Archive for 2010
Denver Arts from Art Ltd. Magazine July/Aug 2010
In ART, Art Museum, Biennial, Creative Economy, Denver, arts journalism, contemporary art on July 24, 2010 at 1:10 amPaola Santoscoy and Mayor Hickenlooper
In ART, Creative Economy, Denver, contemporary art on July 23, 2010 at 10:57 amTwo recent interviews from adobeairstream.com. Click on the image to take you to the articles–an interview with Paola Santoscoy, the curator of The Nature of Things at the Biennial of the Americas and a video interview with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper who talks about the biennial, the Hamilton Building and all things creative economy.
Goebel Questions Whether Denver Biennial Already a Success
In ART, Biennial, Denver, Mixed media, arts journalism, contemporary art on July 22, 2010 at 10:41 amIs the Denver Biennial already a success as Mayor Hickenlooper claims? Yes and No. Read more here in Leanne Goebel’s post on Huffington Post.
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Stephen Hannock
In ART, Art Criticism, Art Museum, Denver, Landscape, painting on July 21, 2010 at 10:27 pm
The painter as conservationist, Stephen Hannock, installed a new work at Denver Art Museum. The painting entitled “Mt. Blanca with Ute Creek at Dawn” was installed on May 13, 2010 in the Hamilton building in the Contemporary Western Art Galleries outside the 2nd floor bridge. The 80” x 120” painting is on a two year loan courtesy of collector and patron Louis Bacon, owner of the Trinchera Ranch in Costilla County near the base of Mt. Blanca.
Read about my interview with Hannock on adobeairstream.com.
Pagosa Springs Community Comes Together for New Mural
In ART, Culture, Pagosa Springs, public art on July 13, 2010 at 4:36 pm
What You Are Missing by Not Reading the Huffington Post
In Culture, Dallas, Music, Pagosa Springs on July 7, 2010 at 10:15 amIf you read the Huffington Post you saw this piece on Pagosa Springs, CO posted back in May.
However, since many of you don’t read HuffPo (Why not?) I’m including the link here on my blog.
The article is an open letter to Kelcy Warren, the new owner of BootJack Ranch. It’s a heads up on the minutia that is Pagosa, something I wish someone would have told me before we came to town more than 8 years ago. It’s also an invitation to Mr. Warren to become a part of our community.
You’re an outsider, Mr. Warren. You cannot fix our community, and I’m not asking you to do so, I just want you to be aware. Please don’t be someone who flies in and out to spend time at their private retreat, merely passing through our community, closing the gate behind them. Bring your love of music and your philanthropic endeavors with you when you come.
Mr. Warren’s assistant contacted me when he first saw this post and perhaps I’ll even get a face-to-face meeting with our new neighbor. I’m still waiting for schedules to allow. But I’m not holding my breath.
The Art of Selling Art on the Web
In ART, Art Criticism, Culture, Design, Mixed media, Print making, art market, arts journalism, contemporary art, media, painting, photography, sculpture on June 14, 2010 at 10:57 amand notes from the trenches
June 02, 2010
Written by Leanne Goebel
Written by Leanne Goebel
DENVER, June 2 Art is a business. On websites like 20×200 art aficionados can purchase limited editions for as little as $20. Between 2004 and 2005 Duane Keiser’s Painting a Day blog garnered huge media attention for the artists daily postcard size paintings that he sold via eBay auction. Etsy.com is a marketplace for all things made by hand, from clothing to sculpture. And sites from Artist Register to Saatchi online have proliferated over the years making it easier for designers, consultants, curators and collectors to view a lot of art quickly. But are people really buying art sight unseen?
Former banker Alan Kircher is selling art online. He founded Artwork Network in Denver in 2004. Artwork Network is a coop gallery, art rotation, art consulting firm that provides web-based marketing service for artists and art related businesses.
“We’re growing into our name,” Mr. Kircher said in a recent interview. “We are at a point where we are becoming a trusted advisor in the industry.”
A few hours trolling for art on the Internet and one needs more than a trusted advisor—more like a bottle of Patron and some lime wedges to wade through the millions of images of bad, mediocre and occasionally intriguing art. It’s no wonder Artwork Network has developed interactive software for viewing of art. An interior designer can upload the floor plan of a project, digitally select artwork, place it to scale in a 3-D model, which can then be shown to a client, saving time and money. They can see that the scale of a painting is wrong or try differing arrangements without actually having to haul art back and forth. And since hotels and hospitals are primarily the ones buying art in bulk, the more cost effective, the better.
Artwork Network appeals to artists with a catchy slogan. “You do the artwork. We’ll be your Network.”
“It’s Marketing 101,” Mr. Kircher said. “You can mail out a postcard and get 1% return or you can become a member and we’ll bring more eyeballs to your work.”
The service seems to be working for Daniel Bahn an abstract expressionist painter. A click on his Artwork Network gallery page reveals twelve thumbnails of paintings priced from $590 to $4,800.The website tells me how many times each painting has been viewed and shows me what it would look like hanging above a leather chair. I even learn that Bahn has sold 29 works from $430-$3,225, that his abstract works are drawn from nature, and that he studies under Dale Chisman.
