Art Babel

Odd Nerdrum Granted Appeal

2012-01-26T04:40:00.000-08:00

In a dramatic turn of events, the internationally renowned painter Odd Nerdrum has been granted a new trial in the Norwegian appeals court. His two year prison sentence has been overturned amid growing allegations of faulty evidence and infractions of the legal process during the trial.

Because his prison sentence was less than six years, the probability of being granted an appeal in Norway is incredibly low. Thus, the choice to overturn the sentence requires serious concerns about the district court's verdict. The appeals court stated that it specifically wanted to review questions over a sum of $300,000 taxed in Iceland in 2003, as well as to re-consider Nerdrum's explanation that this fiasco began due to some 40 paintings that had melted due to experimental techniques.

The date of the new trial has not yet been set.

To all those who have supported Odd Nerdrum during this trying time, thank you! Our efforts have been successful! Thank you to Michael Gormley and Allison Mallafronte for publishing The Nerdrum Affair in American Artist Magazine! I truly believe you have played an influential role in securing a fair trial for Odd Nerdrum. Thank you to Brandon Kralik, Alexey Steele, and Otto Rapp for your great efforts to make this case visible. And last, but not least, thank you Bork and Ode Nerdrum for doing such a great job with freeoddnerdrum.com!

The Brain on Art

2011-12-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

This is not a Rembrandt! (Or is it?)

The French Art historian and critic, Jean-Daniel Mohier and I have been having quite a fascinating and impassioned debate on the topic of how a painting is experienced by the viewer. As I have asserted before, I think the aesthetic response is largely objective, that is: instinctual. This is based on the fact that we, as humans, share nearly all of our genetic material and that we, across all cultures, share nearly all the same fundamental kinds of experiences. However, we cannot say that the aesthetic response is completely objective, for then, how could we have different (though overlapping) ideas of beauty? My hypothesis was that the instinctual response we receive from a painting in the very first instant of viewing, is immediately distorted by subjective elements to varying degrees; such as learned culture, and individual experiences, which may not be shared by most people: such as experiencing war, rape, or starvation, etc...

Jean-Daniel responded by sharing this fascinating article entitled "How does the Brain Perceive Art?". It discusses a study conducted at Oxford University, which concluded that brains can't tell the difference between a real Rembrandt and a fake. They tried to gauge the response of viewers of both Rembrandt paintings, and students of Rembrandt, with the goal of testing this very question. Just how subjective or objective is our aesthetic experience? It addresses a question I've posed many times before: does it matter if "the Polish Rider" is a real Rembrandt, or a student? Is it not a masterpiece either way?

Before we go on, I have to point out that they only included 14 participants in this study, all of whom had no education in Art history nor any education in life drawing... so we can't really say that this study is conclusive, as it includes too few people and does not have a sufficient cross-section of people.

But, without further adieu, this was my response:
"I guess the question is whether you consider the physical object to be the truth, or the flawed perception of the observer to be the truth. Was the consensus correct when they believed that the world was flat? It just goes to show how influenced people are by false illusions. But, this all goes back to whether you believe the theosophy of Plato, or the scientific objectivity of Aristotle, or the irrational rhetorical tricks of the sophists. That's what we're really debating here! Plato, or Aristotle, or the pre-Socratic sophists (in the case that you follow Hegel instead of Kant).

As a representational painter, I have many years of training to be able to see what's actually there in front of me instead of the symbol or illusion of what people say is there. This is the only way you can paint representational work. Of course you have to be able to project your vision onto the reality. This is more interesting... but you have to be able to discern the difference between reality and a dream, in order to make such a work.

More than a century ago, art critics, historians, and the art viewing public all had studio practice in drawing and painting to some extent, so they all had some ability to see what's in front of them and form their own conclusions. So, this is perhaps the reason that today, they only follow the false illusions of fashion.

So, one can say that this is simply the way it is, this is the way the world works... and that I'm describing the way it "should be". One can conclude that it is very naive, or very arrogant of me to say that it should be any other way than it is. Who am I to say that the world is round? I don't know who " I am" in that sense... I don't know who it is that gives one the right to think for themselves, and relegates other people to the crowd of sheep, but I'm sure history will sort it all out for us. As for today, I can't accept "the way things are" and sacrifice the very fibre of my individuality to mass delusion. No, I must say again that the world is a sphere and is not flat.

I'm deeply sorry if this makes the clergy uncomfortable. ;)

But you asked an interesting question the other night: why paint like Rembrandt today? Well, why not paint "like Rembrandt", if you like? This is something Odd and I have discussed extensively. You could ask the same question about any modern painter or artist. Why paint like Francis Bacon, or Otto Dix, or De Kooning, or Koons, or Hirst, or Picasso? Yet most contemporary artists do. Those who know art history can see that 99.9% of contemporary artists are copying 20th century artists. And they are congratulated for it!!! Somehow to copy a "modern" artist is more "original" because it's a "modern" voice - which must be inherently more genuine. Apart from the faulty logic here, I frankly can't say I care whether or not someone wants to copy Otto Dix, and whether or not a critic likes it, but quite simply, why this double standard? Why is it not acceptable to be influenced by Rembrandt? (As an aside note, an honest look at either Odd Nerdrum's paintings and my paintings will tell you that we are not copying Remrandt, but simply influenced by him. And it's evident that I'm not copying Odd, but deeply influenced by him. You can just as clearly see the influence of Hammershoi, Vermeer, Andrew Wyeth, and Goya.) So, the real question is: why reject the Greco-Roman tradition?

The answer to the question of this double standard, is that the zeitgeist (spirit of the time) is modern....

But, you see, this zeitgeist idea is also a false illusion. Obviously my zeitgeist is different from Koons'. And Ai Wei Wei's zeitgeist is different from Lucien Freud, who's zeitgeist is different from Andrew Wyeth, who's zeitgeist is different from, though related to Odd Nerdrum's zeitgeist. So, exactly how many zeitgeists are there?

So, again. What we're really debating here is Plato vs. Aristotle vs. the Sophists. Kant vs. Hume vs. Hegel... and dozens of other incarnations of the same. If you look at philosophy, all philosophers are more or less regurgitating either Plato or Aristotle (or in the case of the German Idealists like Hegel, they regurgitate the sophists). I, for one, can't see any progress, only a wheel on a treadmill. "

2011-10-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

Varnish: Tips and Techniques

2011-10-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

I have recently polled all my artist friends and researched extensively online to find the best method for getting a perfect finishing varnish on my oil paintings. After lots of practice, I finally have a method that gets great results every time…. Well, almost every time. Varnish is a notoriously tricky procedure!

What is Varnish?

Varnish is the final clear finishing coat applied over a “dry” oil painting. Varnishing seals the surface of the painting, protecting it from dust and dirt build-up. It also restores an all-over sheen to the whole painting, deepening shadows and restoring colors that may have gone matte as the paint dried.

How “Dry” is Dry?

Traditionally, artists waited 6 months to a year before varnishing. And that’s for thin paint! Thick globs of oil paint may actually take many years to dry completely. However, if you are actively showing or selling your work, or working on commission, this is highly impractical to nearly impossible. So, many artists varnish when the painting is “dry to the touch”. There is danger of cracking however, especially if the paint is thick and you are working on flexible canvas.

What Kind of Varnish?

Damar is the traditional varnish used by artists, made from tree resin. However, it is known to yellow with age, and it is also very brittle. Gamblin, manufacturer of paints and mediums, has developed a synthetic-resin varnish called GamVar that has been designed to remain transparent, and also is less brittle. In fact, GamVar says you can apply their varnish when the painting is dry to the touch. Apparently GamVar allows the painting to continue to dry underneath the varnish. Personally, I find GamVar significantly easier to apply, as it stays “brushable” for some time, and does not get tacky within seconds like Damar. So, now I never use Damar, and I only use GamVar.

Removing Varnish

Varnish is made to be removable by anyone in the future cleaning or restoring your painting. It is designed to dissolve easily with odorless mineral spirits (OMS). It’s hard to imagine rubbing OMS or turps on your oil painting, but keep in mind, dry oil paint has a very strong film and won’t simply wipe away with gentle swipes of OMS. So the good news is, if you mess up your varnish, it’s easy to remove and re-apply.

You will need:

GamVar Varnish
Sponge brush (Buy several, they are cheap)
Small shallow dish (larger for a large painting)
Small soft paintbrush, like a #1 sable filbert
Low-lint cloth
(There is no such thing as “lint-free” but do the best you can. I use floursack-style dishcloths, although I recently discovered soft auto-cloths, almost like baby diapers, which I am going to try next.)

Lint is your Enemy

Lint (and dust) will conspire to flock to your painting in massive unforeseen hoards. The largest airborne bits of debris you have every seen will suddenly appear to hover above your freshly varnished painting in a great, slow mating dance. Your job is to keep lint off your painting, and off everything else that might come in contact with your painting.

Prep

Never varnish the day you ship, frame, or deliver a painting! Give yourself a few days of extra time, both for the sake of the painting, and for your own sanity.

Varnishing with GamVar for the first time takes a bit of advance planning, because it comes in a box with 2 ingredients you must mix together in a jar 8 hours before you use it. The directions say to shake the jar every hour for 8 hours, but I have found this to be impossible - who could do that? So I just shake the jar once or twice over 8 hours, as I think of it, and it has always worked fine.

Once the GamVar is ready to use, take out your dry-to-touch painting and inspect the surface. Use tack-cloth or adhesive tape to remove any dust or lint that has accumulated. If there is a lot, you may want to wipe down the surface gently with a clean, low-lint cloth dipped in a bit of OMS.

Next, set your painting on an easel and shine a lamp on the painting for a good 30 minutes (don’t lie the painting down flat or it will just accumulate more dust). This will evaporate any moisture on the surface. If there is moisture on the surface, the varnish will “bloom” - a horrifying phenomenon, where you may think you have achieved a perfect varnish finish, only to find that within a few hours that the surface has developed a opaque white haze. Don’t let the painting get too hot, but it should warm a bit under the lamp.

Ready, set…. VARNISH

When you ready to apply the varnish, use SPONGE brushes. They are cheap, they don’t leave any stray hairs behind, and best of all you can just throw them away when you are done. I keep a batch of fresh my new ones in a plastic ziplock bag, so they don’t gather dust before use.

Pour a very small amount of GamVar into a clean, lint-free dish. It’s easier to dip the brush in a shallow dish, and also you won’t be contaminating your nice clean varnish jar with the inevitable dust or debris on your brush.

Dip the tip of the sponge brush in the GamVar, and then brush on a thin coat over the painting, using long, horizontal strokes to cover the entire surface. Then, blot (don’t rub) the brush on a clean, low-lint cloth.

Brush again with the slightly dry brush with strokes perpendicular to the first ones. Blot your brush on the towel again.

Repeat over and over, brushing and blotting, in perpendicular strokes, until the surface starts to tack up the tiniest bit, and “grab” the brush.

This is reducing the glossy shine of the varnish, which can make the painting look too wet, and will make it too shiny, especially under bright gallery lighting.

Waiter, There’s a Fly in my Soup!

What to do when you get lint in your varnish: Use the small #1 filbert to carefully “back brush” and lift the lint out with one swift flick, and wipe on the cloth. If you don’t dig around too much, the varnish should “heal” and there should be no sign you messed with it.

The Inevitable Do-Over

At some point everone has to re-do a varnish job. If you have lots of lint, or bloom, or if the surface was touched or damaged, you’ll have to remove the varnish. To remove, dip your clean lint-free cloth in odorless mineral spirits, and gently wipe (or even roll) the cloth on your painting. Be careful not to damage the painting, but keep in mind, it’s probably more resilient than you think. Dry paint film is pretty strong. Wipe until it seems like all the varnish is gone. If you are not sure, wait a few minutes for the OMS to evaporate, and then look for glossy areas. Start all over again, starting with removing any dust or lint.

Varnishing a smooth painting

My paintings have a pretty smooth surface, which adds another issue to varnishing: Beading up. Sometimes the varnish immediately beads up just like water on a new car. This is because the surface is so smooth that the varnish has nothing to “grab”. You need to get some tooth in your surface. Wipe off the wet varnish with a cloth dipped in OMS. Then brush on a generous coat of OMS, and keep brushing until there is no longer any beading up. You may want to let the painting sit for a while, to let the OMS “bite” into the surface.

Be gentle, don’t rub hard, and the painting should be fine. When a coat of OMS does not bead up, the varnish won’t either. Put your painting under a lamp to evaporate the OMS, and then go ahead and varnish. Now I always brush on a coat of OMS before applying the varnish, to test for beading before I ever try to apply the varnish. NOTE: use one brush for OMS and a different brush for varnish. You don’t want to dilute the varnish with the OMS left on the brush.

Varnishing is tricky, and it’s always a good idea to practice on a small painting you don’t care much about before varnishing your masterpiece.

Good luck! If you have other tips or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Thanks to Sadie Valeri for allowing me to post this great article.

Odd Nerdrum Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

2011-08-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

I am saddened to be the bearer of such shocking news.

My mentor and dear friend, Odd Nerdrum, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a Norwegian court. He is a man who has dedicated his life's work to defending human dignity, a man who has given his profound knowledge freely to thousands of students without charging a single penny, a man who has inspired millions with his masterly and empathetic paintings - a man who generously opened his home and family to my wife and me when we lost our jobs in New York City, in the midst of the financial crisis, and were quite literally homeless...
This man has been sentenced to two years in jail for tax evasion for $1.5 million USD. Oscar Wilde never recovered from his two year imprisonment for homosexuality and died just a few years after his release, at the young age of 46. At Odd's age (67), and considering that he has tourette's syndrome, this sentence could kill him.

Let's be clear here: the charges against him are not that he didn't pay his taxes. He has already settled that with the Norwegian tax authorities, and this was acknowledged by the court. No, the charges are that he intentionally hid money in order to evade taxes. Of this he is not guilty.

Call me biased, but Bernie Madoff, he is not.

For a little context, consider that Ai WeiWei was accused of tax evasion in China, a communist country, and released on bail after two months of house arrest and a fine.

"Xinhua reported that Mr Ai had offered to repay the taxes and would be released because of "his good attitude in confessing his crimes". " - from article in BBC above

Conversely, Odd has already paid his exorbitant back taxes, he is not allowed bail and must serve his sentence in full, without being allowed to paint, as well as pay a fine. If the sentence itself doesn't sound appallingly harsh for the circumstances, there's also the fact that they have no solid evidence, and have convicted him based only on some bureaucrat's "suspicion". Wait, doesn't that sound familiar? Why, yes, that's exactly what China did with Ai Weiwei. Yet, why is Norway imposing a more severe punishment than China, a country known for it's human rights violations? But of course, the Norwegian press doesn't present it that way. Why would they? Just as China controls it's press, the Norwegian press is funded by the Norwegian government.

Artist Pleads Not Guilty to tax evasion.

Odd Nerdrum Sentenced to Two Years in Jail

Here's what they don't tell you in the Norwegian press. First, they claim that a $900,000 fund in a safe deposit box, was placed there to evade taxes. Odd set aside the money for claims on large compositions that he made in the 1980's with an experimental medium of mastic and linseed oil. After several years, collectors complained that they began to melt if they got too warm. Though he generously painted 36 new paintings of the same images between 1989 - 2002 in order to replace the damaged paintings, many of the collectors wanted to be compensated with money instead of new paintings. This problem is quite well known and extensively documented, and the fund in question was stipulated in the contract with Forum Gallery. And considering the price of his work, this fund for potential claims is quite small.

Odd's explanation is backed up by documents. The courts case is built upon conjecture.

Secondly, Odd's bank keeps records up to ten years back. So, despite the fact that Odd provided all the necessary papers to prove his innocence for the years 2001-02, (just before he renounced his Norwegian citizenship and became an Icelandic citizen) he could not get any records for 1998-2000. They had no evidence to prove that he evaded taxes: no documents, no witnesses, no fingerprints, merely suspicion. Do you keep your tax records from over ten years ago? In the U.S we have what's called a statute of limitations, but apparently Norway doesn't. We also believe that it's the responsibility of the court to prove a man's guilt, not his responsibility to prove his innocence. Again, apparently this doesn't apply to Norwegian courts.

Is this worth a court case and two years in jail? Even if he were "guilty", why is this a criminal case to begin with, why not just a civil case?

It shocks me that this kind of persecution can be so blatantly pursued in our day, against such an international treasure. As this so profoundly effects our intellectual and creative community, I thought I must tell you. So, what is it that they want? Do they want Odd to demonstrate "his good attitude in confessing his crimes"? Do they want to make a political scapegoat out of him? I'll let you decide for yourself, but if you ask me, something is rotten in the state of Norway.

The vilest deeds like poison-weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate
And the Warder is Despair.
- Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

P.S. What can you do? Sign the Petition and contact your local papers and news channels. Spread the word!

L'Esthétique

2011-05-01T01:54:00.000-07:00

La galerie L’Oeil du Prince has the pleasure to invite you to the vernissage:

"L'Esthétique" de Richard T. Scott

Vernissage le mardi 10 mai de 18h30 à 22h

Exposition du 11 au 31 mai

" Not content to be merely a master in all the techniques of classical painting, each of the works of this young prodigy invite us to rediscover a part of the history of our culture - all the while, never forgetting to preserve his own part of shadow and mystery [...]

Before one of these paintings, blended with the greatest technical mastery and brilliance of composition, how can we not bow before the figurative genius of Richard T Scott - and celebrate, in advance, his next compositions? "

Frédéric-Charles Baitinger, art critic, Artension

Galerie L’Oeil du Prince

30 rue Cardinet

75017 Paris

Métro Wagram ou Monceau

01.42.26.50.49

info@loeilduprince.com

www.loeilduprince.com

du mardi au samedi de 11H à 19H30

et souvent le dimanche à partir de 15H00

The Secrets of the Old Masters

2011-03-10T08:13:00.001-08:00

There's a common idea among figurative painters that the old masters were like alchemists... toiling away in their studios - discovering the secrets of the most durable pigments, distilling superior oils, blending fragrant mediums; that what made the old masters great were their secrets: a secret medium, a special combination of colors on their palette, a special kind of brush, a special preparation for their ground and pigments. They certainly did all of these things, and this profound familiarity with the materials is something that's lacking in most ateliers today. And so, many figurative painters today lead solitary lives. Spending much of their time holed up in their studios, slowly pushing their skills, reading old books, cooking up maroger's medium on the stove top, competing against all the other figurative painters.

But these secrets can be found in numerous books, can be learned in many great ateliers and academies around the world. So, they're not exactly secrets, more like very valuable knowledge. Though many great painters certainly did experiment with their materials, what truly made them masters was their skill, passion, brilliance, and work ethic...

well, and one secret.

This is a secret I've seldom heard anyone mention, but one I've known about for some time. It is the secret to the success of Rembrandt, Eugène Carrière, Rubens, and Odd Nerdrum, as well as many of the greatest painters in history. And it is also the secret to my success.

When I first began studying at The New York Academy of Art, I heard tales of how incredibly competitive the students were. Students would quarantine themselves in their studios, only letting in their closest friends, repelling anyone who came knocking. They would speak in whispers about their projects... it was every man for himself. I heard that the professors were equally secretive, more concerned with their own careers than teaching. People spoke of how one professor or another wouldn't answer their questions clearly and withheld certain information from the more promising students. After all, todays student is tomorrow's competition.

Perhaps it was the special blend of my class, the class of 2007. Or perhaps we marked a generational shift in the way we thought. Or perhaps all those rumors were completely false to begin with - all of my professor were incredible. But, many of the professors told us we were different. (Maybe they say that to all their students.) Nevertheless, by the time I was well into my studies at NYAA, I found that secrecy certainly was not the case - certainly not with the professors, and arguably not within the student body. Competition, yes. Secrecy, no. There was an open spirit of sharing: anyone could walk into my studio at any time and I would gladly explain how I did a certain technique, or what medium and palette I used. And I found that everyone else reciprocated. I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like it was true for everyone. And consequently, a surprising number of my classmates from that time continued on to have successful careers.

But, this openness was nothing new for me, in fact this had been my practice since undergrad at UGA. I don't know what put the idea into my head. I would begin each semester by seeking out the best student in whatever class I was taking - someone whose work inspired me, someone who had the skill and vision that I hoped to acquire. I became friends with them and would analyze each piece they created, searching for something I didn't know. Soon, we began borrowing ideas and techniques from each other, improving upon them... always trying to out-do the other. And when one would ask how something was done, the other would happily explain it, demonstrating the technique. Between this open sharing, and the friendly competition that drove us to always try to best the other, we would quickly leave the rest of the class behind ,who for some reason didn't seem to grasp the concept, or just weren't interested. The amount of development that we made in one semester was so great, that several professors asked us to teach their classes for them (our peers) sometimes when they had pressing issues to take care of.

If we had simply kept our ideas to ourselves, or decided "oh, that's Kathy's technique - I don't want to step on her toes", we would never have gotten half so far. The truth is, that together we drove each other to excellence.

At NYAA, I continued this practice on a higher level. And even after graduation, when I worked for Jeff Koons, I met a man who now is a dear friend and colleague: Adam Miller. We became friends in a matter of seconds and when he showed me his work, I was absolutely intimidated! I found that he too had been practicing the same kind of collaborative competition for the past 15 years and we soon struck a bargain. We were aloud to steal any idea, any technique we wanted from each other as long as we improved upon it and gave it back. We would freely share any information.... and over the years, Adam and I came to trust each other so well that we began sharing other opportunities with each other: exhibitions, showing each other's work to collectors, introducing each other to important people. Imagine how effective this would be for an entire group of like-minded painters! And here, you begin to see why the great ones always come in groups - why they seem to cluster together in time like a nebula of stars swirling in eddies around one another.

This is not dissimilar from Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, who actually developed Rembrandt's textural techniques together. Robert Henri shared everything with his students, inspiring the formation of the Ashcan school. Odd Nerdrum asks all of his apprentices to critique his work, and sometimes he takes their advice.

Here you see the spirit of brotherhood that permeates inspiring movements and schools such as Novorealism, the Kitsch movement, and the most successful groups from the Grand Central Academy, Florence Academy, NYAA, PAFA, and too many notable others to mention. All of them sharing the same fundamental principles of humanity, skill, beauty, emotional sincerity, passion, intellect and knowledge.

This is the spirit in which I have freely shared so much of my hard won and valuable knowledge with you here. So, in this spirit, I leave you with a single secret. A secret that, if you embrace, will propel you to a much greater progress in your work than you ever thought possible. Collaborative competition.

A TRUE MASTER NEEDS NO SECRETS.

NY Times: Facebook Censors Art School

2011-02-24T02:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a little update on the Facebook censorship issue.

But, before I continue.... here's the New York Times article.

Art School Runs Afoul of Facebook's Nudity Policy

This post is more of an open dialogue with myself about this issue, which the more I think about, the more it reveals itself to be quite complex. But I'll try not to get ahead of myself.

Many people have pointed out that the specific word "censorship" only applies to the actions of a government. In this case, I would argue that Facebook largely governs the world of social media, according to their own laws, which they selected and they enforce, with no possibility of feedback or input from the users.

But, FB is not a government, it is a private business. And of course, in a pure free market, we could simply choose to go to another social network. Or, we could set up our own website. But the simple truth is that if we did that, the number of people viewing our work would drop precipitously and so would our sales. With over 500 million users, Facebook has revolutionized the way painters, collectors, galleries, and the public interact. FB has indeed been a democratizing force, equalizing the power between the artist, the collector, and the gallery. It has made itself indispensable as a marketing tool. In fact, as a small business owner myself, (being a painter is also a business) it's very difficult to compete if I do not have a presence on FB. Yet, that's exactly why the deletion of some of my best work has been such an issue: "Hermetica" and "What Remains" (featured above: incredibly offensive, right?) Many other painters are allowed to present their best work and fairly compete for the 3-5 second first glance that will determine whether a collector will investigate further or keep searching. Yet, those of us who paint the nude are not.

