I'm going to take a break from my usual format here and do a little editorializing. I do have a review I'm supposed to be writing but it hasn't made it down the pipe yet. It'll get here. Or maybe it won't.
In the meantime my efforts have been going -- well, mostly they've been going nowhere. But a little of them have been expended over at Ed Winkleman's trying to have a discussion about attitudes towards art. Specifically, administrators at Brandeis University have made some noises about possibly closing the Rose Art Museum and selling off its art because -- or possibly in case -- they need the money. Ed is horrified. In fact he writes, "it's highly insulting to treat a collection as rich as the Rose's as mere property...[it is] a significant slice of our collective culture and a collective commitment to preserve it, as such, for future generations."
But Ed refuses to consider that his gallery might be part of the problem. You can go over and read all about it, but it's long and there's a lot of chaff in there; or you can take my shortened version here:
ED WINKLEMAN: Brandeis University thinks it's okay to just sell off all its art. Personally I blame the government, and the wing-nut branch of the conservative elements in it in particular, for this very American ambivalence toward culture.
FRANKLIN EINSPRUCH: Maybe, before you blame the Bush administration, you should consider what role you yourself, and Winkleman Gallery artists, have had in developing that American ambivalence toward culture.
ED: This isn't about my gallery! And anyway you're just jealous!
Ed thereafter closed down all discussion about his own artists, which is a real shame, because to me they're at the very heart of the issue. Because as I see it, you've got an administrator at Brandeis who says, "We're getting low on cash. What can we do to trim our budget such that we can continue to provide an education to our students? Maybe we can close down the museum. After all, it's full of dusty crap no one understands or cares about, but which we can sell for some good money."
And who comes out of the woodwork to decry such a horrible plan? A guy who runs a gallery that shows shoes sculpted out of licorice and calls them art.
"Obviously we're on the right track," says the administrator, and calls up the auction house.
I mean, really: How can any non-artist be expected to take art seriously when what they get from the people who ostensibly do take art seriously is a display of push brooms with flags on the handles or Christopher K. Ho's "Happy Birthday", which not only doesn't even exist as a physical work of art, but can't be understood by anyone who isn't already involved in the art world? If contemporary gallerists have that kind of contempt for art and the art-going public, how can anyone expect a bean-counter in a cubicle to pay serious attention to them?
Keep in mind that this isn't about Brandeis per se or the Rose Art Museum or the worth of their collection. They could have the greatest art collection in the world for all I know. The important thing here is, when someone approaches a subject about which they know very little, they'll judge the tree by its fruit. And if Winkleman Gallery is the fruit, they just might decide to cut down the tree.
What's frustrating about this is Ed's cutting off this end of this discussion as if he's completely uninvolved. Well, Ed, you asked the questions. How can Brandeis contemplate such a thing? With supporters like you out there, pretty easily. You write, "I could not in good conscience now advise an art student to consider this university." So that means you want to keep your kind of artists out of Brandeis?
"Win-win," says that Brandeis administrator, and the museum is on the block.
Gandhi said we must become the change we wish to see in the world. If you want art to be taken seriously -- the way, for example, chemistry and physics are -- then stop fucking around.
Chris your complete lack of understanding of what is happening here is amazing for a guy who says he is so smart. It does not matter that I like or don't like the kind of artist Ed shows. That has nothing to do with what Brandise is doing. The content of the art is not the issue, and I would have thought you would have some understanding of this.You claim you don't even know what is in the Rose collection or where it is. This is amazing to me. Simply amazing that you can form an opinion without any knowledge of the situation or what is really at stake here.
You misunderstand me so badly, Jeff, it makes me want to cry. I'm willing to accept that I'm a bad person for not knowing about the Rose Museum or Brandeis. You have to forgive me: I've lived in the New York metropolitan area for almost forty years now and am still learning new things about it. I don't have the capacity to learn that much about everywhere else, too.But it does matter, very much, what kind of art Ed shows, and what kind of art the rest of Chelsea shows, and what appears to be valued by the art world. Because it's that devaluation of art as an enterprise that can allow an organization such as Brandeis to conclude that their museum is worthless except to be sold as scrap.If the professionals who are most involved in art, who are most filled with passionate intensity, can put up shoes made of licorice -- or the entire Marlene Dumas show at MoMA -- then they can't possibly be taken seriously. And if they're the ones most vociferously condemning the closing of the museum -- well, you'll know the tree by its fruit. And the fruit of the art tree appears rotten indeed. If pruning the Rose will prevent future Ed Winklemans -- can you see how this reasoning goes? -- then maybe it's a much-needed pruning.Remember the goats that got loose in the monks' vineyards. The monks thought their grape yield would be devastated, but instead they grew the best grapes anyone had ever seen. The goats had naturally pruned the vines back and the result was better grapes.Well, the goats are loose. Maybe we should just let them go. Have you seen our grapes lately? Tiny, shriveled, without flavor, arid and sulphurous. Might be a good idea to import more goats.No, I don't agree the Rose should be closed. I wrote that already. But I do understand how the pencil-pushers might think so.
