Thinking About Art

Chelsea Gallery Crawl 9/29/07

About a month ago we did a gallery crawl in Chelsea and I am just now getting to posting images. Unfortunately, I don't remember who the artists or galleries are for some. Still, this is what caught my eye... I'm sure many of you will recognize the work.

As I mentioned before, I thought the Ofili show was the best thing in Chelsea. As for the image of the wall markings that indicate the level line, what's particularly funny is that it's the Sol LeWitt show at Paula Cooper Gallery. I can't believe those markings remained on the wall for the exhibit.

"Dig" Images

The opening reception for "Dig" was on Saturday and it was well attended. I'm very pleased with the show assembled by the curators, Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof.

Here are images of the show.

The show will be up until November 24.

REMINDER: "Dig" @ H&F Fine Arts

Opening today at H&F Fine Arts is "Dig," a guest-curated group exhibition featuring the work of 8 artists from Philadelphia. The show is quite different than what we've shown thus far at H&F and I think it speaks to the work being made in Philadelphia today and the vision of the curators, Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof.

There will be a reception on Saturday from 4-7pm. Hope to see you there!

Dig
Curated by Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof
October 18 – November 24
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 20 from 4–7pm

H&F Fine Arts is pleased to announce Dig, a group show of eight Philadelphia-based artists guest-curated by Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof of artblog—named one of the best art blogs in the country by Art in America.

In the first of what will be a biannual series of guest-curated shows at H&F, Fallon and Rosof present work representative of the dynamic Philadelphia art scene. Dig runs from October 18 to November 24. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, October 20, from 4–7 pm.

The eight artists represented by Dig range from major award winners to emerging talents. Whitney Biennial (2006) standout Zoe Strauss, Barbara Bullock, and Candy Depew are each winners of Pew Fellowships in the Arts. Fleisher Challenge Award winners Depew and Kip Deeds have had prestigious solo shows at the Fleisher Art Memorial. Dig also features work by Nick Lenker, Jen Packer, Thom Lessner, and Jayson Scott Musson. Together, the artists represent a rich cross-section of today’s Philadelphia art scene.

Exploring and embracing the cultural and artistic kinship between New Orleans and Philadelphia (temporary home to many post-Katrina evacuees), Candy Depew creates dazzling ceramics with Mardi Gras flair, including memento mori sculls. Barbara Bullock's cut-paper homages—a direct response to Katrina—celebrate New Orleans and its rich jazz legacy. Longtime chronicler of the Philadelphia Mummers, street photographer Zoe Strauss photographed post-Katrina New Orleans, capturing the ravaged city through her unflinching lens. In direct inversion of the long tradition of academic realism in Philadelphia art, clay sculptor Nick Lenker invokes fairy tales and video games in constructing colorful, fantastical installations. Figurative painter Jen Packer draws grist from psychological conflict in creating works suggestive of early Diebenkorn. Artists Thom Lessner and Jayson Scott Musson both exploit the overlaps between art, music, and pop culture. Lessner's vivid, graphical depictions of celebrity culture blur the line between art and parody, while Musson's edgy poster art pushes boundaries of tolerance by deliberately tweaking the nerve of social propriety. In striving to create authentic depictions of perception, Kip Deeds blends fiction and fact in the service of truth; his works rewrite the past and present, placing the artist within the narrative arc of American history.

Philadelphia’s recent emergence as a major player in the art world follows a decade of enhancements to arts funding, leadership, and education; growth of the city's gallery culture; and economic factors (including skyrocketing New York rents) that have brought young, innovative artists to town.

Curators Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof, the most prolific art reviewers in Philadelphia, write for their online publication roberta fallon and libby rosof's artblog, http://fallonandrosof.blogspot.com. They are also the creators of the Zero.1% for Art Commission, an ongoing art project that aims to subvert the traditional role of art as the exclusive purview of the elite by distributing free, inexpensive, impermanent artworks on the streets throughout Philadelphia.

High resolution images are available upon request.

Who needs art?

Hello. Anyone there? Is this thing on?

At this point I might be writing this for no one to read. I sincerely apologize for the lack of posts recently but things have been a bit busy lately. Here's what I've been doing:

1) Coming off some recent experiments in the studio, I've hit on something that is really driving me. In the past two months or so, I've produced approximately 40-50 new paintings. For the most part they are small in size (from 4" x 4" to 24" x 24", but a few are up to 30" x 48"). I've been working on canvas, paper, plywood and exotic wood. I have an appointment with my photographer in about 2 weeks so I have a lot of work to do to make the shoot as productive as possible. When the images come back, I will share them here.

2) A couple of weekends ago my girlfriend and I went to NYC. On the Saturday we were there we visited probably 100 galleries in Chelsea. On Sunday we visited 4 museums: the Met, Gugg, Whitney and MoMA. We saw some interesting things. My two favorites being the Chris Ofili show at David Zwirner and the Rudolf Stingel show at the Whitney. We drove up early on Saturday and drove back on Sunday. That was sure tiring.

3) Just last night we returned from Las Vegas where we went to celebrate my birthday. Neither of us had been to Vegas before so it was a fun trip for both of us. We flew out on Wednesday and spent 5 days and 4 nights there. Our accommodations were superb - the Bellagio - on the 26th floor in a corner room overlooking the entire strip and looking straight down on the famous Bellagio fountains. Spending time in almost every hotel/casino in town and seeing two different Cirque du Soleil shows (Zumanity and Ka)spurred the title of this post... who needs art?

The type of art I'm referring to specifically is traditional fine art... that which you find in the NGA, MoMA, Met, what have you. After this weekend, I think I understand why "fine art" lacks huge crowds and interest. Vegas is over the top visual stimulation. Cirque shows take the visual and the performance a step further. I was literally mesmerized by the choreography of Ka and the luxurious beauty of the Bellagio and the Wynn. Would I rather spend 2 hours watching Ka or 2 hours walking through the NGA? Give me Ka on every day that ends in Y.

I say this as an artist, as a collector, as a gallery director, as a curator. I love traditional fine art. But I feel like I now understand why Joe Q. Public would prefer a movie to a museum, or a trip to Disney instead of buying a piece of art for their home. It took something exceptional (Vegas) to make me understand the appeal of mass appeal culture, but I get it. The Spy Museum is always packed... what about the Phillips Collection?

There's obviously plenty of room for both Vegas style visual stimulation/pleasure and fine art stimulation/pleasure. And it's ok if the fine art audience doesn't ever grow as large as the number of people who walk into the Bellagio just to gawk. But for some reason I feel better now that I've seen with my own eyes the appeal of Vegas. I could have watched the Bellagio fountain water ballet non-stop while I was there. It was truly beautiful. But fine art does offer something deeper and more profound. The question is, is it possible to make fine art so appealing so that more people will want to do the work required to uncover the profound nature of the best fine art? I guess that's where Warhol, Hirst, Koons, etc, come into play. I don't know.

Anyway... I'm back from my trips and I hope to write more here in the coming days and weeks. I would love to share images and thoughts from NYC. I'd like to talk about the art shows I saw in Vegas (Picasso ceramics at the Bellagio and a show of Gugg's modern works at the Venetian). Last and certainly not least are the wonderful shows up in D.C. Wait, I don't even know if the September shows are still up! There were so many strong ones... where does the time go?

If you're still checking in here, I hope to make it less of a waste of time! And thanks!