But, it's even more subtle than that. I think the analogy of the high seas would be appropriate. Both the British Empire and world trade benefitted from keeping the seas open for free trade. But if you were invited to board the largest ship on the ocean (Facebook), would it be the captain's right to duck tape your mouth, while remaining anonymous and unreachable to the passengers of the ship? You can't just jump overboard, and you wouldn't survive if you just built your own raft. Well, no-one forced you to get on the ship in the first place. That is true. But bear with me as I explore a train of thought.

With FB, there IS a gray area because there are two conflicting "rights" here. Many have said that FB has the "right" to decide what they allow posted there and I agree. But we also have certain rights, which are discussed in The Bill of Rights: rights which are considered unalienable under the constitution... that is they are natural to the person (or entity) and are not simply tied to the land in which the person (or entity) resides. This is why FB, an entity residing on U.S soil, can exercise their rights on the open seas of the internet and why I can as well.

The specific rights in question are free speech and the right to access the same free market that others enjoy. But, there's a point where each party's rights, if given full reign, will inherently impinge on the rights of the other party. And the case here is that FB's right to decide has impinged on my right to speech and the free market.

9th Amendment:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

If I'm not mistaken, this is largely upheld by international law.
(Interesting text on the 9th amendment)http://www.cato.org/pubs/scr/2010/McConnell-Simon-Lecture.pdf

The rights of a corporate entity (a non-person) should not supersede the rights of a person. Or if you prefer to look at it this way, I am a small business and Facebook is a huge business. Regardless, if either of us exercise the full extent of our rights, we will impinge on the rights of the other party.

Complicating this issue is that FB has become a near monopoly as social networks go. Yes, they have the best product and I'm not saying that they should be regulated. But the point is that it's become incredibly inconvenient for a business/institution to compete without using social networking. If I start my own website, or even use the many other websites that don't censor classical nude paintings, it will largely be a waste of time, because very few people will see my work. Therefore, it is not precisely a free market.

For the moment, it seems FB is legally within their rights. What they're doing is bad business and, ethically speaking, is absolutely wrong since their policy is prejudicial against artists. But they are a private company, and I was not quite forced to use their services. If it were because I was a racial minority, that would be illegal, but since it's because I paint classical nudes, it is not. To be fair, there is a difference.

However, does that mean that we should simply accept it and allow a minority group to be unfairly silenced by an artificial market? I won't answer that question for you, but will simply raise a few more. If we project into the future it gets even more complicated.

Facebook is governing a commodity that is becoming increasingly more of a necessity (especially in my field) as the trend towards self-employment grows, as internet marketing grows, as well as the specific use of social networking as a marketing forum for businesses, institutions, and even corporations. At some point Facebook could have over 1 billion users... 2 billion... with no real competition. This is feasible. And the more users they have, the more powerful FB is as a marketing tool, and the harder it is to compete without it. This is because right now they offer the best product. BUT, the question is, if one private corporation controls access for enough people to a necessary commodity, (take for example: education) and demonstrates prejudice against one specific group in regards to that access... at what point do we do something? At what point does it become a legal issue?

Consider this: Walmart, in 2005 grossed more than the GDP of all but the 25 largest NATIONS in the world. All they need is a police force, and they are pretty much their own country. I'm not being anti-corporate here, but I'm pointing out the trend that trans-national business is taking. Now, imagine that Walmart was the only place you could buy milk. Would they have the "right" to kick you out for reciting a poem? I'm being melo-dramatic, but only to more clearly illustrate the point.

There is a point where private property will intersect with public rights on a societal scale. We haven't reached it yet, but if things continue as they have been, we just might.

The answer for now, is that I hope FB will be more clear about the parameters and fairly enforce them. Maybe if we raise enough commotion they will take the hint. And it would be quite simple to address this problem with some kind of adult content filter similar to flickr. PROBLEM SOLVED. But, as of yet, nothing has changed, and the administrators of FB have given no signs that we should expect a change.

So, what's the next move?

Concept to Composition Part 3: Odd Nerdrum's Painting Process

2011-02-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

And now for the long awaited finale to Concept to Composition: Odd Nerdrum's actual painting process.

This is by far the most complicated to explain. Especially because Odd's techniques aren't precisely a "process", more a massive collection of principles. There is no formula. There is no magic medium. There is no "trick". The first and most important thing you have to understand in order to comprehend his approach, is that he is constantly experimenting, shifting approaches, completely obliterating and changing the compositions even when any other sane person would consider that they are "done". The trick is not sanding. The trick is not scraping. The trick is not glazing or velaturas, or the palette, or the herringbone linen. It is not his use of mirrors, nor the dark lens he looks through. The trick is simple: he uses all of these instruments, and more, as if he were both the composer and the conductor of a great orchestra. All the while rewriting a note here and there, in the middle of the performance, repeating a phrase, going back and rephrasing a melody, alternating the emphasis on the brass or the strings, smoothly accelerating the tempo.... all as if each and every musician and each instrument were telepathically communing with him and could adjust their performance immediately according to his wishes.

I know how frustrating this sounds to the young painter searching for the secrets to great painting. But the truth is that there is no process or formula for great painting, in general, no matter how your working. There are only principles, knowledge, experience, and above all: inspiration and passion. The key does not and cannot lie in materials and methods, but within yourself and how you utilize them, how you orchestrate every element into a coherent visual language. If that's not intimidating enough, then read on, intrepid friend.

Contrary to the methods that most learn in academies and ateliers, and contrary to the way I learned, Odd's process is audacious, fearless, even reckless. Nothing is set in stone, nothing is safe, and anything can change at any stage of the painting. I've seen him completely finish a large painting and then decide that an entire, nearly life-size figure should be two centimeters lower, and so he simply scraped it down and re-painted the entire figure. I've seen him flip a painting entirely upside-down or side-ways and decide that it looks better that way.... then proceed to change half of the painting to work with the new composition. I've seen him decide to change the lighting at the last minute, invent shadows that aren't there, and make them look completely convincing.

And this is what I love the most about the way he works. There are so many people risking their lives everyday to keep us safe, so that we have the liberty to do what we do. The least we can do is paint like we have a pair!

It's all about principles, and understanding and applying principles is all about knowledge and practice. For a simple crash course, see my other articles on the subject: Oil painting techniques: grisailles. Oil painting techniques: glazing.

On larger pieces Odd typically begins by transferring a loose compositional sketch onto the canvas with a very simple grid. And when I say loose, I mean loose. It's simply about getting the basic compositional proportions right. Next, he will put a wash of perhaps brown ochre, mixed with linseed oil and turpentine onto the area that he'll be working for the day. Typically, he starts by loosely massing in the abstract shapes of the light and shadow areas using a simple palette of yellow brown, a red earth like venetian red or flesh ochre, mars black, and titanium white (See part 2 for more details on the palette.) while refining the drawing, proportions, color, and value at the same time. He's not so concerned with exact likeness or anatomy at this point, but more with the gesture, value, and color. He also applies the paint thickly and liberally with very little or no medium - in accordance with the rule "fat over lean". That is "fat" paint has more oil and body and "lean" paint is straight out of the tube. Your first layers should be in lean paint, and for Odd, that means perhaps the first two or three layers. Only then does he commence to add significant amounts of medium in principle. Though, as I said before, he does often break rules such as this, because he knows how.

He uses models, but not always the same one. Often times a student will model for him for a few months and then another will model for the same figure. He also works a great deal from his imagination and great stores of anatomical and aesthetic knowledge, so nearly every figure becomes a conceptual form, an ideal, which is perfect for his work as they are vessels embodying the content of the work: the spirit and dignity of humanity as a whole. His overarching message concerns the universal and timeless qualities of human experience, though specific pieces may be diverse variations on the theme.

The next stage is reductive. He will use a palette knife or steak knife to remove heavy texture that he doesn't like. He'll use sand paper if he wants an area to be smooth - he has several different grades from fine to rough depending on the purpose. But, and this is important, he's also using these tools as drawing impliments, and not simply for removing paint or revealing underlying layers. About the texture, there is an organization about it. This is the biggest fault I've seen with students trying to copy his effect: they typically will apply the same texture across the whole canvas without variation. But if you actually look at the surface of his paintings, you'll see that the texture tends to correlated with light masses, and the shadows are more scraped down and transparent. Opaque and impasto in the light, transparent in the shadows. This is another rule of thumb that he typically follows, but often breaks.

After scraping, he moves on to applying paint again - sometimes scraping it off or sanding it while it's wet, sometimes letting it dry, sometimes glazing and then sanding, etc... This is the stage where he moves fluidly back and forth between additive and reductive methods. Again, because of the fat over lean principle and because of the way that light functions, glazes and velaturas are typically reserved for the last stage, though there may be many different layers of these as well, allowing each one drying time in between and perhaps some sanding or scraping. He will often look through a dark lense at the subject to condense the value ranges, or he will look at the painting in a mirror (sometimes clear, sometimes blurry) to see the composition and general effect. And he spends long hours throughout the whole process, just working on the painting from his head: responding to what he sees, adjusting here and there, and perhaps changing the lighting or position of the subject.

Then, rinse and repeat until satisfied... but this is the funny thing, my friend Alexander Rokoff once asked Odd how he knew when a painting was finished. To which he replied:

"In the beginning you find the likeness. Many painters can find the likeness, but this is not enough. You must destroy the likeness to find the essence, which few are able to find. But, when you have found the essence, you must destroy it also, in order to find that which is beyond words. Only then can I be satisfied. Even then, it is not enough. I will work the painting again and again until I am even more satisfied, and this may continue for years. I think the painting is never finished, but some day I must move on so that I do not become crazy."

I'm sorry that I must leave you with perhaps more questions than answers. Much of this knowledge is simply hands on, and can only be acquired through experience and genuine searching. But, if you've come here looking for the secrets and find this article daunting instead, don't loose heart. There is inspiration here as well. Consider this quote by Charles Dubois, one of the most profound quotes I've ever heard, and one that resonates with me on the deepest level:

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to give up who you are for who you can become"

For me, this quote embodies the essence of painting, and the essence of life. No, in fact, it embodies much more, even - it embodies that which goes beyond words. And that is something words and paint can sometimes do. And that is why, in painting as in life; through all the struggles and failures, we continue intrepidly on.

Sublime or Shameless: Facebook Censors Nude Paintings

2011-01-22T06:24:00.001-08:00

The question of freedom of expression vs. censorship is an old one, and a topic that has again reared its ugly head with the controversy and subsequent arrest of Julian Assange, over certain top secret government documents being released on Wikileaks. I think we can all agree that it is not the place of the state to limit political speech, and it is certainly arguable that in order to hold political officials accountable in a representative democratic republic, this kind of information must be available to the public. And yet at some point there is a line where certain information may endanger innocent lives and a very difficult compromise must be made.... or must it?

But, it's not my niche, nor is it my intention to definitively answer that question. No, in fact, I have smaller fish to fry. Or bigger fish, depending on how you look at it... well, let's just say "other fish".

Recently, I was the host of an art competition on Facebook organized by Odd Nerdrum. It was the second of four competitions organized by Odd and administrated by three other painters: Odd ran the first one himself. The goal was to highlight the great number of incredible but unknown painters on Facebook, give them a forum to meet each other, to build community and potentially collaborate. At the conclusion of these competitions, we will put together a book.

A few weeks ago marked the start of the final Nerdrum Facebook competition holding the theme "The Beautiful Nude" consisting of paintings and drawings of nudes. And I bet you can see where this is going. In an article by John Seed in the Huffington Post about an incredibly talented colleague Daniel Sprick, entitled When is a Nude OK on Facebook, a Facebook administrator was quoted as stating:

Our policy prohibits photos of actual nude people, not paintings or sculptures. We recognize that this policy might in some cases result in the removal of artistic works; however, it is designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users.

Yet, the administrators of Facebook have, I'm assuming based on the flags by FB members, deleted many paintings of nudes, including my own piece "Hermetica", even though we took the precaution of including in the rules that submission to the competition must blur or block out any genitalia in order for it to be included in the folder - as a gesture of respect for other Facebook users. Odd himself followed these guidelines, submitting the piece you see above "Look at Me", which I must say is much better in the original state, yet has quite an ironic humor with the censorship bands festooned across the woman's more delicate parts. Nevertheless, over 50 paintings have now been deleted, some that only depicted female breasts, some that actually were already censored, and some that depicted nothing more than a bare back. Yet, others that revealed much more were spared.

This begs a number of questions: who is flagging this? Why would they "friend" painters of nudes if they found nudes offensive? Further, did they not see that this is an Art competition about the beautiful depiction of the nude? Here are the guidelines listed on the folder:

I, Hélène Delmaire, am hosting the final painting competition organised by Odd Nerdrum, "The Beautiful Nude"

"Beauty was executed in 1907. Since then, it has been ostracized as the devil's tool. Now beauty is a subhuman cliche. Perhaps it should be enlightened with mental spirit." - Odd Nerdrum

To enter please post your work on my wall, including title and format. One entry per person. A popular vote will decide the winner. Each "like" will count as one vote. The deadline is February 15th. After this date the number of pictures will be narrowed down by number of votes and a final vote will take place over a two week period.

Important note : In order to respect facebook policies and help the contest run smoothly, please blur out genitals or crop your painting accordingly. If not, your image will not be added to the folder. Images selected for the final book will not be censored, this is simply a measure that must be taken on facebook.

One could argue that Wikileaks has the potential to compromise national security and endanger innocent lives, but can one make the same argument about paintings of nudes? If people are offended by a painting of a beautiful nude, meaning specifically not pornographic, why don't they just not look? Are people afraid that a painting of a nude with censored genitalia is going to pollute their children's minds? Since a large number of Facebook users are under the age of 13, perhaps this is the case. Are these the same people who wouldn't let their children see Michelangelo's David for moral reasons? Is this yet another form of the iconoclasm that Odd Nerdrum mentioned?

Does it not seem ridiculous that our western culture parades violence and death in front of our eyes as entertainment, but a non-violent, non-pornographic, life affirming nude body, is somehow dangerous? Why is violence and death perfectly acceptable as popular entertainment, while nudity is not acceptable even as Art?

For the moment I'll put my own irritation aside, as well as my own judgements about the relevance of morality regarding aesthetics (which I've written about many times before). I do not define what's appropriate to society, so it's really a moot point. Instead, let's address these questions from a larger perspective. When (if ever) is censorship appropriate? What kind of censorship is appropriate and in what forums? Assuming that censorship is necessary in public places, even if simply because it is agreed upon as being desirable for the political correctness, then where does Facebook fit in to this? What is the purpose of Facebook? Is it just for children and friends? Is it for networking and business?

The short and unsatisfying answer is that Facebook is what its users make of it. Yes, it began as a social networking site for college students, evolved into some kind of mega myspace without the obscenity, and in the past year or so has evolved into an incredibly powerful business networking tool. In fact, two of my galleries and several collectors have contacted me through Facebook, and several more through other social networking sites. Yet, other networking sites do not offer the huge audience that Facebook does, simply due to its number of users. But this is a double-edged sword. More users means more exposure (no pun intended), but it also means more diverse opinions and views that may infringe on your own freedom of speech.

I am a figurative painter, and as such, I have paintings of nudes, and I have the paintings on my profile. Often a prospective gallery or collector will decide if they like your work based on nothing more than a quick glance, and in the throngs of painters in the world, and the thousands upon thousands of painters on Facebook, you have to have your best work easily viewable to capture their attention. Many of my best paintings depict nudes, so censoring those really limits my ability to have my work seen by those who would appreciate it.

Is this evidence of another iconoclasm in our society or is it simply a return to wholesome morality? Is this evidence of a clash of cultures or religious views? Is this an over-reaction to the way our contemporary society and advertisement relegate the nude to unromantic and vulgar kinds of sexuality? Philosophically speaking, is obscenity really a problem? Though I have my own opinions, and personally believe that obscenity certainly can be destructive, and I believe that we should respect people's cultural and religious views even if they clash with ours. And believe that artistic expression should be equally protected. Yet, protecting the rights of one group can inherently impinge on the rights of another, and that other happens to be me. So how do we balance all of this? Is it even possible?

I can't answer all of these questions for you, and though John Seed's article so articulately presented an excellent discussion of the topic, and I think raised a very compelling argument on behalf of censorship on Facebook, I don't believe he has categorically answered any of these questions either. I think these are questions that each and every person must ask for themselves. And maybe in a round-about way, that's the answer. If each of us knows where we really stand on this issue, we will better know to address it in our own lives... we can better navigate ourselves to the kinds of places where our own ideals are protected, and where our ideals don't infringe on the ideals of others.

Maybe Facebook is not the place to display our work as figurative painters. But in this difficult economy, and truly at any time, it's hard to accept a limitation on your potential success based solely on a handful of people who don't understand what you're doing. It's hard not to be angry when someone seems to blindly attack the thing that you hold so close to your heart... labeling it vulgar and obscene, when you see it as a thing of beauty and human dignity. You see it as a gift to them, and they see it as a threat. The issue with Facebook seems to be the same as the issue with the work itself: each of us has different definitions of what it is and what is should be... and for now at least, we'll all have to agree to disagree.

The Nude Ascending: by Donald Kuspit

2011-01-13T03:35:00.000-08:00

Ever since she descended Duchamp’s staircase in 1912, the nude has had trouble climbing back up. With one destructive dictatorial gesture, Duchamp undid the beauty she had in antiquity, and, even more nihilistically, her body: Duchamp turned her into a cubo-futurist wind-up toy, a mechanical doll he sardonically manipulated at will. The divine nude of antiquity, her body at once graceful and seductive—an astonishingly seamless merger of the ideal and the real, the transcendent and the erotic, the dignified and the desirable—was gone forever in modernity. No more Aphrodite of Cyrene, ca. 100 B.C., or Aphrodite of Melos, ca. 150-100 B. C., but Archipenko’s 1918 Walking Woman, with a large hole punched in her flattened torso, wounding and hollowing her, and Picasso’s 1930 Seated Woman, her body also a hollow construction, not to say a malfunctioning contraption. They are just a few of the female monsters—the avant-gardized woman’s bodies--that seem the sadistic rule in modernity: the female bodies brutally sacrificed on the altar of so-called art.

These avant-gardized females are sad excuses for femininity, and suggest the male artist’s troubled masculinity. They convey what the psychoanalyst Wolfgang Lederer called the fear—and finally hatred—of woman. Perhaps her misrepresentation is an attack on the omnipotent phallic woman—Magna Mater—or an expression of castration anxiety. The violence done to her body may be revenge for her power—the power of the model--over the male artist: a way of empowering himself by disempowering her—empowering his art by de-eroticizing her. Or he may be envious of the creative power of her womb—the power to give birth innate to her body--and try to rip it out of her or spoil it with his art, a secondary creativity compared to her primary creativity. Whatever the unconscious reasons for it, the hateful misrepresentation of woman in modern art can be traced back to Baudelaire’s view, in his Intimate Journals, that “she should inspire horror” because she’s natural rather than artificial, that is, “artful.” Projected into her, this horror made her look horrible—altogether inhuman. She became a container for what Baudelaire acknowledged as his “horror of life.”

The massacre of the female nude was carried out by an art that lost its innocence when it decided it was more important than human beings—when it abandoned what Harold Rosenberg called “the tradition of the human being as ultimate subject of painting,” more broadly, of art. This “liberation”—for so it was thought to be--made art “modern,” more particularly, “avant-garde.” Privileging art above humanity--severing art’s ties to everyday human life, a declaration of independence from human affairs suggesting a certain contempt for them (thus the avant-garde critic Clement Greenberg’s contempt for politics and religion)—is the gist of avant-gardism. The purification of art was a grandiose act of self-inflation disguised as an assertion of autonomy. It was a self-deception that led to self-defeat: uprooting itself from human experience, art became vacuous and futile, finally only able to “tell the story of its own barren soul,” as Zbigniew Herbert said, “gesticulating in a void” and forfeiting “the possibility of interhuman communication.”

The avant-gardization of art came to mean its heedless aggrandizement of the lifeworld for its own artworld purposes: they seemed more important than those of the lifeworld. It is no doubt why Duchamp felt free to ride roughshod over the nude, degrading her body into a mechanical device. Programmed to descend the staircase, she is incapable of ascending it again, becoming the goddess she once was, a higher being worshipped by all of humankind as a symbol of its own aspirations. Duchamp’s mechanical nude—emblematic of the de-organization of the human body in modern art in general—belongs in the junkyard. Duchamp’s artistic practice, which involved junking the human figure by dehumanizing it into a machine—confirming his admiration for American plumbing, which is what the Large Glass, 1915-23 is all about (and more broadly for technology, as the Rotary Disks, 1920 show)--indicate that when he spoke of enlisting art in the service of mind rather than instinct he meant using instrumental reason to eliminate instinct from art). It is emblematic of what Adorno called the indifference that pervades modern society, a climactic manifestation of its much acknowledged alienation and dehumanizing effect. (It is worth noting that Greenberg thought that “Courbet, the first real avant-garde painter…paint[ed] only what the eye could see as a machine.” Duchamp, it seems, only had eyes for machines, and saw everyone as a machine, preparing the way for Warhol’s remark that he wanted to be a machine. Maybe he was. )

“For me,” Léger wrote, “human figures, bodies, have no more importance than keys or bicycles.” The folly of modernism—its degradation of the human being into just another “plastically valid object…for handling as I choose,” in Léger’s words--is epitomized in this statement. It endorses what Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of General System Theory, called “the model of man as robot.” It has its uses, but it is a fundamental error: man is not a “living machine,” that is, a closed system, automatically functioning in pseudo-autonomy, its mindless insularity creating an effect of self-sufficiency, but a “metabolizing organism,” that is, an open system, inseparable from his environment, which he mindfully and constantly metabolizes in mutually influential intimate interchanges, and thus with no pretense of self-sufficiency. For von Bertalanffy, “the image of man as robot” bespeaks “the zeitgeist of a mechanical and commercialized society.” Its goal is to make “humans ever more into robots or automata,” “engineering” them to serve “pecuniary and political interests.” It is “metaphysics or myth, and its persuasiveness rests only in the fact that it so closely corresponds to the mythology of mass society, the glorification of the machine, and the profit motive as sole motor of progress.” Duchamp misread—wishfully?, ironically?—automatic as autonomy, and Warhol turned himself into a money-making machine, making art--what he called “business art”—to make a profit. It is no doubt why he seems the perfect living machine.

As though in repudiation of the robot model of human beings in modernity and modern art, the Neo-Expressionist figures of Baselitz, Clemente, and Cucchi, among other painters—noteworthily German and Italian, that is, from countries that had experienced the disastrous consequences of the robotization of human life under Fascism—convey a freshly organic vision of human existence. The figure also returns in the United States, in the imagery of Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman, among others, although it still has a certain robot-like—mannequin-like—appearance, as though it was indifferent to its own humanness, even as their imagery engages the dehumanizing and de-individualizing effect of mass media society by more or less deconstructing and ironicizing it. There is no beauty in the figures of the European Neo-Expressionists or the ironic American “social realists” (as I see them)—or, for that matter in the Neo-Expressionist figures of Eric Fischl and Julian Schnabel (also “socially critical,” if more openly engaged with the all too human pathos in the American lifeworld). The figures of Alex Katz and Philip Pearlstein have what I would all a tendency to beauty, even a certain abstract beauty, a consequence of what might be called their descriptive formalism, that is, their use of modernist means to articulate the figure. All too human beauty had to wait for the post-apocalyptic human beings of Odd Nerdrum. Nerdum is among the key New Old Masters—artists who integrate and re-interpret traditional and modernist methods and iconography to renew and re-assertwhat the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson calls the “human aesthetic” grotesquely mutilated by modernism. The figure has once again come into its own.

