I went to a few openings tonight – maybe 4 or 5 in the same building – the show I did want to see was Doug Safranek at the ACA Gallery in Chelsea.

All the work at the ACA Gallery was in Egg Tempera – and I have to say, Doug Safranek’s paintings were fantastic.  I spoke briefly with the artist.  For one thing, his show was well attended; many people came, many friends of his, but also people like me who know nothing about Doug Safranek.

I spent about 30-40 minutes looking at the entire collection – there was so much detail in each painting – l don’t know that it’s possible to get any more detail in a painting than what Doug Safranek puts in …it must take him close to a year to do one painting – and he does, maybe, 3 or 4 a year, similar to what Joe Coleman puts out.

There’s so much detail – you can get lost in it – and yet – what strikes me is the feeling of what these images remind me of.  I grew up in NYC, but even if you did not grow up here …the images, the details work on your mind, your emotion.

The reason these paintings work for me is the emotion behind them – perhaps less detail might have worked just as well or even better for me- and I did not care for the framing – I don’t know what would work better – I just don’t like the way most of the paintings are framed.

 

At this level, a photo would have done just as well – if it was just about detail. Again, the reason the paintings work for me – it’s the feelings he put in – while he worked on the details – the love of the craft, the love of the image – that’s what I get out Doug Safranek’s work.

I tried to understand why someone would spend this long on one painting.  I can understand Joe Coleman doing it – because he’s painting his ideas and memories – but why paint something go to such detail when a photo would do just as well?

But then I look at each detail and the feelings that this artist felt, unfolds to me – and I’m totally fine – it’s great work. 

And then I looked at some of the other work in the gallery that was not his and I saw that less detail would have worked just as well.  The Egg Tempera technique is hard enough – takes very long time and a lot of extra effort to produce these kinds of results.  In 100 years, these paintings won’t even look like they aged, Egg Tempera holds up very well over time.

So, I’d suggest going to see Doug Safranek at the ACA Gallery. 

I can’t say that if I owned a Safranek ….I’d look at it over and over …that’s usually what I look for in work I think is good.  I think I looked at each of the paintings for a couple of minutes each – and I found detail after detail facinating…but I don’t know how his work holds up over time – would I still like it as much if it was handing on my wall for a month or two.  I’m not sure.   I think he could have dropped much of the ultra detailing he seems to delight in and still held everyone’s interest – but that’s just my opinion.

I went back to hear Joe Coleman talk, at the Tilton Gallery today, about his art because I did not see him or his wife at the show opening last Thursday. I also went so I could talk with him, introduce myself and see what else I could learn.  I did speak with him and his wife Whitney for a couple of minutes each.

When I interview people, I don’t take notes – they don’t help much; I’d rather concentrate on what is being said and write down what’s meaningful to me later. This is going to be a long post (or maybe I will break it up to 2 posts).

 

When I arrived at the Tilton Gallery and went to the second floor it was packed with about 150 people who came before me.  Here’s what I recall and when I make a comment, I’ll indent.

Joe Coleman does not plan what he’s going to paint ahead of time – he finds the center of each painting and works out, inch by inch.  What he paints is what comes to him, what appears in his mind.  In fact, he sees what he paints as “ideas fighting for his attention”.  Everything that’s in his painting fights to arrive in his consciousness, and then he’ll paint it.  His process is “passive“ - he views himself as an instrument, a channel for these ideas and feelings to work themselves out though his painting – including those ideas that come to him about his subject as he paints.

Comment: I believe artists of my generation, born in the 1950′s (I’m roughly the same age as Joe) have the ability to “tune in”, or “channel” levels of reality (it sounds kinda mystical – and that’s what it is).  About the same time Television arrived in every household – people began to “tune in”, zone out, space out, and receive input - both to TV and to their feelings.  The “input” comes from all levels of being including the spiritual realm, the ego and from repressed feelings.

There’s a natural inclination to let the spirit and ego forces “tell us” what to paint and “how to paint it”, the artist becomes a passive medium for those feelings.

