Bill: "Jesse, Say something about art, and then I will post what you say, along with the photos you sent yesterday..."
Jesse: "Art...sometimes I think of it in terms of running--where you don't learn about it (or yourself) until it gets difficult. Then each step becomes profound. It also takes a lot of work. More work than talk. "
12 comments:
Mate, these are...definitely an acquired taste.
sorry, sometimes I get carried away, I should have said: Look a little closer, I think you are missing something if you don't see how amazing this is.
more lower east side low brow.
these pieces are good. i find them amusing, fun.
i always thought this sort of work was reactionary toward the more polished / tradidional low brow work from the west coast.
am i wrong?
Jesse lives in Iowa. I don't want to speak for him, but from what I know Jesse isn't reacting to another "movement." I think he is dealing with symbols and transformations in a tradition that probably most clearly goes back to Chicago's "Hairy Who." That is if you wanted to lable it. I am an East coast artist, and despite trying really hard to find books + images, it is tough to find out about west coast low brow. So I wonder about east coast low brow being derivative of west coast low brow as a general rule, because there are not many sources for us to learn through. My guess is they are probably semi-symbiotic, but mainly growing in their own petri dish.
first of all i just like to say things like that ;)
i dig the petri dish idea, but as a student of art history it is reactionary to something.
its why it gets attention it does. because i see the same line work and symbol heavy vocabulary (i guess) in all the small punk type galleries from echo park , to williamsberg to seattle to phoenix and even north carolina. often in the proto hipster areas of these places. dont get me wrong thats where most of the new work comes from but it just strikes me as odd that it all seems similar. like everybody got the same memo.
the collective unconscious perhaps? who knows. i still enjoy glitter pictures of eazy e riding a unicorn over a rainbow in Afghanistan.
BTW dig the blog!
I would never call Jesse's work hipster. It is very visceral - if you see them in person, they are like the tips of missiles and like big turds, and I don't mean that in a bad way. They are really MADE objects, big strong, heavy clay bodies with a commanding physical presence, not fluff with drawings on them, put there to show off how clever the artist is. This group has forms gleaned from minarets and rocket propelled grenade launchers, or some kind of heavy duty projectiles that I know from photos of insurgents but have never seen in person. I am sure Jesse has though. All this work comes from his lived experience in the military, not from trawling the internet looking for cool images.
And to throw my nerdy art history two cents in here, I would relate these more to the ceramics lineage of California funk artists like Bob Arneson, though the content is waaay different than Arneson's self portraits and smug artplay, and Bill Wiley's drawings, though I am pretty sure that Jesse never studied with them.
I am going to go make a painting of EZ-E riding a unicorn over a rainbow in Afghanistan.
i *heart* cat.
you almost had me, but i do love the pieces.
i'll be back.
Hi Bill thanks for the regular peep I also love to stay in your blog and watch your arts, I also have a passion for it though I can really express myself with poetry.
I used to draw when I was in grade school and during my high school years. I will send you one of my drawing so I can share it in your blog. I hope you don’t mind :)
I like this work, and agree with cat about the Arneson and Wiley similarities. They all love cartooning, after all. But beyond that, let's face it, you kind of have to stand there in front of the actual pieces and look at them for awhile to understand what the artist is "saying", to feel the artist's presence in their art.
I think it looks deft and intelligent from the photos.
I know that this is a conversation from last year, but I just came upon it and would like to address a comment made by "deryke". Deryke said,
"i dig the petri dish idea, but as a student of art history it is reactionary to something."
I urge you to take caution when making such an assumption, deryke. Have you ever been involved with the creation of art objects? My impression is that you have not. Students of art history without any high level of involvement in creation usually make the same mistake that you have made. It is very dangerous to assume that prior art historians have hit anything on the head. Don't assume they are correct.
I can honestly tell you that not all artists are attempting to react to other historical figures of art, nor should they. Some of the most exciting art to have been created was made in a somewhat of a mental vacuum. Take a look at James Ensor's more idiosyncratic work, or even Heironymous Bosch. These were definitely people following their own internal path, unconcerned with the annals of history. There are many more folks who fit this bill. I urge you to reconsider Jesse Albrecht's work.
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