First, I went to the Brooklyn Artists Gym where I spoke to some artists and looked at my work; it was not well lit and I had Peter put a spotlight on it – painting that’s not well lit won’t present itself as well.  I insist on good lighting – and hopefully, good placement.

But I also felt sad tonight – and I had to express it – so I painted another Oil Pastel Sketch.  It’s hard to explain – and it’s what led me to paint again.

 

A couple of thoughts – all my fellow artists – and other artists, in their own studios, had their work on display tonight and Sunday – and probably longer after that.  My work, each done in one sitting – using Acrylic – looks raw.  I mean….I’m wondering when I’ll be ready, or willing to commit more than one sitting to any one painting – as there’s only so far an artist can go in one sitting.   In my case, the oil pastel sketch was done in a little over an hour.   I’m so aware of my limitations – my impatience, the problems I have with detail – of not even being sure I want to paint the details.

And then, I think about the people looking at my painting and I feel the burden … do they like my work?  Suddenly I’m glad I don’t make my living as an artist, that I don’t count on people liking and buying my work….how hard that would be.

While I was depressed by something else – the matter of who was looking at my work and what they thought, what I thought, depressed still more.

It’s as if, I got over my fear of showing my work – coming this far in the last 6 months – from not having painted in over 10 years before what forced me to begin again, this spring – only to realise I’m really at the beginning – all over again.

The only thing I’ve got – is the knowledge and good sence to know who I am – and what is me and what is not me.  My work no longer looks like anyone else’s – it comes out of me, for better or worse.

Another thought – it’s easy to like paintings that look closer to a visual representation (person, still life, landscape) – the closer a painting is to common visual language – the easier time viewers have relating to it.  On the other hand, the more common the visual language, the more easy it is to dismiss the work (because it approaches a photograph).  People tend to admire the skill of representation – but the best artists hid many abstract qualities within the visual representation (ie: a portrait) – no doubt – visual representation is also limiting.

In my painting, above, I’m struggling both with my sadness – which feels profound, and the medium itself. I simply do not want to focus on details – yet I feel I should.

Also ran into 2 new friends, Matthew and Nichelle at BAG, they were taking a tour of the galleries in the building.  The two middle photos are of LemurPlex, a new Robotics, Electronics training lab in Brooklyn, a couple of blocks from BAG.

  

 

The last photo on the right is at BAG, it’s sorta a party to go along with the art opening.

And finally, what are they studying at the LemurPlex?
Saturday and Sunday, October 21st and 22nd, 12:00PM-6:00PM

Physical Computing Intensive using MidiTron:

Intro to Electronics and Interfacing Sensors, Lights and Robotics

Have you ever wondered how to play music by moving your hands or trigger video clips with the blink of an eye? In one weekend, you will learn how to do this through tutorials in basic electronics, MAX/MSP/Jitter programming, sensor building, lights, robotics, and interactive design using the Miditron (a sensor and robotic interface device). You will learn these techniques hands-on by building mini-projects and ideas of your own design. This is of interest to Artists, Musicians, Dancers, Actors, Engineers, Programmers, Lighting, Sound and Graphic Designers, and others.

You will have the opportunity to design sensor-based projects using MidiTron. You will learn basic electronics, MIDI, and programming in order to implement your projects. You will learn how to incorporate basic circuits into your projects and art. Subjects covered will include electronic components, symbols and schematics, electricity flow, making connections, testing, and troubleshooting. Programming using MAX/MSP/Jitter will also be taught so that you can control sound and visuals through the computer. Through guided tutorials and critiques, we will explore technical and aesthetic issues regarding their projects. In addition, prior art will be discussed for inspiration and analysis. No previous knowledge of electronics, sensors, or programming is assumed.

Sounds really interesting …. I’m not sure it’s the couse I’d take now – yet there are ideas that I could execute better on a computer/electronics medium – like showing my life as a web page (ie: like the home page of a big corporation – but it’s all about me – did a sketch of that a couple of weeks ago – but I’m not sure how I’ll execute yet – all these ideas require more than one sitting and I’m not sure I’m ready for this yet – we’ll see).

Time to go to be, or try to.

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.

One of the few paintings I own that I did when I lived in the East Village in 1987-1989, before moving to Brooklyn. I was subletting an apartment on E10th Street and 2nd Avenue for a year after returning from a summer painting at the Vermont Studio School (or whatever it’s called now – I knew one of the founders from another life). The painting is After The Bath, it’s large, around 5ft long by 4ft wide, oil on canvas.

Last night, as I worked on my study of the door at the Brooklyn Artist Gym I thought about this painting – all the mini paintings that I did right … things I left alone - the parts that I could not intergrate into one – into my life then. I could not accept my touch, my approach, my vision, was good enough – I kept trying to make it better. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that – except that extra work I put in did not, often, make the painting better.

I am standing back, right now, and honoring what I did right here (and you can click on each picture to blow it up more).