In sum, the nudes in this exhibition repudiate the machine model of the human being and of the human body. They inaugurate a return to the “human aesthetic” that prevailed in art before the modern period, when the mechanical model of the body took over, artists being fascinated by machines that seemed to function more efficiently—and automatically--than bodies. The body is not merely a “plastically valid object” but subjective in import—its “plasticity” is innately subjective: convincing art is not merely a matter of plastic—formal—engineering but of subjective validity. The nude reveals the body ego—the most fundamental and indispensable ego, as Freud said—in all its expressive glory, conveying its unadulterated sensuous and sensual power, in contrast to the clothed body, which is emblematic of the socially controlled and engineered body ego—the body as a social robot, its innate sensuousness and sensuality muted, indeed, denied. The nude cannot be engineered into social conformity, but always remains uncannily nonconformist however ideal and beautiful its form: indeed, idealism and beauty are always nonconformist, even when they seem to conform to reality, as the ideal and beautiful bodies of the ancient Aphrodite do—not despite themselves, but because the ideal and the beautiful always contain the real and ugly, like the piece of dirt that irritates and stresses the oyster into producing an artistic pearl, uncannily irregular and regular at once, and thus dialectically poignant, like the body, which is both raw and refined, instinctive and proportioned, like the human mind. Many of the nudes in this exhibition are amazing pearls of art and life.

“Life,” von Bertalanffy writes, “is not a comfortably settling down in pre-ordained grooves of being: at its best, it is élan vital, inexorably driven towards a higher form of existence.” The same can be said of art--at least before it lost its élan vital, that is, became Duchampian and Warholian, and forgot that its purpose is to celebrate life, overcoming our fear of it by making it seem less strange, and so unconsciously estranging and hateful. The nudes in this exhibition do not comfortably settle down in pre-ordained grooves of art, but convey the élan vital of the body, promising the aesthetic perfection of ideal beauty—the sensuous and sensual subtlety of the body sublimated in epitomizing form--without denying the vulnerability of the all too human living flesh. In other words, they are as full of mind as they are ripe with matter.

By Donald Kuspit

written for The Great Nude Invitational, NY, NY, May 2010

On Darwin and Esthetics

2010-11-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

When broaching the subject of beauty, especially in the realm of the arts, people can very quickly go up in arms. Why is this such a contentious subject? Isn't beauty supposed to sooth, to heal? How is it that beauty can divide people, when it's supposed to bring us together? The answer likely goes back as far as the feeling of esthetic pleasure itself. As Denis Dutton describes, at least as far back as the cave paintings 30,000 years ago, at least as far back as the Venus of Willendorf 100,000 years ago, but as he suggests, all the way back to paleolithic hand axes, nearly 100,000 years before verbal language. Perhaps in some way, our ancestors were attempting to define beauty even then, even if they didn't have the abstract concept to define it.

There are two primary camps. The dominant theory is that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". That is, beauty is entirely subjective and is either decided only by individual perception, or by culturally learned perspectives, or both. Dutton is an advocate of the other side: that beauty is biologically determined and that we have evolved our sense of beauty due to natural selection.

His most interesting example are the paleolithic hand axes, which have been found in the thousands all across Europe and Africa. They have been finely crafted and show little or no signs of being used for butchering. So, Dutton hypothesizes that these axes were made for esthetic purposes.

In the realm of painting, my niche, the argument falls generally along the dividing lines of the abstract vs. realist and the concept vs. the object. I would argue, another false dichotomy. Yes, we can all tell the difference and many people have a preference for one or the other. Both camps argue that their side is more natural and fundamental, and the other only chooses what they like because they were conditioned to choose it by society. And I certainly have an opinion about this - which doesn't fall into one camp categorically, but simply by a degree of shared values. But, that's for the many other articles that I've already written. Suffice to say, both camps seem to have something of the truth and neither side is benefiting from facing each other across the battle field. Just as in politics, we are expending much of our energy trying to win, rather than understanding and problem solving. Just as in politics people are aligning along ideological lines based on an imprecise analytical tool. What is it that they say: "Divide and Conquer"? It seems to me that both sides of this argument have already conquered themselves.

Personally, I don't think it's necessary to choose one side of this false dichotomy whether in the abstract or in the specific. First of all, there are other possible explanations for the use of hand axes, and though I like the charm of his theory, it's also possible that most of them were used as weapons. Yes, to protect oneself from other proto-humans who might try to steal one's mate or food. For these objects to be useful, one needn't use it for butchering, all that would have been required would have been to simply threaten or cut someone, which wouldn't produce much more wear on the tool. Sorry to be a little cynical, but mankind has been violent towards each other far longer than we know, and it's a bit naive to project our ideal of peace and beauty for all onto our ancestral past. Further, we have to admit that there are other, equally viable explanations, though they may be less elegant and compelling as Dutton's. I'm not writing off his theory, in fact I rather like it; but it seems necessary to introduce a healthy amount of skepticism into the discussion. It's also possible that these hand axes served both purposes: a beautiful symbol of intelligence, skill, and resourcefulness, as well as a means of self-defense. In terms of the general argument regarding genetic vs. culturally defined beauty, objectively speaking, it's equally likely that both theories are true. That is, it's likely that the human perception of beauty is determined to some degree by genetic pre-disposition, and that sense of beauty is refined and molded by a layering of other factors such as genetic variation, culturally learned behavior, and the accumulation of individual life experiences. Hence, embracing one does not mean that we must reject the other. I think both give valuable insight and both give value to the esthetic experience.

But, as much as we like to think it, we are not so different from our flint carving ancestors. Fundamentally, our DNA is the same. And as we likely did then, today we do have a tendency to categorize things. We are hardwired to see patterns in complex and seemingly random data- whether it's there or not. We like to find order in chaos. We like to create abstract principles such as good and evil, light and darkness.... this is both a useful tool for understanding, and a cloudy lens which can distort our perception. But, you know, this is the beauty of it. This is part of the joy of being human.

The Sustainable Studio

2010-10-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

Hermetica Oil on Linen 46" x 60"

Whether or not you agree with the conclusions of climate change science (and I certainly do), we can all agree that our studio practices as artists can be very toxic. With the vapors from solvents, carcinogenic heavy metals in pigments, chemical dryers; even a simple painting studio holds many dangers to ourselves and especially to children and pets. It also has larger economic and environmental effects that I choose to take into consideration.

With this in mind, I've set out to reduce the toxicity of my studio (in the interest of my health) as well as the environmental impact of my studio practice as a painter. Over the past two years,I've developed and implemented a few points that will help reduce your risk of cancer, put more money in your wallet, support your local economy (when possible), and even reduce your carbon footprint. Of course, your own system should be adjusted to your working methods and your aesthetic philosophies, as I have had done, but even a little change can make a difference. Above all, I don't suggest that we should feel that we need to compromise our work or our creative vision, but it turns out there are so many things we can do without effecting the quality of our work and our working process, that that idea needn't even be on the table.

1. Oil Paint: Since my work is very inspired by the old masters, I really enjoy the color harmonies of working within a limited palette. So, it's no sacrifice for me to use only earth pigments such as yellow ochre (I use yellow brown - much more yellow than it sounds), mars black, venetian red, etc... and instead of using lead white (which has it's own wonderful qualities) I prefer to use Sennelier titanium white. It's non-toxic (just don't spread it on your toast every morning) and dries faster, both qualities that I prefer. As you can see in the painting above, I find that with a little knowledge of color theory, I can get a broad range of color, as saturated or as muted as I need. Also, because I often use my fingers and can't paint with gloves, it's nice to know that I'm not absorbing anything through my skin.

A few added bonuses are that earth pigments tend to be cheaper than modern pigments and they have a proven track record of lasting a very long time (even cave paintings 40,000 years ago!). I prefer to buy locally made paints when I can. For instance, in NYC, Vasari, Robert Doak, Williamsberg, and Kremer pigments make excellent paints, by hand. Earth pigments require less processing, therefore less energy, less shipping, less manufacturing, and buying locally reduces the amount of shipping necessary as well as supports the local economy. For me this is a perfect solution.

2. I stretch linen canvases myself and make my own ground out of Blanc de Medeun and linseed oil. It's an incredibly strong surface and is far superior than any factory made ground or gesso. This gives me more control over the dimensions of the composition, the surface, and more man power usually means less machine power. Two birds with one stone!

3. Recycle old clothes and cut them into pieces to use as painting rags.

4. The biggest issue I've had is with solvents. The vapors can be harmful and disposal is tricky. For my medium (just stand oil and turp), I find that I can't replace old fashioned turpentine. I've tried mineral spirits, turpenoid, gamsol, etc... and it just doesn't have the same quality and all of these still release vapors, even if you can't smell them. However, I've discovered a solvent produced from soy that has no vapors, is completely non-toxic, bio-degradable, and works quite well: SoySolv. I've known both painters and printmakers who love this product. Since I'm in Europe, the lack of availability and cost of shipping would be prohibitive for me, but for people in the states, this might be a good solution.

Update: At the suggestion of my good friend Alexander Rokoff, I've begun cleaning my brushes with Safflower oil. I've been able to substantially reduce the amount of turpentine I use and an added benefit is that it conditions and preserves the bristles so they stay soft and supple for around two weeks. Additionally, I save time on clean-up because I don't have to wash my brushes with soap and water every time I use them.

5. For drawing supplies, I've found that Strathmore makes a paper which is manufactured completely with renewable energy. Legion Paper sells several papers that are tree-free and chlorine-free, produced with solar, wind, or water power.

You can recycle your old or second rate drawings and make your own paper. In fact, recycling is not such a new concept: during the Renaissance, painters and draughtsmen would reuse their old drawings to make rag paper out of them (originally made from rags). Though, it was because of the great expense of fine paper and not for environmental reasons, it was a common practice for hundreds of years. Paper making.

This is just my studio practice, but the ideas of sustainability have been applied by artists working with nearly every medium. Here are some very interesting and innovative solutions that others have come up with.

If you have any ideas you'd like to add or suggest, I'd love to hear them. And if you've already made some innovations in your own studio practice, please share your work.

On Kitsch and Politics: a Brief History

2010-09-13T01:52:00.001-07:00

To me, the unwritten history is much more fascinating than the written. This history has already been recorded, though the particular connections I make have not, as far as I'm aware. We can only begin to piece together such connections from what has been handed down to us, but we can never be certain. Likewise, we can never even be certain of our written and certified accounts of history, for all history is written by the victor. All we can do is determine the facts as best we can, and try to stay objective and logical.

It's amazing how a simple definition can change the coarse of history. A slight shift in one person's perception, the equivalent of a small stone, can, over time, avalanche into a change of global proportions. There is a danger that when we lose sight of a term's origins, we can find ourselves on a speeding bus without a driver. It is so with the origins of the dichotomy of "Art" and "Kitsch". Certainly, dichotomies are not representative of truths, but they do effect our perception, actions, and history. Like in all great origin stories, this one is also filled with drama, deceit, hope, idealism, revolt, and murder.

The origin of the term "Kitsch", at least partially depends on politics and timing. One can say there is a direct correlation between the upheavals in Europe during the middle of the 19th century, known as "The Springtime of the People's", and the proliferation of the term. In 1848, Europe was gripped in the throws of peasant revolutions. As a result, France elected Napoleon III as president of the Second Republic and other countries also established their own civil governments. The only major European countries who did not experience a national revolution during this period were Great Britain, the Kingdom of Netherlands, The Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The origins of these revolutions are many and varied, but it is relevant to point out that The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, and certainly some of the revolting groups fought under the banner of communism.

In the 19th century, painting as well as the other arts held a much more influential role in society than we can imagine today. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862), which met universal hostility from the likes of Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Taine, who derided it for being sentimental, vulgar, artificial, and containing "neither truth nor greatness", nevertheless became so popular with the public that the issues raised in the book were soon on the agenda of the French National Assembly. Hugo subsequently became deeply immersed in politics, gave support to the new "Second Republic" and when Napoleon III established an anti-parliamentary constitution in 1851, Hugo denounced him as a traitor, leading Hugo to be forced into exile.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." - Marx

I believe Marx was incorrect in attributing so much to class struggles, but, in this tumultuous period, it was unquestionably true.

The first known use of the term "Kitsch" is hard to determine. There is significant evidence that it had been used as early as the 1850 World's Fair in London, but it definitely came into popular use in the 1860's in Munich: describing popular, cheap, and low quality drawings and prints which were being produced in great quantities to meet the demands of the new class of Bourgeoisie that arose out of the revolutions. Given these dramatic events, it is natural that the remaining aristocracy (in London and elsewhere) would see the world they knew tumbling down all around them, would see their friends and family being executed throughout Europe, and fear that this too could take place on their own soil. It's natural that they (consciously or unconsciously) reacted to this by amplifying a disdain for the attributes and taste of this Nouveau riche, which was already present, but accelerated by cheap decor flooding the markets. It is natural that they would react by emphasizing the obvious hierarchy of "Art" over the commodities of the people: "Kitsch". Am I saying that they actively used this as propaganda to suppress peasant revolt? I don't know, though it is a possibility. But, this is only the beginning, and we're still a long way from the present definition of "Kitsch".

"There is a philosophical background to kitsch criticism, however, which is largely ignored. A notable exception to the lack of such debate is Gabrielle Thuller, who points to how kitsch criticism is based on Immanuel Kant's philosophy of aesthetics. Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric". Thuller's point is supported by Mark A. Cheetham, who points out that kitsch "is his Clement Greenberg's barbarism". A source book on texts critical of kitsch underlines this by including excerpts from the writings of Kant and Schiller. One, thus, has to keep in mind two things: a) Kant's enormous influence on the concept of "fine art" (the focus of Cheetham's book), as it came into being in the mid to late 18th century, and b) how "sentimentality" or "pathos", which are the defining traits of kitsch, do not find room within Kant's "aesthetical indifference".

Kant also identified genius with originality. One could say he implicitly was rejecting kitsch, the presence of sentimentality and the lack of originality being the main accusations against it. When originality alone is used to determine artistic genius, using it as a single focus may become problematic when the art of some periods is examined. In the Baroque period, for example, a painter was hailed for his ability to imitate other masters, one such imitator being Luca Giordano.

Another influential philosopher writing on fine art was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who emphasized the idea of the artist belonging to the spirit of his time, or zeitgeist. As an effect of these aesthetics, working with emotional and "unmodern" or "archetypical" motifs was referred to as kitsch from the second half of the nineteenth century on. Kitsch is thus seen as "false". As Thomas Kulka writes, "the term kitsch was originally applied exclusively to paintings", but it soon spread to other disciplines, such as music. The term has been applied to painters, such as Ilya Repin,[5] and composers, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whom Hermann Broch refers to as "genialischer kitsch", or "kitsch of genius".[6][7]" - From Wikipedia

(Of course, like every form of media, we must always be critical of our sources. And arguably Wikipedia is not the authority as far as encyclopedias are concerned. But, I have done some fact checking and this passage seems to be accurate as far as I can tell. Though I encourage you, if you are interested, to investigate yourself.)

The word became popularised in the 1930's by Theador Adorno, Hermann Broch, and Clement Greenberg, all of whom attempted to define avant garde and kitsch as polar opposites. As with the origin of the term, this re-definition took place during a turbulent and violent era: Hitler was rising to power in Germany, Stalin held Russia in an iron grip, and their propaganda was filled with illusionistic depictions of nude, athletic youths. Their films depicted beauty and sincerity with a saccharine sweetness and so it was an easy task for Adorno, Broch, and Greenberg to twist the populist definition of kitsch into a deceitful tool of totalitarianism. During the following years, WWII, and the communist scare during the cold war, modernism and then abstract expressionism, emerged as the champion of the avant garde and the very symbol of American capitalism. See: CIA and the Art Conspiracy.

Interestingly enough, perhaps due to the growth of the middle class and globalization; during the latter half of the 20th century, and especially with the popularity of Post Modernism in the 1980's, the lines separating Kitsch and high Art again became blurred. Many standard political associations became reversed and representational work which was labeled by the critics as kitsch, such as that of Andrew Wyeth, Odd Nerdrum, and others, was increasingly supported and collected by wealthy conservatives in America and internationally. Simultaneous with the development of camp taste (think of Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami) in the 1980's, there arose a growing support of representational works among American conservatives which lead to the rise of the Art Renewal Center, among other groups, hoping to re-establish the representational tradition. Representational work is now being largely supported and collected by what is often referred to as "Old money" as well as many in the middle class and is increasingly being embraced by people of many political leanings. "High Art" is, as always, collected and supported by the wealthy elite and the public institutions that they often contribute to. Though, I'd like to point out an interesting chimera: whereas, many contemporary artists such as Koons, Murakami, and Hirst produce (via factory studios) and sell their work in a very capitalist manner, the content of the work is based on a relativism (equality of all things) which is philosophically related to Marx, (see Kant and Hegel) through Derrida, Foucault, and other post-modern philosophers.

Thus, today we have a confusing array of definitions for both "Art" and "Kitsch", each carrying their own set of associations. But "Art" as defined by the most influential artists and institutions of our day, is only conceptual. Consider Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Christo.... their work is considered only to be the idea, their persona the focus, and the object is simply a marketable by-product. We have the camp of Koons and Murakami, the melodramatic New Kitsch of Marilyn Mentor and Charlie White, and of course Odd Nerdrum's definition of "Kitsch", introduced in his book "On Kitsch", and which is analogous to the term "Ars" used in Greco-Roman culture as synonymous with humanism, skill, and beauty. This is the same concept used during the Renaissance, Baroque, and up until the beginning of the 19th century and is often the same concept that much of the general public today still refers to as "Art".

"Ars longa, vita brevis." - Hippocrates

As this history reveals, there are no fixed political ideologies that are necessarily fixed to these terms. They shift and evolve with the times, and are re-defined according to the politics, philosophy, economics, and fashion. They are as malleable as any other word because they are simply abstract ideals. Like all dichotomies this too is only useful in as far as it assists in analysis. Beyond that, neither idea absolutely leads to the "truth", and often - just as in contemporary politics - absolute polar ideals such as this can warp the facts and obscure our view of what's before us. Everything we see is colored and distorted by the beliefs that we hold. This is sometimes beneficial, and sometimes dangerous. Where does this history lead us? How does this apply to the questions of our lives? I'll leave that for you to decide. The place to begin is to question our own assumptions.

Takashi Murakami at Le Château de Versailles

2010-09-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a trend among contemporary pop artists lately: attempting to inseminate their image into the past - perhaps, with the goal of somehow giving some historical relevance to their work which extends beyond vapid, desultory references to pop culture and 20th century Art history. Perhaps they are subconsciously aware that if you remove all the context, their work has little, if anything to say on its own. Thus, because it only embodies what is projected upon it, speaks only to its own time. It is nothing more than a manifestation of the particular biases and fashions of its day and when these biases and fashions change, will one day be merely a name and a picture in an Art history book. It will likely be regarded with embarrassment in much the same way we look back upon an old year book photograph of ourselves in our "Miami Vice" phase .

Like his American counter-part, Jeff Koons in 2008, Takashi Murakami has mounted an exhibition of his opulent, pop-psychedelia in the Château de Versailles in France. And in some ways it's befitting for the two Art stars to exhibit here. Like the French Aristocracy before them, both Koons and Murakami have built their empires on the backs of the lowly peasant workers, exploiting their skills, resources, conspiring with other aristocrats, and manipulating markets. And Murakami's work, unlike Koons' more minimalist sculpture, does meet the copious extravagance of Versailles with its own exaggerated theatricality. But the accord ends there. The architecture and frescoes of Versailles, even with their Rococo superficiality, display a relative sea of content and gravitas compared with Murakami.

In fact, I can only glean a single message actually conveyed by the work itself, glistening beneath the surface of the tepid kiddie-pool that is Murakami's exhibition:

Let them eat cake.

Judging Art: Part II

2010-08-30T03:02:00.001-07:00

"The primary purpose of Art is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man". - Ayn Rand

I offer for your contemplation the long awaited sequel to Judging Art: Almost Objectively. For you gentle reader, I would like to propose a small suggestion. Find someplace comfortable, select a beverage of your choice (I like a subtle Burgundy or a Chimay) and print this article out. This is not light reading and after a while the computer screen may strain your eyes. And I personally prefer the light reassuring sensation of paper in my hands.

For my Kitsch colleagues, please see my first article to see how and why I'm using the term "Art".

Since the publication of Part I, I have received a great number of compelling responses, both positive and critical which have lead me further down this path of inquiry than I had before expected. For this I am grateful! Though I don't propose to have solved these questions by any means, at least for me, the ideas that I will express seem to shed some light on as of late dusty and un-touched corners of philosophy and consciousness. Indeed, I think that the advances in our understanding of human consciousness play a big part in revealing the basis behind the aesthetic experience. Perhaps science will never completely explain the intricacies of human consciousness, the question of the spirit, the aesthetic experience, but it can and does bring us half-steps closer. All the while uncovering two questions for every one that it answers - a process I think quite worthwhile. In that vein, I've embarked upon a path of research, debate, testing my theories with colleagues. And so, I look upon this as a work in progress and hope that the questions which arise will help us as artists: to foster our own creative and technical process, and as individuals I hope it will result in some greater understanding of these beautiful and strange creatures we call fellow human beings.

I have lately been reading a fascinating explication of Ayn Rand's esthetic theory, entitled What Art Is. What Rand (and the brilliant authors) have illuminated for me, is that there are several levels of meaning communicated in a work of Art. As obvious as this may seem, the understanding of the nature of these levels illuminates something about the creative process, about the nature of communication, and even about the nature of consciousness. And it accounts partially for how and why each viewer can and will read so many different things from the same piece.

The first level, being closest to the individual and the most intimate and emotive form of communication, is the inherent content that a successful work communicates - what I discussed in part I. Briefly, this base-line communication derives from our shared genetic predisposition and the part of our life experiences that are universal. Yes, I've heard the standard post-modernist response to the "universal" argument enough times to know what many of you are perhaps thinking. This content is context ALSO and is not really in the work itself! Of course, objectively speaking, if you were an alien intelligence, gazing at Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring", you would not see this human meaning as inherent to the work, you would not likely feel the gentle significance of her slightly parted lips, the posture of her shoulder, the glint of light upon the pearl, the graphic contrast between her form and the impenetrable darkness around her. And so it would also be context projected upon it by humans.

But, as fascinating as this ET scenario is ... (what would such a being think of our Art?), this brings up an important point, so please bear with me for a moment while I temporarily digress.

Have you ever felt as if you were only half awake? I certainly have. And it seems like I experience "existence" more when I halt the verbal background noise that's always bounding around in my head and I simply focus upon my senses. This is one of the reasons I love painting. It is the point where communication becomes communion: the point where the moment of the artist transcends space and time and meets the moment of the individual viewer. We'll return to this eternal moment later (or perhaps we've never left?). But for now, we have to start at the beginning, for the nature of meaning in Art is directly linked to our consciousness.

Consider the question: "do I exist?"

Seriously, ask yourself this question. If your answer is "yes, of course I exist!" I will kindly ask you to prove it. Oh, don't worry, you don't have to prove it to me. You merely have to prove it to yourself. However, your most reliable method of proof is your sensory input, which under many different circumstances might not be trustworthy - especially since it's meaningless until it's interpreted by the brain. Your entire reality exists in you brain. Everything you see, smell, hear, and touch. Maybe nothing exists at all! Woah, stop there! Now, we're going down a slipper slope, one which I've ventured down before, and I must say it led me through several of Dante's circles of hell. Yet, somehow, I was able to crawl my way back out. But, if you make the necessary assumption that you do indeed exist, the next questions are: "Does the world around me exist?", "Does everyone else exist?" Ultimately, we cannot absolutely prove anything. So, we have to make a fundamental assumption based on the information we have. Yes, we all exist. Great, I'm glad we cleared that up!