Artwork Network helped make Bahn visible to Mike Alcott, Senior Vice President of Colorado Capital Bank. Four years ago Mr. Alcott worked with Bank of Choice and helped them open a new location on 17th Street in Denver. He hired Lynda Schroer of Bechta Graphics Ltd. to plan the space and furnish it. When it came time to discuss art for the walls Ms. Schroer referred Mr. Alcott to Artwork Network and the bank became an art rotation client. For two years Artwork Network rotated art at the bank. With each rotation the bank purchased items for their permanent collection, 24 pieces in all, spending $25,000. Mr. Alcott became an avid collector and owns several of Mr. Bahn’s paintings.
“I spent a lot of time on the Internet before the economy changed and I stopped spending money,” Mr. Alcott said.
He would view the art online and then go to the Artwork Network studio and often take the work home and live with it for awhile.
“I never brought it back,” Mr. Alcott admitted.
Mr. Alcott thinks Artwork Network is creating a more efficient sort of market for art. Where before he had to go to a gallery to purchase art, the Internet provides a more universal marketplace. But he confesses that it also requires a relationship.
“You have to have someone you trust in these things, someone you can talk to about the work and a place to go and look at it. If you’re an expert it might be different,” he said.
But it isn’t different for the experienced collector. Nancy Tucker has an 
extensive art collection. She confesses that she doesn’t normally buy art online, but recently wanted to change something out from her collection with something compatible to fill the spot. She ended up on the Artwork Network website after a Google search and saw a number of pieces she liked by Dimitri Kourouniotis. She contacted Artwork Network because she wanted to be sure the color was indeed a blue-red and not an orange-red. She got a quick response and even received an email from the artist. Ms. Tucker picked up the painting at Artwork Network studios in Denver.
“It was exactly what I thought I was buying and looked good color wise,” Ms. Tucker said. “It was a good experience. I wouldn’t be afraid to buy that way again.”
Ms. Tucker said she felt comfortable because she knew she was under no obligation to keep the piece if it hadn’t met her expectations. But she also says she knows her own taste and has a fair amount of art. Yet, she’s not sure she would have looked online for a signature piece for her living room.
Consultants often begin their search for new artwork on websites like Artist File and Artist Register. Curators search for emerging artists on White Columns because of it’s rigid selection process. Having work on sites like Artwork Network or Art Rent and Lease are ways for artist to get their work hung on a wall somewhere and out of their studio. Along with individual artist websites the Internet does allow more eyes to see an artist’s work. But for Greg Cortopassi, that wasn’t enough. He listed his work with Artwork Network and they placed his art in rotation at three luxury hotels and a winery, but he never sold anything.
“They placed my art, but nobody has to do anything, nobody has to invest in the art, there’s no reason for them to buy because they can rent it,” Cortopassi said. And while Artwork Network charges for the service of placing art, that rental fee doesn’t go to the artist and not every client will buy like Bank of Choice.
Cortopassi felt that he was competing for attention on the Internet asking: “How do you look at hundreds of pieces online and get excited about it?”
More importantly, who will buy all of this art?
“There seems to be a new paradigm,” Mr. Alcott said. “I think people, unless they absolutely need it are not buying. They are scaling down how they eat and dress.”
The primary buyers of art seem to be hotels, hospital and blue-chip billionaires hedging their funds in Warhols and Picasso’s. Collectors like Ms. Tucker and Mr. Alcott are not spending their discretionary income because their walls are already filled. Artwork Network doesn’t claim to be an art expert and they are not representing artists. For them, art is a product and they are a tool to help sell that product. Perhaps websites like Artwork Network can build their brand around a new kind of art buyer, one that doesn’t have to know the difference between acrylic and oil, whose willing to spend $500 for something because they like it and it matches the furniture, and for whom art is not a luxury but a necessity.
Jenny Morgan profile from Art Ltd. Magazine
In ART, Denver, arts journalism, contemporary art, painting on June 11, 2010 at 3:38 amjenny morgan
by leanne haase goebel
May 2010
“How can I fuck this up?” That’s the question Jenny Morgan asks herself as she begins a portrait. Starting with 50 to 100 snapshots of friends, often women, but not always, Morgan selects one that reflects no smile or emotion: the person is relaxed, with their guard down and a deadpan stare. A breakthrough came when she painted her first self-portrait, exposing herself nude to the camera and then on canvas. It was brave act on her part, inspired by the fearlessness she sees in the work of Jenny Saville. Morgan then attempted to paint porn stars and prostitutes, but she didn’t feel connected to those women. “The work was insincere,” she says. Since focusing on people she knows, as Francis Bacon did, her painting has become more genuine. But the emotional states she portrays are not necessarily those of the sitter. “I’m seeing the person as a structure to put my own emotions on,” she observes.