Wow... Ed Winkleman is for the moment still an emerging artists gallerist, and it's not fair to attack him in the context of your dilemna with recent art history and the context of Chelsea masters of the art market. Give the man a break, will you?Attack a big gallery. Which power gallery in Chelsea is showing constantly crap?The period of dry conceptual art lasted a mere 20 years. It was a phase in art. A momentum: they "had" to do it. And it wasn't just that, they were other things going on around then. Since the mid 1970's, it's been pretty much a melting pot. A lot of it has to do with personal taste.Take Fred Sandback. I don't like the work of Sandback. I think that's exactly how you would describe it: simple visual (or spatial) tricks that anyone can replicate in their home, and it's only interesting for 2 minutes. Does that means that the whole minimalist movement is crap?No, I'm a big fan of Donald Judd.Does that mean that David Zwirner only show crap? (I think Sandback shows there) No, they are many artists I love at Zwirner.You're making generalizations that any artists in a given genre, or style or movement, or belonging to a gallerist, must mean they are crap. There is good and bad in any movement, styles, mediums, dealers, etc.. You like to draw naked women? Well great. Ask me who I think is good in that? I like Modigliani. One day if someone is super-talented in drawing naked women, maybe it will be pointed out. Then that aesthetic discourse will have been enhanced. I'm not a big fan of Peyton and she's pointed out as a great contemporary portraitist. Brandeis' art dates far back 1960, by the way. You think people are too stupid to not put every art piece in its context. That people blindly trust what the Conceptualists have proposed that any attempt at visual beauty was artificial. But actually, that doesn't mean that we have to be closed to these proposals about Beauty. We are only now made more aware of the tricks and manipulations of aesthetics thanks to conceptualism, so our eyes are less innocent. That doesn't mean Modigliani is all crap, or that Brandeis art is crap because of the opinion of a few conceptualists.What do you want? That people return to a state of innocence? Than use that as your statement. If your naked bodies are pretext to explore forms, well a lot of artists explore forms using other pretexts.It shouldn't be just naked bodies. Many past academists have been long forgotten (even at the times of Rembrandt). There is nothing new in "Academy People" being shocked by people around them who had the artistic temperaments or visions of trying different things.Zaha Hadid designed some licorice shoes. Do you think she isn't skilled? That she doesn't know how to draw? You wished she painted naked women? What the fuck?Cedric Caspesyan
As usual, Cedric, I have no idea what you're trying to say.Ed may be an emerging gallerist. Ed's also the one asking the questions. Mary Boone isn't going around in public wondering why Americans don't like art any more. Ed wants to know why the people at Brandeis aren't more like Rose Valland without considering what Valland was actually saving. I don't see Stefan Stux mooning about over Brandeis. Maybe he is -- but he's not doing it in public.As far as "the period of dry conceptual art" lasting only 20 years, have you been through Chelsea lately? It's all conceptual. Even figurative work has to have some conceptual verbiage pinned to it, however awkwardly. Peyton is a good example. And Peyton sucks, by the way.I don't think people are too stupid to put each individual piece of art into their proper context. But we're talking about a general attitude towards art. A general feeling -- what Ed called an American ambivalence -- that would allow a university to even consider liquidating its museum.The question is not, how can someone at Brandeis walk through the Rose looking at each individual work of art and decide that, one by one, they're not worth holding on to?The question is, how can someone at Brandeis consider their art holdings to be nothing but a bunch of blanks with price tags attached to them?I think a large part of that attitude -- that art is just an investment to be liquidated -- grows out of the art world. And I think conceptualism grows out of the same soil, fertilized by the same manure.Over the past fifty years or so art has become ever more strongly a business. People will argue that art's always been a business but I disagree. It's changed. There's been an element of commerce in art for a long time -- at least a couple hundred years in the most recent streak -- but it's only become a true business, a fully capitalist enterprise, during the 20th century. The idea of investing in art -- of buying a work of art just to resell it at a later date for a profit -- is a new one.Treating art as an investment vehicle, as a product, has an inherent problem. Art is unpredictable. That's not good for business. So art needed to be made predictable.Conceptualism -- moving art away from the individual work of art and into the realm of ideas -- makes art more predictable. You don't need to sell only the shark suspended in the tank of preservative; you can sell any number of sharks in any number of tanks, because Hirst's work isn't the object -- which he didn't even make himself anyway -- but the concept of the object. Which is why you can go to the Met in New York City and see one of Hirst's sharks. Or as Hirst himself says, "Artists and conservators have different opinions about what's important: the original artwork or the original intention. I come from a conceptual art background, so I think it should be the intention. It's the same piece."Hence it's my assertion that the action of Brandeis administrators is just in keeping with the contemporary philosophy of art. And I believe Ed Winkleman is being at the very least disingenuous when he shrugs off his responsibility -- however small -- for taking part in and promulgating that philosophy.
