a priori ars
essays, thoughts, observations and comments on the making of art and other creative undertakings
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
courage Merry - courage for our friends ...
If I could give you anything - it would be courage. I would make you fearless in giving over to ... You would make your work and put it into the world with faith, joy and wild abandon.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Swindle
William Anastasi, I Want Walls, 1995
Swindle –
1. To cheat or defraud of money or property
2. To obtain by fraudulent means
Yesterday a student posted on my facebook wall a link to an article, “The Art of the Swindle”. The article is a “review” of the exhibition “Wall Ceiling Floor: An Exhibition of Works by Anastasi, Judd and Sandback”, curated by Michael Straus.
The posting of this link was a continuation of a conversation – the kind of earnest conversation I value so much in teaching. It represents the kind of conversations that some might avoid because of their directness and honesty but I find embedded in them at least some of the “real stuff” that we think about in art. I see the post as a request for a response from me to this article.
We cannot judge the sincerity or authenticity of an-other’s works, doings, statements – not truly, not absolutely. We cannot know another’s internal thoughts and motives. We can only know with certainty our own thoughts and feelings. We can only be sure of our own authenticity. We can only be certain that a work of literature or art is of value – is valid – if it offers something to us. To fear being “taken in” – “scammed” by a work of art is to doubt our own senses, to distrust ourselves, to fear being made fools of – of being made to look stupid. I know if a work speaks to me. The insights and musings of others can expand my understanding but they do not replace my own. Whether or not a work has something of value for me I know.
I am distrustful of reviews that seek to condemn work and which ridicule those who find something valid within a given piece of work. Why would I need to be warned against my own honest responses? Why do I need you to protect me against my own thinking?
I find the following “review” provocative. It gives voice to what I think many feel when “confronted” by challenging work. Like so many other examples of rhetoric it truthfully does nothing to persuade of any particular point of view – it merely reaffirms entrenchment – widens the divide between those of differing points of view.
As for me I find great poetry in many Minimalist and Conceptual works. They are often stark and elegant in their simplicity – and I think frankly courageous in their willingness to rely on less in the hopes of achieving more.
The Art of the Swindle
Art of the Swindle Readers' Responses
Judd Foundation
William Anastasi
Fred Sandback
Link to Exhibition Catalog on Amazon
Not in this show but ...
John Baldessari on Art21
Mini-documentary on John Baldessari
Joseph Kosuth at MOMA
Joseph Kosuth
Short Paragraph on Conceptual Art - MOMA
Thematic Essay on Conceptual Art - The Met
Thursday, June 6, 2013
artists of a certain sort part I
Mel Chin
Mel Chin's work
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
Website of Cardiff and Miller
Ann Hamilton
Ann Hamilton's Website
Christian Boltanski
MOMA link to Boltanski
Marian Goodman Gallery Link to Boltanski
Mel Chin's work
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
Website of Cardiff and Miller
Ann Hamilton
Ann Hamilton's Website
Christian Boltanski
MOMA link to Boltanski
Marian Goodman Gallery Link to Boltanski
Labels:
Ann Hamilton,
art,
artists,
Christian Boltanski,
George Bures Miller,
Janet Cardiff,
Mel Chin
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Love and Luc Tuymans
I am in love with Luc Tuymans.
Here it is ... someone who is after my soul. Someone who can and does look deeply at a thing. Someone who gets it. This deep and thoughtful conversation on painting means so much to me.
Bombsite: Luc Tuymans and Kerry James Marshall
I really love art, truly, deeply. It is art that makes life more than mean and hard -- in whatever form you find it, wherever you find it -- brought into being by any impulse which drives the someone to make art. Such a futile endeavor. Such a folly. Yet what a desert life is without it.
I am really tired -- deeply fatigued with the war between the "makers and the thinkers." It is bullshit.
There's an illness in this need to exclude. It is an illness knitted from fear of differentness. It is a fear of being proved irrelevant. It is the fear of god in a way of thinking. The fear of being judged and being found lacking. So let us condemn before we ourselves are condemned -- a fear of oblivion and meaninglessness.
We go at it like fundamentalists. If you don't come at it like I do -- if you don't do what I do -- expect what I expect -- then you're an atheist and there's no place for you.
However you come to work. Whatever way you love. That's enough. It's a spectrum of thinking. Different ways of thinking deeply. Different ways of giving over. Give over. Make room for those who would give over.
Friday, November 23, 2012
favorite artists ... culled from Facebook ...
some folks to look at ...
Ad Reinhardt
Ellsworth Kelly
Alfred Jensen
Le Corbusier
Tom Nozkowski
Jackson Pollock
Mark Rothko
Gene Davis
PBS - Remembering Abstract Color field Painter Kenneth Noland
Sam Gilliam
Larry Poons
Pat Steir
Rudolf Stingel
Jack Whitten
Donald Judd
Richard Serra
Anish Kapoor
James Turrell
Giotto
Sassetta
Petrus Christus (portrait of a Carthusian monk)
Master of the Osservanza
Memling
Caravaggio
James Ensor
Philip Guston
Ed Ruscha
Frederick Church
Degas
Vincent Van Gogh
Charles Burchfield
Mauricio Lasansky (the Nazi Drawings)
Willem DeKooning
Robert Rauschenberg (especially erased DeKooning Drawing)
Larry Rivers
Anselm Kiefer
Arnulf Rainer
Basquiat
Kerry James Marshall
Marcel Duchamp
Gertrude Stein
Joseph Beuys
Laurie Anderson
Eva Hesse
Yayoi Kasama
Robert Smithson
Hannah Wilke
Ana Mendieta
Yoko Ono
Jeremy Blake
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cai Guo-Qiang
Mel Chin
Ad Reinhardt
Ellsworth Kelly
Alfred Jensen
Le Corbusier
Tom Nozkowski
Jackson Pollock
Mark Rothko
Gene Davis
PBS - Remembering Abstract Color field Painter Kenneth Noland
Sam Gilliam
Larry Poons
Pat Steir
Rudolf Stingel
Jack Whitten
Donald Judd
Richard Serra
Anish Kapoor
James Turrell
Giotto
Sassetta
Petrus Christus (portrait of a Carthusian monk)
Master of the Osservanza
Memling
Caravaggio
James Ensor
Philip Guston
Ed Ruscha
Frederick Church
Degas
Vincent Van Gogh
Charles Burchfield
Mauricio Lasansky (the Nazi Drawings)
Willem DeKooning
Robert Rauschenberg (especially erased DeKooning Drawing)
Larry Rivers
Anselm Kiefer
Arnulf Rainer
Basquiat
Kerry James Marshall
Marcel Duchamp
Gertrude Stein
Joseph Beuys
Laurie Anderson
Eva Hesse
Yayoi Kasama
Robert Smithson
Hannah Wilke
Ana Mendieta
Yoko Ono
Jeremy Blake
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cai Guo-Qiang
Mel Chin
Saturday, November 10, 2012
... engage
I am reengaging this blog ... and I hope others will too. I'm posting those things which privilege art and the thinking that goes on around art. So much distracts from this, it seems appropriate that there be spaces like this where this is the only focus.
So links, resources, musings ...
Saul Ostrow sent me a link to Tom Huhn's recommended reading list. It's a monthly list that you can subscribe to ... the readings are awesome. I wish I had more time to spend with them.
Tom Huhn, Ph.D. Reading List
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