I did not have time on Friday night to write up the private opening I stumbled upon at Kinz, tillou+Feigen of Kim Keever, Graham Parks and Eugene Von Bruenchenhein’s works.  Too bad I had dinner, they were serving food and wine at the opening.

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein was a self taught Milwaukee artist who died unknown and was discovered by a collector (that’s a collector’s dream -  buy low, sell high).

 

These paintings, similar to the one pictured above, were always done in one sitting, something I can totally relate to, and in fact, Picasso often did his later work in one sitting and dated it, much as Von Bruenchenhein did.   For me, however, as much as these works of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein look impressive – they lacked the “spark” of creativity that I look for. 

I’m not saying Burenchenhein’s work is bad, it’s certainly collectible and deserves to be, but the man was not discovered, partly because he was not attracting attention with is art, and that tells you something, right there.  it’s hard to find an artist who can really be that invisible in their life as Bruenchenhein appears to have been.  Sad, but, that’s how it is.  I’m glad, at least, he had a wife and did not die, entirely, alone.  Perhaps his life was more than his art.

“…In 1939 Von Bruenchenhein met Eveline Kalke, “Marie,” at a state fair in Wisconsin, and they were married in 1943. Marie was his muse, and they collaborated in staging hundreds of passionate and provocative, yet playful and loving, pinup-like photographs and slides of Marie. Costumed in drapery, bikinis, stockings and heavy heels, and adorned in swags of multiple pearl necklaces and homemade tin crowns, she posed seminude in front of chenille bedspreads and floral patterned backdrops. Von Bruenchenhein’s resourcefulness played a central part in both the assembling and the effect: a luxurious setting fashioned from five-and-dime supplies. Their relationship found a sort of sideshow glamour in his carefully considered, and often erotic photographs. These intimate vignettes exemplify a subject/object dynamic, where Marie is immortalized while he occupied the part of voyeur. When seen together as a series, her response to his approach becomes a visual narrative. Acting as a model, and taking on the roles of goddess, queen, star, seductress and ingénue, she explores her own place in this work, often defining the look of an image through a glance or a smile.”

So the man had a life, a wife, and it sounds like, obscurity, which might have been a blessing, actually.

Graham Parks print like paintings are pretty interesting – I spent a couple of minutes studying them while enjoying the red wine I was served after coming out of the cold, windy January night.   Parks has another problem, potentially, a great artist – but he does not push his work as far as it could go. Park’s work is based on Photography but ends up being more like printmaking and painting.

I found that in work after work, something interesting – I wanted to see him carry it (his vision) futher – to “realize the vision” – but he does not go there.  Will he?  Only time will tell.

Kim Keever’s large photographs were probably the most satisfying works I saw in the Kinz, tillou+Feigen gallery that night.  Right now, Keever’s work is both the most successful artistically and from a marketing standpoint, of the three artists. The process of Kim Keever is fascinating.

“… He creates his panoramic universes and controls their fictitious environments by constructing miniature topographies out of materials such as plaster and reflective Mylar in a 100-gallon aquarium, which is then filled with water. The desolate dream-like dioramas are brought to life with colored lights and the dispersal of pigment, producing ephemeral atmospheres that he must quickly capture with his large-format camera.

…….he symbolic qualities he achieves result from his understanding of the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to us. Rather than presenting a factual reality, Keever fabricates an illusion to conjure the realms of our imagination.”

This is pretty cool stuff – and it reminds me of my conversation with David Spivak of Focus Magazine on Friday.  David reminded me of just powerful Photography is now, and I realized how ignorant I am of most of the major Photographers, where great prints are more marketable, in a way, than great paintings. 

I’ll be covering Focus Magazine in another post - but I just wanted to mention David’s magazine is one of the foremost Photography Magazines, and is hosting an event I’ll be attending later on this year called NYFOCUS, on October 18-21st at Pier 94 in NYC. 

NYFOCUS, from what David described, is going to be a big, big event – one you’ll not want to miss, if your in NYC, or coming to NYC at the time of the opening.