I feel Joe Coleman approaches his work in this way based on what I heard.  

Coleman mentioned he does what he does because he has to – people can call it all kinds of things, he does not care, he still feels he does what he has to, and he has mentioned he did some crazy things as he had feelings he had to express.  One of those “crazy” thing in was working on a corpse in Budapest, under the supervision of a doctor, to look for the soul in the corpse.  He did not find the soul.  Joe also talked about his movies and performances as being outreach work (and having done some crazy things on screen as well) while his paintings are more private, something you must enter into.

Joe Coleman is proud of being in a exhibition with Peter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch, James Ensor (all were artistic influences).  From his Timeline Link: (in 1987 Exhibition at Chronocide sells out. Victoria and Albert Museum curator David Owsley buys a piece and hangs it next to a Breughel in his collection. Other shows at New York Academy of Art, NY Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle).

Anaphylactic shock is a  health problem that Joe Coleman has experienced a number of times and one of his paintings (I also wrote about this painting the other day, “I am Joe’s Fear of Disease, painted in 2001) is all about an experience he had with Anaphylactic Shock that sent him to a Brooklyn Hospital a couple of years ago.  Whitney, Joe’s wife, told me how Joe was on the way to the hospital, begining to go into anaphylactic shock, which can be fatal, yet wanting to focus on some detail, an orange light, something for his painting.   No one seems to know for sure what causes Anaphylactic shock, and they are of the opinion it may be an allergic reaction. 

The painting (Joe’s Fear of Disease) is mounted to a hospital gown he wore when he was being admitted/treated at the hospital.  This relates to his need/love for totems. Some of his or Whitney’s blood is also contained in the painting (I’m not sure if it’s his or hers) as is his wrist band identifier and hospital card.  The online link to a detailed imagemap of this painting is available at http://www.joecoleman.com/gallery/fear/fear.html

For the rest of Joe Coleman’s talk, see part 2.

One of the fanciest art openings I have attended, one that Amy Crehore suggested I attend (and who I dragged my son to), Joe Coleman’s opening at the Tilton Gallery - was more of a “Star” event than an art opening.  In fact, the Tilton Gallery seems to be more of a Joe Coleman Museum – shown in darkened rooms with each painting highlighted so it seemed to pop out of the wall.  Nothing was left to chance for this opening – and it was well attended!

In the Realms of the Unreal (Henry Darger), 1998  Acrylic and Mixed Media on panel, 24 5/16″ x 30 5/15″

I took pictures, or had Adam take pictures for me, but the room was so dark, nothing much came out.  It was clear that Joe Coleman has “arrived” – and no doubt will be collected by every major museum – if he hasn’t already been.   Before I talk about Joe

Coleman’s work (I also wrote about Joe Coleman a couple of days ago in Joe Coleman Gets a Retrospective at the Tilton Gallery in Manhattan), here’s a couple more pictures.

   

I had my son take a picture of me against a couple of Coleman’s paintings that were suggestive of themes I can relate to like The Dream of Sigmund Freud (1993) and the Victory of Hell (1995) (above right photo); I believe that’s also the painting I am standing in next to, but it’s not that clear in the photo.

I also spotted Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ at Joe Coleman’s opening but did not get to speak to her – writing for ClickZ is by invitation only ….and I did not get my invite (yet).  I run into Rebecca at various Search Engine Strategies and also at the first Online Video Conference last June (where I also recorded a Podcast – for anyone who cares to listen – it’s here - you need iTunes to listen to it though). Maybe everyone can send Rebecca Lieb a note and tell her they’d read ClickZ if I wrote a column on Web Metrics for them…oh well, it’s ok to imagine.

Getting back to Joe Coleman’s opening – there were a lot of interesting people – the type of people that you might not see at an upper east side exclusive art gala opening…biker types, people with a lot of tattoos, a lot of attractive woman (that’s normal) in low cut dresses (maybe that’s normal too)!

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