New York is a very debilitating and yet oftentimes inspiring city. The art opening moi attended tonight was very happenstance. Not that it didn’t interest me on the ‘pixel page’. It just happened to be on a subway line that met my needs running late at 6pm. If I hadn’t skived off my yoga class would I possibly (though maybe not- who knows) been at the Chelsea openings tonight? Stressing that ONLY in the sense that in true (well not criticism..but that is the only word coming to mind) there really is no favoritism. And I feel very bad not giving voice to say more Bushwick artists who are most probably equally worthy of my ‘pixel voice’, for what it is worth. Ironically, it would take me longer to get to you from my Bourbon-ized Brooklyn sofa than to the Upper East side. Such are the facts of life.
That is in no way an apologee for the work of Brendan Stuart Burns. Honestly: I hadn’t done much homework on it. Yet Rosenberg & Co have a very impressive pedigree. Who cares?
Well: I care about the untold stories of art history and am sick and tired of the ‘many’ who crave for a new world without offering anything very much in return except their ‘new’, that for the mostpart is very not old just ‘redundant’.
Brendan Stuart Burns’ London dealer Osborne Samuel (and the impetus for the show at Rosenberg) extolled the virtues of PAINTING: the use of paint! And I totally agreed. Rather a lost art. Very strangely.
What was also rather strange and absurdly uplifting in a very unusual way was when I read the catalogue entry on the subway home AFTER the show. Burns: Death in one way or another has continually been a theme of my work, whether literally or symbolically, with both a physical and emotional distance experienced through absence. Brendan said to me at the opening tonight: “it is the questions asked not the answers”. And it was, well not weird: because the experience of experiencing an artist’s work- relating to a totally unknown entity – is often just that. The work always speaks for itself. For me, Brendan’s work was a very quiet excess of falling and rising. As with most art you cannot replicate the changing light on the use of canvas through photos or any reproduction. If you could what would be the point!
For a buoyant yet dubious current art market nowadays, it was heartening that Gordon Samuel admitted that 50% of Brendan’s work had been sold to Americans. So: ergo in a very Camusian way I guess there is still hope for the non-Europeans of dubious ‘Wild West’ descent.
That's what happens when you get off your sofa, experience, and write. Kind of sadly rare nowadays...