We all exist, and we are human beings. Art is made by human beings for human purposes and we have to make certain base assumptions if we are to get anywhere with the question of objectivity/subjectivity. If you remove the human content, it is no longer Art but simply a physical object: paper, scribbles (which the mind may interpret as words), paint on canvas, the motion of a body, etc... The thing that makes a material object into Art is the human gaze, the human mind, the human spirit. This is one thing that much of the Conceptual Art world understands, but what they're missing is the other necessary component. Without the act of communication, the concept is not Art.

As we move away from inherent content, things become a bit more ambiguous. Subjectivity plays an incrementally greater role. So, the second level of meaning is intermediate between inherent content and projected context. I will call it: individual context. This is meaning that draws from individual and social experiences in life that are common to all cultures, but not universal, though we all understand and respond to them in some way: family relationships, friends, hardship or privilege, loss, getting married or having a lover, parenthood, etc...

The third level of meaning, the most conceptual, is projected context. This is meaning that is projected onto the work by the viewer, based upon symbolism and iconography which are culturally specific and are learned: ideas that are absorbed from our specific kind of education (whatever form that may take), specific environment, exposure to the media and advertising, biases and views that relate to the time period in which we live, philosophical/religious/political ideologies, etc....

Related to this description of the different ways content can be communicated by a piece, I think it's important to make a distinction about the kinds of content which may be communicated. I often hear from the Conceptualist Contemporary Art faithful, something which can be summed up by a quote.

"Man is by nature a political animal". - Aristotle

Many of them take this to mean that all human action and communication is political action and communication - an idea that was championed by Marx. This assumption leads much of the contemporary Art world to believe that a work is "relevant", only if it is knowledgeable of this "fact", and addresses political concerns of the time. But, there are two major problems with this assumption. One is that Aristotle's polis, the city state, is a different and less complex form of politics than our current conception of politics (a discussion I'll leave for later). The second, and most important problem, is that only a portion of the human experience is political. Shall we say that Art shall be only for political people?

Not everything is about the struggle for power. Not every action is duplicitious. We may have friends simply because it pleases us. In fact, on a larger scale, Democracies or Republics function only as well as the people understand and communicate with each other on an individual level. Political content is only one kind of content and is often very time specific. So, if a work does not have other, inherent or human meaning, it will simply become a historical footnote. When those particular concerns have changed, as they always have and always will, the work will no longer have much of anything "relevant" to say to the viewer. If you peruse through collections of the finest art magazines and books from the first half of the 20th century, you will inevitably discover many artists who were praised at that time as among the greatest of history, far greater than the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Munch, Pollock. And yet, most of us who were not alive at that time, even with degrees in Art history, have never heard mention of them. Painters like: Bazaine, Da Silva, Bissier, Pasmore, or names that I recall coming across once or twice: Vasarely, Hartung, Soulages. The re-writing of what is important in history is ever constant.

Whether inherent or contextual meaning, there are three types of human content which are related to the levels of meaning mentioned above, that may be communicated in a work of Art: individual, social, and political. Individual content derives from our individual experiences, both subjective and those that are universal. Social content has to do with our relationships with family, friends, lovers, co-workers. Political content pertains to power structures within and between large groups, ideologies, dogmas, ... and because of this political content most often takes the form of propaganda.

From my perspective, it seems like the most successful work focuses primarily on individual content and often social content. It can include political content, but this cannot be its only meaning if it is to most effectively fulfil its purpose. Regardless of what culture, era, or part of the world you call home, and regardless of your political/religious/philosophical views; a work that speaks poetically and profoundly about our shared human experience will always speak directly to you.

Certainly, there are many learned biases, or perceptive lenses which may obscure, distort, or clarify one's ability to apprehend and experience a work. These are examples of unconscious projected context and are not uniformly bad or good. Sometimes they clarify and sometimes they simply blind us from seeing what's in front of us. Thus, it helps to be conscious of our biases and learn how to discard those we don't feel are helping, and perhaps enhance those that we feel are useful. Which is a fundamental role that education plays, and why each person should be actively engaged in their education, rather than just allowing it to be pressed upon them.

So, this brings us full circle. What is it that makes a work "better" than another? Is it skill? Is it emotion? Is it a new or compelling idea? As I said before, yes and no. It is all of these things.

On intuitive meaning vs. cognitive meaning

"Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were precepts"

- Ayn Rand

In order for the work to communicate most effectively, it must do so on an intuitive level so that, as Rand explains above, the work can be immediately grasped, pre-verbally, before any cognition has taken place, as if it was perceived and sensed. This sensing, this understanding takes place in the right brain and is akin to the sense of "being" that many spiritual leaders describe during prayer or meditation.

Indeed, Art is of a dual nature. (Or even further, Art is of a pluralist nature). It is not entirely objective, nor is it entirely subjective. Great beauty requires a bit of the sublime. And the truly sublime requires a bit of beauty. Beauty is not just physical, and the sublime is not purely conceptual or even "non-material" in the transcendental right brain sense. This is why I choose to use different terminology: because of how much baggage is associated with the "sublime". Because of Kant, whether or not he intended it, it has become associated with only the "concept" or Plato's "form" within the Art world. But, as you and I know, originally the definition was more about the absence of language, concept... this higher, transcendental state. But, for this reason, the word "sublime" confuses people.

I prefer to analyze this in terms of emotional and conceptual content. (See Judging Art Part I)Emotional and Conceptual: this necessitates creativity and skill - I use the term "skill" in a more open minded definition than most realists, and I use the term "creativity" in more open minded sense than the abstract or modern artists. As I've said before, great Art requires three things: intelligence, passion, and skill. What I mean by that is, emotional content, conceptual content, a sufficient skill to communicate the two, and a poetic and creative combination of all three. The great thing is that each artist combines them in different proportions. But, the natural result of the effective combination of these three elements will necessarily be: both the transcendent experience (sorry, I won't call it sublime) that we've been talking about, as well as beauty. This beauty can and is defined in many ways, but I think this transcendent "being" or presence is largely the same in every person because it rests upon our universal humanity. Though some are more practiced at achieving this state than others, as one who meditates is more practiced at achieving a trance -this absense of thought is the frame of mind one must have when first viewing the work, or one will not understand the primary point. One can, of course, venture into all forms of context and this is not a fruitless act, but it is additional and not fundamental to the core meaning. This accounts for both the immediate and shared universal response as well as the additional knowledge or experience collected in our unconscious and intuitive mind.

I have long wondered why Art often takes the place of religion for some, and now I understand why. It offers a path to the deepest connection to ourselves, to each other. It gives ghostly form to our hopes, dreams, passions, and fears. It is profoundly intertwined with our very consciousness and embodies the manifestation of our most spiritual moments. The greatest work transports us to the moment of its creation, to peer out from beneath the opalescent layers of paint and oil to catch a wavering glimpse of its creator, as if through a dark foggy glass. His moment of creation becomes our own and for a small space, time stands still, it melts away. We meet this soul and feel "this is my brother, my sister, my father or mother... this is me". All of the tragedies and joys that have graced his life, I too share. And what greater means can we have to address the grave problems ahead of us than this bottomless and shared, individual understanding?

Thanks to my friend Michael Guilmet for sharing with me this very pertinent quote:

"The revelation of art is not ethics, nor a judgment, nor even humanity as one generally thinks of it. Rather, the revelation is a marveling recognition of the radiant Form of forms that shines through all things. In the simplest terms, I think we might say that when a situation or phenomenon evokes in us a sense of existence (instead of some reference to the possibility of an assurance of meaning) we have had an experience of this kind. The sense of existence evoked may be shallow or profound, more or less intense, according to our capacity or readiness; but even a brief shock (say for example, when discovering the moon over the city roofs or hearing a sharp bird cry at night) can yield an experience of the order of no-mind: that is to say, the poetical order, the order of art. When this occurs, our own reality-beyond-meaning is awakened (or perhaps better: we are awakened to our own reality beyond meaning) and we experience an affect that is neither thought nor feeling but an interior impact. The phenomenon, disengaged from cosmic references, has disengaged ourselves, by the principle, well known to magic by which like conjures like. In fact both magic of art and the art of magic derive from and are addressed to experiences of this order. Hence the power of the meaningless syllables, the mumbo jumbo of magic and the meaningless verbalizations of metaphysics, lyric poetry and art interpretation function evocatively, not referentially; like the beat of the shaman’s drum, not like a formula of Einstein. One moment later and we have classified the experience and may be having utterable feelings that are in the public domain and they will be either sentimental or profound, according to our education. But according to our life, we have had, for an instant, a sense of existence: a moment of unevaluated, unimpeded, lyric life, antecedent to both thought and feeling; such can never be communicated by means of empirically verifiable propositions, but only suggested by art."

- Joseph Campbell

I hope I've left you with more questions than answers.

Anarchic Choreography

2010-08-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Michael Clark at Tate Modern.

I thought dance entailed "dancers" and a larger range of motion.... it looks to me like they're lying down on a massive communal yoga mat. Isn't that kind of like playing the piano with one finger while rolling around in someone else's sweaty bacteria?

Well, at least they'll have washboard abs by the end of this, if not unidentifiable skin rashes.

I came across a great response in a discussion pertaining to this article in the The Guardian.

Sounds kind of cool doesn't it? What a reputation to have - "anarchic choreographer" - wow, how trendy! In a few years, if anarchic choreography takes off, there will be undergraduate degrees in 'anarchic choreography' - throwing out all those stale old rules of choreography - maan. In fact, with time, anything that might resemble old fashioned 'dance'. Over time, in order to earn the reputation 'anarchic choreographer', choreographers will have to become more and more 'anarchic', discarding more and more of the things that ever made dance popular. They'll lose public support somewhere down the road of course, but it won't matter, because before too long, anarchic choreographers will no longer be judged according to the standards of old, conservative, stuckist, choreographers. Anarchic Choreography will be self-referrential, self-regarding, self-contained and self-justifying in terms of its anarchic forward-lookingness; they'll claim that there's great value in avant-garde, (controlled / contained) anarchy to the advancement of society. And anarchic choreographers will keep pushing and pushing those assumed benefits in the belief that one day, everyone will have forgotten what dance used to be about, and instead, appreciate new, 'anarchic' dance.
Hell, it might even decide that that's not anarchic enough and in order to be truly anarchic, choreographers will have to vow to destroy dance itself!
There'll be a band of people yelling "but this isn't dance is it?" Who will be sneered at by the media, the dancy - arty intelligencia and the generations of 5,000 or more "BA(hons) Anarchic Choreography" students who graduate each year from formerly hallowed places of learning to dance and to choreograph dance moves.
Sound like a familiar story? :-)
Lee Woods, www.leewoods.com

Well said.

The Odd and the Crazy

2010-08-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

"You have to distinguish between things that seemed odd when they were new but are now quite familiar, such as Ibsen and Wagner, and things that seemed crazy when they were new and seem crazy now, like Finnegan's Wake and Picasso." - Philip Larkin

When I first came across the work of the Norwegian master Odd Nerdrum, I was in my studio during the summer following my first year at NYAA. I had just recovered from the culture shock of moving from rural Georgia to New York, never even having visited the city before. I had grown up in a trailer park, had experienced poverty and struggle, and had finally paid my way through college between three jobs and scholarships. I had escaped, though I never thought I would end up in New York. I had never in my life had access to museums such as the Met, and for the first time I could see the Old Masters in person. It was indeed a life altering experience. The incredible technical and theoretical training I was getting at the Academy gave me a newfound ability to understand these masterpieces from many different perspectives. In my mind, I had already achieved success.

I had joined Ted Schmidt in copying at the Met, and was working on a copy of a Rembrandt in my studio when he stopped by with a heavy book under his arm. It was a large tome of Odd’s work and I was so taken by these bizarre and haunting paintings that Ted suggested I should study with him. I laughed. I didn’t think it was possible, but then again, I also never imagined I would be copying a Rembrandt in oils at the Met. I was a long way from Georgia, and eventually, I would be farther still.

I bought both of his large books and memorized every detail. I went to see his exhibition at Forum Gallery and started experimenting with his heavy herringbone linen, but I just couldn’t seem to crack the code. People told me horror stories about his vast temper and cult like students, stories of them wearing nothing but animal skins and living some kind of crazy ascetic lifestyle on the Norwegian coast. So I just forgot about the whole thing and concentrated on my immediate situation. I was graduating soon, with the burden of student loans on my back, an overpriced apartment in Brooklyn, and I was in desperate need of a job.

Luckily, a friend of mine was working as a painter for Jeff Koons and set up an interview for me. When I got the job I was thrilled, but after a year and a half of long hours and overtime I found that I was no longer painting for myself and was just making ends meet. I learned much (mostly about the Art market), but all my energy went in to Jeff’s work. Though it was a good stepping stone, I could not see myself working there for years, so I finally decided to take the risk and I sent Odd a letter. When, a few months later, I learned that I was accepted, I had a feeling of both elation and trepidation. I was elated because I knew many people had been rejected, but still I had no money saved up and I had student loans to pay off. This was not a practical decision. Of course, that hadn’t held me back before. The feeling only slightly lifted when I finally arrived in a cold, desolate land, jet-lagged and bleary on March 1st , to find three feet of snow on the ground and even more swiftly falling. I couldn’t see ten feet in front of my face, but through the eddies I could barely distinguish a car waiting for me, and standing beside it, a tall, imposing figure wearing a long double breasted black coat and a shock of hair - writhing in the wind and white as the snow. This must be Odd Nerdrum.

As soon as I entered the car, he began to drill me with questions, the first of which was "Why do you wish to study with me?" In my exhaustion I somehow managed to answer him coherently, then I collapsed on the bed as soon as soon as I got to my room. My first thought upon waking the next day was, what have I gotten myself into?

It turns out that what I had gotten myself into was one of the best choices I have ever made in my life. I soon discovered that Odd was not only a masterful painter, but also a very kind man with a quick wit and an enigmatic personality. He holds a vast knowledge of art history, philosophy, literature, and technique, all just as bottomless as his sense of humor. And yes, he is very eccentric, but quite open-minded. (During my first week there, he called me into his studio and asked me to tell him what was wrong with his painting. Then he actually did what I suggested!) I was not required to wear animal skins and paint post-apocalyptic scenes. I didn’t have to slave away as a studio assistant, grinding pigments by hand, stretching canvases, and modeling. Yes, I did have to do these things sometimes, but most of my time was available for painting and learning. After six weeks, Odd invited me to study with him for a year in Paris: an invitation I couldn’t refuse. My wife and I moved out of our apartment, put our things in storage and ventured onto the plane. In Paris for the first time, I went to the Louvre, Le Petit Palais, the Rodin Museum, and many galleries with Odd; all the while debating everything we saw. I recall fondly the time we were kicked out of a Scandinavian run gallery in the 4th arrondissement. The owner chased us out screaming something about "Nazi-Kunst". Apparently, they take Clement Greenberg very seriously in Finland.

Watching other students struggle to understand what he was trying to teach them, it dawned on me how many invaluable lessons I had learned at the Academy. Everything from aesthetic theory, anatomy, to historical techniques quickly sprang to memory and enabled me to grasp what he was demonstrating. Without this education, without these tools of analysis, I would perhaps have missed the deeper relevance and might have ended up going no further than a failed mimicry of his techniques.

Odd once told me how, when he was about my age, he met a great American painter: a mentor. Odd felt that this man was one of the greatest artists to have lived and esteemed him along with the Old Masters. One day, he was leaving an exhibition in Philadelphia to find a limousine waiting for him outside. The driver informed him that the car had been sent by this artist and inquired if Odd would like to meet him. Odd accepted with surprise, and when he arrived on the farm, Andrew Wyeth and his wife were there waiting for him with glasses of champagne. They talked long through the night and there began a deep friendship, carried by letters and infrequent visits across the decades. Wyeth had just died when I met Odd, and it was very hard on him. He spoke of all the wealth the world lost when Wyeth passed on. And sitting there with Odd Nerdrum, before his paintings, thinking of his friendship with Andrew Wyeth, I felt a deep loss. I imagined myself at Odd’s age, mourning on the day when he will sadly, and inevitably pass. But I also felt a stirring hope. In this connection there was something. There was a taut string extending from me to Odd, from Odd to Wyeth, and connecting me through them back into the vanishing past. I sensed the similar connections I had made while studying with Steven Assael and Ted Schmidt, still vibrating within my chest. And in the accumulated vibrations of all those thin strings stretching across the ages, it seemed I could almost hear the distant voice of Rembrandt himself, as if whispering into a paper cup at the other end. They may have died, but their voices live on: faintly, but eternally.

La Nuit D'été - part 1

2010-08-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

Absolutely no way this is a Caravaggio

2010-07-27T08:51:00.001-07:00

There isn't much to say. The Vatican claimed it was Caravaggio, then they retracted the statement.

I think most of us can tell immediately that this is not a Caravaggio.

Why would they make such a claim in the first place without doing their homework? That's the question.

Feast: The first worldwide viral Arts exhibition

2010-07-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

For more information, visit:
www.feastpaintings.com

Artists Respond to BP

2010-06-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

There was never a "wind spill", nor has there ever been "toxic sun waste". We don't have to process water to generate energy from it. We can make plastics quite efficiently out of corn. There are very few things that we can't produce less dangerously, less expensively, without petroleum.

Even if you're one of those who doesn't believe in climate change (a debate for another day), the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico has made it increasingly clear that there are many, many more repercussions to our addiction to oil effecting us directly, right here and now. So, why are we still subsidizing oil with tax payer money? Why don't we stop subsidizing and let the "free market" fix the problem?

Now that I've dispensed with my two cents, I'll descend from my soap box and we can move on to the art.

For these listed above, among many other reasons, artists have been emerging in mass to respond to the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. A recent article featured many of these responses, most of them derivatives of the BP logo. I donated a piece to the exhibition entitled "Oil Slick", reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, which opened in Bushwick Brooklyn and marked perhaps the first wave of exhibitions on this theme. One specifically poignant image which was used in both articles, was a detail from a painting by my great friend and brilliant colleague Adam Miller.

John Currin: Embarassed

2010-05-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

This interview (the official interview on the Gagosian site) is quite worth a look.

I found it interesting that Currin said he was "embarassed" to the point of apology by his love of the old masters, the figure, beauty and skill. But then he was quick to confidently point out his modernist influences. Which, certainly don't reveal themselves in his work. Yet when I ran into Currin at the Met - gazing at a Titian nonetheless - he only expressed his deep love for the work.

I've often heard the same apologetic language, and the same modernist references from Vincent Desiderio, Eric Fischl, and Julie Heffernan. This is not to say that I doubt that they are influenced by modernism or that they should or shouldn't be so, but simply to point out the double standard here. This underlines the fact that the artist can't reveal his sincere love of the old masters, and or a traditional sense of skill and beauty, and also not be marginalized by the art world. If there is any reference, it must be purely ironic, or coldly cerebral. This is pluralism? All things are equal, they say - except of course humanism, traditional skill, and emotional sincerity. They state equality, and at the same time reinforce a subjective hierarchy based on historical revision and the artificial inflation of prices.

Where is the humanity?

Judging Art: Almost Objectively

2010-04-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

"If I state what I think, and I always do so with certainty, one of two results will follow. 1) I'll be right, and this will clarify things for others. or 2) I'll be wrong and someone will correct me - at which point I can revise my opinion and no longer be mistaken."

This article is inspired by a number of deep debates and especially one intense conversation with my good friend Charles Philip Brooks. As a true friend must, he called me on my very strong assertion that we could compare Soutine and Rembrandt - not just "The Slaughtered Ox", but Rembrandt's late work in general. Given that I've tackled almost every style at one time or another, I felt confident in my comparison. But he very kindly explained in his charming southern manner that such claims could very easily be interpreted by people who don't know me as arrogant, naive, or dogmatic (Not his exact words). He suggested, and rightly so, that if I was going to continue to use such firm language, then I had to have a damn good argument to back it up. Very true. Frankly, I didn't care if I was wrong. I was, and am, looking for sound logic based upon the most objective information that I have available. And if someone demonstrates logically that a particular assertion is wrong, I can and will consider their point of view carefully and alter my opinion accordingly. In this vein, Charles pressed me on the topic, and for the first time, I clarified to him (and to myself) the reasons why I felt they could be compared. Why visual art should stand on it's own visually; why we can compare and judge paintings side by side, and especially why we can and should first disregard context and attempt to regard the piece alone, with no strings attached. Context can be assessed later, and I'll get to that.

Yes, this is an overwhelming and often unpopular task, but something that I've been concerned with for some time now: forming objective criteria for analyzing and judging art, at least as objective as we can get given that we can't possibly step outside of ourselves and our condition as humans. I'm not trying to build an exact science out of the analysis, comparison, and understanding of art, and I don't believe it will ever be one - thankfully. But, in my previous experience teaching art, I often find myself striving for some kind of criteria to analyze and describe the work, which wasn't entirely "wishy washy". How to you teach an art student? How do you give them value for their money without qualitative tools and without teaching critical thinking? How do you or they know what is necessary for them to learn? Like explaining such an unstructured field, creating universal criteria is an equally massive task. But, I believe it is worthwhile and I believe it can be done. Why, you might ask, can you do this when so many others before have tried and ... well, not failed, but not quite succeeded? Historical perspective.

I have the benefit of a great accumulation of history, science, philosophy, art, and it's all at my finger tips. And I was lucky enough (part luck, part hard work) to attain - and continue to build on - an education providing the ability to tackle and process such a task and to have been born in an age where I have the internet, and the ability to sort through the mountains of data that it provides. I'm approaching this first from the perspective of a painter and teacher, secondly from the perspective of philosophy, third from a scientific perspective, and fourth from an art historical angle. Yes, this is a task which speaks of and demands great confidence, but don't mis-understand me. I don't believe I am greater than those who have tackled it before, only in the right time, place, surrounded by the right people, and given the right resources. I'm not the first to propose this. I'm not inventing the wheel. I'm simply trying to synthesize and streamline other approaches into a more objective and clear system. So, on that note, let us go straight to the foundations.

Before I begin I feel it's necessary to define the term "Art" so that we all know what I'm talking about here. When I refer to "Art" I am referring to two definitions. I'm speaking of the original meaning of "ars" in ancient Rome, or "tekhni" in Greek, passed down from at least ancient Greece: which is synonymous with skill, beauty, emotion (the concept being only part of the whole) and is the basis for Odd Nerdrum's definition of Kitsch as well as the definition of Art used by many of the contemporary realist movements. And I'm speaking also of the contemporary definition of "Art" which is primarily the concept.

What is the purpose of Art? This is largely debatable. But most answers you will hear have something to do with a desire to feel connected - with each other, with a deity, or to leave something of ourselves behind when we die. Most answers seem to have a common root in communication. And if we look at the origins of Art: cave and rock paintings 40,000 years ago, small sculptures like "Venus of Willendorf", or even early installation art: Stonehenge (I'm half serious). We can easily conclude that some kind of communication is intended, for these are all symbols or signifiers of something.

Building on the assumption that the shared primary purpose (among many others which might vary from culture to culture) of Art is communication, we come immediately to an impasse. Because each individual person has different experiences in life, they have different contexts and meanings for things. Thus, even the best communication is imperfect. It is impossible to understand exactly the intention of someone else and exactly what they mean. But perhaps this is the reason why Art is so necessary and powerful. Through it we can find other means, or multiple means of communicating. Culture gives us an additional context for meaning, but as culture changes from one geographic area to another, and as it changes over time, first subtleties are lost, and then more and more becomes incomprehensible. So culture is shifting, and context is shifting... does that mean that meaning is constantly shifting? Yes and no.

