Just thinking about Jean Baptiste Greuze “Aegina Visted by Jupiter” here at Metropolitan.

Aegina is unfinished, and I like it that way, better.

How much good painting and natural feeling gets covered up by trying to paint to please someone else, like the French Royal Academy.

And how lucky we are, Greuze never finished this painting.

What more did it need?

I went to briefly see Other Certainties, curated by Summer Guthery and Amy Owen at NYCAMS, Friday night – felt really disconnected from the crowd, there wasn’t any wine being served and I decided 5 minutes was enough.

My basic issue with a lot of what I see in contemporary art – is “who cares”?  “Why is this relevent”? and “Do I want to spend any of my precious time to figure it out”?

My feeling, and this is a problem for Painting, perhaps more than other art forms, that the deep probing analysis that lends it self to visual art, that a painting reveals itself gradually, over time, is at a distinct disadvantage in an age where your attention, your time, is the the most important thing you have.

I attended OMMA Global this week in New York and found a panel I listened to interesting, if not for the paradox it presented -OMMA day 2 – Marketer’s Dilemma: finding and managing digital resources where I noted that:

Here’s the paradoxical issue, but it was not voiced, that all brands want “undivided” attention, while people are now “multi-tasking” and doing a few things at once.

Painting demands undivided attention – but are we ready to give it anymore?  Can we?  Do we have a right to ask for undivided attention as artists when everyone is being hit with more and more messaging, which gets better are more subtle, all the time?

I think, the answer is no.   Most of the time, the only attention a work can get is shock value – and that wears off.   I think the point is if something is “arresting” and worthy of enough people’s attention, they will want to focus in and pay attention to it.

But everything I saw at the Other Certainties opening wasn’t worthy of my attention – and just because someone creates a work of art, doesn’t mean that we are obliged to view it.

By the way, there’s a Van Gogh exhibition at MOMA that is worth seeing – and I’ll make it over sometime during the next month.

It wasn’t even clear they were considered good work at the time.

Haven’t been to a good Art Opening in a few months, but tonight I was at a really great opening at Jack Pelican’s in Williamsburg of Arthur Cohen’s paintings.

Enjoyed looking at these works, and believe me, it was strange seeing the Monks at the opening, it was almost as if the Sacred and Profane were partying together.

I spoke with Arthur Cohen for a couple of minutes and found out the paintings of the Monks were the most recent, the paintings of himself on the ropes came a year or so earlier.   I liked what I saw and, also, Arthur seemed as if he had no “ego” about his work, at all – which is refreshing.

A student of his told me Arthur Cohen teaches at Queens College – and many of his students came to the opening.    If you want to see more, check out my video, below

I waited for Amy Crehore to review the movie I made last week at her opening and decided not to post it online till now (though it was up on YouTube since last Saturday, I simply didn’t tell anyone about it).  I brought a friend, Nancy, with me and met many of Amy’s friends and admirers of her art.

Here’s the movie

Amy Crehore also put some photos of the opening on her blog in a post titled Photos of the NYC Show.

And that reminds, me, I’ll have to go soon and pick up my two paintings that are still hanging at Heart And Soul in Williamsburg since early May.

It was nice meeting Amy Crehore last week, I got to spend 3 hours with her in a diner in Chelsea, just talking – we’d known each other virtually for a few years, but hadn’t met till then – and then I saw her at her opening two days later.   I hoped to go with her to a museum while she was here – I’m sure that’ll happen next time she visits – hopefully for another show.

I was glad Amy Crehore had a show here in New York for a change, most of her stuff shows in Santa Monica, Los Angeles or Las Vegas – but that’s a whole different art scene and I believe the Art World is a lot more real and substantial here in New York – I know that’s an opiniated point of view – but I bet a lot of artists, writers and art critics would agree with me.