When I painted the orange bottle, shown in the left picture, I saw a flash of light – pure energy – it was sometime early in the morning one day – I remember the flash (hopefully not an optical issue) and said – let it be – the elementals told me to leave it this way ….I will leave it. Also, the light blue coke bottle – similar thing – a light being, an elemental appeared to me, jumping out of my paint brush and into the painting, I said ….let it be. Is it finished enough? The elementals had spoken, I let it be.

At the time I was looking at Velazquez (esp the Maids of Honor - one of Velazquez’s most famous paintings) and Delacroix, more for his Journal, which I read several times (that’s whole other story that I won’t go into here – I suppose the painting I might most have in mind would be The Algerian Women in Their Apartments). The woman, at that time, was my girl friend, Maxine, who I no longer know.

At that time, I let the elementals guide my painting – I put myself in a passive role, but was often “stuck”. I had not yet worked out that it’s ok not be guided by elementals – not everything needs to be “inspired” or dictated from some voice or source that appears outside of me or inside my head.

Even as I look at my pictures – that I tried my best to balance for color and sharpness to match the painting, next to me, I see the elementals – sometimes popping out of the picture. At the time, I believed paintings could serve as a “doorway” between the elemental world, and this one – but if was the fusion with this reality that made the painting real, authentic.

Here’s some more parts of the painting, After the Bath, that I painted in 1988. Perhaps all this “parts” of the work are better than the whole – and now, when I paint, I just do the sections (I honor what I did right … here).

There’s more, but I can’t fit it into one post. Anyway – I feel this work has a “sound” much like what Fred Stonehouse mentioned he’s after. Also, was thinking about Joe Coleman, with the passivity he uses to let ideas flow into his head – and that’s what he paints.

Now it’s time to finish up packing for the EMetrics Summit - I have a train to catch to Washington DC.

Just some photos of my work – it was hung up as I was leaving Brooklyn Artists Gym last night. I had a beer with Peter Wallece and two friends of his – I think he was planning to be at it all night.

What people need, what Peter needs, is about double the number of artists to join and some investment money to expand. I hope he gets it soon.

I’m going to have a work exhibited in the A.G.A.S.T. Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour on the weekend of October 21st – 22nd – it’s my “Segmented Life” Self Portrait I painted earlier this summer. I had to come down to BAG today to make sure my work would be exhibited. And here I am as I sit infront of my laptop, which I had to bring along today.

But I managed to do a sketch today – I had the burning feeling I needed to…. and I’ll bring my crayons with me to Washington DC where I’ll be covering the EMetrics Summit for my WebMetricsGuru.com blog as well as meeting up with several of my web metrics analyst coworkers from IBM.

And here’s the sketch, and then I’ll let you in on some thoughts about it.

Things “come to me” as I paint. I see myself – ways that I express myself in color and let them be expressed – I’m creating a painting, not copying nature.

On the wall to my upper left hangs one of my nude study sketches, next to some other works. I like my own stuff better – but I also hear others like my stuff too. What’s interesting is the “time element” of painting. When you put works of different artists, different styles, next to each other – it’s often distracting. Work that is more photographic tends to be more easy to understand, more immediately in view. But a funny thing happens over time……

Over time, as you come back to work that’s good, that has feeling – it can grow on you, on me. I’m not saying my work is good, or even that is the only good thing hanging on that wall now (or it just well might be). What I’m saying is … time reveals the true art, and the true artist.

BTW, you might want to see the scene that inspired my oil pastel sketch (below).

I stumbed upon ArtByDNA’s work at the CrossRoads Cafe, near where I live.

 
Looks like there will be a show in December in Midtown Manhattan, perhaps I’ll go.

   

I’m not sure which of the two paintings above is the stronger work, you’d think the red stripes would make the painting on the right stronger – but I’m not so sure.

The idea of “reductionism” is nothing new – the artists, what appears to be a couple (but I’m not sure of that) jointly work on each piece, trying to reduce a picture to it’s fundamental elements of meaning.  

It may be the “idea” of what the painting is and supposed to do is better than the actual painting.  I found the paintings unusual and decided to note it on ArtNewYorkCity.

Well, here’s another nude study I did today, it’s the 4th I have done in the last month.  Got kinda fed up – I did not have any acrylic medium left and found I could not manipulate the paint (which has been a problem even with the Acrylic Medium).  Decided to just concentrate on structure and texture and forget about trying to capture the model’s features.

The less I try to paint what is in front of me the better the painting looks after I step away from the model.   I have a picture of this model but in a different pose; the model’s hair blends in with the background/curtain behind the couch she’s reclining on.

Was trying to use paint to support the model – ie: make brushwork that supports the arm of the model that supports her head. 

I’m surprised that some people seem to like this work – I see so many shortcomings – but at least I’m being “me” – I am not copying anyone – what you see is what you get (but I hope you get more than you see).

 

I am honored to have an interview to share with Midwestern Artist Fred Stonehouse.  If I execute a search on Brainboost.com with the query “who is Fred Stonehouse“? this is what the search engine kicks out.

“Fred Stonehouse is a Midwest regional artist who resides in Wisconsin. He received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 1982. Although his art is representational, Stonehouses illogical settings and actions are reminiscent of Magic Realism , whose fantastical realities are associated with Latin American art and literature. In this regard, the indigenous art of pre – modern Mexico, Frida Kahlos Surrealist paintings , and the writings of the Columbian author Gabriel Garca Marquez were influential in Stonehouses formulation of his art.

