Ample Room to Maneuver

In his essay “Light and Space and Darkness: Taking Painting Full Circle in the Wireless World” (published in Darren Waterston: Representing the Invisible) David Pagel had me at hello. He’s a stylist of the finest art writing order, and he brings the inchoate beauty of Waterson’s work as close to language as I can imagine […]

Architecture Crib Notes

Very cool find: A small book by Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. Well designed (a raw slab of heavy cardboard for a cover which makes it feel handmade and intimate) and sized for easy portability, this book is full of thoughtful insights for architects as well as all of us architect […]

Sages of Silence and Fear

A painter and a poet. Martin and Stafford have been (and continue to be) elemental influences on me. *** Agnes Martin (Photo: Charles R. Rushton) To discover the conscious mind in a world where intellect is held to be valuable requires solitude, quite a lot of solitude. We have been very strenuously conditioned against solitude. […]

A Beyond of Color

Rainer Maria Rilke More on the theme of poets and artists: Good friend Sally Reed steered me to a slender volume, Letters on Cézanne by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. These letters were written mostly to his wife Clara while he was living in Paris in 1907, a time when he was spellbound by Cézanne’s […]

Willing

Simplicity and complexity: A piece hanging on the wall at sculptor Paula Castillo’s studio in Santa Fe. The two entries below, a poem by Moramarco and a quote by Tom Robbins, were included in two separate posts on my favorite random access wisdom source, Whiskey River. But when I landed on the site this morning […]

Chelsea Highlights

A few more highlights of Chelsea art viewing from New York City last week: At Sikkema Jenkins, Leonardo Drew’s exquisite wood constructs were spectacular: Photo courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins A few selected views: *** And at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe Gallery, Oliver Arms paintings knocked me out. Here’s a florid (but satisfying) description from […]

El Anatsui

Installation views of El Anatsui at Jack Shainman Gallery It’s hard to not find El Anatsui’s work beguiling. The first piece I experienced was at the De Young Museum in San Francisco before El Anatsui’s break out into international fame at the last Venice Biennale. I was knocked out by the tactility of his tapestry […]