Chris I do understand you and everything your saying. I agree with a lot of in the context of the art world in general. I part ways with you on picking on Ed and his gallery. He owns a commercial gallery and the last time I looked this comes under the title of business. He should be allowed to show what he wants, who he wants and so on. The Rose is a nonprofit museum getting a huge tax breaks for Brandise. They have a different mission. I also have a more personal connection with the museum as one of the past directors picked my work for a bunch of shows many years ago and for a brief period his encouragement was very helpful. He was also pretty active in the local New England art scene. he made an effort. You made a lot of fleeting comments without knowing anything about the Rose, it's position in the community and I find this pretty representable for a blogger who seems to be trying to some kind of journalist. Do your research for petes sake. I have more disdain for modern and post-modern art then you do I think but I am separating this personal view from the issues presented by Brandise colleges mandate to close the Rose Art Museum.As far as the art world in general I agree with on the crap that is being made. I don't go to galleries anymore due to the BS that seems to be the norm. I don't waste a lot of time on it as I just don't feel it's worth it. Life is too short, and I have a tomato to paint.Also in a free society you have to take the good with bad.Visit Massachusetts and go to the Sterling Clark museum and while your at visit the Fogg in Cambridge.
I think what's happening at Brandeis is unfortunate. It's a tough decision to have to make anyway, and I don't think closing the museum is necessarily a good idea. I like museums. And I truly understand your personal feelings in this. There's a place I used to go when I was young called Sailors Snug Harbor. It was taken over by New York City and is some flavor of art and culture institution now. For years every time I went back they'd ruined something else about the place I loved, whether it was tearing down a hill to build a Chinese scholar garden with a fee for entry or erecting a giant ugly cinderblock faux castle. So I know exactly, exactly how you feel. And it's miserable and unfair.As far as picking on Ed and his gallery, you're right, of course, that it's a free country. But I think part of being free is taking responsibility for your actions. And if you promote an art that's ugly, worthless, and disposable, don't whine when people start treating art as ugly, worthless, and disposable. If you want people to treat art as something wonderful and rare and deserving of respect, then you have to treat it that way yourself.
Chris don't you think that your projecting more of your own personal feelings and opinions on to Ed's gallery? I know I don't like most of what he shows, but I don't really care as the art world he inhabits is not the same as mine. I paint realest paintings and I am not interested at all in the kind of work most galleries show in Chelsea. I used let this kind of stuff get to me, I now realize that the world of post-modern art is to beyond my ideas of what art is, so I ignore it.That being said I think his ideas on culture are pretty close to mine. So in this I see a common ground. You seem to have some kind personal thing going on with Ed or maybe you just enjoy winding him up.The French define themselves by the art that hangs on the walls of the Louvre and all the other museums, it is a huge part of their culture along with food and wine and sex. You should rent the DVD The Rape of Europa it's an amazing documentary on this very subject.
At this precise moment I have a thing against Ed because he just really pissed me off. But it's not ultimately about Ed. Ultimately it's about our culture and what we value in it.America's not about to become France, which is okay. France can be France. Nothing against them, and there are some things I think we should learn from them, especially the Gallic shrug. But we're not going to start defining ourselves by our culture.But I would like to see some more arguing about it. Alton Brown, on his great show Good Eats, once asked if hamburgers qualify as American cuisine."Anthropologist Sidney Mintz in fact argues that it's not enough for a food to be eaten a lot or even cooked a lot. It must be debated. It must be discussed often by those who produce it. Now by that standard, well, the hamburger may have been cuisine at one point but not now. I mean, we've handed all of our burger making over to drive through drones. And the only discussions we have on the issue are when we're yelling orders at three inch speakers."I believe in bringing the hamburger back as cuisine and I discuss and debate them whenever I get a chance. I also make a mean burger, man.I believe also that art needs to be discussed and debated. In a serious way. Like we're doing now.