Morgan’s art career began in Denver, as a student at the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design; after getting her BFA, she moved to New York in 2006 to earn her MFA at the School of Visual Arts. Her portraits are as much about painting as about a person. “I love to see the paint build and get luminous,” she says. Morgan prefers oils, mixing colors with a knife. Her palette is primarily white with ochers and reds. She’s now sanding away the luster to reveal the red undercoat on her #10 grit canvas, giving her portraits a sunburned quality. Often the distortions look like bruises and the sitter can appear beaten, but in essence they are coming to life through the layering of pigment on canvas, the sanding, the mark-making. Just as a body is made of layers of muscle, epidermis and skin, we see that a portrait is made that same way. The blood flowing through the veins, the red layers beneath the skin contrasts with the hyper-realism of a lopsided breast, the non-expression of a face, a finger gently tugging a lip, a drooping eye.
In From The Valley To The Stars, Morgan has painted one hand and forearm black, creating a negative space. The other hand is glazed yellow, yet features all the fine detail of her style. In We Are All Setting Suns, one hand is red and outlined in white, incorporating printmaking and drawing techniques. The other hand is missing its skin, and has been sanded away to appear blotchy red, while the face appears as if under water, or refracted by a lens: blurry eyes with long, dark, vertical shadows. The hair in a Morgan portrait is disheveled, somewhat fly-away. She reveals the loose ends that are never seen in a magazine ad, the awkward curl standing out from the head. It could be interpreted as bedroom hair. But there is a disengaged element to her nude portraits. One does not sense sex or narrative when looking at a Morgan painting. And though she chooses a photograph in which the sitter “is extremely uncomfortable” the paintings are not difficult. Other emotions rise to the surface. No matter how stripped away or bruised a Morgan portrait is, the luminescence remains: that, and the eyes, powerful, real, gazing out from the canvas. It is through the eyes that we see Morgan’s emotion and her powerful fight to prove that painting is not dead and that portraiture can indeed be challenging, cool, and now.
Jenny Morgan’s work was featured in two solo exhibitions in 2009, “This Too Shall Pass” at Plus Gallery in Denver, and “Abrasions” at Like the Spice Gallery in Brooklyn. Her work can currently be seen in the group show, “Mirror, Mirror” at Postmasters Gallery in New York, through May 8, 2010.
New Schools: Fort Lewis College Seniors explore “isms” in exhibit from Durango Herald
In ART, Art Criticism, Ceramics, Durango, Mixed media, New Media, Print making, art education, painting, photography on May 13, 2010 at 10:37 amApril 23, 2010, The Durango Herald
Shane Bootenhoff’s “Lift” and “Typical System Schematic”
I recently learned of several small art movements that are relatively new to the list of “isms” that make up art history. Along with post-modernism and conceptual art we can add funism, thinkism and stuckism. Funism proponents believe that art should be as much fun to look at as it is to think about and that art should be intellectually engaging without being intellectually elitist. Thinkism claims to be the first art movement of the 21st century and suggests that art shed light on various social, philosophical, political, environmental, psychological and religious issues. Stuckism is an international art movement for contemporary figurative painting with ideas. Proponents claim it’s anti- the pretensions of conceptual art, and anti- the notion of anti-art (rooted in Fluxus). One website claims there are 206 stuckist groups in 48 countries.
And what does this have to do with the senior art majors’ exhibition at Fort Lewis College, you might be asking?
Well, as it turns out, just about everything.
In Durango, art students are not always exposed to the newest, most avant-garde work from the finest galleries and museums in New York, London and around the world. They are likely not familiar with Ryan Trecartin, the twenty-something art phenom from Philadelphia known for his disjointed videos or Cao Fei, the Beijing artist who explores the rapid evolution of Chinese society and cultural trends through photography, video and new media. They can identify the work of über artists Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami because well, frankly, those images are everywhere – you’ve probably seen the giant shiny balloon puppies, diamond encrusted skulls and neon flower and eyeball patterns, too.
Viewing the exhibit in the FLC gallery, I am reminded that there is a purity of purpose to the art these students create, based in the traditional mediums of painting, sculpture, photography and design. One will not find a fine art video or audio installation at FLC. (That may be problematic for students who want to pursue their MFAs, as new media art is everywhere.) What one will find is strong, elemental and basic design skills from the graphic students who show an eye for color, negative space and typesetting. I was particularly fond of the “Prairie Thunder” music festival posters by Ian Doig for their simplicity and powerful use of color to attract my attention. Deana King produces something of a hybrid between graphic design and drawing in her white on black “Velvet Acid Christ Posters” a work that might qualify for the thinkism movement for its apocalyptic symbolism and imagery.
Drawing also stands out in this exhibit, particularly mark-making with charcoal and watercolor and graphite. Traditional figurative works, like “Growing” by Arline Yazzie Paul of two twin toddlers, show mastery of skill and technique. Same with “Cold Case” by Alan
Miller, a close up of a face featuring intense turquoise eyes. Shellie Douglass shows two nudes created by drawing on Mylar that is then exposed to sunlight to create solar plate etchings. She also shows “Libby” a charcoal drawing of a pre-teen girl bent at the waist looking sadly, angrily or disinterestedly at the viewer, hands clasped between her knees. Douglass and Slater Bootenhoff share a collaborative drawing that results in an image with tension between the figurative and the organic that may qualify as a stuckist work.