Here’s a recent photo from 2006 and another from 2000 showing Fred Stonehouse with his paintings (you can click on both photos to get more detail).

    

But there’s a lot more to Fred Stonehouse and I crafted some questions that are hopefully different and bring out new information.

Me: How did you become interested in painting the “Spirit World“?

Fred: I grew up in a family that loved to tell ghost stories.  My mother is Sicilian, and her side of the family was very superstitious.  My Grandmother would talk about the “Evil Eye” and my great Aunt Rosalie was known for her psychic visions foretelling deaths including her own.  Between my family and the Catholic Church, I was convinced that we were surrounded by spirits; they were very real to me.

Me: Is there any tie in between common symbols in your paintings (ie: skulls, bees, birds) and events in your life?   Can you elaborate on the “Americana” symbolism in your work, (ie:what does the black devil with blue eyes mean)?

 Title: Dream of Babylon by Fred Stonehouse Size: 48 “w x 24″h Medium: Acrylic on Wood – Care of http://www.blabshow.com.

Fred: The symbols in my work are drawn from a multiplicity of sources, but they can be summed up as coming from the alchemical categories of: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. 

I was always interested in the hagiography that accompanied images of saints.  I was never quite sure what the symbols represented, but I knew they were there for a reason. For me, they suggested secret and mysterious powers and were akin to magic and voodoo.  It wasn’t important that I understood the specific meaning but that they represented an unknown mystery.  The black devil was done as a way to add something new to the traditional representation of the fiery red character.   I imagine that character as “burnt to a crisp” or perhaps as blackened, Cajun style.  Besides, black is so graphic and makes for a powerful and haunting image.

Me: Can you talk a little bit about your connection to Solid State Tattoo and do you create Tattoo art?   Noticed the logo of Solid State Tattoos looks like one of your paintings …was it?   Do you contribute to the online art of this site?

Fred: If this is the Solid State Tattoo of Milwaukee, the owner is a friend of mine and one of my paintings does hang in the shop.  I have designed and drawn all of my tattoos so far, but I do not tattoo.  John Reiter (the owner) tattooed both of my arms and I stop in there quite often as it is near my studio and just down the block from the Hi-Fi Café which is my favorite coffee shop. I haven’t seen the art on his website, but my work is very visible in Milwaukee and has influenced any number of younger artists.

Me:  How did you come to show your work in TheBlabShow?

Fred: Monte Beauchamp, the creative mind behind Blab, invited me to be included in his annual publication six or so years back and I have been in it every year since.  When Monte decided to start curating shows of Blab artists last year, he asked if I would be interested, and I thought it would be great to have my painting seen in that context in a gallery as well as in print.

Me: Of the 9 paintings of your work in BlabShow, 4 have Skulls as part of imagery – Does the Skull stand for something besides the obvious (Death)?    Two of the paintings have Skulls with Crowns while the other two don’t – is the crown represent the “King of Death“?

Title: Never Size: 12″w x 12″h Medium: Acrylic on Wood, care of Blabshow.com

Fred: I use the crown on figures other than the skulls, but I suppose it is meant to suggest a sort of supremacy.    I have always been interested in the way the Mexican Dias de los Muertos festivities represent death and skulls as being integrally tied to a sense of life and celebration.  I guess it’s the old ‘life is much sweeter on the eve of death’ kind of sentiment.

Me: How do you start a painting?  Do you know what you’re going to paint before hand or does it materialize as you paint?

Fred: I don’t pre-plan paintings and I’m pretty open to discovering the image in the process.  I start with an idea that the painting will have a certain ’tone’ more than anything too specific.

Me: What role does the Motorcycle culture play in your work and in your life? 

Fred:  I started riding motorcycles when I was 15 and rode until my wife grounded me after a pretty hairy crash in downtown Chicago left me with a concussion and a broken collar bone, but I do still have a bike in the garage in parts and have ideas all the time about riding again.  Bikes get into your blood and it’s hard to give it up.  I have a lot of friends that ride and collect and repair vintage motorcycles and I think it’s beautiful, but until my 14 year old son is grown, I think it’s probably four wheels for me.

Me: What role does the internet play in your work? (same question that I asked Joe Coleman)

Fred: It’s possible to see quite a lot of my work on the internet, but I have nothing to do with that.  I don’t have a website, though I probably should, and it scares me a little that so much stuff is out there that I have no control of.  I tried to talk my tech savvy son into helping me create a website, but he just rolled his eyes and proceeded to snipe a German soldier in the online game he was playing.

note: One way Fred Stonehouse could control some of his work on the internet is to have an official website and become part of the dialog and flow.

Me: What Artists do you admire the most?   Why?

Fred: I admire Philip Guston for the courage he showed late in his career to abandon what had made him a success and embark on those incredibly dumb and beautiful paintings.  He knew those painting would be seen as stupid, but he made them anyway and thank god, because they are the best things he ever made.  Too many artists worry about appearing dumb, so they try hard to make ‘smart’ work, and that is the surest way to make bad art.

