reference.
Clouds, mountains and plunging gorges implied with staccato points. Forces your eye to connect them, read in between them. Merge the black space; eliminate the white space. Feel the tension between form and formlessness.
I enjoy the knurling tree, floating rootless, just as much as the orange seed speck of a philosopher. I wonder if together we contemplate his smallness and impermanence in the face of epic mother nature. Maybe that craggy mountain holds both our fates.
Hoopla
Posted: June 10, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Private Collections | Tags: art, art blog, arts, Austin artists, contemporary art, hooping, hula hoop, I hate Mondays, inspiration, Judy Paul, life, slinky, Twins 1, women artists 4 Comments
Judy Paul, Twins 1 © Judy Paul
Today’s not a day for arm-chair metaphysics. It’s a Monday. Let’s not contemplate the imminent demise of abstract art’s possibilities. “Happy” is a fine and dandy reason for a brush to tickle a canvas too. So I dub Judy Paul Queen Monday because of slinkies, hula hoops and spiral thinking.
I spent a heated Saturday unraveling a ten-inch rainbow slinky my son bought with tickets from Chuck-E-Cheese’s. Like the excruciating division of Siamese twins. I overtook shambles of cork-screwy plastic with only the panic in his eyes to keep me going. In the end, the tangles surrendered, but the slinky now slinks a wonky lop-sided gait. A sproingy architecture piece twisted on my desk. So I get nervous for this painting. I want to tell it not to get uptight, ’cause if it gets tangled, well it won’t be pretty.
I’ve told you before that I yearly panic because I missed the 60’s in America. Free love, bra burning and Bob Dylan–teenage troubadour. But I found peace, love and happiness in a handmade hula hoop I bought at the local farmers market as Booker T & the MG’s spun the turntable. You catch a freewheelin’ fun vibe when you’re hoopin’. And you can catch it from these loop-d-loops too.
And the joy of chasing your mental tail. The going round and round the same synaptic cycles in your mind. The same triggers, the same feedback loops. A hypnotic ever-circling. I want to tell this painting to snap out of it and move on. But it is moving isn’t it ? Not sure which direction.
Maybe it’ll take a lop-sided slinking or a hula-hoop shimmy, but I trust you’ll get where you’re going. Rock the round robin as you find your way.
Bigger Splash
Posted: June 6, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Private Collections | Tags: art, art blog, arts, California art, contemporary art, David Hockney, modern art, perspective, pool, splash, swim Leave a comment
California Dreamin.’ No people here, though. Only smooth linearity and cool contrasts. If it weren’t for the live-edge, vivid color I’d turn away from these surgical lines. But there’s a mystery here so I’ll bite.
Sink down, down through the linear elements. The flat turquoise sky, faintly lined. The terracotta boxed house. The tan expanse of pool deck. The aquamarine pool. All stack on top of each other, neat blocks with no beginning or end. The right and left sides of the canvas push out infinite edges. Lest all this eternity disturb us, Hockney adds two vertical palms with quirky feathered tops. Rests our eyes. Another bristled stretch of grass to soften the lines. I notice the director’s chair, a silent judge sitting. A clue.
Everything static still. Listen to the heavy heat breathing and the cicadas’ distant chatter. A yellow diving board slices diagonally through the water and something careens off, diving or cannonballing. A big, big splash. A very large person or a not-person?
Watch the scale of the splash. It’s quite high, as high as the house or higher even. It appears larger because it’s closer to us and the house smaller because it’s farther away. But Hockney is playing with perspective. He intentionally flattened it out with the linear elements, but now baits our depth perception with this gigantic splash.
The chair is sooo small, so far away. The splash, tsumnamic in proportion. Is the splash so close to us? Then pool and deck must be very long indeed. Yet they appear too thin in terms of width and we don’t seem close enough to the splash to get soaked. Terrible Hockney to tease us so.
I’m working up a sweat; my toes curl around the pool’s edge. I’m gonna make a wave myself. Geronimo!
Splash
Posted: June 4, 2012 Filed under: Museums, Private Collections | Tags: Alex Katz, art, art blog, arts, Bathers, bathing suit, Eleuthera, friendship, life, pool, relationships, swim 2 Comments
Alex Katz, Eleuthera (1984). Private Collection, Courtesy Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid
© Alex Katz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Sleek caps, bathing suits that suit to a tee. Gives me pause, tells me to cast a wary eye. Vibrating-colored gals ready to splash, but smiles have evaporated (except Miss Peach Fest Queen, 1989). Why? The dissonance is killing me. Here’s a 20 second soap for each pair.