Bootenhoff’s paintings were my favorite pieces from the show, though both are very different. “Typical System Schematic” is mixed media featuring layers of what might be drawing, sumi-e ink, printmaking, painting and etching in rusty colors and black. His oil painting, “Lift,” employs a similar orange color with blue and white resulting in a sophisticated work of abstraction.
In the category of funism, I would situate Araina Marsden’s “Tetris” sculpture, a wooden drawing of a doll playing video games on TV, and Shannan Cruise’s “Literature Alive,” a playful yet dark octopus-like creature emerging from a stack of opened books.
So when it comes to the distinction between the latest art movements and what is happening in art programs like the one at Fort Lewis, we see that the line is malleable, and a foundation in the basic elements of art making is likely to stand the test of time.
If you go
“Flying the Coop,” an exhibition by Fort Lewis College senior art majors, through April 30 in the FLC Art Building Gallery. The exhibit is free and open to the public; gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information call 247-7167.
John Bonath at Camera Obscura Gallery, Denver, CO
In ART, Art Criticism, Denver, Mixed media, contemporary art, photography on May 12, 2010 at 10:58 am
Fourteen years of John Bonath’s photo-digital work is on display in “Blurring the Edges,” a show that features everything from large pigment giclée prints on paper and canvas to smaller hand-dyed and bleached archival silver gelatin prints. The work is not arranged chronologically. No dates are provided on the work or in gallery materials. That seems to be intentional. Bonath doesn’t find time relevant to magic (however it might be relevant to the realism part.) There is something kitschy about looking at a photograph of magic realism that features a bird nest or butterfly, ancient symbolism packed with meaning, and looking over and finding that bird’s nest with it’s tiny beige eggs sitting atop a bookshelf, or the vivid blue butterfly encased under glass. This is the case with the “Angels” series, strong portraits of aged, saggy and creping skin, a butterfly perched on an ear or knee. Magic realism is supposed to be less coincidental than surrealism, and the coincidence diminished the magic. I am not a fan of digital images printed on canvas, unless the artist can keep the materiality from overtaking the concept. The canvas is not evident in the Vortex Triptych “River of Chocolate.” The texture of the leaves and the smooth glaze of the babies’ skin works well. However, the hand worked elements on Bonath’s current flower series manages to peel away the veneer of magic and realism leaving me with nothing more than a mediocre photograph trying to be something it is not.
Theater Review, Art Chicago and New American Photography
In ART, Art Chicago, Art Criticism, Art Fair, Fotofest Biennial, Houston, adobeairstream, contemporary art, photography on May 10, 2010 at 4:43 pmTheater Review: The Sun is in the West
“Mornings came up purple in that country. The way the sun would come up over the mountains and all. The canyons and the desert. I could watch the sun come up and be certain there were entire worlds I would never know.”
This is the language of a poet, a cemetery groundskeeper, one of four characters in Damon Falke’s play The Sun is in the West. The other three are a photographer, a historian and a bluegrass playing ghost who never speaks. The Sun is in the West is an atmospheric play about the importance of place and the roots of history that bind us together throughout generations. Its also a play about remembering and the importance of sharing and passing down stories.
Read the complete review at adobeairstream.com
Art Dealers Converge on Art Chicago
Thursday night, April 29, was the opening preview for Art Chicago at the Merchandise Mart featuring 150 galleries and dealers from around the world. The Southwest and Rocky Mountain region was well represented by the following:
- Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe
- Linda Durham Gallery, Santa Fe
- Eight Modern Gallery, Santa Fe
- Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe
- Riverhouse Van Straaten, Denver, CO
- Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO
- William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe
- TAI Gallery, Santa Fe
- Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole
- Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, Santa Fe
Read the rest of the article, which included interviews with some of the gallery directors at adobeairstream.com.
New American Photography at Fotofest
Photographing the present as if it were already the past may well be what many photographers aspire to achieve as they look through a camera lens. One may look at photography today, at the never ending number of images made and realize that it has all been done before, someone has seen the eyes of the poor, or the light on a Paris street, the shadows created by waves of sand, the irony in a street sign, or the pair sitting in a cafe. When Aaron Schuman, the editor of SeeSaw magazine realized that photography was not a competition, it shifted his perspective. For him, photography is informative, useful, fun and it engages and enriches his life. It may have been done before, but not in the same way. Not with the eyes of the 21st century photographer. And this, in essence, is what Whatever was Splendid: New American Photographs at the Fotofest Biennial in Houston is all about and what his online magazine represents. The seeing and the seeing something that someone else saw.
Read the full article on adobeairstream.com
Survey Results
In ART on May 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I feel like Sally Field when she won her Oscar. Gosh, you people like me. Thank you so much.
I learned a few things from the survey and will work to improve how you can contact me from the site and also how you can download files. I also will be looking at a mobile friendly site since 40% of you access the site from your phone. (Soon to be ipads I’m sure!)
Now, I promised a prize for responding, the unfortunate thing is, because you linked to the survey from my website, I have no email addresses or identifying information to put in a hat and select a prize winner. So, if you responded to the survey, email me at artsjournalist@mac.com and I’ll put your name in the hat to choose a winner of the $25 gift certificate.
