Starting a New Painting on an Old Painting

Painting

I have been painting a lot lately.

I think I have figured something out about being an artist. Making art is thinking about art.

You do not need seperate thinking time. Painting time is thinking time, they are the same time.

Thinking about painting when I am not painting is really just thinking about starting a painting. The process of making a painting includes making a lot of decisions that would be very hard to predict before you start.

Here is a new drawing.

Neo-Books

Printed books are about to undergo the same transition that hit painting when photography became popular and widely available in the late 19th century.

At the advent of photography, painting lost a lot of what had made it a viable career, and also seemed to be outdone by the verisimilitude of photography's perfect simulacrums of people in the form of portraits. If some normal person can guarantee you a perfect and lifelike portrait, why do you need an artist?

This sent painting into the identity crisis we call Modernism, and all of its sub-movements, and the denial of picture, image, and eventually object. Which can be seen as a narrative of painting trying to find the place where only it could exist and have value. Eventually we reach Danto's death of history and Postmodernism, where there are no rules - except that everything is a reference and that religion is largely considered bad form.

Well I think McSweeneys Quarterly Concern is the first (wonderful) symptom of a Neo-Modernism of the Printed book, and it foretells all the identity issues, deconstruction, reconstruction, destruction, and reinvention that the photograph meant to painting. When you get a book of short stories and it comes in the form of a batch of misdelivered mail, or folds out and has a playing card and hair comb you can view that as inventive, but you can not dismiss the possibility of a reaction.

If McSweeneys is the symptom, then the Kindle (digital book from Amazon) is the cause. Photography is a good thing, but it shook things up for art. If anyone can get a book cheaper, carry it with less burden, reference any phrase, and buy a new book in their car on the way to the airport a real printed book is going to have to do something new that makes it different.

I predict an exciting and interesting reinvention of the printed book over the course of the next decade. It will have similarities to other reactionary movements like Modernism, or the British Arts and Crafts movement, and the world wide current DIY scene.

I would like to hear from you about this issue.

-Bill

Greta Songe, New Painting, Says Florida is Great!

Greta is one of my best friends from Iowa, a member of Paintallica, and a sweet painter. She sent this image of one of her new paintings. Awesome Greta, thanks!

Zombie Girl with Emeralds

Sara Fletcher's Beautiful New Paintings

I love the light in these paintings.

I have to take some time

I have to take some forced time away from my computer, check out Brandon Buckner's blog instead.

The Drawing Center, Gianna Commito and Jered Sprecher

I went to the Drawing Center on Wooster St yesterday to see Non-Declarive Drawings. Two of my friends from Iowa were in the show, Gianna Commito and Jered Sprecher, and it was a good feeling to see their work in New York.

The show was curated under the auspices of a theme that is difficult, and does not give enough credit to the viewer. The idea behind it being that some drawing/painting is Non-declarative and leaves the viewer to form their own meanings when contemplating the image, as opposed to the painting dictating what to think. Or maybe that an agenda is dictated, but its a false lead, and after your first impression your left swimming in your own thoughts wondering where your first read went. I guess I would like it better if it acknowledged that the drawings are starting points, provide clues, instead of insisting on muteness.

I think some of the work was very hard to approach and think about directly, and lead to tangents that were generated by me, by my day etc, but in other cases the work was speaking a visual language that left it in a more accessible place than the show would have you think. Some of the drawings were just quiet, and I went to school in the Mid-West, quiet is not the same as Non-Declarative, you just have to down shift your mind to think in quiet thoughts and understand them.

I did think the show was quietly provocative. In that it forced you to still your mind and search for where the work is.

Ok, enough on the curation. Back to Gianna and Jered, who both made very interesting contributions, and for me made the show very special.