There is something that we universally share, regardless of where or when we were born, regardless of our gender or language, or ethnicity. We are all human. We have basic needs and desires. We have a common human nature that has not fundamentally changed in tens of thousands of years. We all understand, or have an overlapping understanding of food, sex, death, fear, anger, love, comfort, happiness, longing. When we visit a foreign country where we don't speak the language, the first things we understand revolve around these elements. My first experience of communication in France was at the farmer's market, selecting the perfect tomatoes. (And they were amazing tomatoes). The woman standing beside me tried a sample and the pure pleasure was evident on her face. Sure, this is still western culture. But the same is true for those newly discovered tribes in Brazil or southeast Asia, who, at the time of their discovery, hadn't had contact with any other cultures for thousands of years. Yet, they share the same basic understandings. If we come across a bear in the forest standing on its hind legs and roaring, we all recognize that this is a sign of danger. Of course emotions are more complicated than such basic instinctual understanding. But emotions are first based upon instinct and then altered from experiential input. We are genetically predisposed to these universals, and though we are a very flexible species and our actions can be altered and programed by culture and individual experience, our deepest desires, fears, and passions are shared and universal to humanity.

So, here is where I begin my search for objective criteria. Without context. Genetics are an expression of the laws of nature and physics, and as objectively as is humanly possible, we can measure, quantify, and describe them. And as nearly objectively, we can study, quantify, and empirically describe attributes and universal qualities of human nature and the human experience - many of which we share with mammals. I won't go into the science, but it is sufficient here to point out that it exists. Though genetics may change over a very, very, long time; for our purposes concerning Art, on a human scale - on a mammalian scale, these things are applicably constant and stable.

Of course, it begins to get tricky when we move to Art, because by the very nature of communication, we require at least two people. We require community and culture at least on a basic level. But any anthropologist will tell you that cultures are built upon the foundations of human nature and their interaction with the particular environment in which they live. Form follows function first. And then, form may vary and evolve - based on the initial function. So, if we try to stay aware of our own cultural and individual biases and dogmas, which distort our perception (not always in a bad way) then we can understand some of the basic elements of human nature and of culture, and for our purposes, communication.

Because of human need, there seem to be several purposes for communication. The obvious is, of course, conveying meaning. But we also require other needs of communication, for instance the well-being we receive from simply feeling connected with someone. Communication seems to serve the purpose of both providing information and various kinds of emotional gratification. This nuanced line between the two seems to be where Art lies, in the poetry of our common connection. Strip away all context, and that which is left, is the thing that is Art. What I'm proposing here is similar to the idea of New Criticism, which I've only very recently discovered.

Context, by definition, is something on the outside, imposed upon the subject. The universal human experience is something on the inside. It is the subject of communication. Everything has context, but we cannot judge something based upon its context. The relationship is analogous to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You cannot simultaneously measure both the position and velocity of a subatomic particle. What I'm getting at is that context is relative to the perspective of the viewer, whether the viewer is in the same culture or time period as the artist. Further, there is the question of what context is relevant. Is what the artist had for breakfast relevant? So, context is entirely dependent upon the knowledge of the viewer and is projected upon the actual piece. I'm not saying understanding the context intended by the artist (as far as we can understand intention) is meaningless. I'm simply saying that context cannot stand on its own. It requires something to refer to for meaning to take place, and the value of the context is absolutely dependent upon the communicative efficacy of the work itself.

The question: "How well does the work communicate" can be clarified to ask "How well does it speak to our shared experience. How deeply and clearly does it fulfill the needs that we require of communication"? Thus, the most objective means of judging the success of an artwork is by judging how well it communicates to our shared human qualities, in the language that we all intuitively understand to the deepest core of our being. How well does it connect us? It is difficult to ask both for depth and clarity... depth entails nuance, and clarity requires specificity. So we have to develop some basic guidelines, or principles by which we can gauge a particular work's success in fulfilling our emotional and intellectual needs.

I think we can break it down into three basic principles: skill, emotion, and content. The emotional component and the content are obvious, as they directly fulfill our needs vis a vis communication. Skill, is more of an indirect but absolutely necessary principle. Some degree of skill is necessary to convey meaning and create emotional resonance. But the more nuanced the meaning, the more nuanced the emotive content, the more skill is necessary to convey it. This is not a quality judgment. Goya's "Saturn Devouring his Son" is a very successful piece with two primary emotional meanings: disgust and empathy. We don't need to know Greco-Roman mythology to feel the impact of this painting. We need no context other than the fact that we are human, that we are alive. What we recognize is another human being, twisted and tortured by experiences and powers beyond his control. Somehow the madness in the eyes of Saturn can seduce us to imagine that we, ourselves, are unwillingly compelled to do something that we so revile, that we so deeply detest, that it twists our physical body to an almost unimaginable extent. Almost. This tension between compulsion, disgust, and empathic understanding is a powerfully harmonic combination. The technical skill is more than sufficient to enable the exact balance of expression and recognizable form/symbolism. The brilliance comes in the specific balance of all these elements. If you compare it to Rubens' painting of Saturn with the same title, we may find ourselves amazed by his skill and subtlety. But the empathy is not quite there. The skill is moving and beautiful in its own right, but the emotional/psychological content (as conveyed by the facial expression and posture, among other compositional elements) contains only a single note: disgust, and therefore is less successful. Notice I said: less successful. This piece is still highly successful in terms of unifying our three criteria in an effective combination. But it is not as successful as Goya. It's not very accurate to say good or bad, what we require is a relative scale.

Yes, cultural elements: narrative meaning, iconic meaning, subtle complexities of context in society and the life story of the artist can and do enrich and add to the value and the power of the piece. Culture and education can contribute subtlety and nuance, and often the greatest works do this as well. But context alone is insufficient and is ever shifting like the sand. Context can only communicate so much, and it is very poor at fulfilling the emotional component of communication. Thus, it must be built upon a strong root, to hold fast to the stone beneath the sand that is our common human bedrock. The greatest works communicate on many levels, but the fundamental level is to communicate our fundamental selves. The esoteric is not entirely without value, but it is secondary.

I will only briefly touch on beauty because that is another very complex subject which we should discuss in addition to this, but not within this article. Beauty is certainly difficult to define, but if we look at it empirically, we can find a significant overlap in people's subjective opinions of what beauty is. Our ideas of beauty are also malleable, given our cultures and individual experiences. Beauty of some kind that, at least partially, meets our overlapping sense of beauty is intertwined with skill, emotion, and concept and will be a natural conclusion of the effective harmony between these elements. I think it possible to build upon the framework here to attempt to define nearly objective means of analyzing and understanding the idea of beauty and many other elements in art.

Something like Damien Hirst's "The Impossibility of Death to the Mind of Someone Living" has a great deal of meaning and remarkably, some small degree of emotional resonance, held within its context. However, though this work is influential and historically important, it's communicative ability will be short lived even if it is physically preserved for thousands of years. The time will come when much of the context surrounding is forgotten, only a fraction being recorded in history, and then it will be just a dead shark. A symbol of perhaps terror, consumption, and our own mortality. A certain amount of logic might lead one to conclude, that as the work of the random acts of evolution: Nature or God - this is Art. But further than that, all subtlety is lost and this will not be the only object inspiring these question in our minds. So, relative to our time it is very successful in fulfilling mostly the conceptual portion of our communicative need to a small, esoteric group, but compared to many other pieces, and given the span of history, it disappears into mediocrity.

I don't speak of historical relevance, nor of influence. These are values placed upon the context of a piece and are not addressed here. This is not a criteria for judging the context, but the physical object or the experiential element (in the case of theater or music) of the piece itself. Of course the clarity of comparison varies according to the nature of the pieces compared. It is more difficult to compare Rothko with Peter Bruegel that it is Bruegel with Bosch, but in terms of basic principles it is possible. I'm not saying this is an absolute separation. There are indeed overlaps. Like all dichotomies, this is merely a useful tool for analysis.

So now, perhaps we can compare a few fundamentals, but it begs the questions: is this meaningful, is this relevant? Why? My answer is to say: because communication is a human necessity. We are social creatures and we need the fulfillment emotionally and psychologically, and we need the content both psychologically and practically. Comparison gives us clarity, obviously in the making and understanding of Art, but also in understanding ourselves and each other. Rational comparison is the basis of the scientific method. Refusing comparison, in the short term may be easy and immediately practical, but in the long term it drives us further apart by creating a chasm between our perceptions and understanding of each other and ourselves; thus fostering misunderstandings both minor and major. By extension, communication and Art are the foundation of social interaction and therefore civilization. Comparison helps to strengthen the stone upon which it was built, and quite simply, enrich each individual human experience. The value comes not in the fact that we can compare these works, but as a point of departure. The value lies in what we can learn from such comparisons about the work, the nature of communication, and ourselves. We can begin to build an understanding of the relationship of these elements.

Without honest objective comparison (again, as objective as we can be), we are likely to fall further and further into the relativism of Post-modern philosophy. Fine, some might say, but the end result of this among other things, is the devaluation of all art and the subtle skills of communication. How is that? Well, if all things are equal and can't be compared, then by logical extension all things are equally meaningless. If all things are Art, then nothing is Art. Value is relative and depends upon a hierarchical relationship.

Why is something more or less valuable? Because it is more or less successful at fulfilling its primary purpose.

These criteria: skill, emotion, content - seem to be as stable and objective as we can get (until someone smarter, or with more information comes along to clarify this difficult subject - and if you're out there and reading this, please fill me in!) Culture changes, contexts shift, and our perceptions can be colored and blurred by learned behavior and life experiences. But the roots of human experience and human nature are the same, and as long as humanity as we know it is around, these criteria will hold. Human art is about human communication, so, we cannot make any claims about ultimate "truth". But the work itself, in order to be the most successful, should first have the qualities within itself - devoid of context - and speak to each person who experiences the work. It must fulfill their impulse for communication, it must stir their longing and speak to them. It must show us that we are not alone.

Again, this is not a value judgment. Though I personally have made my own subjective value judgments apart from this theory and will do so in the future. But this is simply a valuable tool of analysis which we can build on. The result is that there seem to be two options. We can separate the classical arts of painting and sculpture from the larger contemporary art world and judge them primarily on these criteria, whether we call it "Kitsch" or something else. Or we can begin to apply these tools of analysis to contemporary art (at least visual art) instead of ambiguously judging visual languages based on solely their context, by using the subjective tools of linguistic analysis, which focus on verbal and written forms of communication (we can thank Foucault for that).

The simple analytical tools that I've outlined are nearly objective. The conclusion reached from those tools is debatable, and up to you.

Continue to Judging Art: Part II

The Philosophy of Kitsch: Kant, Kunst, and Modernity

2010-04-22T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've received a lot of questions lately regarding the philosophy behind the Kitsch movement, founded by the controversial Norwegian master Odd Nerdrum. As much as I enjoy discussing, learning, and explaining the new terms of Kitsch to an American audience, I find myself repeating things that I've already said in some previous inquiry. So, in the interest of freeing myself (and everyone else) up for the important work of painting, and in the stead of Odd's new book Kitsch: Mer Enn Kunst (Kitsch: More than Art) now available in English, I'll share with you this unstructured overview.

My goal, which I've said before, is to foster a collaboration between the disparate contemporary humanist (figurative, classical, realist, etc...) movements. As I discuss below, the fundamental goal that I find among all of these movements; from Contemporary Classical Realism, to NovoRealism, to Kitsch, is that they are striving to offer an alternative to the contemporary definition of Art: something more akin to its original meaning. How they differ is their approach to achieving this goal. So, I'll begin with a short, and by no means complete history, of the term "kitsch" and try and cover some major points as I see them.

The Kitsch movement reasons that the contemporary idea of "Art" came about in the modern era (the enlightenment). Before then, the term "ars" or "techne" was synonymous with "skill and beauty" going all the way back to ancient Greece. The theory of Art as "form" became popularized in the modern era with Kant. Kant was not the first, but he was the most influential and his assertions form the basis for modern and postmodern philosophy and art theory. When he applied protestant morality to aesthetics, he set the groundwork for Hegel, defining Art as ONLY the idea, separate from its manifestation. Kant defined the "sublime" in a slightly different sense than we tend to think of it today. At that time, the sublime was not an absence of thought, but more and experience of the divine thought. Thus the aesthetic experience was the "Form" of God. Hegel took this further to say that the true artist shouldn't even dirty his hands with making it himself. He will pay others to do it for him. This is what made it possible to have Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Paul McCarthy, Gilbert & George, (of course also money, power, and politics). As a side note: Greenberg was known to be a devout follower of Kant and disagreed with Hegel. Greenberg thought the art was the idea, but it must be made by the "true" man, in other words, a primal, primitive/modern man without skills.

As I said before, the term "ars" was traditionally used to refer to skill and beauty. Of course the "idea" or conceptual was an integral part of the whole, but it was not the entirety of it. This is closest to what the term "Kitsch" intends to mean.

Here is where we come to our choice of strategy. As we've seen demonstrated by politics time and again, the group that defines the language, makes the rules, and so always wins the game. And right now post-modernists and contemporary art are the ones who control the language and define what "Art" is. They will not let us co-exist in their world because we threaten them by our very nature. It gives one an immediate pleasure to look at a beautiful, skillful, and emotive painting. But with contemporary Art, you have to be taught to appreciate it. They will not allow us to label them "Anti-Art" or "Post-Art" (as Kuspit, Kaprow, and many others have tried) because they have the power to define Art. They have the money, politics, and the entire media machine behind them. It is much easier to change the definition of "Kitsch" than it is to change the contemporary meaning of "Art". Especially since they label us as kitsch to begin with. Thus, instead of being labeled low Art, a great figurative painter would be called high Kitsch. In the words of Broch :

"There are geniuses within Kitsch, like Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Ilya Repin."

At this point, we will not be able to return the definition of Art back to its original state. I wonder if we even should. But we might be able to offer an alternative to contemporary Art. We can re-establish humanism, beauty, and skill. We can re-establish rationality. This all depends on how many people agree with the positive re-definition of "Kitsch". If people agree, then the meaning changes and we succeed.

The kitsch movement does not want to eradicate abstract art and contemporary art. In fact, the goal is quite the opposite. If people want to continue putting sharks in formaldehyde and others want to buy it, that's their affair. But we want to limit their power to oppress our form of expression. This is why the tactic of the Kitsch movement is not to replace contemporary Art, but to offer an alternative. As Odd said in On Kitsch:

"Kitsch is passion's form of expression at all levels, and not the servant of truth. On the contrary, it keeps relative to religion and truth. A well painted Madonna therefore transcends its holiness. And truth, Kitsch leaves for Art. In Kitsch, skill is a decisive criteria of quality. The work of the hand is self-revealing in the light of long-established norms. In this way, Kitsch is without protection because the standards are the best ever created in history. To Picasso and Warhol, it was different. They were protected by contemporary values, and still are. Art is protected against the past, because it is something different."

A common response I hear to this is to say that another distinction is that if contemporary art is primarily conceptual, Kitsch and the old masters do not concern themselves with concept or content. Many people think this, but it is a misunderstanding to think that the Old Masters did not think of philosophy. Especially during the Renaissance, they were reading Plato and Aristotle, they were reading Pliny's Natural History. If you look closely, the very way they handle the idea of the human figure will tell you about their philosophy.

For example: the Mona Lisa. This is exactly Plato's "form". It is an idealization and not an actual person. Da Vinci based his scientific studies on Aristotle and said observing from nature was the first rule. So, Da Vinci was using both "form" and "matter". Look at much of Michelangelo's work - it is an idealized version of the human body, much like the Greeks, and seeks rhythm. Both of them are also Apollonian, they seek order.

Now, look at Rembrandt, or Velasquez. They are much more focused on observation. This is Aristotle's "matter". Rembrandt would be Dionysian (passion, emotion) as well. So you have two different philosophical dichotomies that they were thinking about and each painter had their own balance between these opposites. So, content is not a distinction between Kitsch and Art, it is only a matter of emphasis.

What is different is that now artists are thinking specifically of "critical philosophy" which does not build things or try to answer questions, it only takes things apart. But it strikes me that critical philosophy has never really been turned upon it's maker. Why not analyze Kant himself according to his own criteria? I won't go into this in depth, but let me just point out a little context. Kant's dichotomy is primarily based on the assumption that the "modern man" is somehow different from his predecessors, that the "modern era" beginning with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, created a new society which is fundamentally different from every society that has come before.

Understandably, Kant was a brilliant and insightful man. But he did not have the historical perspective that we now have, with our explorations of anthropology, among many other relevant sciences. He was not fully aware that the kinds of changes that occurred in the Enlightenment had occurred before (and after). Now we are in the midst of a computer revolution. The way we communicate and distribute knowledge is changing vastly and quickly. But, like the Enlightenment, which was spurred on by changes in the distribution of information, new political philosophies, transportation, among many others... this is not a new kind of revolution.

The Renaissance was made possible by technological advancements in the distribution of knowledge (the Gutenberg press), changes in political philosophy, the development of scientific inquiry, innovation in transportation (navigation, ship building), etc... If you look at ancient Greece and Rome, you find the same: advancements in technology which lead to news ways of distributing knowledge (the availability of paper made the ideas of Thales wide spread and spurred the birth of Greek Philosophy), revolutions in transportation, new political philosophies. We can find the same kinds of changes during the Agricultural revolution, arguably, a much more dramatic change for mankind than the Enlightenment. All of these are changes of degree, not of kind. Human nature has not changed, and as we see, society has not fundamentally changed.

So, what is Kitsch? It is akin to the original idea of ars, replete with skill and beauty: a continuous and seamless harmony between the concept and its manifestation. Kitsch is about humanism. According to Richard Wollheim, Kitsch would be "objectivist". Kitsch is about the universal human experience. Kitsch is Dionysian and follows Aristotle, but does not refute Plato. Odd Nerdrum did not set Kitsch up in opposition with Art. Kant, Hegel, and Clement Greenberg did. Odd and the Kitsch movement are merely offering an alternative to the contemporary definition of Art. And the great thing about the term is that it has it's own built in marketing. It's controversial, yet it enables us to focus on the positive, instead of negative campaigning against contemporary Art like Roger Scruton, Robert Hughes, and so many others do - to little effect. They deride Art, but they don't offer us an alternative, which is counter-productive.

Yes, maybe Kitsch will eventually be labeled as another movement within Art. But it is not post-modern. Post-modernism is dead. We now know that deconstruction is a tool of analysis, not a philosophical conclusion. Relativism is dying. This is because we now know that it just leads to meaninglessness, and humanity needs meaning.

Why foster such a dichotomy? Didn't that exact tactic start all this mess in the beginning with Kant's beauty and sublime? Where Kant went wrong (and I am not alone in this assertion) was where he formulated a hierarchy, where the sublime was inherently superior to beauty. But he could have, more objectively, (like Socrates before him) stated that they both exist simultaneously (much like the wave/particle nature of light), and interrelate with one another - arguably as they do. What I take away from the nature of dichotomies in science, philosophy, and aesthetics, is that they are excellent analytical tools, but cannot represent a state of "truth". For nothing really exists in an absolute state as far as we can tell.

Yet, it is necessary to offer an alternative to contemporary Art, whether it is an older definition of art/ars which involves skill, beauty, emotion, or a redefinition of Kitsch to encompass the same meaning. Kitsch will succeed as being an alternative if enough people accept the positive definition. Language is constantly evolving. So, that will be the key. If they don't, it will be labeled as another influential movement within Art. But, there are many thousands of people who have already accepted Odd's definition of Kitsch, and many more who respect the position, so it will certainly make an impact... in fact, already has. If the definition of Art returns to its original meaning or "ars", then Kitsch has succeeded as well. Either way, Kitsch is a brilliant strategy for returning to rationalism, humanism, and beauty. It creates a superstructure within which beauty, skill, and passion can be rewarded. A place where one can have actual freedom, based on one's talent and hard work. A place where we can again be human.

Corpus Hermeticum

2010-04-10T02:27:00.000-07:00

String by Odd Nerdrum

C o r p u s H e r m e t i c u m

Presented by The Nerdrum Institute,
curated by Leah Poller

Corpus Hermeticum presents the work of the Norwegian Master Odd Nerdrum, and emerging masters Adam Miller, Fedele Spadafora, and Richard T Scott. The exhibition will include several major paintings by each artist and will be on view at Roger Smith Hotel in The Great Nude Invitational,

May 13 - 16 2010.

May 13th

VIP preview 4-6 pm

Opening Reception 6-8 pm

501 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10017

Historical Revision and Conservatism

2010-04-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the Reader Supported News reveals something that is not news to me: that the kind of historical manipulation routinely practiced by Glenn Beck is spreading to actual politicians in the conservative party. (Seriously guys, I respect conservative ideology, but this guy is making all of you look like morons. Please find a conservative intellectual to support!) Now, certainly, the left has had its fair share of people trying to rewrite the facts in order to support their arguments. But the conservatives are taking it to a completely different level. There's a difference between Historians debating the meaning and sometimes facts of history, and a politician attempting to eliminate inconvenient events or flat out changing them. Ever read Orwell's 1984? Isn't that what Big Brother did? This is something we should be wary of, especially today, with the pervasiveness of the Internet, everyone can blur the lines between fact and fiction. And perhaps this is why we have so many misinformed people out there. Journalism and fact checking is on the decline and the gluttony of information to sift through is increasing.

However, this tradition is not just limited to politics. Art historians have been practicing this for hundreds of years and have put forth a tremendous effort in the 20th century to do just that. Take for example the linear concept that all of Art History is merely an evolution culminating in "Jack the Dripper"... Something drilled into your head in every American University. And by a funny coincidence, post-modernism is now the conservative stance within the Art world (don't believe me? Think of Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami) - another reason we must balance the Art Oligarchy with a rational system of evaluation based on universal and more objectively measurable criteria: beauty, skill, humanism (communication and emotion). Which makes us figurative artists not conservative, but revolutionary. Perhaps the political establishment would benefit from the rational revolution as well?

The Nerdrum Institute

2010-04-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

The Nerdrum Institute has been established to handle the art and business affairs of the Norwegian master Odd Nerdrum. One of its goals is to facilitate museum exhibitions worldwide while allowing Nerdrum to focus on his work. The Institute has all rights to sale of his work.

“We are three people who think Nerdrum is the world’s greatest contemporary painter, and who are willing to use time on his art world in this way,” former gallery owner and art dealer Bjørn Li told newspaper Aftenposten. Li has written several articles on Nerdrum, and is joined at the institute by Allis Helleland, former head of Oslo’s National Gallery, and Kjell Endre Wenstad, who ran Kunsthuset in Oslo along with Li.

Robert Hughes: Damien Hirst is all Hype

2010-03-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

You Say you Want a Revolution

2010-03-12T23:56:00.001-08:00

You may be thinking (and I don't blame you) that I'm about to go into a long rant about how our situation is dire, about how we need to take down the Post-modern establishment, about how now is the time to rally the troops. But you will have thought wrong. What I bring today is a message of hope.

I was talking with my good friend Adam Miller yesterday about the state of the young art world in NYC. He confirmed something that I felt was true: that American Art professionals under 40 are not really indoctrinated with this anti-realist sentiment. He had been speaking to the owner of a very hip, young gallery in Williamsberg and showed him his work - expecting a grimace and a "Sorry, we're not interested in that kind of work". Instead, he got an enthusiastic "Wow man, that's cool shit!". Certainly, the ones in power: the major institutional curators, the big art critics, the influential art historians... are all over 40 and all anti-humanist. But this division is clearly there, and it won't be long before the 30 and 40 somethings replace the retiring old guard.