Reader Survey
In ART on April 21, 2010 at 3:14 pmI started this blog in 2005 and here it is five years later! Wow, does time fly.
Thank you for reading, checking it out, and clicking on the page. In order to help me make improvements and better serve your needs, I’ve decided to put together a short survey. Please take a few minutes and click on the link below to take the survey. The answers are confidential and will only be viewed by me. Merci. Gracias. Danke. Termia kasih. Obrigado.
Dave Hickey at AWP in Denver
In ART, Art Criticism, Culture, Denver, contemporary art, creative writing, writing on April 12, 2010 at 11:17 am
The AWP hosted writer and critic Dave Hickey during their conference in Denver. His reading was on Thursday, April 8 at 1:30 p.m. in the Centennial Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Convention Center Hotel. The venue held hundreds–of empty chairs. I was shocked. Hickey is snarky and controversial voice, a quick wit with insight into creative culture. He’s a MacArthur Genius grant recipient and last year, his monthly column in ARTnews was the most entertaining and thought provoking read in the art media. Appallingly, the AWP is closed to members only and the thick catalog of readings and workshops is like reading a college course catalog. It’s too bad more people in Denver didn’t know Hickey was speaking and that AWP doesn’t open these lectures to those who might want to pay at the door.
“I’ve never spoken to a larger auditorium with a smaller audience,” Hickey said. “I’m going to remember this when they ask me back to Denver…. Don’t fuck with me.”
A few highlights from Hickey’s reading and comments.
Hicky was supposed to read from his forthcoming book A Connoisseurship of Ways, but instead, he chose to read an essay called Firecrackers about Terry Castle and her new book called The Professor. He called Castle one of his heroes and he said it was time to try and write a fairly sophisticated review of her work. The lighting in the room was bad and Hickey slumped over the podium, his head and hair often hitting the protruding microphone as he read. But if one could ignore that and just listen to the words, linked like luscious lego’s on the page, it was eloquent, funny and inspiring with phrases like “literary tapioca” and “the vanity of intellectual culture.” And luscious sentences like: “one of those envious charismatic, brain gobbling professors who entangle gifted children in duals to the death in the guise of grown up love.”
Then the real fun began when a woman in the audience asked Dave Hickey a question about his experience in the visual art world and how it intersects with his experience in the creative writing world. Hickey basically said that it was not possible to teach creative writing. “All I can do is teach you how to write like I write.” He said the same about artists, they can only learn how to paint or sculpt like their teacher.
“The idea,” he said “is to kill us [the teachers] to take our place. This is a revolutionary practice. You’re supposed to freakin’ win.”
He talked about how he couldn’t really grade his students because when he failed a student it equaled loss of income for the department. According to Hickey (and generally agreed upon by those who teach writing given the level of laughter in the room) most creative writers want to write about what happened to them at camp–or that moment when their adolescent world collided with the adult world and someone snatched their innocence.
Hickey said he longer reads what his student writer’s write. “When I can’t take anymore of this shit I draw a line and stop.” Later, he admitted that it was the same process he used when editing his own writing.
“A great many people are in creative writing and art just to get the crit,” he said. “To bolster their ego and reinforce their own ambitions.”
“Do something good and I’ll give you a good crit,” he added.
It’s no secret that Hickey is not a supporter of MFA programs in spite of working in them. “What do you write the day after you leave?” Hickey asked, then said the attrition rate for artists is 85% and for writers 95%. Meaning that after all the money and all the time and all the work only 5% of graduates become professionals who get published.
Hickey confessed that he hates people who think they are better than they are, and in fact, every creative person has had a conversation with a friend about why the other person is succeeding or seems to be getting ahead when we feel their work doesn’t merit the attention. The fact is, only a few are truly good, or truly willing to dedicate themselves to doing the work of becoming a better writer or artist.
The good ones, Hickey says, he feels deeply obligated to let them alone. “You cannot encourage them to hesitate or miss the exit.”
The mediocre students he teaches to be good PR guys or business writers.
“I like art and writing better than I do people and especially children,” Hickey said.
What can he teach an artist or writer?
- How to dress. He recommended jeans, a t-shirt and an $800 leather jacket.
- Stay away from orgies because your obligated to write than you notes and that’s a lot of work.
- There is more sheer suicide in Under the Volcano. It’s gorgeous. The greatest testimony to death that you will ever find.
Then he closed by telling us that he was quitting teaching writing.
Hasan Elahi: Tracking Transience in One on One at SITE Santa Fe
In ART, Art Criticism, Santa Fe on April 2, 2010 at 10:43 amfrom adobe airstream
Hasan Elahi at SITE Santa Fe
Watching the watchers
March 20, 2010
Written by Leanne Goebel
Written by Leanne Goebel
Labels: Roadtrips, Touring, Santa Fe, video art, installation art, Art Modern Contemporary, Cultural criticism, Santa Fe art reviews
On June 19, 2002, Bangladeshi born U.S. Citizen Hasan Elahi handed his passport to a TSA Agent at the Detroit Airport. The agent took a long look at the passport and the blood drained from his lips. Elahi asked him if there was a problem. The problem was that Elahi was on some terrorist watch list. He had been falsely accused of housing explosives in a storage unit in Tampa, Florida, perhaps even confused with someone who had a similar name. Elahi was taken to an INS holding room at the airport and then questioned by the FBI in a stark white room. If it hadn’t been for his detailed record keeping and the Palm device he carried with him and referenced to provide a record of his whereabouts to the FBI, things might have turned out differently. As it was it took six months of extended interviews and questioning at a Federal Building in Tampa for the FBI to determine that Elahi was indeed, not a terrorist. He was an artist. An artist it turns out who was interested in mapping, grids and databases.
