Does artist Ed Ruscha tells us anything new about ourselves in 2023? Even if familiar with these large canvas images one leaves this retrospective still, or perhaps for the first time, wondering, ‘where in the world am I’? Not so much a mirror up to our nature rather a magnifying glass. Our nature of branding. Are we still cattle decades later? If Warhol was the precursor of image branding then Ruscha was his cross-country class-mate in language and how it shapes our perception ‘oof’ the world. Hello digital culture and inherent irony. It’s to be remembered that while New York had a thriving art scene in the early 60s Los Angeles wasn’t even on the radar. Let alone any map.
“Art has to be something that makes you scratch your head."-Ruscha
"His works are distillations, the thing compressed to its most pure essence". -Joan Didion
Though there is a sadness emanating from Ruscha- has America ever really evolved or ever really changed- the artist seems to say, ‘why evolve when you can just stay where you are and have fun’. The meaning lies in you. In its carelessness lies the caring. As the tattoo brands: comedy = tragedy plus two.
Politicization in art always a thorny issue. Not to say strong overtly political photography and art don’t/can’t make difference. Photo-journalism always proved that. Aestheticism in art easily lampooned as a cop-out. Why Norman Lewis was so long neglected an utter mystery. He isn’t alone. Like, abstract expressionism wasn’t aestheticism!
Lewis: “I used to paint Negroes being dispossessed; discrimination, and slowly I became aware of the fact that this didn't move anybody, it didn't make things better.”
His ink on papers from the 1950’s so akin Henri Michaux. Can’t imagine any human correlation apart from the art. So primordial. Existence. Untitled (Seachange), 1975 [the opening reception invite] now sits on my bedside table.
Chester Higgins on view [Sept 14-Oct 28] photographed 40 years for The New York Times.
Something very egalitarian about Ed Ruscha’s art. Neither a put down nor a compliment simply a fact. A world away in a way- some of Marsden Hartley’s work suffered the nomenclature of ‘provincialism’. Paint what you feel not what you ought to say!
This Earthen Door is a photographic re-working of Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, started when she was 14 years old. Herbariums were popular in Dickinson’s era, a flower scrapbook made by pressing dried plants into the book’s pages. “We gathered plants and flowers from our mutual gardens in Quebec and North Carolina to remake her sampler with an early plant-based photographic process known as an Anthotype.” Is it art/science/exploration/education does delineation even/ever matter? There’s a video of their PHOTOFAIRS talk coming to Rick Wester’s website that explains it all. The great thing is: you too can do it all on your own. Please go. Explore. No trickery. Only sublime essence.
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
Berry/Campbell stalwart champions of forgotten/lesser sung artistic souls. If Norman Lewis was language of line then Yvonne Thomas was language of color. What great teachers she had. I do feel for cats unable to appreciate this color harmony yet a world of black and white has and will always await them. And Norman Lewis blue. That said, early the other morning saw a stray cat eyeing up an orange plant pot upon a sea of grey stones in my garden. So did the scientists get it wrong and/or cats becoming artists. Sure beats Animal Farm.
Blog/work in process folks incase a walnut branch lobs me over the head. You should see my garden after the storms. All those walnut babies never stood a chance. What happened Peter Wohlleben, such smart trees? Aways judging climate so well. Never in 10years have I witnessed these trees brake vows! Never! Oh dear…
Inaugural PHOTOFAIRS New York has collaborative cred of the Sony World Photography Awards, Sony Future Filmmaker Awards, PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai and Photo London. Shrewdly spotted, a space alongside The Armory Show [Covid a few pluses] including releasing a major art fair out of unpredictable late winter into possibly future blistering early Fall or ‘chill’ at the Javits Center. Ya’ all seen The Fly? How you feel in the massive Javits Center matrix modernity simultaneously a post-apocalypse future, fe’s and canines roaming the barren architecture akin scenes from The Last of Us. However, no use dwelling on the future? Money’s no good when you’re a zombie!
A PHOTOFAIRS stand-out was Nick Brandt’s new work SINK / RISE. The guy from c.2005 that broke hearts with images of African wildlife, many of whom died at poachers’ hands after his shoot. To say Brandt’s new work is Jeff Wall under water is rather glib but not entirely inaccurate. Immediately one knows these aren’t photoshopped/manipulated images. How the hell…? Everyone and everything was shot in-camera underwater. His ‘models’ were weighed down with rocks in their pockets. Literally. A lot. Wondered why my bad guys kept bobbing up in the Hudson:) [joking, for the hard of hearing!] Curious, how many rocks did you use Nick? You should buy some Mr. James Cameron! I quipped you’d trained Sigourney Weaver to hold her breathe for 2 ?minutes. SINK / RISE is/are eerie, tragic and sublime. Dare I say, work of genius in a world sawn pretty much of everything.