I'm recognizing a trend here. Recently, Rembrandt and Raphael had record breaking prices at Christie's.. in the middle of a global economic crisis. Damien Hirst's exhibition of his own paintings in the Wallace Collection elicited everything from groans to outright debasement (sacrilege!) from the critics - pretty much all of them. Many of them even pointed out his lack of skill. In the past 10 years, Andrew Wyeth's ranking (via Art Net) has risen from around #4,000 to #1,925. His prices, also have increased (and it is well deserved). The auction prices for "contemporary Art" reflect it's volatility and have been heavily hit by the recession, while Odd Nerdrum's sales have increased.

This is an ever growing list. And though the trend is in our favor, we shouldn't sit back and enjoy a martini thinking we're out of the woods. This transition will take years, as our generation slowly replaces the last in positions of power. On the cusp of victory, now is not the time to be side tracked. We still need to rally the troops. But at the risk of being less entertaining, maybe I should now be a bit kinder, a bit more sympathetic, a little more understanding.......

Nah, melodrama is more my style.

"They may take our lives, but they will never take our Freeeedooom!!!"

The CIA and the Art Conspiracy

2010-03-12T06:22:00.000-08:00

Oleg Korolev, a fellow painter, writer, and philosophical ally; sent me a link to this article about the CIA meddling in the Art market. This is a theory that I had not yet stumbled upon, a theory that modernism arose - not because of philosophy, shifting aesthetics, or modern life, but for economic and political reasons. Being sceptical of but fascinated with all conspiracy theories, I boldly dove in. I have to say that the underlying theory seems logical to me. The idea that all of western culture would shift so remarkably in such a short amount of time over a few logically, aesthetically, and ethically flawed philosophies seems a bit much to swallow. I've always thought that there was more to it: some profiteering collectors, art historians, etc... The common driver to most paradigm shifts in history tends to be money and power.

So, it came as no surprise to me to learn that Clement Greenberg was one of the first to buy Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollack at dirt cheap prices, then after showering praise upon them the likes of which you might find in a tent with Billy Graham, Greenberg sold the works at astounding profits. But the theory that the CIA was also behind the success of American abstract expressionism, in order to combat communism, came as an interesting surprise to me.

Now, I have not done a fact check on this article any further than Clement Greenberg, which I know to be true. The rest I will have to reserve judgement on until more information surfaces. But it is certainly compelling.

Also, Oleg pointed me to the list of the most influential artists of 2010.

1. Andy Warhol
2. Pablo Picasso
3. Bruce Nauman
4. Gerhard Richter
5. Joseph Beuys
6. Robert Rauschenberg
7. Cindy Sherman
8. Paul Klee
9. Sol LeWitt
10. Henri Matisse
11. Ed Ruscha
12. Louise Bourgeois
13. John Baldessari
14. Sigmar Polke
15. Joan Miro
16. Martin Kippenberger
17. William Kentridge
18. Roy Lichtenstein
19. Man Ray
20. Lawrence Weiner
21. Vasily Kandinsky
22. Max Ernst
23. Georg Baselitz
24. Olafur Eliasson
25. Fischli & Weiss
26. Andreas Gursky
27. Thomas Ruff
28. Dan Graham
29. Marcel Duchamp
30. Douglas Gordon
31. Jasper Johns
32. Alberto Giacometti
33. Paul Cezanne
34. Mike Kelley
35. Donald Judd
36. Salvador Dali
37. Nam June Paik
38. Pierre Huyghe
39. Marina Abramovic
40. Damien Hirst
41. Anselm Kiefer
42. Richard Serra
43. Thomas Struth
44. Francis Alys
45. Claude Monet
46. Paul McCarthy
47. Vincent van Gogh
48. Gilbert & George
49. Rosemarie Trockel
50. Jeff Wall
51. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
52. Pipilotti Rist
53. Franz West
54. Max Beckmann
55. Rodney Graham
56. Bill Viola
57. Christian Boltanski
58. Tacita Dean
59. Wolfgang Tillmans
60. Vito Acconci
61. Alexander Calder
62. Gabriel Orozco
63. Yoko Ono
64. Fernand Leger
65. Jackson Pollock
66. Claes Oldenburg
67. Maurizio Cattelan
68. Edgar Degas
69. Jeff Koons
70. Jenny Holzer
71. Mona Hatoum
72. Richard Prince
73. Valie Export
74. Nan Goldin
75. Tony Oursler
76. Felix Gonzalez-Torres
77. Dieter Roth
78. Ellsworth Kelly
79. Willem de Kooning
80. Gordon Matta-Clark
81. Marcel Broodthaers
82. Cy Twombly
83. Liam Gillick
84. Michelangelo Pistoletto
85. Ilya & Emilia Kabakov
86. Paul Gauguin
87. Lucio Fontana
88. Anri Sala
89. Philip Guston
90. Daniel Buren
91. Jonathan Monk
92. Thomas Hirschhorn
93. Frank Stella
94. David Hockney
95. Yves Klein
96. Dan Flavin
97. Matthew Barney
98. Carl Andre
99. Pierre-Auguste Renoir
100. Erwin Wurm

Whether or not the CIA was involved in this, is up for debate and research, but one valuable purpose this article did serve was to begin a train of thought that revealed quite a bit about the Art market to me. And it has given me some more ammunition to reveal a couple of common myths associated with realist art.

1. That realist or Academic Art dominate and repress modernism, creativity, free expression.

One glance at this list will reveal to you the opposite. At least a quarter of the artists in the top 100 don't even make their work. They buy cheap skilled labor (i.e. us) and have them design and execute the work for them. These are the people in power. Notice that the first person you come to who has any skill whatsoever is Van Gogh at #47. Degas is just above Jeff Koons at # 68. And they're both dead. Not one old master, not one living master in the top 100. Most of them in the top 500 hundred are living artists that I've never heard of, but they quietly rake in the dough for their "work".

Andrew Wyeth #1,925

Odd Nerdrum #8,798.

As to Academia, it has been run by modernist and post-modernists for the last 100 years. Any University you go to anywhere in the world will teach you the 20th century philosophies of Art and very little else. The economics and educational systems in the Art world are both controlled by the 'good ol boys club'. So, the post-modern establishment can't claim to be the underdog.

2. That honoring skill is elitist, aristocratic, and undemocratic.

First, let me say that paintings are not created equally. And even though the American constitution says that people are, that is not the case. However, we cannot know or judge anyone's potential (I, for instance, once lived in a trailer park), and often people don't even know their own potential. So, I think what the constitution should ensure (and the art market, like any other sector of business) is equal opportunity.

Since the market is obviously controlled by collectors/investors, and Art historians/investors, (and I'm guessing that insider trading wasn't invented by Martha Stewart) then having or acquiring skill does you no good. It's all about who you know. And who knows the Oligarchs who run the game? Mostly other Oligarchs. With the 'good ol boys club' artificially controlling all the prices, there is no equal opportunity. You don't have the opportunity to work very hard and become a great great artist unless you get lucky enough to cozy up to the powers that be. But I'm telling you nothing new, though I think it's important to point out in this context.

3. That realist painters have sold out and make lots of money.

Take another look at that list above. One of the factors that they take into account when calculating these rankings is the price of the work. Damien Hirst is the richest artist alive. Not far behind are Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Brice Marden, Julian Schnabel, Anish Kapoor, and Jasper Johns.

There is a glass ceiling for contemporary realist painters because the big collectors mostly buy from the list above. There are a few incredibly independent collectors with good eyes, minds, and hearts who buy good work, and that is why you have some successful masters. But even Odd Nerdrum, who probably commands the highest price for a living master, only sells for a small fraction of what Koons, Hirst, or anyone in the top 500 do. The rest of the public, who largely prefers realism, generally can't or won't spend more than $10,000 for a painting. That may seem like a lot to you, but when you spend 3 or 6 months (or a year) on a painting and it sells for $10,000 (half of which the gallery keeps) you have a hard time just paying the bills. You either have to paint faster and possibly compromise your work, work at least 80 hours a week (like I do), come up with a clever gimmick and meet the right people, or become an abstract painter.

So, is there a CIA conspiracy? Perhaps. But one thing is certain, the Art world is more about politics and power than it is about Art.

Oleg also gave me a reading list which I will tackle, but may take some time to complete.

“Literary Star is Reborn” by Celia McGee
“Abstract Art and the Cultural Cold War” by Mark Vallen... See More
The Real Agenda” by Richard Cummings
“The Empire Strikes Back,” by Karl Wenclas, and “A Crazy Tale“:
“The Fiction of the State” by Richard Cummings
War Stars — by H. Bruce Franklin
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters — by Frances Stonor Saunders
“Cold War Duplicity” in Reluctant Radical — by Maxwell Geismar
The CIA calls the tune…“ iMomus

Insert Emotion Here

2010-03-10T04:28:00.000-08:00

"Painting Paintings" By David Klamen at Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago until April 3, 2010.

Upon immediately viewing these paintings, everyone who has seen them has uttered the same, single question: "Why?"

With the goal of answering that question in mind, allow me to embark on another of my pseudo-philosophical, pseudo-poetic, pseudo-critical musings.

What we've got here is a strange breed. The paintings of David Klamen seem to be more question than statement. Though fairly well painted, they are not purely realist because they are too dependent on the fallacy of photography. They aren't solely narrative. Nor are they intended to be relegated to those genres. My reading is that the artist views realism as inherently limited. But, they are not purely "contemporary", as the skill and almost imperceptible hints of beauty that they propose are distracting to the conceptual reading. Thus, he seems to say that conceptualism is equally limited. They seem to be more closely related to the tradition of iconography.

These paintings are conceptually dense. Like an icon, like an onion, when you peel back one layer of meaning you discover another. As an academic project, I find them quite fascinating. One could explore the hard crisp skin: the question of originality vs. appropriation. One could ponder the nature of appropriation within the dialogue of contemporary realism. One could read them as a statement about the institutions (museums) where great Art eventually goes to live, (or die). That's how I read these paintings of paintings. They speak of the museum experience, in its power and in its monotony. There's something lost when a painting leaves the intimacy of someone's private collection - someone's home - where it can be contemplated at leisure over a dark cognac. This is a full, living experience.

There's something lost when the work enters the clamor of a contemporary museum. The often stark setting, the multitude of other voices emerging from each painting, all trying to hook your attention like hundreds of fisherman all casting into the same, small, wary pond. Yet, there's also something gained: the immortality and care of a carefully controlled environment, the ability of a young artist to come and learn from the masters in person, or the chance for an art lover to just visit an old friend.

The competent, yet somehow dead, rendering of these images conveys an objective distance. The old masters, like a glass darkly, dim under the dark varnishes. They seem to dissipate, yet grow more poetic with age. The modern paintings seem colder and more dead, yet somehow louder, like a single death bell being played again and again at a constant volume. They have nothing to say, but to memorialize their own death.

Cold objectivity in painting typically turns me off immediately. There's not much that bores me quicker than a barely competent painting which has no compositional beauty, no technical virtuosity, no passion for the language of the paint or brush, no human hand, no human voice. This is where these paintings fail. They are clearly painted from a photograph, giving them yet another removal from subjective experience. This, coupled with the severe objectivity in the painting of Mondrian here almost repels me. This piece is so cold, so clinical, so alien, that there is no way to enter this painting, nothing with which to identify.

Even the best pieces are almost unreachable. Almost.

Even so, Klamen's paintings are able to succeed. As overtly removed and conceptual as they are, the barely detectable and often too subtle beauty of the light, especially the darkening varnish, the subtle and mysterious images of the masters... all invite you to fill the void with your own experience in museum "x". Being an artist myself, I often find the experience of standing in front of a Rembrandt, a late Goya, or Velasquez to be something akin to a cathartic and holy experience - not in the way of a standardized religion, but more like a meeting of twin souls. In a great masterpiece I often find my own empathetic image staring back at me across the ages and there is an intangible chord stretching through the ether like those I used to stretch between my bedroom and my friend's next door. If I put the paper cup up to my ear, I can barely hear the muffled voice of my dear friend, recounting his hope and his fears, reminding me of our shared humanity.

However, it is my poetic nostalgia that gives them this power. Yes, the greatest paintings demand that you bring your own experiences into the piece. But they meet you halfway. The weakness of these paintings is that they don't demand. They quietly and politely wait until you meander over and grace them with your attention. All in all, I applaud Klamen's attempt to bring some degree of skill and beauty into conceptual Art, or bring conceptual Art into contemporary realism. Though this seems to be too great a challenge. These two make bad bed fellows. The nature of conceptual Art is that you must have all these thoughts to bring to the table. You require a certain amount of education, you require a certain knowledge of context. You are required to entertain yourself. And so, if you strip away all the context from these paintings, what you have left are photocopies, thrice removed from the original.

So, yes, I understand the artist's intention. This is the state of the Contemporary Art world. Any power, any poetry, any beauty that these paintings have are reflections of the paintings that they are copies of. Contemporary Art is all nothing more than copies of copies of copies, riding on the coat tails of the great, mirroring something powerful that he believes (and I strongly disagree) we can no longer create ourselves. The fact that these paintings function at all is due only to the mystery of the old master paintings themselves. Klamen's choice to render them faithfully and to emphasize the darkening varnish was his saving grace. Aesthetically, they are about as exciting as an hour long explanation of the process of manufacturing gravel. Conceptually, they are marginally more interesting: certainly, more interesting than most conceptual Art I've come across in the last 10 years. But, sadly, that's not enough.

Is American Art Standing Still?: Whitney Biennial 2010

2010-03-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

The Whitney Biennial this year came off pretty much the same as it has every year. Though I certainly expected nothing new, seeing as this year's curator was none other than a rank-and-file Art Cheka, Francesco Bonami. The Whitney has a reputation for presenting Art which taps the pulse of the American mainstream (if it had a pulse), and it has again done its job. This year's exhibition was another in a long drudging line of annoying and ultimately boring repetition; something of a full sensory manifestation of a Bruce Nauman video where he repeats "Thank You, thank you" over and over in the most nerve racking voice you could imagine. But, no offense intended to you Mr. Nauman, it's not your fault that you ate lead paint chips as a child.

Being its 75th birthday and all, there was of course an installation of highlights that have come to grace the Whitney in years past - kind of a "Whitney, this is your life" experience. The usual suspects were in force: Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Eva Hesse, and Julian Schnabel among others. Hesse once said in an exhibition statement in 1968

"I wanted to get to nonart, nonconnotive, nonanthropomorphic, nongeometric, non, nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort, from a total other reference point,"

If Hesse's quote tells you anything at all, it is something of a mantra for the entire hokey, banal, and incoherent assemblage of dementia that we now call the Whitney Biennial. In that regard, Bonami has done no worse than any other curator. This years event included the vast breadth of American creative expression: abstract pastiche, political pastiche, feminist performance pastiche, installation pastiche, and conceptual-conceptual pastiche. He even threw in a bit of "representational" Alex Katz pastiche by way of Maureen Gallace, whose paintings had all the beauty, pathos, and intelligence that you might find in that painting your aunt once made while watching Bob Ross. (I'm sure she's a lovely person.)

Why the only thing missing was life and humanity!

Instead of wasting my time describing the likes of Sarah Crowner's Sunday paintings with Rothko in watercolors (Jesus! aren't you tired of minimalism yet?), or Mike Asher's 1960's-ish conceptual pastiche: a proposal asking the Whitney to remain open for 24 hours for a week, I will instead jump to the two moments which stood out in their mediocrity among the wealth of drivel.

The works of photojournalists Nina Berman and Stephanie Sinclair described the stark phantom of casualties from America's wars in the middle east. Most of Berman's photos were very descriptive, but incredibly removed from their subject. Yet her mangled groom in "Marine Wedding", actually surprised me in that through the shock value, there lay a deep well (if somewhat juvenile) of empathy. Sinclair's photos of self immolating Afghani women were more consistently striking. These women who set themselves on fire in order to escape abusive husbands were quite touching. As journalism, their work is valuable; as fine art merely competent. The human content makes this collection the most powerful works in the Biennial. These belong in a fine edition of one of Time magazine's photo collections. It is a very rare photograph indeed that transcends its medium to become an emotive and communicative piece of beauty, and being held back by their average level of craftsmanship, none of these quite achieved that goal.

The biggest disappointment was the over baked, 'what if Georgia O'Keefe were sad', hastily painted still lifes of Lesley Vance. Her work from the last few years, interesting and representational, which seemed promising, was compromised by her desire for acceptance by the Art fascist state. These paintings embody the closest approximation of a mastery of the medium in the Biennial, yet this compromise has bled out most of the humanity.

"The whole history of painting is in painting—I don't see that as being something outside of my practice. There's so much in the history of painting, I can't even think of taking on anything beyond that. I just respect painting too much." Yet, Vance characterized her regression into abstraction by saying "There wasn't much abstraction that felt warm and intimate. Abstraction that works like representation, that invites you in. I wanted the energy of my works to be interior. I was looking at 17th century Spanish still lifes. In Francisco de Zurbarán's Still Life With Lemons, Oranges and a Rose (1633) the lemons almost become pure form, but they stop just short. The representation pulls them back. I felt like I wanted to keep painting the lemon past the point of representation, so that it could become something else."

Sadly her deep interest in 17th century Spanish painting came across as an earthy mimicry of 1980's pop decor, which in turn was a mimicry of cubist formal abstraction. Though if you look closely at these paintings, every once in a while there is a moment of light and shadow which reveals itself to be almost significant: the melancholic umbra of something that once had meaning.

I can't blame the artists for this sad showing. They are merely responding to the state of Art as it is. I would hope to encourage these three women above. Have heart, you have something here, but don't compromise it for the desire for acceptance. I know this is easier said than done. The real culprits are the art historians and curators, Cheka like Bonami, who define the rules of the game in order to shore up their own power. Understandably, they have made their livelihood in this system and they don't want it to change. And admittedly, my own brotherhood suppressed modernism once upon a time. But, that time passed long before my grandfather was even born. Like any movement, you have to recognize the moment you change from being the revolutionary to the oppressive establishment.

The Modern art world did not notice this moment 100 years ago. The Post-moderns didn't notice while they were burning cast drawings and dismembering sculptures in l'École des Beaux-Arts during the student revolution at the Sorbonne in 1968. They didn't notice that while they were fighting for "liberation", they were also crushing a long and valuable heritage, destroying a cultural tradition, and robbing future generations of their freedom to choose. So, my goal is not to repeat the French revolution: by replacing the aristocracy with a bourgeois (or replacing the bourgeois with aristocracy) just as vicious and decadent, but look to the civil rights movement. Equality.

All in all, the birthday bash of the Whitney Biennial gave me the sense that American Art (along with the rest of the Art world) has been barking up a dead tree for a long time. Not only has it made no progress, it has actually lost ground.

So, is American Art standing still? I should say not.

It's chasing its tail.

Shock of the Old: Anti-modernist appointed to Venice Biennale

2010-03-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

Vittorio Sgarbi, the celebrity Art critic and politician, has been selected to curate the Italian Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The Art world is appalled and outraged, not at his political track record of changing parties like one flips through pages in the New Yorker to find the cartoons - but because of his consistent support of classical, old master, and new old master Art.

His appointment will finally bring a breath of fresh air into the stagnating Venice Biennale, whose banal repetition of 9th generation elitist conceptualism has grown so boring and mindless that I can think of no better sedative for a sleepless night.

Among his biggest adversaries is Francesco Bonami, this year's regressive curator for the Whitney Biennial, and thus a self-appointed guru of the Art World establishment.

“Unfortunately we deserve Sgarbi,” he says. “Contemporary art is to Sgarbi what America is to Bin Laden. Once in a while, Sgarbi, like Bin Laden, rants against his enemy. I have to say that Sgarbi’s joint appointment is very close to a suicidal attack on Italy’s dignity,” Bonami told The Art Newspaper.

This reminds me of a recent exhibition we had with Odd Nerdrum and others in Stockholm. The local critic derided our work as "Nazi-Kunst", claiming that we were attempting to repress free, democratic expression and force our fascist views on them. That's exactly the same kind of reactionary, hypocritical, logically flawed argument that I love to hear from the academic establishment which has been repressing our creative expression for over 100 years. Bonami has one thing right: they are the world dominating behemoth who enacts economic and cultural colonialism over the lesser countries. And we are the revolutionaries/terrorists/freedom fighters breaking their dominance. They, like America, have a vast arsenal of bombs, but we live in tents in the mountains. But the analogy stops there. I think the story of David and Goliath is more accurate to our current situation.

So, why am I happy to hear this outrageous criticism? Why am I not offended? Because we can use this to our advantage! These moments are our opportunity to capitalize on the way the media functions: on sensationalism. The one thing that the post modern academics have that we don't is a cohesive front against us, though they certainly don't have a cohesive philosophy or belief structure. While we are creating master pieces in our studios, they are going to parties, networking, and schmoozing. What we lack is organization. And, now with the internet, we can continue spending our time in the studio making masterpieces as well as network and collaborate.

You may have studied at the New York or Pennsylvania Academies, Waterstreet, Grand Central, or the Angel or the Florence Academies. You may have studied with Nelson Shanks, or Odd Nerdrum, or Steven Assael. You may be a beginner, emerging, or a master. But we share a common vision. Why is it that we, as classicists, as humanists, are more divided than they, though we have much more in common with each other than they do. They don't even have a coherent ideology! Let us stop fighting amongst ourselves and collaborate. I'm not arguing against competition: we can and should compete as this is the path to mastering our work. But it should be in a spirit of brotherhood.

We will never convince them. But that is not the goal. All we must do is convince the people. Let us put our message before the people and let them decide. What both you and I know (and academia fears) is that the people will choose us.

What is Art?

2010-02-17T07:36:00.000-08:00

Before I begin, I would like to let you know that I have a nice little surprise for you at the end. So, please read the whole article (oooh poor thing, I know it's more than a paragraph, but I'm sure you can handle it! Just make yourself a nice cup of tea or something). If you must, you can skip to the end and find the surprise framed in white. But I promise you, it really won't make sense unless you read the whole thing.

I came across this old post on a scientific journal, Cognitive Daily, written by cognitive scientists, which posed a legitimate question: Is this Art?

Now, I could wax philosophical all week long about the historical dichotomy between craft and the concept. I could reference Kant, or search for the roots of Kant's beauty and sublime by discussing Plato's form and Aristotle's matter. I could take a more contemporary take and explore a linguistic analysis vis-à-vis Derrida, or a contextual analysis a la Foucault. But I won't.

It would be a waste of my time to debate whether or not this is Art. People have been debating this far longer than we remember and will continue to debate it long after we are dead. Duchamp was not the first to ask "what is Art", with his ready made "La Fontaine". We have been asking this question since the inception of the idea of Art - and even the genesis of the idea of Art is up for argument.

Ultimately you can approach "Art" today from one of two directions. You have either an idea in all it's abstract ambiguity (very hard to put your finger on), or you have it's manifestation in realty. What do we have when we approach such a piece as we see above? We have three blank canvases. Obviously a signifier. But why? It's so blatantly obvious that most people don't even see it. There is nothing on the canvas, therefore the idea is what Art is. Art is just the idea. Nothing more. If you haven't read into my tone so far, I'll spell it out for you: I'm being sarcastic. But in the interest of a little entertainment, I'll play along. I won't judge this piece based on its physical manifestation or absence thereof. I'll judge it based solely on its concept. Whatever that is. Let's play the part of the happy viewer and do what we're supposed to do: ask questions. So in response to this artist's "statement" or "creative expression", I'll ask a few questions.

First, who cares? Frankly, I would have just walked by this without even a second thought. It fails to grab my attention.

Is this piece relevant? I think not. But to conclude that we must ask a few more questions.

