The world lost this week two of the centurys’ great movie directors:
Bernardo Bertolucci
Nicolas Roeg
Their movies were part of my life. Not an addendum.
Photo: Andrew Lucre
no Photoshop- all shot on my trusted way outdated hand-held Nokia phone…
Did my monthly retro crawl through art critic Jerry Saltz's IG site (my IG crawl is easy, maybe 3 or 4 posts a month- lots of time to gulp coffee and buy my books at the bookshop. Hmmm…I have no books- could I sell you books for the future? That would be an incentive to write! Right. Sure beats buying land on Mars. Yet again…hmmm… Andrew’s interior design for Martian dwellings for your loved ones in the future. Jim Carrey, my #1 sales rep:)
Wonderful images on Saltz’s IG. And wonderful advice to artists. [Love Jim Carrey. And Dafoe]
Everyone must see The Truman Show and The Florida Project. Now there’s a double-bill!
Just a few raw notes taken from the site:
Great piece by Schjeldahl conveying that Nauman doesn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of/about his art-making. He is not trying to be ironic or metaphorical or profound. He just made what pleased/interested him. Love that.
Georgina Houghton - making a completely abstract painting in 1867; “Spiritual Crown”
denise__reichenbach
Thank you for showing her. @lenbachhaus in Munich is showing Hilma af Klint, Georgiana Houghton and Emma Kunz all together this Winter.
Gerald Brockhurst; 1934
Uninvited Guest” by Adolph Menzel, 1844.
German visionary-outsider Karl Hans Janke 1950s @DelmesZander
@cynthia_talmadge at @56henry.nyc [Andrew-yeah, I spotted her somewhere a while back]
Joseph Stella; “Tree Of My Life”; 1919- Christies [Andrew-AMAZING-up close and personal with that canvas was!!!!!! cheaper than the Hockney..:)]
Ernest Fiene; “Winter Day, Pittsburgh “; 1935
Hannah Wilke
When most folk toil every day on a job simply to live, artists toil everyday simply to live also. Spiritually. It's easy for some to dismiss how crucial is the role of the artist in human society. You walk down street after street and think, none of these people have even entered an art gallery let alone. But you give the children an opportunity to immerse themselves in the something other of art and you get magic.
I refer back to Jahann Hari's book Lost Connections: humans need a job that gives them fulfillment. Or a job that is stable, probably boring, but in the knowledge that that allows them the freedom to be who they are outside that remit. The poet Fernando Pessoa.
Making art is a full-time job! A luxury few artists can afford. What will keep one alive is believing in your vision. Not in an egotistical way, simply this an an expression of something important. A way to live. A way to believe, in a world that is increasingly barren and robbed of belief. Saltz is right: FINISH it! It may not be quite this or that and nor will the next one be. But it will be you. And us. It is dialectics. The artist does the best they can. It is up to the other human audiences (or indeed aliens) to finish the art work in their heads. How ever many centuries it might take.
If it makes artists feel better (it will) a wonderful gallery Berry Campbell that basically resurrects great artists that have been forgot. They also produce lovely fold out brochures for every show and I swear that if I see anyone throwing these on the curb…!!!!!! QWoe betide.
Took a step back when I saw Berry Campbell artists on the walls of Brunschwig & Fils studio in NYC. It totally chimed with my belief that not even a Sugimoto photo needs a wall to itself. If the artist believes then the art will always inhabit its own space. Almost whatever the wallpaper or paint.
Shows not mentioned! Yikes too many. But I haven't seen and haven't been around and I don't want to just be a cyber-art-groupid! So, hand on artistic heart and eye: with no comment, why needs?
The Masters: Art Students League Teachers and their Students
How to end?
I like taking photos. You make the art basically in one shot. Tweak, whatever. But THAT you know is the image you want. Occasionally you will be surprised. But rarely. You don't even get your hands dirty in the digital bathroom;) Well- I do enough of that in my garden. What one sees through the viewfinder is the final image. If not. Discard. It has no film editing. It is a Cartier-Bresson decisive moment. Others may disagree. Occasionally it is dishonest (as many great photographers i.e. Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother) then it garners another kind of truth. As in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.
Good night from Andrew the alien….
Went a little Hemingway crazy last last night and deleted but still defend Seth Rogan, the kittens/puppies…and still want to end on a wonderful film and hope Albert Finney indeeds lives to 105 as Erin Brockovich.
The great Stanley Donen- Two for the Road
