Damaged Nature
Gustav Metzger, Firelei Baez, Jason Rhoades at Hauser Wirth, a hurricane, and how I did not paint
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Weekly Wrap:
I painted super hard last week trying to finish “Printed Things” to include in the application to the Bennet Prize. Come the Friday deadline I had the face and a few details left to address in order to be done. If I was to finish and photograph my painting in time to include it in the Bennet Prize I needed to finish by 4p, earlier would be better. Well, the thing is I did get a face painted and also it was all wrong. So I wiped away all of the days painting and applied to the prize with other works. I think the biggest issue was with the shape of the head, it’s funny how the tiniest bit of “off—ness” in one area can throw a wrench into the whole painting but that “off-ness” in other areas can make the painting, adding personality and mood. So I guess getting the right bit of wrong in the correct spots and not the wrong bits mucking up what needs to be correct is the magic brew. This week I did something new and went into the face with a pencil, trying to find and correct the tiny shifts that were screwing everything up. I really would like to finish up this painting but I haven’t broken out the oil paints this week. I’m not sure what the next step should be? Do I paint in some kind of late stage underpainting before I proceed or just pile paint on using my pencil marks as loose guides? I’m not 100% on the pencil drawing at this point either… hmm. I think I needed a break and am almost ready to try again.
No oils this week but I chose colors for and filled up my new tiny Art-tool kit watercolor palette and made some swatches on hobonichi paper
I journeyed to the DTLA Hauser & Wirth to see the Firelei Baez show. My expectations were high and with the exception of one incredible painting I was pretty underwhelmed. The works seemed overthought, executed skillfully but also formulaically.
“Wanderlust of errantry growing keener“ is the exception. This painting hits beyond the intellectual, teaching us humans something about life. Here there is beauty, mood, feeling, movement—the paint is pulsing. It is like a Monet where you can’t tell which mark happens when. The textures of nature and the many green colors eating away at the lines and borders of this man made map is truth. How cartography and man’s need for the illusion of control is nonsense, especially viewed in the long arch and power of Nature. “Wanderlust of errantry growing keener” is worth the visit to this show.
There is a large bronze that is reminiscent of one of my favorite artworks—though much larger: Louise Bourgeois’s Topiary. Both sculptures depict a woman’s feet, legs, torso but her arms and head are treetops.
LB’s is straightforward and simplified and contains so much. It shouts beauty, pain, stagnation, growth, and care. The simple and defiant act of existing. Maybe like her more famous spiders, it is about being “mother” being Mother Nature and also nurtured by Nature. Baez’s feels needlessly dynamic—or show off-y. I watched a video of her speaking about Palm trees and their resiliency. How they are what survives the storm because they are flexible and bend, ride with not against the winds. This being the day after hurricane Milton landed in Florida this work feels about our times but i do not like the execution. It is probably the awkward yet smoothly rendered stance of the legs—which i am sure was technical problem solving to allow the counterbalance to the wind whipped top, so the statue can stand on its own two feet—that make me dislike this piece. Something feels dishonest or wrong or mismatched about the top and bottom of this sculpture. With this show I wonder if Baez got lost in showing us what her technique is capable of and lost sight of what her Art is capable of? It is still a pleasure to follow and get lost in the lines and marks over what I assume are maps screen printed on to her canvases. And the green painting “Wanderlust…” is truly breathtaking. The layering of the marks on it are both masterful and free. She was not controlling the paint, like nature herself—the paint is wild.
I saw two other shows while at Hauser that entertained or engaged me more than the Baez show. Jason Rhoades and his car stuff was baffling and also made me laugh.
What are these piles of trash and weird instructions for David Zwirner to say at his gallery show’s opening? This artist was up to a lot of mischief and nonsense and I suppose that it all inspires wonder? I was left wondering and tickled by this curated trash from a past.
Gustav Metzger ‘Liquid Crystal Environment.” 1966
My favorite of the visit was Gustav Metzger’s room of color projections. They immediately reminded me of my Printmaking instructor Taka Maruno’s beautiful viscosity prints.
The shifting colors with patterns on a series of 7 or 8 linked walls look like an etched zinc plate Taka would have inked up but here they are brought to life with light flickering and going dark, then bouncing on again in a dance with each other along the walls. There didn’t seem to be a method or reason to the movement beyond that they related, pulsing through one another sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly to then have most go dark and then have the light rise again. It was nice sitting on the floor in the dark in this tucked away room watching the colors and texture of shapes dance. Searching the Hauser website I found out that this large scale projection is from 1966 and one of the earliest demonstrations of the material that makes LCD screens. It is named ‘Liquid Crystal Environment.”
I also watched a video work titled something like Auto destructive Art—it too was quite interesting and yet I am not seeing it listed on the Hauser site. Oh here it is in the press release:
I have not heard of Gustav Metzger before this show but am curious to learn more about him and his philosophy of Damaged Nature.
This week does seem to relate quite a bit to Damaged Nature whether it is Nature doing the damage or our man made disasters and modern way of life doing the wrecking. The idea that as humans we could possibly be separate from Nature… oh how silly. We should shift our thinking from Man vs Nature to recognize Man—or Human—is one itty bitty fragment of Nature and stop fighting the system that allows our existence and instead work to support it!
Let’s give ourselves and others a lot of care—it’s been rough!
Xoxo,
Jess
Open call:
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/arts/air.htm
This week I am linking the National Park Service artist in residence page where one can interact with a map of all of the National parks that have artist residencies! There is an October 22nd deadline for Saguaro National Park in AZ Be warned that I also saw something suggesting this is not part of or sponsored by the NPS this year and cost a whopping $60 to apply—so that is dissuading. If interested in applying the application is on the submittable platform which requires an account.