Does it say something in a new way? No. Malevich already did the whole minimalist thing to its natural conclusion. Then they did it again in the 70's. Does it say something new? No. Kant already said that Art was the idea, and he didn't even come up with the idea, he got it from Plato... so as an idea, it's over two thousand years old. Is it in a new context? Not really. So, either the artist was ignorant of these facts or the artist doesn't care if there's anything novel about the piece.

This is kind of a dead-end, so, let's look at it from another angle. Po-mo tells us that one can never really know the intention of the artist. The idea itself can't really be known. All I can know is my idea when I look at it. All we can say about this piece is that it represents only an idea and you have to fill in the blank. Therefore, you are the artist. Right? Every one's an artist? Very democratic of the artist to say so. But then why would anyone pay him to say this? Why would this be hanging in a museum? Why go through the trouble of stretching and priming a canvas (or paying someone else to do it), let alone three, if the point is just the idea? Just write it down, it's much easier, would probably convey your point more effectively, and best of all, would take up less room and therefore leave more space in the museum for something that's actually interesting.

Really, what is the point of this? I can sit on my couch eating potato chips and thinking of ideas all day long while scratching myself. Does that make me an artist? Does anyone care what those thoughts are?

I'm tempted to slip in at night and actually paint something on those canvases while no one is around. The Pompidou would certainly be surprised to come in one morning to find three masterpieces in place of their blank canvases. Besides, it would be a piece of performance! Why, they should love it, right? You know what? I think I'm on a roll. I like this whole conceptual thing. In fact, I think I'll create a conceptual work of my own right now.

Disclaimer: this article constitutes as a published document. As such, my Art idea has a copyright. I have all rights of reproduction of this idea.

drum roll please................................

I want you to take my following piece in all sincerity. I intend it to be a work of true Art and I want you to consider it as such. Further, I promise you this has never been done before. This will be the most conceptual piece of Art ever created, so hold onto your hats.

I have an brilliant idea. What is it? Well, that doesn't really matter. I say I'm an artist. Many people agree that I'm an artist. Many people agree that my ideas are valuable, so, my ideas are valuable. Just trust me, it's brilliant. Here it is:

I will sell you my Art idea and its copyright for $1,000,000. Too high a price? Don't worry, you don't have to pay me with real money, you can pay me with imaginary money. Our exchange takes place solely in the ethereal realms of the Internet and our collective imaginations. Just imagine that you handed me a brief case full of unmarked bills and I handed you an envelope in which rests my idea. Do you agree? OK, done.

Congratulations, we have just completed the first purely conceptual Art transaction!

So, what was the idea? Why, the very concept of the transaction itself. You've participated in the most conceptual Art event in history.

Now that that's been done. Can we move on please?

The Odd and the Crazy

2010-02-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

"You have to distinguish between things that seemed odd when they were new but are now quite familiar, such as Ibsen and Wagner, and things that seemed crazy when they were new and seem crazy now, like Finnegan's Wake and Picasso." - Philip Larkin

A good friend of mine sent me this quote, and it seems particularly appropriate today, to the art world as a whole, and even the world at large. My husband, a classical realist painter, (who is also responsible for the beautiful photograph at left), wondered aloud yesterday evening if his latest paintings might be rejected for their somewhat morbid oddity. They are a series of beautifully rendered fowl, and parts of fowl. They are exquisite, though some are a bit eerie to behold, with their bodiless heads and wings, now resting flightless and soundless on fragile bones spread before you. They are birds whose heads and wings I see only briefly in life, before they are severed and tossed away, and I have never looked closely at them until Richard requested I buy our hens and pheasants intact at the market.

Sometimes he paints the entire body, as with our latest faison, but usually he paints only the head, wings, and feet, the body already having been made into dinner. Experiencing this act of looking closely at our food, a teaching of Michael Pollan among others, is important to us. If we can't look at the animals we consume, inspect every part, understand the value of the life they lived, how and what they ate, then see and consider them in death - how the feathers feel, how the neck becomes flaccid and almost pathetic in the hand - if we can't do that, well, then, what business do we have eating them? Thus, it is important to look, and therefore that eerie quality in Richard's paintings is there for a reason. It reminds us. It connects us to our food, and we can't look away from that. So I say to him, yes they are odd, but they are beautiful too. And the oddness has become familiar to me, because I see it, and I understand. This is part of what makes them great art.

What is crazy, and what always seemed to be so to me, is the blindness and complacency of man. People who accept whatever comes their way, be it a vacuum packed bird which led a life of imprisonment in a tiny cage wallowing in and eating its own merde, a dangerous vaccine, bad design, filthy sidewalks, propaganda to make them buy anything and everything, (you too can have fake eyelashes!) and of course, ridiculous, unskilled, very bad "art". An example which always comes to mind is Jeff Koons (who has never even held a paintbrush). So, hey, even though the world has given us masters like Degas and Rembrandt, who spent a lifetime learning the skills which made them great, why don't we just include in that category we call Art a large, inflatable pink rabbit? It doesn't matter that he didn't make it himself, or that it's absurd and insults your intelligence; it's art now! And you should pay a million dollars for it! Sadly, people do. They do pay, and they accept the crazy as the norm, because we have allowed a few marketing gurus and businessmen to tell us how to think. Now that's crazy. The truth is, Jeff Koons seemed crazy in the 70's and he seems crazy now.

What's even crazier is that this is all a part of how we are deceived. If we could really see, awaken each day with fresh minds free of the burden of constant advertising, maybe we would look at an inflatable Koons toy and say, you're calling yourself an artist? Are you crazy?! Maybe we would be able to see the labor and skill that goes into art. Maybe we would always look at our food and think, is this good for me to eat? Is it right or wrong to eat this and why? From where did this animal come and how was it slaughtered? Is this chair I'm sitting in made well, and with skill? Do I value it? Or did I just accept it because it's the latest style? But I don't think most of the world can ask those questions anymore. Maybe it's what they've put in our water and all those packaged bags of salad and single slices of cheese. If we're too tired to slice our own cheese, well....all in all, a clever way to get us to quietly hand over our paychecks.

There was a time, I think, when people looked at the world around them; at the earth and the bounty it provides, at the meaning of learning a skill, of thinking for one's self. My grandmother knew how to raise and kill her own chickens. Most people now can't even butcher one. They think "chicken" is something they are entitled to, and comes in tidy plastic wrapped packages. The chair I'm sitting in needs to be re-stuffed and reupholstered, but only a cluster of fine upholsterers are left in the western world. That's because when we were all watching television, a large company decided to make cheaper chairs, fill them with Styrofoam and tell us cheaper is better. And everybody went for it. The companies profited, but did we? I think I'd rather learn how to build a chair myself to tell you the truth, or pay someone who still knows how to use his hands and make something solid.

As I sit down to dinner tonight at a table made by a person, not a machine, and I eat the flesh of a bird who was sold to me at a fair price from a farmer I trust, I would like to offer up a toast. Here's to those of you who value quality and beauty. To those who know how to draw an accurate figure, who know the skills of painting, who know how to sew, how to grow vegetables without chemicals, raise animals humanely, build a table, make a fire that doesn't have an electric switch. Here's to the people who make wine with terroir, write literature and music, hunt, forage, bake their own bread. To those who still value knowledge over reality tv, and therefore know how to spot the odd from the perpetually crazy. Here's to the ones who truly see, and know the parts equal a greater whole.

By Memoree Joelle-Scott

Kitsch Biennale 2010, Venice

2010-02-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

T he Palazzo Cini Gallery

On the Grand Canal
17th September - 15th October

KB is an international exhibition for representational painting.
Venues are sought in Europe and North America.

KB is for painters who focus on:
• the archetypical, human condition
• handcraft, narrative and composition
• drama, pathos and sentimentality

KB is organized by WorldWideKitsch. WWK is a Norway based, non-profit organization established in 2005. Application forms for KB participation are posted on worldwidekitsch.com.
A new jury is chosen each year.

The Kitsch Biennale: A Brief History
Our predecessor, The Kitsch Annuale, opened in Norway in 2004. However, with the establishment of worldwidekitsch.com, the amount of applicants grew swiftly. Receiving submissions from all over the world, it was decided to establish the exhibition abroad. Simultaneously, the Kitsch Annuale was turned into a biennale, giving us time to locate venues.
The inaugural Kitsch Biennale was held at Munich`s Pasinger Fabrik in 2008. KB 08 welcomed 42 painters from 12 countries and exhibited 73 works. Guest Exhibitor, Patricia Traub teaches at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Finally, over five-thousand visitors attended KB08, further underscoring its success.

The KB 2010 will be held on the first floor of The Palazzo Cini Gallery. Situated 100 yards from the renowned Accademia Museum, the Palazzo Cini Gallery houses the Cini foundation’s collection of paintings, such as the work of Botticelli and Pontormo. During the KB 2010, some of the accepted work will be exhibited among these renowned renaissance masters. A real ‘paragone’ (comparison), between contemporary and past masters - in true renaissance manner!

The Giorgio Cini Foundation is a non-profit cultural institution located in the heart of Venice. It was constituted by Count Vittorio Cini, in memory of his son Giorgio, with the aim of restoring the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore and of creating an international cultural centre that would re-integrate the Island into the life of Venice."

We welcome you to the opening Friday the 17th of September.

The 2010 Kitsch cruise
Arrive in Venice with splendor and style!

On the Kitsch Cruise, we offer you a unique travel experience…
Organizing KB10 presupposes the effort of volunteers and WWKmembers. But as great as our volunteers are, we are still dependent upon benefactors! The Cini Foundation has graciously opened their doors to us, but of course, many other expenses remain. Our goal is to achieve the growth of the Kitsch Biennale as a supportive institution and spotlight for the careers of figurative painters and sculptors. Therefore, we invite individuals and corporations supportive of cultural activity to sponsor our cause.

Sun Yachting Navigare has over 25 years experience in Mediterranean sailing cruises and maintains a superb fleet of modern 50 foot yachts from Jeanneau, Beneteau, Hanse and Bavaria.

Sun Yachting Navigare and WorldWideKitsch are pleased to present the Kitsch Cruise 2010. Departing on the 11th of September from Sibenik (central Croatia), this 10- day voyage will take us along the Croatian coast from Sibenik, over the Northern Adriatic sea.

Once at sea, you will experience some of the most beautiful sailing destinations in the world, like the Kornati Islands (pictured to the left) and the town of Pula. Just like Rome, Pula lies on seven hills and boasts a famous amphitheater. Here, you can enjoy a guided tour. Our last stop before Venice is the historic city of Rovinj. Famed as one ofthe most beautiful towns on the Adriatic coast, it is the home to the lost language of Istriot and boasts both a vibrant cultural and night life. Spend time on board the elegant ship with one of the painters, and arrive to an exclusive pre-opening cocktail party where you can meet many of the exhibitors.

Our return voyage ends in Novigrad (Croatia) Tuesday the 21st September.
1. Sibenik, Croatia
2. Rovinj, Croatia
3. Pula, Croatia

Accommodations
Exclusive Patron Boats
The 50 foot yachts will arrive in Venice on The Kitsch Biennale vernissage day – Friday the 17th of September. Two nights will be spent in magnificent Venice, using the yachts as hotels. For the sake of your comfort, the number of guest double cabins are reduced to three. This amounts to six patrons (normally, all four cabins are used for guests). All cabins have separate bathrooms.

Included:
• Experienced skipper and staff
• Food (including exclusive menu) and drinks. Exclusive and Main Sponsors will get a glass of
champagne when they board the boat. Dinners will be paid for individually on land.
• The possibility of arranging business meetings underway
• Mobile internet modems are available for purchase in Croatia.
• Transport to Croatia is arranged individually

Patron boats
The 50 foot yachts will arrive in Venice on The Kitsch Biennale vernissage day – Friday the 17th of September. Two nights are spent in Venice, using the yachts as hotels. All four double cabins are in use. Number of guests: eight.

Included:
• Experienced skipper and staff
• Food and drinks (dinners will be paid for individually on land)
• Transport to Croatia is arranged individually

Sponsorship Opportunities
In most countries, donations to non-profit organizations will be tax-deductable.

KITSCH BIENNALE 2010 Sponsor Levels

150.000 NOK & above:
- V.I.P cabins for six onboard a separate Kitsch Cruise 2010 “Exclusive Patron Boat”.
- V.I.P invitations for six persons to the exclusive vernissage, with exhibitors present.
- Three private curatorial tours of The Kitsch Biennale 2010 (for groups of up to 50 persons), including lecture on kitsch.
- Listing as “Exclusive Sponsor” on all printed material (invitations, posters, catalogues, e-mail invitations, etc) and your name noted in the opening speech.
- Ad / listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com.
- Listing on museum donor wall.
- One guided tour of Venice.
- 100 catalogues.

100.000 NOK & above:
- V.I.P cabins for four onboard a separate Kitsch Cruise 2010 “Exclusive Patron Boat”.
- V.I.P invitations for four persons to the exclusive vernissage, with exhibitors present.
- Two private curatorial tours of The Kitsch Biennale 2010 (for groups of up to 40 persons), including lecture on kitsch.
- Listing as “Main Sponsor” on all printed material (invitations, posters, catalogues, e-mail invitations, etc) and your name noted in the opening speech.
- Ad / listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com.
- Listing on museum donor wall.
- One guided tour of Venice.
- 50 catalogues.

50.000 NOK & above:
- V.I.P cabins for two onboard a separate Kitsch Cruise 2010 “Exclusive Patron Boat”.
- V.I.P invitations for two persons to the exclusive vernissage, with exhibitors present.
- One private curatorial tour of The Kitsch Biennale 2010 (for groups of up to 30 persons).
- Listing as sponsor on all printed material (invitations, posters, catalogues, e-mail invitations, etc) and your name noted in the opening speech.
- Ad / listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com.
- Listing on museum donor wall.
- 30 catalogues.

25.000 NOK & above:
- V.I.P invitations for two people to the exclusive vernissage, with exhibitors present.
- One private curatorial tour of The Kitsch Biennale 2010 (for groups of up to 20 persons).
- Listing as sponsor on all printed material (invitations, posters, catalogues, e-mail invitations, etc). Mentioning in opening speech.
- Listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com.
- Listing on museum donor wall.
- 15 catalogues.

10.000 NOK & above:

- Listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com. - 10 catalogues.

5.000 NO K & above:

- Listing as sponsor on worldwidekitsch.com. - 5 catalogues.

If you would like more information on becoming a sponsor, or would like to make a donation, please contact WorldWideKitsch.

We welcome you to attend The Kitsch Biennale 2010 in Venice!

Kitsch Biennale 2010 official blog, available in English and Italiano.

WorldWideKitsch
E-mail: desk@worldwidekitsch.com
Tel: +47 97753550 (Helene Knoop) www.heleneknoop.com
Tel: +47 90059179 ( Jan-Ove Tuv) http://www.janovetuv.com/

Sun Yachting Navigare A/S
www.sunyachting.no
Tel: +47 64988770 (Frode Borge)
E-mail: frode@sunyachting.no

Appendix: Why “kitsch”?
In the mid 18th century, the values of the modern art concept
were established:
• Pathos and intimacy were replaced by “aesthetical indifference”.
• Reflecting one’s time became paramount.
• Originality became an unconditional good.
Disobedient painters were derided as “kitsch”.

In 1996, however, Odd Nerdrum discovered the potential in “kitsch”.
According to the positive view of kitsch:
• The eternal perspective is preferable to a contemporary, limited horizon.
• A “sentimental” or “pathetic” image is no cause of shame (unless badly painted…).
• Quality is more important than originality.
Kitsch represents a return to craft and narrative without irony.

Roger Scruton on the Importance of Beauty

2010-01-31T11:26:00.000-08:00

The Great Nude Invitational

2009-12-19T13:12:00.001-08:00

Allow me to introduce the first art fair dedicated to the nude.

The Great Nude Invitational, will take place in the Roger Smith hotel in New York City May 13-16, 2010. Founded by Robert Curcio, co-founder of Scope International Art Fair, and Jeffrey Weiner, publisher of The Great Nude.tv. This fair/exhibition features rooms booked by galleries as well as curated, themed exhibitions of contemporary art and a whole host of other events such as discussion forums and a figure drawing.

As a member of the host committee, I cordially invite all to attend.

P.S Check out our editorial in the March edition of Fine Art Connoisseur!

Carnival

2009-10-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

Carnival at Gitana Rosa Gallery

Willamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

Oct 9th, 2009 - Nov. 9th, 2009

Apples and Oranges

2009-09-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Art Prize is coming to Grand Rapids, MI. It is here, really. A 30,000 Pound Chair that will have a matching table is being installed atop of a downtown bridge.
This competition is being hailed as a great competition. It will bring art from around the world to west Michigan. It is judge by the public. It has a non-traditional method of admission. There is no jury or submission of slides. The artist has to get in touch with a local businesses within the perimeters set downtown .
This seems good. Anyone can enter. It frees the artist from the system of critics and the art elite.
I think that the art prize is what the art world doesn't need. ( I don't think it is harmful, but it doesn't help the situation.) The problem with art today is that there is no clear distinction placed on what is made. I have read art criticism books that speak of judging art by one context or another. But very few people care to take the time to find out what is behind different forms of art. I have heard phrases like, "I just don't get it", or "I don't see how that's art".
If one goes to an art museum a 3,000 year old artifact is just down the hall from 50 year old oil paintings. These things are divided by period but it lacks true distinction. It is all termed art.
In Grand Rapids at the Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, the roughly 2 story Da Vinci horse is just down the path from welded I-beams. There is no attention given to the motives, intentions, or general context that these radically different objects have been created with.
Art doesn't need less distinction but more. Painting and sculpture needs something other than being thrown together with dancing, and music in a category labeled "The Arts". I would like a distinction between splatter painting, technical realism, and 30,000 pound chairs, not because I think that some art should be excluded or discouraged but rather that these things that people are making should be set into context. How can the megalithic sculpture, the still life painting or the installation be judged in the same contest for a very large sum of money?
Perhaps critics, professors and artist do give distinction, but I'm not sure that the general public (who will be judging this contest) does much thinking, if any, about art. Perhaps in freeing the contest from the critics and art elite, one is taking the art out of the hands of the people who care about art and into the laps of people who don't.
I am critiquing this contest but the issue seems bigger than one contest. It encompasses terms like "The Arts" and institutions that tear artwork out of it's context with little clue for the viewer what the work is all about.
My name is Braden Williams. I am an artist living outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. These views do not necessarily reflect those of other Art Babel contributors. To read more of my views check out my blog at williamsroller.blogspot.com.

Upcoming Exhibitions

2009-09-16T09:18:00.001-07:00

Fall Kitsch

“Sonata” av Hege Elisabeth Haugen, olje på lerret

Galleri Pan

Oslo, Norway

September 17th 2009

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Take Home a Nude

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE

For inquiries about sponsorship, tickets and artwork donation please contact Katie Albert (katie@nyaa.edu / 212-842-5966)

If you happen to be in Oslo or New York, check out my work at these two events!

"You're US" An Artists American Cencus.

2009-07-29T18:54:00.001-07:00

Using a historically important medium--portraiture--to hold up a mirror to the diverse American spirit.

Driven by the belief that each American deserves recognition and appreciation for his or her active role in forming the character of the United States, Emile B. Klein embarks on the first of his fifty chapter saga in Massachusetts. From now through August, Mr. Klein will travel throughout the state by bicycle, acting as a literal “artist in residence,” living with fellow Americans who will provide room and board in exchange for a portrait by the artist. Meanwhile, Mr. Klein will document the lives of his sitters in writing as well as video and audio recording. The culmination of the project will be an exhibition of the portraits from all states, each accompanied by recorded conversations and a short biography.

Given the chance to live with his subjects, the artist can deepen his perspective into each of their characters while forming a vision of the collective spirit of the nation. The project proposes to touch Americans across all lines of income, race and locale to present a modern living portrait of the country’s glorious diversity in the classic medium of formal portraiture.

Why Representational Painting?

A painting is a hand-crafted object of art. It is the result of a contemplative artistic process, one in which a special relationship between artist and subject is created along with the work on the canvas. The representational style is accessible to a wide range of people.

Why Cycling?

Mr. Klein was inspired by reading of the German carpenters known as the Zimmerman, who even in the modern day and age serve an apprenticeship by traveling the country exchanging their craft for room and board. Cycling also places the artist in direct physical contact with the country he wishes to paint. To boot, cycling has the added benefit of improving one’s health.

Capturing American Diversity to Find its Similarity

Why is it that a foreigner can spot an American in a crowd? What is that character that crosses the boundaries of age, class and education to make us all particularly American, whether we are Internet-savvy teenagers, butchers or Wall Street businessmen? Through interaction with diverse people an understanding can be found out.

Emile's Background

From his beginnings in California Emile B. Klein has immersed himself in the arts. Through the great generosity of his parents he has pursued study both in the US and abroad. In 2004 Emile moved to Florence, Italy, to study in the methods of Old Masters. Subsequently, he has sold paintings, taught and lectured in the US and Europe. Emile has recently finished Massachusetts and is looking for applicants for Chapter two, California.

You too can participate!
You're US is currently scouting for participants; writers for creative biographies, musician's to feature with interviews, US bicycle makers, and most importantly, people to paint. Any person living in the USA is eligible.

Emile B Klein, 646-248-2979, emilebklein@gmail.com

Become a Fan of the Metamorphosis Project

2009-06-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

Now you can become a fan of the Metamorphosis project on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Metamorphosis-Project/97716855473?ref=ts

DOWNLOAD THE METAMORPHOSIS PROJECT EXHIBITION ART CATALOGUE!

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-metamorphosis-project/6945420

Concept to Composition Part 2: Odd Nerdrum's Materials

2009-06-21T09:03:00.001-07:00

First off, I have to say that there is no sure fire formula for making a masterpiece. There is no one method, magic medium, palette, ground, or brushes that will replace good old fashioned study, practice, patience, and passion.

That being said, no one has to be lost and wandering in the wilderness, so to speak, there are trails laid down before us: systems and tools that can help you along your path. Painting is difficult enough without tripping yourself up all the time. So, if you have a goal in mind, you can find a great deal of value in the methods of the masters and use them as is, or adapt them to your own specific needs.

In this vein I would like to share with you Odd's materials, including one palette that he often uses for developing flesh.

1. The Canvas:

Odd uses a very heavy herringbone weave linen. This is not the secret to his texture, but it is incredibly durable and invaluable for his technique.

2. The Ground:

You can see the color and value in this image. It's a very strong and flexible ground. In fact, you will tear the canvas before you would be able to remove it. This is very important, as this ground is like nothing I've ever painted on before. Mix the Blanc de Meudon with boiled linseed oil very thoroughly, about 30% boiled linseed oil.

This is very important: Mix it with a large palette knife until it's a very thick consistency and you feel strong resistance when mixing - almost to the point where it begins to crumble, but is still a viscous fluid. Also important: You must add enough opaque oil paint so that the ground is not transparent! Odd uses burnt sienna, yellow ochre, titanium white, and a little mars black to neutralize the color. But he also sometimes mixes mars black and yellow ochre to produce a nice green ground. He adds titanium white for opacity, which you'll find absolutely necessary. Or you can use only titanium white if you want a light ground for more luminosity. This works well if your technique relies on a lot of glazing. A light ground will not work if you are scraping and sanding. You apply it straight to the canvas that has already been sized with rabbit skin glue (or PVA sizing for an alternative) with a large palette knife. Scrape it smooth so that the ground rests in the furrows of the weave and a thin layer on the ridges. Try not to leave any ridges from the palette knife. Let that dry for two or three days and repeat. 2 layers should be fine. You should be able to paint on it after a week.

