Monkdogz Artblog

When I was in middle school which is a rather long time ago so forgive me if I’ve got this wrong, but I remember being given some basic instructions on how to do batik, create cartoons and sculpt sand stone. However I wasn’t given the opportunity to really study and understand the many basic foundation skills required in art.

I went to my son’s open house at his middle school this evening. I met his teachers and found out what he will be studying in each subject and what is required of him during the coming year. I walked into his art class not expecting too much, but I was interested to see what he would be doing, particularly as this class is the group of “art for uninterested or untalented” kids. His school has two advanced art classes for 13 year olds; “Advanced Art” and “Foundations in Studio Art”, so there are plenty of great opportunities for those who have a leaning towards art.

My poor son, like me cannot draw, paint, sculpt…….or so I had thought. I went to school and found out that some things can actually be taught. He has only been at school for 3 weeks, but they have already covered several skills.

Last week they worked with color pencils to learn about highlighting, lighting and shadowing; color blending, color mixing and color complementing using a color wheel and chart to find the most appropriate colors to create shadows and highlights.

In the next few weeks, they will be learning to paint with acrylics using some of the techniques they have learnt so far in creating colors and shadows. They further develop these skills by discovering hot to create 3D effects from 2D shapes. They will also be learning techniques to create texture such as stippling allowing them to concentrate on painting animals later in the year where they will also be studying proportions.

Projects for this year will also include Travel Posters where composition, overlap, overlay and compacting is learnt. Art history is explored with a final project of one particular period and style which is learnt in greater depth in order to create a piece using the same techniques. Graphic design and drawing are combined in a project where a portrait is split in half and a missing part is drawn in by hand using all the techniques that they have learnt over the year.

Finally, I was impressed to be told that they are taught about buying and caring for their tools. How to clean brushes, preserve paints and prepare them for future use. I have to say, I was rather amazed at the depth of the NY State curriculum for art in a local public school. My hat’s off!

Artist’s studios have always intrigued me.  

Do they reflect the soul of the artist?  Is a studio a honest expression of who they are?  What does it mean if it’s messy and dirty?  What does it mean if it is immaculate and tidy?  Does it reflect the artwork?  Does it say anything about the artist?

Giles Waterfield art historian and co-curator of an intriguing new exhibition “The Artist’s Studio” at Compton Verney, a British gallery set up by the Peter Moores Foundation.  Using paintings, etchings, drawings, photographs, books and studio furniture, they are allowing visitors to see artists’ studios from the 1700s to the present day.

Waterfield asks “For centuries people have taken the studio as a faithful reflection of the soul of the artist, but my question is – and it is one which this exhibition finally cannot answer: is it really?”

Maev Kennedy of the Guardian reviewing the exhibition says “the viewer assumes immediately that the poverty and romance of one studio, the glamour and hint of exotic pleasures in the other, must relate to the artists’ own lives. Which just proves how dangerous it is to take what artists say about themselves as the truth….. Artists, after all, are by definition creatures of artifice, and they are exhibitionists. Many of these interiors are as carefully constructed as stage sets.

Looking through our artist’s web sites, it’s interesting that not many of you allow the public into your environment. Are the images that are found manipulated or are they the truth?  Some artists participate in open studios and many invite gallery owners and art dealers into their studios, while some will never allow other’s into their inner sanctum.  

I knew Bob as a corporate man before I got to know him as an artist, so I was stunned to see his studio for the first time.  Being a larger than life character, talking nineteen to the dozen with such energy and passion and creating artwork that is vibrant and expressive, full of texture and color, I thought that it would be one of those messy and very bright studios.  Instead I found him working immaculately in the dark.  If you took away his tools and canvas, you’d never have known that an artist had inhabited the space.  Does that say anything about him as a person or anything more about his artwork?  What do you think Bob?

What’s your studio or work space like?  Does it reflect who you are as person or the work you produce?  Can we learn anything useful, interesting or salacious?  Will you share your workspace with us?

 My thanks to Joyce DiBona, Hans Meertens, Marcus van Soest, Charles Schindler, Lou Patrou, Jean Marc Calvet & Esther Barends

In the last few weeks, five friends have told me of situations where they’ve been let down by galleries, museums and art dealers. Several of them are desperately trying to get their work returned to them after exhibitions that occurred months ago. Others are trying to deal with un-kept promises and commitments.

In this environment when each sale is so hard and when it happens well earned, the last thing any of us needs is the added aggravation of people trying to take advantage or at worst stealing from us.

The sad thing is that in today’s environment you have to look after yourself and your art. The phrase “artist beware” is an unfortunate truism. There are several things that you can and should do, despite the extra effort that it will take.

Make sure you keep all correspondence and any telephone calls should be logged and annotated. If you’re really good, telephone conversations should be backed up by a letter or email.

