Archives for 2009

Whatever else artists draw, paint, photograph, build, whittle or glean from industrialized rubble, the subject of the human form is a constant, both in and out of the mainstream. Outside the mainstream, then, where the secondary market rarely exists and price points on transactions are not covered in the New York Times, here is a small list of portrait artists of whom few have heard. From none do I get the I’ve-seen-this-before feeling.

(Click to enlarge.)

Billy King, from his first gallery show in 25 years. He paints as if he’s carving wood.

Heidi Anderson, Night Eyes.

Walter Robinson. As a painter, he defines deft, but his incredible mouth keeps his work from getting the credit it richly deserves.

Margot Bergman:

Fatima Allotey:

Judith Page:

George Chacona:

Marco Zamora:

Via

And speaking of Mr. Elston, here’s his response to this post about Boy Scouts, art and homophobia:

My own experience with the Boy Scouts was formative. In 1967 I returned to Spokane, my hometown, coming from L.A. and on my way to Montreal. I was invited to participate in an anti-Vietnam War action by my good friend Jed Irwin, who was then the Curator of Art at Cheney Cowles Museum. The Boy Scout Jamboree was being held at Farragut State Park, Idaho.

A small group was going to leaflet the visiting international Scouts.
When we arrived, we were immediately surrounded by Boy Scouts. We had not even removed the leaflets from our bags. As soon as we began distributing, the leaflets were ripped from the hands of our recipients, and we were soon surrounded by angry and threatening American Boy Scouts.

It was clear that they were prepared for our arrival, a fact which became clearer still when we returned to our cars and discovered that, of the several hundred cars in the parking lot, our 5 cars all had slashed tires… I do not have much tolerance for romanticized depictions of the Boy Scouts. 

Related: the California Supreme Court fails to do the right thing, here.

At Davidson Galleries through Saturday.

John Grade – New Works, May 2009 from Davidson Galleries on Vimeo.

Visions of Virtual Culture, on FLYP:

John Temple, the editor of the Rocky Mountain News, who recently presided over the end of his print edition, speaks with the voice of grim, very personal experience, but his message is neither defeatist nor gloomy, despite all he has just been through.

One astute reader of Temple’s comments wrote: “You could take most of John’s comments, substitute the word ‘museum’ for ‘newspaper’ and the word ‘curator’ for ‘journalist’ and it would be equally true. How can museums and traditional print media learn together how to navigate a future in which services are divorced from traditional sources of income, and users expect to share authority and content development?”

Hit the link above to hear David A. Ross moderate a discussion on the future of museums with Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem; Arnold Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, and Claudia Gould, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

Speaking of David A. Ross, who bills self as a recovering museum director: His most recent piece on FLYP, Bearing Witness, is extraordinary.

On Art Fag City: Paddy Johnson tosses off art criticism as if it came to her while she was waiting for the bus. That casual stance is an illusion. She packs more content into a few sentences than most critics achieve from going on and on. Here she is on John Houck:

Houck’s photographic series To The Things captures the physical properties of the spiritual and logical, as well as many of their mechanical elements. Light may resemble higher reasoning in one photograph, and in another it acts as one of many products used to manufacture such an effect.

From Translinguistic Other, The Campfire in the Closet: Yes, more in Seattle about Zack Bent and the Boy Scouts, homophobia and art. I semi-regret my part in it (discussed in this essay) and would have improved it had I the chance to do it over, but, I gotta be me now that I don’t have any PI editors to prevent it.

From Best Of, Joey Veltkamp tours the MFA show at the University of Washington. His affable approach to the new strikes the right note.

From Looking Around: Richard Lacayo discusses the art being purchased for the Obama White House.The new team appears to be concentrating on artists of color and women who are senior (or dead) and comparatively under the radar, instead of the usual blue chip.

As for the public areas, the president and his family can make
proposals for what to show there, but those have to be approved by the
White House curator and something called the Committee for the
Preservation of the White House, which sounds like it was formed to
protect the place from Damien Hirst’s shark.

Nobody asked, but my way under the radar recommendations include Oliver Lee Jackson, Raymond Saunders, Weldon Butler, Marita Dingus, Preston Singletary, Joan Snyder and Elizabeth Sandvig. Using the new guidelines and removing the age limitation if there is an age limitation, the White House could be filled with wonders.

Old but still good. From Sharon Arnold via. (Click to enlarge.) Thank you, sane voters, that it didn’t go the other way.

The chief curator at the Portland Art Museum, Bruce Guenther, sports a full back tattoo — thin, Agnes Martinesque lines wrapping him, like heartstrings pulled out. (Update: Faulty memory alert – not Anges Martin-like. See related post for photo.)

It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that his museum is host to a skin show. From the press release:

This summer, the Portland Art Museum will present a unique visitor
experience exploring the art of tattoo and the impact of this artistic
practice in the local community.

Beginning today, individuals who
got their tattoos in Portland or people who have a tattoo and currently
reside in the area are invited to share images of their tattoo/s on the museum’s flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/groups/markingportland. The Museum’s curators will review the submitted images and select some to be presented inside the galleries.

It’s getting-to-know-you, Guenther style. Because tattoos are not a regional phenomenon, it’s arbitrary to confine contributions to his city’s limits. The rule means PAM will not be able to exhibit a photo of the ultimate Northwest tattoo. It exists on the flesh of Patrick Attenasio, who is not from Portland. He happened to see Alfredo Arreguin‘s painting, A Hero’s Journey reproduced online and decided to have it inked onto his arm.

In the center is a poem titled Last Fragment by Arreguin’s friend, the late Raymond Carver:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

A Hero’s Journey appeared on the cover of Carver’s final book of poems, A New Path to the Waterfall.

Below are few images from PAM’s tattoo flickr pool I find especially fetching. Those who peruse it will notice a photo of Guenther’s back is not among the entries.

(First says, Live Learn)

Related: In the New York Times – Seafarers’ Memoirs Written on Skin, here.

Zoe Strauss

Mark Mumford

Clara Williams

(All paintings/drawings by Seattle’s Emilia Kallock. Click to enlarge.)

1. Make playing cards for sale at high-end shops.

2. Sew wedding dresses for the wealthy.3. Paint people’s houses in a flattering light.

4. Consider farming.

5. Become a Skagit Valley river rat.

6. Harness the energy of a cloud.

7. Never underestimate your personal appeal.

8. Invent a machine for turning dry grass into fire.

9. Sleep through it.

10. Try death. It has worked so well for so many.

Via

(Click to enlarge)

Leo Saul Berk, Hot Spot, 2005, pen/paper, 42 x 92 inches

Ann Chamberlain, Wrist, 1998, pigment print, 20 x 16 inches