First panel
Red swimsuit– athlete. Good too. Placed in last year’s local Danskin triathalon. Her friend, Green, clasps anxious hands. Red talked her into doing this year’s race and she’s afraid she’s not up to snuff. (But it’s on her bucket list) Worried Red won’t win because she’ll slow her down. A forever slow poke.
Second panel
Leave it to grinning Ms Peachy Queen 1989 to strike a nail-perfect pose, as average mom Jan looks away. How can she compete? A scoreboard ticky-tack tallies in both of their heads. Jan’s kids are smarter; husband drinks less. Peachy Queen’s girls have more tiaras; her husband’s a golf pro. Both uncertain winners in an unquiet friendship, silently nitpicking. Always game on.
Third panel
Mean girl in red hat does not like what she is seeing. At all. Hayley, that slut, sitting on her soon-to-be ex’s lap. Blue holds her by the shoulders, pulling her back. Warns her to not do something she’ll regret. But she’s going to tell them off come hell or high water. What’s a little mosquito like regret to stand in the way of her lips ablaze?
Fourth panel
Mother and daughter. Sadness stares out from the black suit. Seems she faces something unfaceable. Her daughter embraces her, an attempt to protect her from the whittling tides of illness and grief. She looks away, her eyes out searching — over the water for hope’s little horizon.
Alex Katz himself – see these at the Tate St. Ives right now
Can’t beet that
Posted: May 31, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Private Collections | Tags: art, arts, Austistic savant, automobiles, beets, cars, classic cars, collecting, collections, cooking, food, Garde Rail Gallery, Gregory Blackstock, life, outsider art 3 Comments
Gregory Blackstock, Automobile Classics, 2011 Garde Rail Gallery Austin, TX
Got a fav up there? Which car did you lose your virginity in the back seat of? (Or wish you did) These come to us courtesy of outsider artist Gregory Blackstock whose title for 25 1/2 years was “dishwasher.” (my title most of the time too) I can’t draw as well, but we both share a love for lists. His meticulous hand draws and colors lists with a verve that engages the white-hot desire of collecting.
Remember those childhood collections? Lined up rows of matchbox cars, funny shaped rocks or sandy shells bouncing around in my pocket. Sacred-sleeved baseball cards revealed only to best friends or that cute neighbor girl. My sister’s candy cigarette stash. Ah the devotion.
We have adult-sized shoe boxes now. Collections give us a crystalline goal. The luxury of being utterly unique. No one else has a matryoshka doll gathering like mine. Or a stack of LP’s quite as eclectic. I set loose my inner Lewis and Clark to find worthy additions, nose to the ground. When I score one, I hold a dream fulfilled right in my hot little hands. Can’t beat that.
Speaking of beets. Here’s a sweet bevy. Love their invigorating roundness. Bulbous planets of vibrating color, crowded together, yet precise-perfect. Stubby-hair heads look like gap-toothed grins. A taxonomic chart with soul– not so taxing.
I like the name of the first beet. Early Wonder. And that’s what Blackstock does for us doesn’t he? Encourages us wriggle our fingers down deep, past the adult-worried flotsam, to discover again our early wonder. And draw it out, silver shining.
Gregory Blackstock, The Beets. Garde Rail Gallery Austin, TX
Currently on display at STAG on South Congress. Austin, TX
Outsiders
Posted: May 29, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Private Collections | Tags: art, arts, embriodery, flowers, life, outsider art, quilt, Sarah Jane Perkins, style Leave a comment
Sarah Jane Perkins untitled 13, Guarde-rail Gallery, Austin Texas
Outsider art. I just learned the term the other day. These self-taught artists boast no formal training. One branch of this gutsy tree is “folk art.” Fresh, approachable and without pretense. In a word – charming.
The formal art world shuns them and you won’t see their work in museums (yet). Some are autistic, some finished school at 7th grade, most are normal people like you and me. They work in paint, embroidery, and old mop handles. The fine art establishment doesn’t know what to do with them. But we do.
We love their boisterous individualism, deep roots and “connectedness.” We admire the moxy with which they occupy their their garages, kitchen tables and backyards, just making art.
When I saw this it reminded me of Swedish embroidery. I thought “fresh” and “cozy.” I smell the cut grass, and hear bees buzzing. The green turquoise line and simple flower symmetries dissolve my anxiety mountain of post holiday to-do’s. Cheers me up. Simplifies happy. I found out through later research that this was drawing for a quilt Ms. Perkins planned. So “cozy” works too. .
igetitart 