Chris:++Even figurative work has to have ++some conceptual verbiage pinned ++to it, however awkwardly.Yes. Conceptual Art thought us to look at the idea, intention, process, history, meaning, etc, behind any work of art possible. So retroactively, that is equally valuable to a Modigliani. It's not just a painting anymore. It's an object, that is a painting. That doesn't take away any of the aesthetic value of a Modigliani, but it helps the viewer ask other questions than "How" he painted naked women, like "Why", what was the context, etc. It's nothing evil. It's just interesting. I agree with Franklin that it's intellectual play. That doesn't mean it's bad. Aesthetics are about visual play. Playing with the senses. Hear me clearly: There is not ONE artwork in the whole wide world that is not half-aesthetic, half-concept (idea). That was the whole failure of conceptualists that they created an aesthetic of file cabinets. But there is no reason to demonify discussions about process and intention in any work of art. An artist is still allowed to be fully aesthetic. As far as I know, Abstract art is still hot and it's very hard to conceptualize. +++how can someone at Brandeis ++consider their art holdings to ++be nothing but a bunch of blanks ++with price tags attached to them?It's a problem of the art market. They look at it and think "nice, but do I really want nice objects, or money?". I think the conception that art exist as money-grabbing objects is more constituant in contemporary society than the question that art is boring because it demands or request a reflection. It's another problem. If the art wasn't worth anything in the market I'm sure they would keep many of the pieces to decoratethe walls of their university. Yes, even the most difficult works. A Yves Klein can still be decorative. Maybe the public find conceptual art pretentious, but to think they all see it as ugly is presomptuous. Contemporary arts has always in some ways emulated the public consciousness or taste. Minimalism was a response to industrial design. People were into that. They wanted simplified housing because they felt that was modern. The traditional wood floors and wall tapisseries were replaced by white-cube walls. The gallery style we know of today came after functionalist architecture.+++The idea of investing in art -- of buying a workThis problem is mostly in big cities like New York. In Canada you can have a happy life as an artist trying to fit into the mandate of art centres. I think they are works that fit the market well (anything post-Warhol), and works that are indifferent to it. No matter how people sell and buy a Ann Hamilton installation, it will never feel that it's about money. So the problem is transitive. Once the piece is set up in a good place, people will open their eyes and think "oh, the piece was about THAT!", If you're honest in your art, an artist doesn't have to care about the innuendos of a market, or wrether people take the time to appreciate ther art. Some art is simply made for the "initiated". It requestsan intellectual reflection as much as a sensual response (if not more). ++++it should be the intentionAbstract art is much more of a high seller than conceptual arts.I agree with Hirst that we should always question first what an artist was trying to do, but if the response is "I was just trying to explore forms with these materials, you see?", than the product can be totally undissociative from intention. Take a spin painting by Hirst. The process is quite easy, and it can make people wrongly assume that abstract art are a question of chance. Hirst would be the first to admit that anyone can do them in their home. He's hinting at a different mechanism here than pure aesthetics. Yet each piece are very unique. You cannot reproduce one of the spin painting the same you can a shark piece. If the colors are right for you, than that's the unique piece. So there, the aura of the object have submerged from intention. Because I think it was a mistake to assume that Hirst spin paintings have no aesthetic qualities whatsoever. Hirst is interested in the mechanics (automatic art), the process (what is means when art is the result of chaos, spinning, etc..), and manipulating the art market. For him the spin paintings can be so easily done that not one of them should be more interesting than the other. The concept is the overall method behind their creation, but I'm still able to decide that a spin painting looks better than another one. Hirst is wrong (again).+++the contemporary philosophy of art. Is just that people should allow more reflection to the things they see. Not that visual objects are without value and disposable.Jeff:+++I paint realist paintingsVincent Desiderio was in Chelsea the last time I visited. Also there was a realist chinesepainter whom I forgot the name. You're all exaggerating. There is all sorts of art in Chelsea. But my personal take on realism is that it belongs to the art of videogames these days, which look forward in being elevated.+++At this precise moment I have a +++thing against Ed because he +++just really pissed me off.Lol. Why? He snobs you when you enter his gallery? +++HamburgersFrench have croque-monsieurs which are not too far from fast food.America have Charlie Trotter and the likes. Cheers,Cedric C
Cedric says:He snobs you when you enter his gallery?Not at all. He's always been very pleasant to me in person. He's never been rude to me even when I deserve it.