Gianna made some very exciting drawings. I was looking at them, trying to think of the best way to explain them, and I started to accumulate visual analogies: dirt devils with leaves, polygon explosions in video games, shattered glass, something made by a schizophrenic architect, exploding stained glass, they made me think of California too (I have never been there...). The drawings are dynamic and situated in a shallow pictorial space, they pull you around the space in a way that was interesting perceptually because your eyes moved around, under, and over spaces/planes. I like when paintings are objects that can be meditated on, or provide a static illusion of change/flux, in other words when the can be non-specific illustrations for life, like instrumental music on the radio that you realize is synchronized with your driving. You can approach Gianna's work with either a quiet or a loud mind and enjoy it.

Jered Sprecher makes such benign looking things that they can make you nervous, and you wonder if hes pulling a joke on you. If you assert your mind forcefully you will bowl over the image, if you approach it with skepticism you will miss the lyricism, if you can approach them with a calm mind I think that is when they are best. I have a painting of his from about 4 years ago, and it is very subtle, very interesting, it references old photo albums and Renaissance portraiture with the same set of marks. Jered definitely made work for the show that fits in with the curatorial theme, because you will impose yourself on the work unless you have enough self-control to be patient and look closely. There are definite stories being told (or at least re-constructable processes), but it takes a while to understand them, its a slow read. The work itself has become simpler and sparser than I remember his work being, but there were at least three very rewarding moments of contemplation trying to retrace his thoughts/process and pick through the limited info to detect a story.

Great Art Book

If you are looking for a great new art book, look no further, Neue Rollen, a catalog of painting by Neo Rauch is an awesome book. <---- click there.

The reproductions are very good, and there is a lot of text, which I am sure is interesting (I have not read anything except the quotes from Neo Rauch that are positioned on opposite pages from the reproductions). The words are secondary in this kind of book.



It has been a while since an artist really captured my imagination, but Neo Rauch does the job. His quotes are provocative in a not overbearing way, but he does not seem to rely on art theory, instead focusing on an almost surrealist motivation (which is the last thing I think I should be interested by, but here I am, interested).

The reproductions are interesting because they cover paintings that the artist is less well known for, and that are obviously less sucessful visually, so there is a narrative that becomes apparent of someone who figured something out, and this something is how to stop making quirky unsucessful paintings and make blockbuster international fame paintings. It is a rags to riches book.



I recommend buying it.






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My friend Brandon Buckner

I would like to introduce you to my friend Brandon Buckner, a painter, sculpture, musician, and video artist.

You can see his blog here.

You can see his myspace "Vest with Hood" here.

My favorite memory of Brandon is when, during grad school, we had some old paintings up in the art building that were strange and disconnected from what we were interested in at the time, decided to hang an intentionally bizarrely painted picture of Kenny Rogers with a card listing medium, and dimensions, and a title that was something like "The Gambler," so that the painting was presented in the same way as the other artwork. It remained undetected for around a week or two before it was removed by the school.
He didn't tell me about it, and I noticed it one day walking through the hall to class, and it was a very nice, funny moment of recognition.
Now he's faculty at the University of Tennesse at Chattanooga teaching foundations.

Dan Attoe, New Paintings

Dan Attoe is a Genius

Link to Dan Attoe at Peres Projects

When I think of Dan I always remember this poem by Charles Bukowski called the Best, and I dont know if I legally can post it here, but CB wouldnt care cause hes dead anyways:


Worst And Best


in the hospitals and jails
it's the worst
in madhouses
it's the worst
in penthouses
it's the worst
in skid row flophouses
it's the worst
at poetry readings
at rock concerts
at benefits for the disabled
it's the worst
at funerals
at weddings
it's the worst
at parades
at skating rinks
at sexual orgies
it's the worst
at midnight
at 3 a.m.
at 5:45 p.m.
it's the worst
falling through the sky
firing squads
that's the best
thinking of India
looking at popcorn stands
watching the bull get the matador
that's the best
boxed lightbulbs
an old dog scratching
peanuts in a celluloid bag
that's the best
spraying roaches
a clean pair of stockings
natural guts defeating natural talent
that's the best
in front of firing squads
throwing crusts to seagulls
slicing tomatoes
that's the best
rugs with cigarette burns
cracks in sidewalks
waitresses still sane
that's the best

my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best
for me.