slow goes the days, fast the time
My week in art things
Weekly Wrap:
Saturday I headed to DTLA making stops at the Broad’s permanent collection and the Quinn Emanuel Spring/Summer Residency open. At the Broad I made a beeline to go to my favorite gallery section of Jenny Saville and Cecily Brown paintings. Turns out there’s been a rehang since my last visit. I was pleasantly surprised! Museums have vast collections and so often the galleries remain static and the bulk of the collection stays in storage, unseen. My favorite work from this visit—newly on view to me—was a small Kerry James Marshall. Two figures and their shadows are reaching into the center of the painting about to open a door. Acrylic on PVC panel—that is a surprising surface to paint on! The painting feels evocative, full of energy, mystery, curiosity—potential. What lies behind, where or what are we heading into. Kerry James Marshall is masterful and it was a treat to see a few of his works up in this rehang.
I navigated my way through a large office park, past Angels Flight, through the Food Hall to the QE residency exhibition showcasing works of the residents Levi Atkinson and Zoe Walsh. I wanted to visit this show because 1: it seems to me to be an amazing project that truly supports artists and 2: Resident Zoe Walsh paintings are layers of abstracted beauty, I wanted to see them. I happened to catch the artist and had a quick chat with them.
Uncharacteristically I’ve been reading multiple books this week. Having found the audio book Art/Monsters interesting I checked out a text version and have been pouring over the words, highlighting more passages than I’ll likely be capable of tracking. I also pulled off the bookshelf my copy of “What Painting Is.” Purchased in 2009 when I was taking continuing education classes at the New York Academy of Art this is a magical book for a painter. Authored by art critic, James Elkins, who was also once a painter, the book uses the ideas, language, and practice of alchemy to talk about what painting is from a studio/artist/material perspective. There are few items I own that follow my moves—since 2009 this book is always with me and every few years i revisit it.
“Alchemy is the old science of struggling with materials and not quite understanding what is happening… as a painter does each day in the studio.”
I started a book on Louise Bourgeois, a catalog from her 2008 show at the Tate Modern. In the forward Vincente Todoli writes ,“Bourgeois… driven by a remarkable desire to make objects, words and images; to give tangible form to her memories, obsessions, fears, thoughts and emotions.” This idea of giving tangible form to emotion and memory is also at root in my own work. I remember going to the an early NYC Frieze art fair on Randall Island. Across gallery booths and distance I saw this white, paper mache, bird house looking thing dangling from wire—floating with a quiet and demanding presence. I’ve always appreciated craft especially around this time when I myself was learning the craft of painting. I marveled at how unlikely it was for an object like this to interest me. The work was minimalist though not cold nor sleek. This container, a home? nest? lair? thing, was rough surfaced and at first glance looked sloppy. Had another artist made it surely it would feel unfinished, unnecessary, careless but like all LB works I experience there is a psychic pull, some form of intense humanness, power, and overwhelming care imbued in the stich, mark, cast—held within the material.
While on books, this week I also spent some time laying out my own book for the Shadow Light Series and I attempted a very rough draft for the introduction. It’s hard to balance how much information, how many specifics to share about where an art or series originates and continues to form. I want the things I make to be bigger than my own experience. Like I said last week I want Art to be open. The more specificity shared the more it becomes walled off. My sister once bought a colorful blue and pink artwork by an artist she liked who typically worked in black and white. She thought this piece was interesting because it was different, was explorational. After handing over her credit card she asked about the shift in the artist’s color use. Turns out it had to do with the artist becoming a mother. And just like that all the pastel blue and pink no longer expressed newness, life, potential, creation it was walled off to children/motherhood. It was now all my sister who had no interest in having her own children could see. As much as she appreciated the painting, she could not get over this information, she hated it and the painting haunted her walls. After a month or two of trying to live with it she contacted the gallery and arranged a trade for a black and white work.
In another instance of perhaps too much specificity I was talking to the partner of a friend who makes large abstract paintings at a party they were hosting. He was telling me about the painting in front of us, “Windy calls this TV, I tell him he should call it something else and he always says ‘no, it’s TV.’” We were looking at a wall sized painting that looked to me like it could be a river before hearing “TV” and the painting crystallized into the depiction of a series of 1980/90s TV screens displaying the black and white tv snow that used to occur when images failed to show. It was TV. Oh but that is also a very concrete word. I suggested he should try Channels. I’m guessing it is still called TV but this is a problem with offering too much information, too much specificity: things solidify, condense, stop allowing for potential, for other readings, for there to be more, for wonder.
I’ve been continuing to paint on this noir-ish shadow/light work. Less than I would like but I am working on it:
Open call:
Quinn Emanuel Art fellowship L.A.
Fall/Winter Residency
Fee: none
Deadline: August 19, 2024
I keep mentioning this fellowship so will avoid details but an fyi that applications are now open for Fall/Winter L.A.