Philip Guston – late work – “Brutal but delicate”: The Line – 1978

Me: There’s another “Fred Stonehouse” who wrote books about Lake Superior and Scuba Diving ” Lake Superior’s ” Shipwreck Coast “.  Do people ever ask you if you’re related ?

Fred: I am convinced that the other Fred Stonehouse is a relative.  My father is from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and I believe that is where the Great Lakes researcher lives.  Somebody bought me his book on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald as a joke.  There is another Fred Stonehouse who sells real-estate in the Sacramento area and his website has a really awful jingle that accompanies his homepage.

Me: Noticed you had a show at the Howard Scott gallery in Chelsea last year. Are you planning another show in New York anytime soon?  How did you find showing in NYC different than showing your work in other places in the country?

Fred: I will be showing 4 new drawings with Howard this December in his annual drawing exhibit.  Howard is also currently working on a show for me with a dealer in Berlin.  Without question, the New York audience is the most sophisticated due to their access to great museums, galleries, criticism etc.  Most of the people who are interested in what I do are pretty sharp cats anyway, but New Yorkers are the real deal.  They just get it.

Me: I love the dream like state your paintings evoke in your viewers – often your use of language seems cryptic and symbolic – can you tell me how you arrive at the words your going to use in your paintings?

Fred: I guess I am something of a frustrated poet.  Words just seem necessary sometimes, both visually and aurally.  I like the idea that when a viewer reads the text in one of my paintings a sound is created in their head.  It’s a way to broaden the experience and cram in a little extra content.  The words come about mostly as poetic reflections on the image.  

 ========= END of INTERVIEW with Fred Stonehouse ==========

BTW, many thanks to Amy Crehore for putting me in touch with the great American artist, Fred Stonehouse.

I briefly made my way by On and Off over at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery tonight (would be better if the url for this exhibition were not the homepage of the gallery as we’ll lose the link to the show’s content in the future).

Actually, I liked the show and wanted to stay longer but was not feeling well.

The online newspaper series by Olia Lialina and Dragan Esperschied was an interesting idea – take real newspapers, digitize them and run animated characters ontop of the digital newspaper.   The works are satisfying to look at if you don’t ask anything more than what you see.

My problem with Online Newspapers are not how it’s done but the lack of a clear relationship between the animated figures and the theme of the  newspaper behind it.   Sure, the newspaper above is in Chinese (I think – or is it Japanese – I can’t tell since the lettering is horizontal and vertical).  At best, the animated oriental fighting figures are boxing with the appliances and lettering of the newspaper – so what? 

Here is a good idea that does not go anywhere.   In fact, my idea of painting my life as a homepage would be perfect for an approach like the Online Newspaper – this pair of artists had good ideas but don’t know where to go with it.

Lisa Jevbratt’s Informe Imager is an interesting idea too …. though the abstraction might dilute the idea.  I think Lisa’s idea is to deplict a telnet session or web traffic that happens at a specific moment in time as a printout.  

 

The work itself is much better in person than online (strange that I say it since the painting deplicts an online experience – like the handshaking telnet / tcpip protocol) as the color printout has textures missing from the online picture.

Same problem – this printout is a good idea, but stop and think about it for a second.  Take any digital image and blow it up – limit the color and you get a image much like what’s above.  So what’s the relationship between the squares and what she’s deplicting …nothing – except in her title of the work.

I’d be the first one to say this work is great if the artist did their homework a little better and made the pictorial elements do something more than just sit there.  For example, if your going to paint TCPIP telnet session happening on a website – do something to show “handshaking” and make the colors connect somehow with something meaningful on the site – use the composition and structure of the 2D printout to reinforce a real computer experience that happened in a moment of time.  The artist did not do that – both did not do that – this one just illustrated a telnet session and the other one just put a newspaper on a flat panal screen and ran some figures over it – both totally missed the greater opportunities their work afford them.

My point – if your going to use the computer and internet – don’t just reference the internet, as the other artist who listed all their MySpace “Friends” on a projected movie on one of the walls, do the internet in your work – be the internet.

My overall impression -good ideas that were wasted.  There are so many things you could do with the Online Newspaper idea – way beyond what was done – same with the rest of the work – they actually played it safe – this show could have been a 100% better if the artists just went a bit futher – used more imagination, more daring. 

What would have been more daring …… create your own network in the gallery where the show is taking place (no big deal) and make the online newspapers take snapshots of the visitors and have them overlayed over the digitized newspapers….how’s that for something more interesting?   Or how about taking the printout of a telnet session (or whatever it was) and create some subtle overlays that connect the website with the printout…again…be the Internet.

These artists played it safe, like I said, settling for pretty pictures when they could have actually done something meaningful.  Let’s hope they improve the ideas as there’s a lot of unrealized potential here.

I may go to this opening if I feel up to it – it’s called On and Off and here’s the Press Release.

 

The Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is pleased to present On and Off a new show featuring an international group of contemporary artists.