Cedric, there are what maybe 6 galleries in Chelsea that shoe realest work out hundreds. Desiderio shows at Marlboro which is on 57th Street as well as Chelsea. The reason you mentioned this is what?. "But my personal take on realism is that it belongs to the art of videogames these days, which look forward in being elevated."Are you kidding? That is one absurd statement and it really speaks to how little you know about painting.I like video games, or at least I used to. They are a complete waste of time and have no redeeming contribution to society as far as I can see other than keeping a lot of adolesant boys off the streets.
Chill out, Jeff. Cedric is right -- there's realism all over Chelsea. I saw the Desiderio show -- I didn't like it -- and I know of at least three or four other galleries that regularly show figurative work and landscapes.Also, if you're Chinese, you're allowed to be a realist in a fancy gallery. You still need irony, though, and lots of it.Of course, as I said, almost all realism requires some kind of conceptual underpinning in order to be shown. A couple of galleries are unrepentant. But their art is far outnumbered by the mass of work based in conceptualism.
Jeff, you're describing exactly the situation why I think realist painters should move to video games.Figurative and realism are two different topics.Figurative is present very fluently in Chelsea. Last time I was there I saw a bunch of figuratives:Richard Prince (awful), Eric Fischl, Anne Chu, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kate Clark, Zhang Xiaogang, etc.... Photography is 90 per cent figurative.I would think a skilled realist painter would have great chance to make an impression on the market, depending on what you paint and why.If you paint naked women, that's too academic to be interesting. At least actualize the thematic. What are you trying to say? To show that you're good with the brush? The greatest realist painters all had things to say. Otherwise they are illustrators. Maybe Fantin-Latour was being fluffy with his flowers, but he painted so much of them that it became his identity. As such he was a conceptualist as any of today.How do I identify your work?Cedric C
Check out Jeff's work, Cedric. He doesn't paint naked women. He paints...moodiness. Lately he's been doing landscapes and still lifes, all very well. I like his older work better, though, which actually would fit in Chelsea pretty well (and I don't mean that as an insult).
My take on Fall In Vermont:There is already too much info for it to be pure moodiness.I see a row of trees almost serving as a barrier between organized human life (field upfont) and the more ethereal and inaccessible 5 valleys extending beyond. Is this documenting anything about a shift in contemporary landscape construction? How does the idealism of the american explorers rings with contemporary landscapes? This painting suggests that this is now remote and a vague nostalgia. I'm trying to wonder why the painter would have stopped just right there (apart from the fact he appreaciated the same formal tension that I see, or he loved the mountains behind). In art of today you always need to quetion the context. Is this part of a long series on Vermont? Is the artist the main "portraitist" of Vermont landscape these days? (aka: he is the only one who has made 400 paintings of Vermont landscapes in the past 10 years)? Or is he repeating the same motif (landscape view) over and over in different angles?Landscape is a genre that was once quite rebellious in the realms of entente and good taste regarding Fine Arts. It has now been part of the cannons of Academia since a couple centuries. How am I supposed to differentiate this painting from other realist landscapes? What does it document about the artist's life? (method, style of brushing, geography, personal tastes in art, etc..)?If the subject is a mean to explore forms, how exquisite, or personalized, is that form? In Academia you have visual languages that can be as obtuse to the average viewer as conceptualism. Is there a reason why we see that small angular stone? Is this in mathematical relation to anything else in the tableau? I'm not a specialist in painting enough to judge well of these qualities, but on first sight the painting doesn't clash with a strong identity, mostly because it looks like many others. I need to be pointed toward what differentiates it. As I said: a method, a geography, some statement that I might have missed. Technical perfection? It's not Chuck Close yet. It doesn't look like a photograph. This work urges for an assertion about its details, because on the surface it looks like many others. Conceptualism has taught us to not trust the surface. If a man spends a whole week doing this panting instead of any other, maybe there is an history behind it. Otherwise if you art blands in too much with the rest, than allright: one day someone is going to buy "Fall In Vermont" because they like it for this or that reason, but how will they identify the artist's art in the future, when they are myriads artists and amateurs doing very similar work?Cedric Casp