At the time, Elahi lived in Tampa and was subjected to nine consecutive polygraph tests on his final day of questioning before being cleared by the FBI. However, when Elahi asked for a letter stating that he was no longer a suspect, he was told that the FBI could not provide such a document because in order to formally clear him, they would have had to formally have charged him. Elahi was never charged. In fact, he says he’s only met one other person released by the FBI as he was. Most suspects like him were taken to Guantanamo–a place not a part of Cuba nor a part of the United States, but a political non-space.
Elahi asked the FBI what he should do the next time he traveled and the agent provided him with a name and phone number to contact. So, as a pre-emptive measure, before he got on his next flight, Elahi called his agent and told him where he was going, what flights he was taking, and how long he would be gone. The phone calls turned into lengthy emails where he would tell the agent all the details of the beaches in Cambodia and the food at a specific restaurant. No matter how long and elaborate the emails Elahi wrote, he always received the same response: “Thank you. Be safe.”
As the data accumulated, Elahi wondered if the FBI was documenting everything correctly. How accurate could their file be? People make mistakes and a bureaucracy of that size could not possibly function with any efficiency. So he began to create his own personal parallel database of information. By Dec. 24, 2003, he was sharing that database of information with the public. He wrote some clunky software and began tracking his every move via his cell phone. A little blinking pixel documents his location and can be tracked on the website “Tracking Transience.” As I write this, Elahi is home in San Francisco. He also photographs the meals he eats, the airports he sits in, the trains and planes he takes to travel, the highway signs, the cars stopping for gas, the toilets he uses, the amount of his banking transactions. Thousands of bits of information are available to track Elahi, but we know very little about him as a person other than he travels a lot, has eaten a lot of airline food, used thousands of urinals, and has an affinity for taco-style dishes.
In 2006, Creative Capital invested in Elahi and helped him to realize “Tracking Transience” as an art project. It debuted at SITE Santa Fe when “One on One” opened on Feb. 6, 2010. Creative Capital is a New York based venture capital organization that provides funding to artists for their projects and trains them to be entrepreneurial in their approach to achieving success in the art world. The organization is a network and provides multiple resources to artists. Not long after receiving support from Creative Capital, Elahi was featured broadly in the media throughout 2007, including a stint on the Colbert Report.
At SITE Santa Fe, one installation of photographs is laid out in the abstract shape of the United States and features a slideshow of images from those regions of the country the screens are located. An orb in the floor is filled with flashing dots and lines that make up the movement of Elahi from one point to another. It seems both intimate and superficial to view a meal before someone consumes it and a toilet before defecating. The viewer becomes voyeur and the boundaries between reality and fiction blur.
Elahi’s art project takes the commodity of intelligence agencies, information, and makes it invaluable by flooding the market with data. By doing so, Elahi is free to have his own identity outside of pre-existing structures or systems. He may operate seemingly within those structures and systems by documenting and providing so much information about his life, but the information becomes meaningless. Who cares what he ate today, yesterday or six months ago? Are we really interested in all the urinal images? And how do they relate to Duchamp? Somehow the pattern of thousands of urinals becomes art in a way that R. Mutt first explored with his “Fountain.” Just as Duchamp de-deified the artist through his statement, Elahi is de-deifying the power of the FBI and their Cold War tactics. Through his software, not only does he post his whereabouts at all times, but he can trace and is aware of who is watching him. An excerpt from his log files: Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Courts, the Department of Justice, the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, House of Representatives, the Pentagon, National Geospacial Intelligence Agency, U.S. Joint Forces Command and EOP.gov a website that does not exist but stands for the Executive Office of the President.
“They still come consistently, even with Obama in office,” Elahi said to a gathering for Cabinet magazine in Brooklyn on Jan. 13, 2010. “But not with the frequency when W. was in office. I’m just glad that people in Washington like to look at art.”
From Visual Arts Source: Face to Face, David Kroll on the fragility of humanity and nature, and Love Lines
In ART, Art Criticism, Art Museum, Denver, contemporary art on March 28, 2010 at 1:45 am
David Kroll,
“Egret on Small Globe,” 2009, oil on canvas, 28 x 32″, at Robischon Gallery.