Ten years since it emerged as a medium for contemporary art, the Internet, and the work it inspires, is no longer confined by the browser window. The Web influences culture at large: it adapts to new technology, cultivates demographics, and evolves our cultural needs and norms. The works of Vuk Cosic, Lisa Jevbratt, Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied, Thomson & Craighead, and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES are testament to its expanding role in contemporary life.

In ASCII History of Moving Images Slovenian artist Vuk Cosic re-presents key moments in classic films as monochromatic waves of ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Exchange) characters. Cosic’s use of this universal code to depict Psycho or Battleship Potemkin draws our attention to how culturally specific artifacts are translated and viewed across cultures, both on and off the Web.

The German based artists Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenscheid also examine issues of cultural translation in their work Online Newspapers. They re-imagine how our world’s newspaper sites would appear if they had been developed not by professional web and graphic designers, but by the lay journalists whose homegrown aesthetics defined the era before the dot-com boom.

Through their work Beacon, the British artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead provide a real-time glimpse of the obsessions of our time by showing us, in a rhythmic, relentless stream, what people are “Googling.” The fragmented phrasing used in search queries is made public and becomes a poetic narrative—sometime shocking, other times mundane—of our culture’s almost tragic longing.

For YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES’ Travels in Utopia: A Brief History of the Internet, network technology is not only the subject, but also the means of distribution for their text-based narratives. With basic Flash animation, a limited palette of colors and fonts, and a soundtrack of 1960s style bebop, their stories reside somewhere between the novella and cinema and encourage a new type of reading.

Rather than focusing on the output and use of the Internet, Swedish/American artist Lisa Jevbratt looks at its base structure and organization. The Infome Imager works mine the vast database of existing Internet protocol (IP) addresses. Using predetermined guidelines (the date, URL, length of site, or network location for instance) she assigns particular colors and patterns to IPs in a specified range. The results are part portrait, part landscape painting and wholly beautiful and abstract visions of information itself.

Long working at the forefront of the medium, these artists explore the particularities of Web technology and its aesthetics and utility in projects that clearly transcend the specificity of “Internet art.” Internationally renowned and widely exhibited both on line and off these artists offer us compelling insights into our simple, everyday desire to be connected.

Vuk Cosic was the Slovenian representative to the Venice Biennale in 2001 and is the co-founder of Ljudmila — a digital media lab for artists in Slovenia. A pioneer in the medium Cosic has been widely exhibited internationally. He has recently been included in shows at the, Chelsea Art Museum in New York, the ICA in London, Villette Numerique in Paris and ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany.

Lisa Jevbratt is a Swedish/American artist and an Assistant Professor in the Media Arts and Technology Program and the Art Department at University of California Santa Barbara. Her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the New Museum in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Ars Electronica in Linz Austria, and Transmediale in Berlin.

Olia Lialina was born in Russia and now lives and teaches at the Merz Academie in Stuttgart, Germany. Originally a film critic, Lialina is known as the creator of some of the most powerful and influential works of network based art and art criticism. German born Dragan Espenschied is also a lecturer at Merz Academie in Stuttgart. His online work Gravity won the People’s Choice Webby Award in 2004 and he is a core member of the rock band Bodenstandig 2000. Together and separately their work has been shown in numerous online and off line venues including Ars Electronica in Linz Austria, Deitch Projects in New York, MOCA in Los Angeles, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany.

Thomson and Craighead are London based artists who work primarily with video, sound and network technologies. Their online, site specific and installation works have been exhibited widely in venues including the Barbican Center and the Tate Modern in London, FACT in Liverpool, the New Museum in New York, SFMOMA in San Francisco, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and Villette Numerique in Paris.

YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES’ two chief officers are Korean born Young-hae Chang (C.E.O) and American born Marc Voge (C.I.O). The primarily Web based artists who live and work in Seoul, South Korea have been included in numerous publications on new media art and have been shown at the New Museum in New York, the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul and ZKM in Karlsruhe Germany.

The Gallery is located at 601 W 26th Street, Suite 1240, New York, NY. The Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11-6.
 

Been having a lot of problems with my back – I may have done something to it and as I did this nude study of a woman athlete, who was our model today, my back pain really picked up…but it maybe it was worth it for Art (I’ll be easier on my back for now on, I need it).

I tried to find out something about the model – she’s in her off season but trains 10 hours a day and now has her own business setting up sports competitions – did not do justice to her face – it was an oil pastel and I did my best – was more captivated by her skin smooth, perfect body – I tried to convey that — or maybe it just comes out of the paint.

And here’s my experiment – below – painting my life as if it’s a homepage.

In case you don’t know what this – my life as a Web Analyst where I analyze the success of  websites has been transformed (in this sense) into a page of my own life – a real synthesis.

From an execution point – I learnt something from this experiment.  I need more detail (better mediums as well – perhaps working with Oil again – acrylic is harder to manipulate) and I need, for me, larger canvas and more drawing beforehand.  I did a little.

For a quick check to see how my idea would look, I’m satisfied that I got what I need out of this exercise.   I will do a couple of there before trying to do what I’m seeing in my mind – something much more ambitious.