Yo.I'm a blogger virgin.This is my very first fuck (actually, second, as I don't think my first one went through, which only goes to show what a virgin I am). "Where do I put what, when, where, oh my god, I came prematurely!!! I have to do it again?!!!"I'm an artist. I've actually been making a living at it, in NYC (mostly) for 30 something years now.I first met Chris, some time ago, though I don't remember where, when, or why.Recently, we reunited (days ago) and since then I've read lots of his reviews.Most recently, I've read this thread, that I am now responding to.Okay.I understand this that and the other.But yo.Let's all take a deep breath, and appreciate Chris.What a fresh voice he is.I'm so fucking inspired.Much more so than any show I've seen, in like forever.Really.Tim Folzenlogen
Oh for the love of God...I am painting a simple landscape without any pretense, for the record this spot looks like this, it's a hay field with a row of trees to help keep the soil from washing away. I don't care about my work blending in with your preconceived ideas on what YOU think a painting should be or about post-modern theory or modernism or any of this nonsense that is being put forth here in relation to my work. It's just a fucking painting of some trees in the fall, it's nothing more than that. You want burning contemporary content then go go look at something else.This is why I hate art blogs and modernism it's so full of it self and so sure it's right. I'm a traditionalist and I am happy that my work looks like something.I deal with realism because it's what I enjoy doing. Modern and post-modern art is crap in my view.All those so called "figurative artist" on your list are awful in my view. I can't stand Eric Fischl he's a hack and he can't draw.I would debate this further but life is too short and if you can excuse me but I have a tomato to paint.
OK dude, like I'll take a chill pill, and like OMG, like..."The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things:Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings."Lewis Carroll
It's very entertaining watching the unstoppable force of Jeff's cantankerousness meeting the immovable object of Cedric's insanity.Jeff, I think Ced was being tongue-in-cheek up there, applying Chelsea-style philosophizing (I use the term loosely) to what is clearly just a landscape. Although of course a landscape is never just a landscape, it's hardly the minefield of intent and effect that Cedric illuminates.Although he does have a point when he asks what differentiates this landscape from others painted by others. I'm sure in person more of your personal vision comes through. I always see a certain darkness under your paintings, Jeff, even when it's a bright sunny day. That's why I said you're a painter of moodiness.You are right, though: His list of figurative artists is a piss-poor selection. Best known working today, maybe, but least good. I did like Fischl's sculptures, however.
Yes I was amused as well...I think sometimes a landscape painting is just that, a landscape painting. However there is an undercurrent of violence in all landscapes. Nature is very unforgiving and I have been caught in many a down pour while painting to attest to that as well as being harassed by hoards of mosquitoes and bees. The occasional angry red neck who troughs stuff at you. (this never happened to me it happened to a friend)
++it's a hay field with a row of ++trees to help keep the soil from +++washing away. Ha! I knew there was a story behind it. "grass, row of trees, mountains, mountains, row of trees, grass". ;-)+++I'm a traditionalist and I am ++happy that my work looks like +++something.But what were you doing in the middle-of-nowhere, Vermont.You live there ? So: you're still documenting your surroundings somehow. Your painting looks like something. Is it supposed to be beautiful? Or simply a dry document of nature? There is a difference between an artist wanting to convey beauty and realism. As soon as you involve realism, it means there is a documentation aspect to your work(Courbet wanted to paint the average people of its time).What's your purpose? It doesn't have to be complex charabia.I'm just saying there is always an intention. If it is form, than maybe you have a method in what you do that informs what you do. Say, you don't want it to look like a Monet, so obviously you have strategies that will make you stop your brush each time you let too much brush texture enter the canvas. You say you don't give a shit, but there is shit. There is always something that your work communicates. If you want to fit the mold of the most previsible landscape possible, that is the shit. If you want those landscapes to be about you and your life, that is the shit. What is the shit is what I'm asking. You want to decorate every country houses in Vermont, is that your shit?What does the Vermont landscape means on the 43rd floorof a building in downtown New York? Are you aware of thatclash? Do you resent the city? That's also shit.+++All those so called "figurative ++artist" on your list are awful +++in my view.Let's not confuse "art I like" with "I still see figurative aplenty in Chelsea".Every show I see, I grade. Only one artist in that list made in the A position (Kate Clark).Cheers,Cedric Caspesyan
Huge stretch to call Kate Clark a figurative artist, Cedric.By the way, I skipped Tim's note:Let's all take a deep breath, and appreciate Chris. What a fresh voice he is. I'm so fucking inspired. Much more so than any show I've seen, in like forever. Really.Thank you, Tim.
