The Whitney Museum’s current Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue, soon to be abandoned for the new Renzo Piano space downtown. Photo: Gryffindor, via Wikimedia Commons. As controversies are already abounding regarding the opening of the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum (The most visible being John Yau‘s recent essay in the Brooklyn Rail, […]
Art
Going the Distance
“Untitled (Rorschach),” a 1999 work by Sigmar Polke.(Photo: Alistair Overruck/Estateof Sigmar Polke/Artists Rights Society) The current show of Sigmar Polke’s work at MOMA, Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963-2010, is staggeringly expansive. With 260 works of art filling 10 galleries plus the atrium, the curators wisely moved most of the accompanying text into a 30 page handout […]
Another Wingate Moment
When I arrived in New York City in the early 70s—fresh from a very different cadence that was life on the Other Coast—my first roommate was another artist. George Wingate rented me my first berth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for $87.50 a month, and we went on to become friends for life. […]
Coordinates: Unlocatable
Somewhere in New Mexico A Muslim prayer expresses this extraordinary request: “Lord, increase my bewilderment.” In poet Fanny Howe‘s essay, “Bewilderment”, from her essay collection, The Wedding Dress, she describes bewilderment as more than an attitude. It is an actual approach she says, a way to “settle with the unresolvable.” And this: A signal does […]
- Aesthetics
- ...
Pitchers and Catchers
“Veriddyi 2”, a recent painting (and one that speaks to my ongoing longing to envision that first day of creation) One of my favorite quotes comes by way of W. S. Piero from his book of essays, Out of Eden: “Certain artists give up the making of representational images so that they can see through […]
- Aesthetics
- ...
Robert Morris: I Won’t
Shadows on my studio wall When artist Robert Knafo wrote to request a studio interview with Robert Morris, this was the response he received back. Knafo describes this as the best No he ever received. “I love how he calmly shoots the art documentary cliches, holsters his gun, and walks away,” Knafo wrote. “Thank you […]
- Aesthetics
- ...
Useful Space for Thought
Detail from one of my recent painting series, “Angaris” I recently found two statements about painting by Australian artist Helen Johnson that were very resonant for me. While Johnson’s work has identifiable content, her approach and attitudes are aligned with my work as a non representationalist. First, her description of painting from a roundtable about […]
- Art Making
- ...
In Both But Neither
Boli (Photo: Brooklyn Museum) Bolis are abstract figures that are from the Bamana culture. The basic form, a bit like a simplified cow, is made from mud, eggs, chewed kola nuts, sacrificial blood, urine, honey, beer, vegetable fiber, and cow dung. The role of the boli is to regulate energy, whatever is moving from the […]
- Aesthetics
- ...
A Pirate’s Life for Me
Dave Hickey (Photo: Nasher Museum Of Art) Most of us have a list of our “personal perennials”—those writers, artists and musicians whose works continue to delight, engage, astound, connect. My loyalty to my list runs deep, and there is nothing you could say to sway me from my devotions. They are my inner circle, my […]
- Aesthetics
- ...
Hazy Border to the Wonder-World
Blade, 6 x 7″, egg tempera on calfskin parchment by Altoon Sultan Wonder, to preserve itself, withdraws. It withdraws from the mind, from the willing mind, which would make of mystery a category. I remember being told a story about an old culture that believed the center of the forest was holy and could not […]