I don’t mind sharing this as it’s what the internet is all about and as I give more – I receive more.  I will mention that I felt encourged to try this first experiment in painting my life as a homepage after seeing the paintings of Alfred Jensen as the approach (painting texture, design, overall feel) is much closer to my own way of expressing myself and organizing sensation.  I don’t want formulas, and Jensen does that – I don’t need the formulas to understand his paintings on an intuitive level – it’s the paint texture that I want to adapt to the “homepage” life painting.

Like I said -this was just an experiment …hell, it’s all an experiment – the last thing I want to do is an illustration of the homepage of anything…  That’s an idea, again, a synthesis, my path.

Ok, I admit I was not expecting much when I want to the Art(212) fair last night at the 68th Regiment Armory on 26th Street and Lexington Ave, NYC.

I can’t even identify half the artists that I saw whom I liked – the show was not organized in a way that makes it easy for Art Writers, like me, to write about it (maybe next time, they can printup cards for each artist in the show with a picture or two and the contact information – that’s my suggestion).

I’m going to just mention what I liked – even if I don’t have the name of the artist – readers, try to figure it out if your interested by going to the Art 212 listing.

The most impressive art in the show was Devorah Sperber’s After van Eyke, and the artist will be having a show next month at the Brooklyn Musuem of Art which ArtNewYorkCity.com will cover as I live in Brooklyn, NY and do go the Brooklyn Museum from time to time.

 

I did collect a packet with Devorah Sperber’s informaiton – the work is 5024 spools of thread arranged to appear like a painting from Van Eyck when you appear in front of it with the crystal ball.  Amazing!

I also talked a woman from the Art Gallery website creator called THEO – Theo Digital Gallery System at www.theodigitalgallery.com ; it’s a web content management system just for galleries.  I asked if it was profitable enough to run something like this and the lady said ….”yes” but she does travel a lot (I guess there are galleries all over).  Anyway, I like the idea of a CMS system for galleries as most Art Gallery sites are awful from the point of view of Search Engines – and I question if any of them do well, in many cases, even on the Artist’s name.  Yes, I’m sure they will work OK for the Gallery name…but few people search that way.  Anyway, if THEO solves an Art Galleries Search needs, all power to them.

I also liked the works of David Kramer who was being shown with the Birch Libralato Gallery located in Toronto (but I think he lives here).

And here’s a couple of extra shots of the show and work (don’t have names, sorry).

An Andy Warhol photo by some famous photographer – I liked it.

I liked the artist – who lives in the midwest, but where it’s warm – it’s a made up scene – but I liked it so that’s why it’s here in ArtNewYorkCity.com.

And here’s the Art(212) show itself. It’s on though the weekend in case anyone lives in NYC and reads this blog.

And now I’m off to paint today. Chow.

Been too busy the last few days to post here – a lot of important meetings – most which belong in my Webmetricsguru.com blog.  Did not see any good openings this week till today – nothing that really attracted me to want to show up.   But that’s different today – a couple of good openings happening now in NYC, in Art in New York City.

So tonight I’ll try to make an opening of Alfred Jenson: The Number Paintings at Pace Wildenstein Gallery.  Here’s a little part of the writeup describing the work in this show: Alfred Jensen:  The Number Paintings will be on view at 545 West 22nd Street, New York from September 29 through October 28, 2006.  The public is invited to attend the opening on Thursday, September 28th from 6 to 8 p.m.

“Alfred Jensen:  The Number Paintings looks at how the artist used Pythagorean theory, the Mayan Calendar, and other numerical systems as well as Goethe’s color theory in his work.  The exhibition consists of 11 paintings and 16 works on paper spanning two decades from 1960 to 1980. 

It was in the early 1960s that Jensen read the work of J. Eric Thompson, the pre-eminent scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya Civilization and soon thereafter, Jensen earnestly began to investigate the relationship between numbers and color through his art.  In his catalogue essay, William Agee discusses how Jensen pursued this investigation and how his life and art intersected. Agee remarks in his introduction that Donald Judd and Allan Kaprow, then young artists in New York, viewed an exhibition of Jensen’s in 1963 and had the highest praise for it, although for different reasons. “In retrospect,” Agee writes, “this seems fitting, for Jensen’s world view was based on the opposing dualities that he saw as the source and substance of life – light and dark, positive and negative, male and female, life and death, among them.”

I think I’ll also attend the opening of Junko Komatsu, David Harry, Atsumi at Caelum Gallery W 26 street, 526, Suite 315.  The photographs and paintings look pretty good based on what I can see on the Caelum Gallery website.

It looks like a new gallery called MEHR is opening up with a debut exhibition (if I have it right that it’s a new gallery) located at 436 West 18th Street, again between 6-8PM. 

That’s enough for one night.  I’ll let my readers know what I thought about these openings after I attend them (and anything else that strikes on my way to or after the openings).

I went to a poetry reading called the Transparent Dinner  read by Anne Hains and art exhibit called Tidal Channels by Todd Erickson at the 440 Gallery in Park Slope, NY.

I’m not really into poetry but I enjoyed listening and looking, I’ll leave it at that. 

