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Alice Neel, Nate Lowman, George Morrison at Zwirner L.A., Brassworks Postcard Show, and an old dog
Weekly Wrap:
It’s been hard. My senior dog has a bunch of issues and this past month they’ve intensified, especially so this last week. I spent the weekend thinking come Thursday when she has a follow up with the vet it will be goodbye. Then on Tuesday she perked up. This 15 year old dog is tough as nails, stubborn as a bull, and has a least a cat’s nine lives. For the past year there have been many times when I’ve thought she has months left, if not weeks, or even days. There is no doubt her time is coming but maybe it is not here just yet. As my mind has been consumed with my tiny dog this week’s newsletter is going to be light on words.
I made it to the Alice Neel show and David Zwirner L.A. What a treat. I looked closely at how she captured eyes in hopes of helping me out with my own painting that I’m currently stuck on and also as general education. Neel has this freeing way of painting where she captures the person, not the exacting location in space of all their fleshy, human, meat-suit parts but instead that intangible spirit we humans somehow recognize. And still with a few strokes of paint she shows the bulbousness of the eyeball, how it sits within and pushes out of the eye socket while also capturing that animating light behind the eyes. Next week perhaps a more in depth review of this show but for now here are some image details:
While at Zwirner I saw two other shows: Nate Lowman and George Morrison. The Lowman show is inconsequential if not simply bad. The website says this exhibition is on found aerial photographs of golf course that the artist paints from. That is exactly what it looks like. Maybe this is great art to fill giant walls in homes located on golf courses? But to my eyes (and maybe I don’t have more context on this artist) there is nothing here.
At the book store I saw a book on Lowman whose title was something like ‘I wanted to be an artist and all I got was this crappy career.’ Okay, maybe he is self aware and has a sense of humor? A review in Bomb Magazine writes about him “Brewing the good, the bad, and the ugly of consumerist modern life in his masterful paintings, Lowman draws a portrait of the times that is equally mischievous and somber.” No. I think he is simply painting golf courses to profit from this consumerist modern life. Maybe there is some underlying tension here because I am really baffled which for me typically means there is a stickiness, something that I can’t just write off, move on from, and forget about. At the end of all this I can’t shake that these paintings are nothing more than large copies of aerial photographs of golf courses.
The George Morrison show was delightful. Cake-y layers of vibrant colors of paint, shimmering against and through each other. These works from the 1950s and 60s where painted in NYC at the peak of abstract expressionism. If you are able I would go see these works in person. And as a substitute, and perhaps more for the George Morrison quotes included here, check out the online exhibition: George Morrison
“I am fascinated with ambiguity, change of mood and color, the sense of sound and movement above and below the horizon line. Therein lies some of the mystery of paintings: the transmutation, through choosing and manipulating the pigment, that becomes the substance of art.”—George Morrison
And here is me thinking with my hands about postcard sized art for the Brassworks Gallery Postcard Show opening in Decemeber 14, 2024. All works will be for sale for $100. If you’re interested in the Collector’s preview please sign up for the preview email which will be sent out 12/13/24 at 6AM EST: https://mailchi.mp/brassworksgallery/2024postcardshowsignup
Until next week, please handle yourself with care XO, Jess