Continuing through April 17, 2010
Robischon Gallery
Denver, Colorado
David Kroll paints with the touch of an Old Master. Refined layers of oil on canvas, linen and paper are applied to capture not only the exquisite light of a sunset in a background, but the highly detailed and intricate reflection of a ceramic bowl or vase, a bird perched on the rim, a drop of water, a pearl necklace placed in the foreground. The staging is sparse and often features woven nests, tiny bird eggs of multiple colors, a fragile spider’s web, which taken together offer an ironic and contemporary perspective to the work. It is clear that Kroll revere’s pre-modern nature painters, like those from the Hudson River School, and that he wants to provide viewers with a place of peace and solace to experience what is left of nature today. The objects in the foreground are often easily broken or destroyed, like the pearl necklace that has come unknotted and unstrung. This provides a moment of pause, inclining the viewer to consider the fragility of humanity and nature.
- Leanne Haase Goebel VAS Weekly Newsletter, March 26, 2010
Bruce Lowney, “Stumble,” oil on canvas, 24 x 16″, at Redline.
Continuing March 28, 2010
Redline
Denver, Colorado
“Love Lines,” curated by Robischon Gallery, is the first exhibition at this year-old facility to fulfill its mission of providing a strong connection to the critical vanguards of contemporary art. It was a treat to see British artist Tracy Emin’s confessional “Those Who Suffer Love,” seen recently at New York’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery. But equally as intriguing and powerful are works by Colorado artists. Margaret Neumann’s painting “Romulus and Remus,” features the groundless image of two women on all fours, breasts hanging, in shades of black and dark blue against a multi-layered, dirty white background similar to those of Susan Rothenberg. Laura Merage’s chromogenic print “Anguish” is a 60″x 40″ close-up image of a female torso clutching her breasts in torment. Jonathan Saiz’s piano installation was too cliché for me in its use of roses and hearts. But his placement of the male images in the multi-media work “Us,” top right and lower left, pulling on a rope, provides the right tension. This show could have easily been saccharin sweet, but instead encompasses love in equally diverse forms: passionate, erotic, forbidden, unrequited, and transcendent as an art form.
- Leanne Goebel VAS Weekly Newsletter March 12, 2010
Bill Amundson,
‘Self-Portrait with Pricey Mountain Homes,’ 2009, pencil on paper, 40 x 44′.
“Face to Face” brings together 36 portrait drawings from various private collections in Colorado. Curated by Julie Augur, serving as an adjunct curator for the Museum, the exhibition primarily features 20th Century works. However, Augur has included two older drawings: “Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Hennin,” ink and chalk on paper from 1500 by Bernardo Buotalenti and “The Grotto of Pan,” watercolor and ink on paper from 1856 by Richard Dadd. These two works are hung on a wall salon style with 15 other drawings in all media, styles and from diverse time periods. These are not drawings with the sort of coded symbolism about the subject’s status, virtue or worthy attributes that we associate with the Old Masters. They are more current than historic, and their inclusion tweaks our expectations of portraiture by raising critical questions about how we establish identity and construct history from sanctioned representations. Furthermore, the salon hanging emphasizes a non-linear art historical perspective.
Near Buotalenti’s drawing is “M.F. in Her Striped and Beaded Sleeping Jacket” (1996-7, pastel over monoprint) by Lisa Yuskavage. It is an intricate image of a woman with distended breasts done in Yuskavage’s distinct style. As a viewer’s eyes jump from one time period to another, from one portrait to another, as they look face to face at each subject, the idea that “earlier works reflect an eye for correctness of physical appearance and later examples show a looser, more relaxed approach with an interest in portraying the psychological as well as the physical,” as museum text and press materials suggest, falls away.
One begins to focus on the emotional response to the work, not the mark making or the medium, nor the year it was made. Augustus John’s “Portrait of Dorelia” (1908 watercolor and chalk on paper) is nearly as melancholic as Lucian Freud’s “Self-Portrait,” a darkly shadowed watercolor and graphite on paper from 1961. Marlene Dumas’ “Bad Mouth” (1996, mixed media on paper) is a plum colored face with thick black eyes and textured crusty lips. Her “Erika” (1998, ink and acrylic on paper) features a full frontal nude with eyes that draw the viewer back again and again. Thomas Schütte’s “Big Head (Grosser Kopf)” (1992, ink on paper) defines a yellow head with fine lines. This group fills the back wall of the gallery, and perpendicular to them are works by Francesco Clemente, “Self-Portrait with Lemon Heart,” an oddly tinted watercolor on paper from 2005. Each work is disturbing, dark, sad, and soulful.
On a pedestal in front of Dumas’ drawings is Robert Crumb’s “Portrait of Jackie and Ari,” an ink on paper drawn tabloid cover from 1970. Across the room, Philip Guston’s “Untitled” (1970, ink on sheetrock) is a charged image of cone-headed figures pointing at each other with large hands, one holding a cigar. Bill Amundson’s “Self-Portrait with Pricey Mountain Homes” (2008, graphite on paper) displays his head capped with windmills and Aspen McMansions in a rich mix of humor, irony and neurosis, just as Charles Sarka’s early 1900’s graphite portrait “Mice” is whimsical and satirical. Chuck Close’s “Phil” (1973, ink on paper) lays his signature grid over a realistic drawing. George Condo’s “Constructed Female Portrait” (graphite on paper) brings together differing graphic elements and vaguely architectural structures to create a face, while hinting at a broken and reassembled identity.