As far as the art exhibit, Tidal Channels, I spent some time talking with the artist, Todd Erickson, an Environmental Artist, plus I took some pictures of Todd’s work and the 440 Gallery.

The photos on the wall, sculptures on the floor and windows of the gallery are based on a particular topography of Fire Island.  The photos illustrate one day’s journey around the a part of Fire Island by the artist, who is looking at nature.   Todd does not see himself as a photographer – the photos are taken to track is journey.  

The photos move with the wind and are mounded slightly off the wall, by about an inch.

While I don’t have much experience with his type of work, I feel it celebrates nature and is sincere.  The goal, I think, is taking on larger, funded projects which include doing something with, or to, nature.

You can get more information about Todd Erickson at his website, www.twerickson.com.

 

Did another painting at Brooklyn Artists Gym this afternoon – it balances out my life as a Web Analyst at IBM and puts me back in touch with what I feel I am, at the foundation of all of this, an artist. 

My path is synthesis and seems to have come to me, or I realised it, only recently – but I was doing it all along.  I feel empthy when I look at work I can identify with, mostly paintings – it’s as if I can feel an artist’s feelings in paint – I probably had it all along did not know what to do with it, or what it was.

I did a drawing first, to warm up, as well as decide how I was going to approach the model; decided on the pyramidal theme, which sorta suggested it self, based on the composition and lighting.

Occured to me, as I painted (I see myself a channel, both in Web Analytics, Search Engine work and painting – I see no difference in the creative enegry or guidence I get based on intuition – I’m just learning to listen to it and not murder it, as I used to do). 

This is what came into my mind, it was the memory of a saying from Paul Cezanne, my favorite artist (but my sensability is much different than his - it took me many years to sort that out).  I can’t find the actual quote but it goes something like this: “art is a way of organizing sensations“.  

In that sense, I feel that’s what I’m doing and I hope my work, while I was thinking of Matisse and Bonnard, does not look like anyone else.  In fact, that’s what the model of this painting said to me as she photographed it - “does not look like anyone else’s work she could think of“. 

Why would it?…it’s my own way of organizing sensation, and that’s what painting has become for me.  I don’t stop it, I don’t murder it, I let it be, and go as far with my sensiblility as I can – and then I stop and walk away.  I spent between 2-3 hours on this nude model study.

One other thought, my own, has been in my mind a lot lately, as I do my work in one sitting these days (I can change back but right now, it suits me): “if you can’t improve something by working on it more – it’s better to leave it alone”.   What I mean – I used to over paint my first impressions, over and over, trying to be something I was not, Cezanne, for example.  I did not trust that what I put down was good enough.  I murdered it, over and over, and after maybe 10 sittings, I had what I accomplish in one sitting today – except the work is much fresher.

 

 I don’t see a point in working and working on something – if that work does not improve the end result.  I’d rather get it right the first time than go over it 10 times, blending this, blending that.   I gave up on that – I ended up with less, in many cases, than I started with….but just being in tune the first time.   Because I trust myself now…and did not then.

I did this Oil Pastel last night, during the Collective Becomings show that I reviewed, with a glass of red wine next to me.   I feel really good about just trusting myself, and letting work happen.  It’s a struggle to “organize my sensations” and I’m just following my own intuition now.  I’m not following, or looking up to anyone else…been there, done that.

While the Collective Becomings show at the Brookly Artists Gym was not well attended (compared to the last show on Small Art Works that occured a couple of weeks ago) there were some good artists in the show – artists that are serious about their work.

“Artists: Marvalisa Coley, Lillian Feldman, Jack Johnson, Leah Keller- Transburg, Natalya Rolbin, Dmitriy Stadnitsky.

Collective Becomings features six artists hailing from New York and Detroit: Marvalisa Coley, Lillian Feldman, Jack Johnson, Leah Keller-Transburg, Natalya Rolbin, and Dmitriy Stadnitsky. The diverse media in which they work, including mixed-media sculpture, paint, and digital imagery, matches the wide range of their voices spanning from gestural abstraction to emotional narrative to raw, graffiti energy. Whether scrawling text, painting in oil, or throwing enamel, these artists together present a richly layered, harmonious ensemble in a perpetual state of becoming.”

I spoke to a couple of the artists and took photos of Leah Keller-Transburg’s two screen paintings. Leah, who started out in Detroit, spent some years in Africa and now shows here in New York.

   

I think Leah has put some thought and work into how her works are presented and that carries though to her website, where work in this series (above) from 2006 are shown.  Based on her resume, she has the time, energy and means to persue an artists’ career, as well as the talent.  Comparisons, it’s easy to compare her work to calligraphy, to Jackson Pollock or to a rorschach test.   I would have liked to have seen some of Keller-Transburg’s oils such as renaissance ii or the paintings in “Spirit, Dust and Fire that were shown at the Cafe de Troit last year, in Detroit.   I suppose it would be more interersting to know the Mozambique, New York, Detroit division of time spent and how that affects the work.

