Virtuosity

Painting at Lascaux After writing Sunday’s post I kept being nagged by this additional passage from Denis Dutton‘s New York Times op ed piece: One trait of the ancestral personality persists in our aesthetic cravings: the pleasure we take in admiring skilled performances. From Lascaux to the Louvre to Carnegie Hall — where now and […]

Sagacity

Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled 7-95, 1997, oil on linen on panel, 16×20”. (Image courtesy of Max Protetch Gallery) My two major sage sources over the last few months have been Philip Guston and Thomas Nozkowski. Both artists are recognized for being extremely intelligent and cerebral; yet the power of their work is visceral and immediate. For […]

Letter to a Young Artist

Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (7-72), 1995, Oil on linen on panel, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, Max Protecht Collection, © Thomas Nozkowski / Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York. Some people have moderation built in, like a personality module fully loaded from birth. Those are the lucky souls who can sit in front of a bowl of chocolate covered […]

The Micchelli Litmus Test

William Powhida, “A Guide to the Market Oligopoly System” (Photo courtesy of Felix Salmon) The artisphere has been awash these last few weeks with opinions about art fairs, the brazen commercialization of fine art, changes in powerbrokering, and what’s hot. These topics are perennials that come and go like the cold virus that takes up […]

Breaking it Down

Peter Plagens and Jerry Saltz (Photo: Art Forum) I’m not that worried about people in general liking my painting (de gustibus, what makes horse races, etc.) because I’m more or less used to their not, generally speaking. My abstract paintings are, I think, too craggy or disjointed or garish (although I have gone through a […]

Color Dogmatism

Josef Albers, the Color Czar (for some folks anyway) “In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is—as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” –Josef Albers “If you don’t do it my way, I suggest you commit suicide.” –Josef Albers How humans perceive color […]