Essentially, gesso is a cheaper replacement for this. Gesso is chalk suspended in oil, but the stuff that you buy in the stores is not ground as finely, nor is it as absorbent as blanc de Meudon. Blanc de meudon is composed of particles of calcium carbonate, also known as Precipitated chalk, or Spanish Whiting). It is the main component of limestone and chalk.

It is composed of a very fine chalk and boiled linseed oil. He, of course, uses the finest of both. But I have found that quality chalk is more important than the oil, so since I'm on a budget, I go for the good chalk and use merely decent boiled linseed oil as opposed to the stuff that he uses, which he has specially made for him.

3. Brushes:

Odd uses anything and everything can find. So, there's little I can tell you here. He tends to like cheap brushes, but keeps a few nicer ones around.

4. The Palette:

Take note of the pre-mixed colors. He has chosen these specific values and tubed the mixtures in order to make modeling flesh faster and easier. This is one thing (as well as great skill and years of experience) that enables him to mix color right on the canvas as he goes without mixing on his palette.

The palette alone is also not the trick to great flesh tones. It has to do with nuances created in the process of painting between the palette, application of broken color, textural variations, and subtle layers of semi-opaques, glazes, velaturas, semi-transparents, etc... which makes the flesh look luminous, semi-transparent, and thus: lifelike and beautiful.

Here's an old posting I did on technique that will be quite helpful. Oil Painting Techniques: Glazing. The part about light temperature and form at the end is particularly relevant to this discussion.

Odd, like all masters old and new, understands two different modes of temperature in painting flesh: local temperature and form temperature. Form temperature, I've detailed in the above link. As far as local temperature is concerned, a great example are the ear lobes, nostrils, hands, toes, and cheeks. The color of the flesh in these places tends to be warmer as blood vessels approach the surface of the skin. Conversely, in areas such as the forehead, where there is very little between the skin and bone, the color tends to be cooler in temperature. Take note of these while painting and you will notice a tremendous difference.

As if that wasn't enough to keep track of, Odd also uses another means of color shift on a large scale for both compositional, and illuminatory purposes. This is loosely based on optics, but is greatly exaggerated to exquisite effect. It's quite an interesting and beautiful concept: as light gets farther from the source it scales through the spectrum from yellow, closest to the light source, to orange, red, violet, and all the way to blue or sometimes green. You can see this particularly in his void paintings.

Now this is a general rule of thumb. If you look closely, he breaks and bends it all the time. Also, he takes into account local shifts in color and temperature as well as form shifts in color and temperature. Furthermore, there are changes in chroma related to the light, the angle of the planes of the form, local temperature and chromatic shifts in the skin, and some changes made purely for compositional purposes. As he moves into the shadow the color becomes cooler and more neutral.

Moving on past the palette and its application we come to....

5. The Medium:
It's actually quite simple. Like Rembrandt did, Odd uses primarily refined linseed oil which he lets stand in a jar... so it becomes essentially stand oil. That, mixed in various percentages with turpentine (he tends not to be particular about it), becomes a versatile medium.

Here's a great resource for mediums: Table of Mediums .

The Value of a Teaching Studio / Why Atelier Training is a Worthwhile Education

2009-06-17T07:39:00.001-07:00

The Value of a Teaching Studio / Why Atelier Training is Worthwhile Education...

Atelier-style training is a worthwhile and practical education. In the teaching studio of a qualified artist (one whose techniques are desirable to learn and possible to market) students receive a combination of careful critiques, personal career-oriented attention, and time-tested technical advice.

In an atelier or teaching studio, a working artist (usually an artist who is established enough to make a good living through the sale of their work) sees to the education of a small, select group of students. In this environment, there is a significant level or commitment on the teacher's part towards the students' future careers which is rarely matched in other environments.

In my teaching studio, students progress from the making of copies of masterworks (to learn how other painters solve problems) to painting from life. These exercises continue and repeat, giving students an opportunity to dramatically improve their technique and observation from nature. My teaching relies heavily on the practice of outdoor (plein-air) painting during all seasons. In this way, students develop a keen ability for observation along with an appreciation of the myriad beauty and transcendent significance of nature.

An appreciation for art history is integral to learning about various modes of realist, impressionist, naturalist, and classical art. I discuss painting with both a reverence for its history as an aesthetic experience (connoisseurship) and also as a proponent of traditional methods.

I am an advocate of art students studying in various ateliers during the course of their careers. The methods of study I use with my students are not subject-specific to landscape painting, although American Impressionist and Tonalist landscape painting remains my current interest and area of focus. My teaching studio runs on a two-year schedule, as opposed to the four or five years necessary in a figurative-based atelier. I encourage my students to seek out figure and portrait painters they admire (including my close friends Dan Hemgemo, Henry Wingate, etc.) if their interest so dictates. I am also a supporter of university education based on its own merits. I believe that the opportunity I offer is ideally undertaken before or after a college education.

I pride myself on talking frankly with students about the business of art and about its viability as a full-time career. After helping refine their portfolios through years of study and attention, I am happy to help students approach galleries to exhibit their work. I have helped to found two exhibiting groups of significant contemporary realism, aided in securing commissions and exhibitions for other artists, and organized a variety of solo and collaborative exhibitions. As painter-in-residence at the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences I take an active and practical interest in the creative life of the community.

I have been privileged to have this type of education. I am committed to offering/ sharing a similar course of study. In fact, I consider it as a vital part of my career as a painter.

Charles Philip Brooks

Venice Biennale "New Worlds": checking for a pulse

2009-06-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

After reading several reviews of this years "greatest show on earth" it seems that the Venice Biennale has seen better days. According to Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times, it's almost dead on arrival.

"the Biennale is meant to be a survey of new art, and while conscientious young artists now dutifully seem to raise all the right questions about urbanism, polyglot society and political activism, their answers look domesticated and already familiar."

Jerry Saltz, formerly of the village voice and now opining and whining for New York Magazine, has been a vocal critic of the biennale and most art fairs for some time. However, his most recent review was perhaps his most effective, though far from is most acerbic. He seems less eager to attack, as if he senses, like a wolf circling an old moose, that his long hunted prey is finally helpless. Moreover he doesn't miss the opportunity to eagerly gloat, though I agree with much of what he says. Far from adroit, his contrived similes (accompanied by the obligatory slightly offensive and counter-culture verbiage from spoken discourse: "fuck", "crap", and "dude" used for some kind of emphatic purpose) transparently reveal the juvenile 'raspberry' on the tip of his woolly tongue.

"A text plaintively asks, “Are the black flags quivering in the distance the rising image of a radical hope of a possible other world?” No, they’re flags of surrender — the pavilion wants to kill itself for housing such bad art. I have four words for Lévêque: Get a job, dude."

Saltz does parrot the critical acclaim of Bruce Nauman's installation in the U.S Pavilion. Perhaps this is due to a fear of taking on a foe far too great for his pointy little teeth. The universally held "truth" of this elephant in the field is, (and I'm not afraid to declaim this with yet another cliche) more of the same.

Neon lights! Shock value! Irony! Text! It's sooo NEW!

I haven't looked at my watch in a while, but last time I checked it wasn't 1972.

Wikipedia (admittedly, not a critical source) says:
"He seems to be fascinated by the nature of communication and language's inherent problems, as well as the role of the artist as supposed communicator and manipulator of visual symbols."

Isn't Noam Chomsky also? But wait, he's only a linguist, philosopher, and cognitive scientist, we're talking about art here... one couldn't possibly judge Nauman in relation to 'actual philosophers' or 'actual scientists'. Well then, to be fair, let's compare him to other artists concerned with the same ideas. How about: Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin,... what's that? We can only compare him to "contemporary" or post-war artists. Ok, how about: Andy Warhol, Vincent Desiderio, Eric Fischl, Mark Tansey, etc.... actually, isn't every artist concerned with the manipulation of visual symbols and the artists niche as such in the context of greater society? By the nature of being a visual artist, doesn't every artist realize "language's inherent problems"?

All of that aside, the miniature biennale this year certainly is a factor of the economy. Yet, had the art bubble continued its inflated expansion, that would not have changed the fact that something about the contemporary art world is dead. Last years decadence reeks of the decaying odor of the extravagant cocktail parties in The Great Gatsby, on the eve of black Tuesday. But of course, hindsight is 20-20, but not everyone was blind while it was happening. To his credit Saltz did see it coming and more often than not, and has often discussed the brand of "eighth generation conceptualism" vended at these events. The inflation of the art market is very much akin to the sub-prime mortgage debacle. Many saw that these mortgages had no value, yet investment banks thought that with a little slight of hand, a little trickery, they could repackage them as triple A mortgage backed securities. No one thought that the bottom would fall out as long as the illusion of value persisted and real estate kept climbing. But as with the real estate bubble, the art bubble popped as well. Like those vastly over-valued McMansions, the mirage of the value of eighth generation conceptualism has vanished in the desert and everyone has been left groping. There is, in fact, no water there, only another grain of sand like many millions of others slipping through their fingers.

And everyone seems to be asking "What's next?", further proving that the only value in this "Art" was illusory and simply market hype. If you want to ask me, and I'm assuming you do as you've read this far, the only value is real value, not perceived value. Obscure? Well, I could enumerate many reasons for my position, just as philosophical and theoretical as the conceptualist. I could opine about the psychological need for catharsis, the need to connect and communicate, to understand and be understood. I could talk about the natural human response to the image of other humans, but I really only need a quantitative measurement to make my point, as that's as close as we can objectively come to real value. The market for "contemporary" art has fluctuated vastly in the past as has the art market in general. As Charles Saatchi pointed out in a response to the latest Top 200 Artists of the 20th Century list, it only takes a few years for someone with even the calibre of Mathew Barney (one of the very few performance artists that I actually respect) to vanish like a shooting star. But there's one sector that always grows at a steady pace: The Old Masters. Not only do they hold their value, but the market for contemporary classical, realist, or figurative art also follows suit.

So, what does the Venice Biennale tell us about the art world? No pulse? Instead of calling the time of death, perhaps we should prescribe an antidote. After decades of inebriated delusions of grandeur and aesthetic cirrhosis, I think what we need now is a healthy dose of reality.

Imperial Centre Painting Studio / Plein-Air Workshops

2009-06-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

Arts Center Opens Painting School

For Immediate Release:

Contact: Jennifer Rankin, Arts Education Coordinator

252-972-1632, Email: jennifer.rankin@rockymountnc.gov.

Beginning in February 2009, the Rocky Mount Arts Center will open its new atelier-style painting school. This two year course of study with noted North Carolina painter Charles Philip Brooks concentrates on preparing students for professional careers as artists. Emphasis is placed on traditional methods of oil painting, including making copies, and plein-air landscape painting. Students receive instruction in traditional 19^th century techniques as well as practical advice for careers in fine art. Weekly lectures and critiques provide a continual context for student development, allowing each student to pursue his or her interests in the light of their appropriate art historical contexts.

The program is unique, relying heavily on the practice of plein-air painting. Students develop stamina and discipline, painting many on-site studies from nature. Unlike seasonal schools or single workshops, our school emphasizes outdoor painting year round, encouraging students to study nature during each season. Demonstrations and discussions explore the works of painters of the classical, realist, romantic, and naturalist schools. Students will become familiar with the various movements and styles of landscape painting as they relate to the practices of working contemporary painters. Studio space is included to allow students the opportunity to work anytime the facilities are open.

The cost is $1,200 per 3 month session. Sessions include studio space, weekly lectures, and critiques. The studio is housed in the landmark Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences. For an information packet please contact Jennifer Rankin at the Rocky Mount Arts Center.

Rocky Mount Department of Parks & Recreation.

Now Offering -- Outdoor Landscape Painting Workshops

Students will paint landscape or seascape subjects on location in oils, carefully studying light, color, form, and atmosphere. Impressionist and Tonalist oil painting techniques will be addressed. A highly-regarded and enthusiastic teacher, Charles Philip Brooks is artist-in-residence at the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences. Students of any skill level are warmly welcomed. Materials and Book lists are available.

Charles Philip Brooks, born in North Carolina, studied in New England in the studio of highly respected Boston School authority Paul Ingbretson and with the renowned American Barbizon painter Dennis Sheehan. He is primarily a landscape painter, focusing on the landscape of the southeastern United States. His work incorporates elements of impressionism and is firmly rooted in the American Barbizon / Tonalist tradition of landscape painting. He works out of the tradition established by such artists as George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Bruce Crane, John Francis Murphy, Dwight William Tryon, and North Carolina’s own Elliott Daingerfield. Further influences include the painters Eugene Boudin and Charles-Francois Daubigny , as well as the many other masters of the French Barbizon School. As artist in residence at the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences, he teaches a select group of students in the Imperial Centre Painting Studio.

Teaching Studio for Impressionist and Tonalist Painting

Quick Facts

1. The Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences hosts the teaching studio of theAmerican Tonalist / Impressionist painter Charles Philip Brooks. Students receive instruction in traditional 19^th century techniques as well as practical advice in preparation for contemporary careers in the fine arts.

2. Full-time enrollment at the school is limited to eight students. In this environment, students develop long-lasting relationships with their future professional colleagues. The principle instructor takes an active interest in the progress of each student.

3. The program is unique, relying heavily on the practice of plein-air painting. Students develop stamina and discipline, painting many on site studies from nature. Unlike seasonal schools or single workshops, our studio emphasizes outdoor painting year round, encouraging its students to study nature during each season.

4. Located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the studio is housed in the landmark Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences, the hub of eastern North Carolina art.

5. Weekly lectures and critiques provide a continual context for student development, allowing each student to pursue his or her interests in the light of their appropriate art historical contexts. Topics include the American Impressionists and American Tonalist painters.

6. Demonstrations and discussions explore the works of painters of the classical, realist, romantic, and naturalist schools. Students will become familiar with the various movements and styles of landscape painting as they relate to the practices of working contemporary painters.

7. During this two-year concentrated program, students learn to paint directly from nature, preparing them for productive careers as professionals.

8. Students are encouraged to plan and organize a yearly exhibition. Senior students will assist with the staging of yearly exhibitions.

9. Senior students are encouraged to begin developing a professional portfolio. These portfolios will highlight the strengths of each student's work and prepare them for approaching galleries and exhibition venues.

10. The mild climate and clear blue skies of eastern North Carolina are ideal for the study of landscape painting.

For additional information, email Jennifer Rankin at (252) 972-1163 or email:jennifer.rankin@rockymountnc.gov

Can Art be Taught to the Facebook Generation?

2009-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Image borrowed from Merit Group.

I recently came across a discussion occurring on Saatchi Gallery Online, which posits the question: can art be taught to the facebook generation?

This sent me on a journey of thought after which, when I awoke from my revere, I posed the same question to an art critic friend of mine. He said [seeing as most of my questions to him tended to be rhetorical, he would cut to the chase and ask me what I thought].

I observed:
Instead of answering immediately, let me counter this with two more questions. "Can Art be taught to the video game generation? Can Art be taught to the TV generation?" Maybe history has already answered our question. In as much as Art can be taught, it can be taught to the facebook generation. Because Art is about shared human experience, like any generation they will include their own experiences. Most of these will be in essence the same as human experience has for hundreds of thousands of years, but some will be different. So, their art may take a different form than previous generations, but will really be derivative of all forms that have come before.

He said then, that if they are derivative, then, no they cannot be taught Art because Art is that intangible addition to perception, it is new and fresh. Once it becomes a mimesis it is no longer Art. I had certainly heard this point of view before and pointed out that his point of view certainly wasn't fresh. Further, I added that if a man has no knowledge of the wheel, and he invents the wheel completely of his own inspiration, is this man less clever than the first who invented the wheel?

"No, but it makes him less interesting to those who already know of the wheel, and his invention is useless." parried the critic.

"Actually, it's the contrary." I replied. " It makes him more interesting and useful because it sheds light on the inventive process. Have you had the opportunity to meet the first person to invent the wheel?"

I would add now that most of the modes of Art making have been forgotten our predecessors and are unknown to most of my generation and the facebook generation. Perhaps the access to knowledge and the networking power of this new generation will enable them to re-discover these lost forms. Perhaps they will even build on them. For what we have now is the ability to assess all the modes before and produce new alloys from the elements of history.

Concept to Composition: Odd Nerdrum's Studio Practice part 1

2009-06-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

When analyzing Odd Nerdrum's technique simply from looking at a painting (even in person), most people invariable come to a brick wall. It's almost inscrutable how he produces such sensuous and luminescent flesh, while at the same time creates a surface replete with texture and transparency that would make any abstract painter blush.

Much like Rembrandt before him, Nerdrum hides his tricks. So, just as I began my study of Rembrandt's technique by studying the works of his students, who are not so skilled at covering their tracks, I began my search for Nerdrum's secrets through his students as well. Unfortunately, this revealed important but limited information. Further, as I couldn't see their work in person, I was left at an impasse.

This is when I decided to go to the master himself. I was incredibly honored that he accepted my application and, giddy as a child, I hopped on a plane to visit a land I had never before seen. When I arrived, jet lagged and exhausted, he and his wife greeted me at the train station and he immediately put me on the spot. "Why do you want to study with me?" he asked. And through the mists of my dream clouded mind, I was luckily able to furnish an answer, "I want to learn how your idea translates into a composition; how it speaks not like prose, but like poetry." To this he grunted his assent. I sighed with relief that I had passed the first test.

But I could not have known how closely I nailed the question. This was precisely what he wanted to teach, and this was precisely the answer to the question of his technique. In order to understand how he paints the way he does, you have to understand why he paints the way he does. It is all in service of the idea.

Consider his self portrait above. There's not much to it: a single figure stands in a murky atmosphere, surrounded by impenetrable darkness. Yet, this painting speaks more powerfully than many much more complex paintings. This painting speaks fluently in a visual language. It is poetic, like a perfectly structured Haiku. In order to discover why, I began by asking him about his influences. Of course, at first we covered the obvious: Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Titian... but then two names struck me. Eugene Carriere and Joseph Beuys (he studied with Beuys in his youth). And what do these artists have in common? An interest in symbolism, spirituality, and an even hermetic interest in the artist as alchemist.

The pieces began to come together. What this painting is about is mortality. Not only that, but through contrast, the immortal spirit, the essence of eternal life. There are many levels on which we could read this painting. Critical theory would discuss it's relationship to Platonic and Dionysian thought as a contrast to post-modernism which focuses on objective materialism. An art historian might point out its references to Rembrandt, Carriere and the iconic composition. Though all of these inform my search, what I'm really interested in is how he communicates this.

Study the detail above. What you might notice first is the incredible looseness of the paint application. It does not look as if he has resolved the form into clarity, but actually destroyed the form. Much of the face is accurate, but ambiguous. The effect is breath taking, and I choose my words carefully here because you might next notice the two things in greater focus: the nose and the mouth. This serves the minor purpose of creating depth in the painting, but weren't we taught in the atelier that every inch of the canvas is as important as every other? Yes, and here, every inch is important, each nuance plays a role. But each element doesn't have to be painted to the same degree of clarity or detail. In order to communicate it is necessary to have syntax, structure, a hierarchy, and therefore a focal point. The focal point here gives us the key to cryptographically decode the painting. His mouth is open, his nostrils are slightly flared, he is in ecstatic contemplation of a single thing: breath.

Breath, is the crux of life. In many ancient cultures, the last breath before dying was considered the soul escaping the body, and judging by how Nerdrum has enchantingly lacerated the surface of the canvas with sand paper as if he was an embodiment of Kali, the emotive mist that we feel so deeply in this painting is the veil between life and death. The centering of the figure invokes the memory of Byzantine Icons, yet the symmetry is thrown off balance by the addition of the bright yellow shock of hair below his left ear, injecting dynamic life into the composition. The detail and contrast in the eyes are compressed and lost almost to point of simply representing the sockets in the skull. The hair disintegrates into rusted shadow. Every value, every color, is condensed with the greatest care to enhance the solidity of a single idea: breath. There is no need for more information, there is no need for less. The ambiguity of the statement insures that each and every one of us can identify.

Consider the detail of a different painting below. The hand holding the palette is beautifully drawn in contour, yet there is almost no information in the shadow, nor much more in the light. This gives him the ability to use this hand compositionally as a singly shape, almost in the sense of formal abstraction. The other hand (happens to be mine, as I modeled for this painting) is painted in much more clarity and contrast, because as it is the hand holding the brush, it is the acting hand, the one that creates. These methods are simply a few in Nerdrum's oeuvre, which he uses to lead the eye of the viewer, and therefore to the meaning. It is the difference between the musical emphasis of speech and the monotone of writing.

Continued.... Concept to composition part II

Master Copies Exhibition

2009-05-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

Galleri PAN

June 4th, 2009

St. Olavs Gate 7
Oslo, Norway

Galleri PAN presents master copies of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Goya, Mancini, Ribera, Odd Nerdrum and more by contemporary masters
Peter Padoan, Helene Knoop, Jan Ove Tuv, and Richard T Scott.

Galleri PAN is the premiere gallery in Oslo presenting narrative and figurative paintings and sculpture.

www.heleneknoop.com
www.janovetuv.com
www.richardtscottart.com

For more information contact: Gerald Bliem
47 27 90 15
bliem@gmx.at

Sustainable Artist Award

2009-05-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Are you an Eco-Artist? Do you use recycled material or environmentally friendly studio practices?

Check out this new award for sustainable artists sponsored by Bash Creations.

The Metamorphosis Project

2009-04-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

The Finest in Contemporary Realism: The Metamorphosis Project Debuts in North Carolina at the Kinston Arts Center with an exhibition and workshops with student of Odd Nerdrum, Richard T Scott.

Kinston, North Carolina, May 21, 2009- August 8th, 2009 - Four of the country's finest contemporary realist artists show recent works at the Kinston Arts Center. The Metamorphosis Project is the four-man collaboration between Richard T. Scott (New York), Adam Miller(New York), Jonathan Matthews (Alabama), and Charles Philip Brooks (North Carolina). The four artists exhibit together on an ongoing basis with the aim of raising awareness of the relevance of naturalistic, skillful, and/or beautiful art in the contemporary art world.

Proposal

We believe that the future of art lies in exchanging collective ideas in a poetic language that speaks to both the artistically esoteric and the uninitiated. We feel that the challenge facing artists today is to communicate in a contemporary language to a larger audience, which transcends the current dialogue: to bridge the gap that separates the academic from the popular. We think that the fundamental communicative nature of visual art lies in the tension between the emotive and articulate, the beautiful and sublime, the narrative and iconic, both clarity and subtlety. This new artistic language involves integrating all of these elements in surprising and innovative ways, but does not rely on surprise or innovation as its primary content. We draw inspiration from all of the past, but also claim our independence to represent the world we see through our own subjective vision. Steering a course between these dichotomies is difficult, if not nearly impossible, but this is the nature of aspiring to create a masterpiece.

Above all we emphasize the relevance and necessity of technical skill, and indeed beauty, in the realm of contemporary art. We think that a great work of art requires three fundamental elements: intelligence, passion, and skill. Rather than negating meaning through deconstructive philosophy, and rather than presenting cold, purely intellectual art, we hope to present an alternative body of work which combines intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic content in a way that seduces and speaks to the viewer. We feel that post-modern philosophy tends to disconnect from the viewer because post-modern artists attempt to communicate verbal ideas through a visual medium. We choose to communicate visual ideas through a visual medium, and verbal ideas through a verbal medium. This is not to say that verbal ideas cannot be communicated, but that they must be filtered and reconstructed to be intelligible, which requires a technical knowledge of one’s medium.

Building on our belief that deconstruction is a process and not a philosophical conclusion; we propose to appeal to the emotions, to the spirit, to the body, as well as the mind. Thus we have chosen the theme of Reconstruction: to rebuild meaning, utilizing the technical mastery passed down to us by the Old Masters and the ideas and analytical tools passed on to us by all eras.

The Metamorphosis Project catalogue is now available!