Here’s a bio from her website: Leah Keller-Transburg. Since studying painting at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, Keller-Transburg has exhibited in both New York and Detroit. Her work has been described as “a celebration of creation – both in terms of life and the artistic process” (www.thedetroiter.com). She is currently preparing for a solo exhibition entitled “Dancing the Line,” at the Pump House Regional Arts Center in La Crosse, WI (April ’07). Keller-Transburg divides her time between New York City and Mozambique. For more information, visit www.leahkellertransburg.com.

Natalya Rolbin also is showing in the Collective Becomings show  and is and illustrator and painter. I don’t really see that much difference between illustration and painting – but there used to be.   I think the paintings in the show grew on me the more I looked at them and I’m always careful what I say to artists as they are putting their soul out for others to see and touch.   I think Natalya would be well served to combine her commerical art and illustration with her painting – make a painting about a brochure – or make a statement that’s a brochure on canvas – smash though the conventional.   Of all her work, perhaps the Illustrations is the most satisfying visually.  I would challenge her to go beyond Illustration, yet not renounce it – sounds like a paradox but it’s really not.

There appears to be a theme about Detroit – perhaps Natalya and Leah know each other from Detroit….I wonder if the other artists in the show are connected in some common way?

Perhaps the most intersting link on Natalya’s website is to the Super Human Golf Club head covers - I really must research the market for this and write it up on Webmetricsguru.com – certainly it will be an interesting read!

If anything, what is most interesting to me, in this show, was not the art in it, but how the artists are connected to each other.

Had a good time at Galerie St. Etienne last night – great show of older Austrian and German prints and drawings by many well known artists, all about Cafes, Bars and such.

I also ran into a old friend Russel Nelson who I had not seen for at least 5 or 6 years, the last time was at our mutual friend, Lestor Afflick’s funeral back in early 2000.

I liked Otto Dix’s PUB watercolor and George Grosz’s Dr. Benn’s Night Cafe which was a photo lithograph.  Gustav Klimt’s Seated Woman with Hat and Veil and Woman Resting in Armchair, both from the turn of the century were small works, but really fine.  I was surprised there was so much good work at Galerie St. Etienne.

   

Go to the Galerie St. Etienne to see the rest of the works.

I had a very strange experience tonight – perhaps the reality is more than what I experienced.  

Is it OK to have a collection of art masterpieces that you let people glimpse from the lobby of a skyscraper you own, but not ever let people in to see the works directly? 

I’m afraid it might be true. 

One of the best Balthus paintings is in a corner of the lobby but  no one is allowed to stand before it.  Strange.

Here’s the closest I’m told (by guards in the lobby of the skyscraper – I was trying to find out if they were pulling my leg, but it seemed like they were totally honest with me) you can get.

 

We can’t see what’s on the other side of the wall…more art, a lot more.   There’s scant information to be found on the internet – I found this about the building but little or nothing about how to view the art (maybe because you can’t?).

 

Here’s a Press Release for an interesting opening on September 19th, 2006 at the NYPL:

“The European Dream Festival is coming to Town!
Come celebrate the opening of the festival at
The Invisible Symposium at LIVE from the NYPL
Tuesday, September 19, 2006, 7:00 pm
The Celeste Bartos Forum of The New York Public Library
(Enter at 42nd Street near 5th Avenue)
Admission: $15; $10 library donors, seniors, and students
Call Smarttix: (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com
E-mail sign up www.nypl.org/live   Info: (212) 930-0571
With
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Union Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy (TBC)
Super Model Helena Christensen
Ambassador Fernando M. Valenzuela, Head of Delegation, Delegation of the European Commission to the United Nations
Consul Generals and Directors of cultural institutions from 23 European countries
The Invisible Symposium
American actors, in a staged reading, will render the intriguing reflections of European intellectuals on the present dilemmas facing the European Union. Curated by Jakab Orsos, Director of the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York, and Paul Holdengräber, Director of Public Programs, LIVE from the NYPL. Texts edited by Roger L. Conover, MIT Press.
Moderated by Charles Grodin
Wardrobe by Uncle Kimono, designed by John Malkovich
Wine by the European Wine Council; food by Le Pain Quotidien
With major support by Altria

I may also cover this opening for ArtNYC.  We will see!

No sooner do I write about an artist in Holland who has a show in NYC, Marcus van Soest, than I get an email and salutation from him over the internet via real time video.

Aside from liking Marcus’s paintings, which I do, he is a new breed of artist that knows how to use the Internet to foster online communication, totally eliminating distance.  I feel like Marcus van Soest just became a friend of mine – and we haven’t even met yet (I missed his opening last week at MonkDogz).

Marcus does something that I have heard about and seen hotels do (an online cam of his studio) but not an artist.  I think that’s a great idea to foster communication and fans!   Think about it…what it the Internet if not “instant” ….. things need to happen fast, communication is “instant” and sales are often “impulse”.   Communities can form quickly and you can find out you have fans and followings from all over the world….if you know how to foster use the medium, partake in it.

I was talking to Amy Crehore about just that, the other day.  When Amy tried to explain her large swings in traffic and internet fans to some fellow artists she exhibits with …they did not understand …. they could not follow.   The internet changed EVERYTHING…and many people haven’t realized it yet….but luckly for those that do, like Marcus van Soest and Amy Crehore.