Two works that weaken the overall experience are tucked on a slanting wall between the rest of the show and the Oceanic galleries. It wasn’t just the odd angle of the wall but the subject matter. “Study for Landscape” (1994, collage) by Mark Tansey and “The Instant Decorator/Sun Room with Richard and Harley” (2001-07, mixed media on card) by Laurie Simmons seemed out of place in this show. Not because they weren’t drawings, nor because they were hung too close together, with the larger image mounted directly above the smaller one. Rather, they seemed to lack the same evocative elements of the other portraits.
A recent DAM Newsletter tells viewers that the exhibit is simply about the many ways to draw a face. This oversimplifies a small but powerful exhibition that presents portraits for a more complete and open ended read – emotionally, socially, and politically. This is not merely a show about the many ways to draw a face. It’s an exhibit that challenges given notions of identity and its representation.
- Leanne Goebel VAS Weekly Newsletter March 5, 2010
Gregory Euclide in Art Ltd. on newsstands now
In ART, Mixed media, arts journalism, contemporary art on March 10, 2010 at 7:32 pm
The March/April issue of Art Ltd. is on newsstands now. The artist I profiled, Gregory Euclide, is featured on the cover. You may read the article online via this link, but I hope you will go buy an issue and support the magazine.
Gallery loses home, flaunted dystopias and a virtual exhibition
In ART, Art Criticism, Art Museum, Denver, Mixed media, Museum, New Media, Pagosa Springs, contemporary art, media on February 20, 2010 at 1:01 am
Pagosa seeks new home for arts council was published December 11, 2009 in the Durango Herald.
The Pagosa Springs Town Council voted unanimously Nov. 3 to demolish this log cabin that was home to the Pagosa Springs Arts Council, leaving the organization without a home.
New video and drawings flaunt dystopias from adobeairstream February 13, 2010
Virtual Exhibit: Kate Petley from adobeairstream January 31, 2010
Yosi Sargent, the NEA and that conference call
In ART, Culture on February 9, 2010 at 6:41 pmNeon Tommy has a great interview with Yosi Sargent about his meteoric rise to Communications Director at the NEA and his subsequent downfall at the hand of right-wing extremists.
I posted an opinion about his back in October. Read it here. I said that both sides were wrong and it was time to move on.
Sargent was in over his head and had no immediate supervisor. He became the fall guy and the article tells his side of the story clearly, factually and truthfully. Definitely worth a read. PR and marketing is not the same as politics and Sargent’s only downfall in the NEA job was that he was not a politician. Not sure downfall is the right word. He did his job admirably, stood up and took responsibility when things went south and is much happier back in L.A.
Maybe our downfall is that politics is far more important than the truth and doing what is right.
More posts from adobeairstream.com
In ART, Architecture, Art Criticism, Art Museum, Culture, Denver, Design, Music, San Antonio, art market, arts journalism, contemporary art, public art, theatre on January 28, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Grammy to Artists: Who killed the music?
Kris Lewis and Will.i.am collaborate with Denver art dealer David B. Smith to co-curate a Grammy visual arts exhibition of 15 artists reflecting on Who Killed the Music? The artists get their chance to call out who, and in turn connect to the new “I Am” scholarship fund.
Colorado Creates new Grant Program
Colorado Council on the Arts replaces a former grant program with a new “Colorado Creates” initiative, as Governor Ritter, before announcing he will not run for re-election, announces three-pronged legislation to support the arts.
In Colorado, Things to Watch in 2010
Leanne culls out as things to watch in 2010: How DAM director Christoph Heinrich will keep working to transform the controversial Hamilton wing through art, and how Colorado will keep nurturing its creative economy while the indie types still get the shortest stick.
Christoph Heinrich, curator and director of the Denver Art Museum, invited 17 contemporary artists to “embrace” the Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Wing.
Art Attendance Drops in the Mountain Region
A greater percentage of adults attend arts events in the Mountain Region than the US average artgoer, but arts attendance has declined 10 percent in the region between 2002 and 2008. The bright side? Increased participation via technology.
City Center in Las Vegas is touting itself as the largest green and sustainable development in the world. With six LEED-gold certified buildings and an onsite power plant, the development is definitely greener than anything else on the Strip, but sustainable? Not.
Tobin Collection Deals in Theatre
Robert L.B. Tobin left a collection of books, etchings, drawings and maquettes spanning four centuries of European and American theater to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. A newly expanded museum houses the riches. Right: Eugene Berman was a Russian Jewish painter and set designer, included in the Tobin Collection.
architecture, art, Art Modern Contemporary, Contemporary art painting, Cultural criticism, Denver, hyperrealism, Marie M. Vlasic, News and commentary, nude portraits, photo realism, Walker Fine Art
Nude Alterations by Marie M. Vlasic on adobeairstream.com
In ART, Art Criticism, Denver, art market, contemporary art, painting on July 26, 2010 at 10:15 amAt Walker Fine Art, Marie M. Vlasic was featured in an exhibition entitled “Altered.” The artist paints highly realistic portraits of people who have altered their body with tattoo’s. The results are technically masterful. Read more about it on adobeairstream.com.
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