There are now intimacy coordinators for films and series for any sexually related scenes. Do hugely rich folk now need commonsense coordinators when they or their nearest join boards of cultural/educational institutions? As one pondered about Warren Kanders and the Whitney, what took you so long, all publicly available info? Now MoMA and its board chair Marie-Josée Kravis, whose husband Henry Kravis has serious ties to the fossil fuel industry via his private equity firm KKR. One of the world's five largest private equity firms. KKR is also behind the Coastal GasLink Pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en territory in Canada.
Cultural institutions in America are nothing without money from wealthy patrons. “Ay, there's the rub.” How many wealthy artists do you know? Collectors and investors are the ones who make those six-figure plus sums at auction. Not saying the likes of Jeff Koons didn’t do well for themselves. You get the gist. Times now demand transparency from institutional boards just as publicly elected officials. In MoMA’s case it’s simply untenable to have a cultural remit of change, diversity, inclusiveness, indeed harbour anyone who’s contrary to climate and fossil fuel awareness. However, that mayn’t be an impediment for loving and investing in the arts. Arguments never end…
One evening in 1944, Stalin was listening to the radio when he heard Yudina playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. The leader liked it so much that he immediately demanded a copy of the performance.
Not equating errant museum board members to Stalin. Steady on. Get the gist.
Without KITTY’s ass/purr/istance, this is the Weird Wednesday Movie rather than Saturday. If directed by unknown ‘Paul Smith’, would we still praise its lingering of mind? It seems not packing punch. It does. Ironically. Passive, passing. Forcibly lingers. Lingering. Hard to see one’s garden through the same eyes. Again. Lily’s eyes…
How the WGA strike elicits creatures..!….could be worse, CatPop!
One of Americaʼs First Womenʼs Colleges Is Accused of Paying Men More
Great to hear that activism is alive and well on the Vassar campus! No surprise they gave an inquisitive cat a feline non grata order last year. Not a shred of evidence against the poor creature. Her only crime curiousity and standing on two legs instead of m/nuzzling on the floor. Shall we start at say $100 million Vassar? You could easily afford that and it’d go a long way to support animal charities.
How would Nora feel about the female pay discrimination at Vassar Ms Streep? Sad, Mr Redford had just visited one commencement, and I mentioned The Way We Were to a couple of long-standing Vassar employees. They’d never seen the film. Of course, there’s life outside the movies. Moreover, certainly more life outside Vassar College!
So, guess that’s the Saturday Night Movie. It took a lot of convincing for Redford to accept the role [great DVD commentary]. Now it’s impossible to imagine anyone else. Hubbell’s unflappable air and that nonchalant Redford gaze observing the world amidst the slipstream of his WASP friends. Katie’s [Streisand] critique of Hubbell’s debut novel that he’s too distant from his characters. Pollack’s The Electric Horseman is in so many ways a tighter more stringent movie. Yet there’s something so iconic and cliched (in its true sense of origin) that propels The Way We Were into a masterpiece of American moviemaking. Only Pauline Kael could write “a torpedoed ship full of gaping holes which comes snugly into port”.
Now for something completely different…;). Avant-Barb(ie) [Oct 2, 7.30pm only]
As the very wise, innovative, pragmatic theater director/producer Pierre Audi was ironically spake to me about his old Almeida Theater [London] incumbents: ‘they need a bigger theater”. Hello.
Methinks another post would be appropriate for what’s to come. Well, just another newel post no stairway to heaven! No Medea sacrifices. At least….
Saw Shucked on Broadway. It was that or…don’t flatter yourselves…:) Seek Sondheim, you’ll soak in despair. Kittens rather like despair, so room for hope. TMI one day, hello here we go, but I unveiled a kitten under my covered storage. Mama appeared wit her Scorsese scans and dutifully he/she was pardoned. From memory I cleaned her eyes that looked…anymeaow..So, half hour later, Mama’d fluffed this offspring so she/whatever literally shone in the sun. There was. Light. Caught, happenstance, bruder or sister pawed him/her/it/us over the head. Stay away from the window and out of sight! Brave kitten unrelenting: ‘this is my spotlight’. This is my moment.
Oh yes, Shucked. Sondheim and Shucked emanate from the very same place, an enormous heart. It’s a small clever show, the economy of staging and cast keeping everything ever buoyant. You’d really wanna to be a rock not to have a great time. So, go thinking Kermit and ya all be on the right track! Everything is literally corny-”high as an elephant’s eye”!
Excuse a moment: having an old feline for dinner…