Cedric here is a little message from me to you. Your very pretentious and full of yourself. It's all about you.By the way Cedric I could call you a lot worse names and be rude and start to flame away here but I wont.Your lack of common respect for people in general speaks volumes about the kind of person I think you are. The nasty know it all who really knows nothing. The snob, who at parties insults everyone in a vain attempt to mask his own insecurities and talent. What are you trying to say here, you ask "what's my shit?" My "shit" is staying as far away from people like yourself who are only bent on wasting peoples time with their inane sanctimonious dribble and doing what I want with my work. If you don't like it, don't look at it.Like I said before this is the reason that art blogs are, most blogs in general are crap.
I meant lack of talent...One more thing Cedric, that you think that landscape painting is "remote and a vague nostalgia", to you it is to others it is not, to me it was a spot on a road that I had been passing for years and always wanted to paint, it is that simple. Who appointed you as the expert in all matters of art? Your comments speak more about your cynicism and contempt of the kind of painting I do.It's funny you have really reinforced everything I dislike about the post-modernism the art speak world; cynicism, self satisfied that your comments are important, contemptuous of realism and craft in painting as well as anyone who is involved in this endeavor.
Hmm Jeff, I think you get a wrong picure.I'm not a snob at all. I'm just some guy who likes art.I'm just saying that if you focus on just the tiniest detailin your art, it becomes as conceptually defendable asanything else.As I say, if you paint 400 paintings of Vermont, you areprobably the only one right now who does that, and thatis valuable. That's the only angle you need to defend yourart, visually. Realist painters are as close as anyone else as getting success. They just need anangle. If you paint anything, ok, but there's got to be an angle in how you do it. A detail that can helppeople identify your art.Concept is not "pure evil".It's just something inherentwith every artistic intention.If an artist feels they haveno "intention", than it'stheir method, whateverstrategies they use to makethe art object.If you refuse to simply answerif your work is about beauty orrealism, that's absurd. Isit "ideal" or "real"?. I don'tsee anything wrong with thequestion. It helps understyand where you stand against the world.By the way, Poussin was one of myfave show last year. A landscapist. But there was a strong angle in hisart.Cedric Casp
+++remote and a vague nostalgiaThat statement was the way I view your painting. Another painting might not communicate the same feeling. It's because your painting presents somewhat of a mundane scene upfront and suggest "the big sublime" of american explorer painters is away far behind. I mean that you're very insisting with those mountains, yet your topic is the hay field. +++Who appointed you as the expert +++in all matters of art? Nobody. But I wish that experts would ask my opinion at times.;-POr I would love to discuss with them: they always ignore me.Cedric Casp
By the way, if they are 400 painters who continually paint Vermont sceneries, than they might as well start a movement, because it becomes a strong element of Vermont culture, but the top popular artists in that movement will always have that little something that people can identify their work with. When put in words, "that little something" is often the concept.Cedric Caspesyan
Well I hate to say this but you come off as kind of a snob in context to the type of painting I do. Nothing new there, I am used to this from years of it, but I now avoid this kind of stuff as it has nothing to do with painting. Even though you would argue that it does.What I see as the painter and my intent is not going to be the same as any viewer. Realism is dismissed by a huge cadre of critics, witness the amount of bile projected onto Andrew Wyeth's work the week he died. All of which was harking to a cliche of what each critic thought about Wyeth. They all got it wrong and dismissed him as a mere illustrator.My intent with my work is mostly light and forms. How this works within the context of a painting. How do I solve the problems that I am looking at with the medium I am using. Things such as drawing and color, and value, hue, chroma and so on. Most people are going to think about this stuff.As far as the question of nostalgia in context to painting Vermont, Vermont is a pretty rural state. Which is what I like about it. I have ties to the state as well.Should I paint the poverty of Vermont? The multitudes of wonderful old barns and farm houses that are rotting all over the state? Maybe this would a more worth while endeavor, maybe not.I have in the past...As far as an angle I find for myself that this never works, and if you have ever painted anything from life you would know this.You mention Poussin, who did countless studies of the landscape around him and I dare say if he had the tubes of paint and a french easel that he would have produced these in oil paint. Poussin was also painting myths and religious themes placed in idealized Roman landscapes. He was the first real landscape painter in a lot of ways. I like him but my favorites are George Inness, Church, Daubigny, Peder Monsted. I am also in the belief that the ascetic of the work is good enough, that people can draw conclusions on themselves at to the intent.
For much of my life, I've been a realist painter.I don't think artists choose such things, so much it chooses you.I've always been aware of both the advantages in the marketplace, and the disadvantages.Advantage is that representational painting is a language that most everyone can understand. It speaks to a much wider audience than most other disciplines, and, as many people have experience in viewing it, if you are good at it that tends to be appreciated. I've always sold relatively well and never had much of a problem finding a gallery to represent me.The disadvantage is that you always get tracked into "traditional art" galleries, which are basically "picture seller" galleries that want nothing to do with the artist's thought, especially if it is controversial in any way, as that complicates sales. I used to be with MB Modern (a rather prestigious gallery on 57th until it closed) and the director, who sold almost everything I gave him, didn't even like my titles (which often alluded to the metaphor involved in the work) because he said it made the people have to think too much, and they didn't like that.An aside:As a representational painter, it never really mattered to me what I painted. I did city scenes, because I lived in the city, but had I lived in the country, I'd of been just as happy painting cows.I don't think subject matter really matters.I see painting as being like complicated handwriting. It's the external expression, of the internal character of the artist.Take ten representational painters and have them paint the same still life from the same angle, and you will still end up with ten very different paintings, because no two people are alike.In much the same way, I think "greatness" in painting has mostly to do with greatness of character. How interesting is the painter? What does he or she think about? How deep are they? How wide is their vision?Intensity plays a big part in it. Most great painters (some of whom were crazy) were always intensely focused.Skill doesn't really factor in all that much, as skill can be easily learned. Take all those Chinese portrait painters in the park, or all the "expert" violinists they crank out. Highly skilled, but not much heart / character.I think this is true of all disciplines - all means of expression for that matter.I was doing art in NYC during the roaring 80s and to me, nearly all of that work (which was externally very different) all of it looked like "I Want To Be An Art Star", as that was what those times were all about. That's who those artists were.Tim Folzenlogen
Jeff:+++Most people are going to think about this stuff.I don't agree. Most people are illiterate about the secrets of paintings as a visual language...When you visit a Poussin exhibit, the average people don't talk about the paintings, butdescribe the mythologic stories that are represented.+++As far as the question of nostalgia in context to painting You say you like Church. I was saying that your painting is nostalgic of Church. The spirit of Church is far away behind, hanging there like a ghost over the hay field. +++Should I paint the poverty of Vermont?No. If you just keep painting this relation that you have withVermont state, and make a show about it, it would make sense.I'm just saying that, when you paint a hay field, maybe you are unaware, but you are recording a shift in human relation with nature. It is not the same anymore as in the time of Church. Now we have organized hay fields and manmade frontiers (planted row of trees) that make us not able to move everywhere we want. Somehow inadvertently you have painted that in your painting. Since it's about nature, there is no reasons for there to be a barn. But if you want to express your love of Vermont, than you can paint barns if that is your idea of what Vermont looks like.If you refuse to stick to a theme, than people will try to recognizeyou by your style. Than you become a formalist, somehow. Personally, I would suggest you go by series.++ascetic of the workAllright, than do a series on ascetism. I can totally see a discourse on ascetism versus the sublime in Fall In Vermont. Maybe that's your subconsious.Tim: +++I don't think subject matter really matters. Each artist, a different agenda. If you are purely formal,you are formal.Being skilled in realism is a huge opportunity I find for an artist. if they paint something that's very interesting, or something that is jaw-breaking beautiful or awesome. I think an artist can even assume today that they are decorative. But they have to be honest about it. There is a discourse in decorum nowadays as everywhere else. Ask a tapestry designer.Cheers,Cedric Casp
If there is a god make Cedric stop...
God is for the good-hearted. Your arrogance predicts your misery.Cedric Casp
My intent with my work is mostly light and forms. How this works within the context of a painting. How do I solve the problems that I am looking at with the medium I am using. Things such as drawing and color, and value, hue, chroma and so on. Most people are not going to think about this stuff.I made a typo before which screwed up my point big time, I screwed up...
No one reads your overly long blog comments Cedric. Enjoy your monologues. No one else is.
Anon, you are going to follow me around and remind me this everywhere I go? ;-)I know it doesn't look like it: but I've got friends...There is enough hints in this thread about how to double the market value of Fall In Vermont. I don't think I've been of complete disservice.Cedric Casp
I could rename it the fall of Vermont, there unemployment rose to over 11%. Not as bad as Indiana which is now at 15%.Say hello to the Great Depression of the 21 century, I think selling art is going to become a lot harder this year.