Ensure that whoever takes responsibility for your artwork gives you a loan form or similar to cover their responsibilities and commitment as well as laying out your responsibilities. What is the insurance coverage? Who pays for delivery and shipping? Which pieces exactly will they be responsible for? What marketing and exhibition commitments are being offered? What happens when the work is sold? Who owns the copyright? What commission is deducted? How will the money be transferred? If they don’t give you one, write one yourself and ask them to sign and return it. If necessary enclose a stamped self-addressed enveloped so that they can’t find an excuse to return it.

Make sure that you do your research on the dealer, museum or gallery. Talk to as many people who have been involved with them before as possible. Contact an organization such as the Better Business Bureau to see if there are any complaints logged about them.

Much of this seems like common sense, but it’s amazing how many of us don’t do it. We hope that we can trust everyone to act on their integrity, but sometimes we can’t, so take care and protect yourselves.

And if there’s that occasion when you do come a cropper and find yourself caught up in a difficult position, ask for help. Friends are always out there to support you.

Artinfo reports:

LOS ANGELES—The Pacific Design Center, a design emporium featuring 130 showrooms, will launch its Design Loves Art initiative tomorrow, allowing art galleries to take over vacant commercial spaces in its sprawling building — sometimes referred to as the “Blue Whale” — for the next six months rent-free.
Some of the galleries participating in the project have permanent locations elsewhere in Los Angeles, while others are using the space as an opportunity to reopen their doors after being forced to close. The only cost to gallery owners is a 10 percent cut of any sale to the Pacific Design Center.
When I hear of stories like this, it restores my faith in people. There are people who have integrity, compassion and just some ordinary common sense.

I’d like to say a very big THANK-YOU! to the Pacific Design Center. You guys rock!

Dani Marti has withdrawn all his work from the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), following the relegation of his work in the Sh(OUT) exhibition from the main gallery in the center of Glasgow to Tramway a very small inaccessible location on the outskirts of the city.

Although the official statement from GOMA is that the videos were not part of the original commission, insiders have suggested that after the vitriolic attack by the tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail and subsequent complaints from the public, something had to be done. It does seem a little ironic that a voice of free speech should be a conduit for censure.

It leads to the discussion about the media and its impact on the general public. Is the “dumbing down of the general public” as suggested by Jonathan Mills of the Edinburgh Festival driven by the media or are they only providing what the public are demanding. The excuse that the media gives is that the public want news about celebrities and reality TV rather than information about what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq or world wide poverty and hunger.

Does the general public condone censorship? Does the public deny freedom of expression and civil liberties? There was a time in the United States, that contemporary art was considered “to be a rich source of conspiracies….including a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism to the United States” as quoted by Senator George A. Dondero in 1952. Oh yes, and didn’t we just hear recently from Glenn Beck who according to the New York Magazine “did a batty eight-minute paranoid rant tying together Obama, communism, NBC, the Soviet Union, Mussolini, Standard Oil, syphilis, fascism, the U.N., architecture, and public art in New York. Railing about ‘propaganda’ in ‘plain sight’……”

It does make me wonder if mankind has moved forward intellectually at all in the few thousand years since civilizations started. Is there anything that can be done to improve this situation or can I only throw up my hands and blame it all on human nature?

It was really refreshing wandering around Chelsea this afternoon. There were sadly very few people, but it really made me realize how much we miss when we attend openings. When there are hoards of people, it’s hard to see the work; hard to get close up and hard to get a good view from afar. And that’s if you see the work at all.

We’d been in Sikkema Jenkins & Co on 22nd Street, but due to the crowds, we hadn’t ventured into the back room, where today we found the videos by Kara Walker. She uses silhouette puppets or shadow puppets to create her videos covering subjects of misogyny, racism and violence.

Having read recently that people only stand in front of videos for an average of 6 seconds, we certainly put a dent in the statistic by watching the full 9 minute lengths of each video. The stories were well put together; execution was good and most interesting was the backgrounds that they had created. It made the rest of the show which included sculptures, paintings, wall installations and works on paper much more cohesive. It’s a trend that I’ve seen more and more; the true use of mixed media, i.e. several different media used in one show.

Most people also suggest that they go to openings in order to talk to the artists, which I am sure can occasionally happen, or to meet friends and acquaintances, or to be seen by the right people! Well today we managed to casually bump into Chuck Close who was doing his own gallery hopping. You can’t really get better than Chuck!

I suppose the one thing you do miss if you don’t go to openings is the energy and creative buzz that you do often get when surrounded by masses of art loving people. Oh well, it looks like I won’t be giving up art openings any time soon!

Kara Walker is showing in conjunction with Mark Bradford at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co gallery at 530 West 22nd Street, New York.  The show runs until October 17th 2009.

I’ve just finished watching the Lifetime movie of Georgia O’Keeffe, excellently portrayed by Joan Allen with Jeremy Irons as Alfred Stieglitz.

O’keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago following which she attended the Art Students League in New York. She also joined a drawing class taught by Alon Bement at the University of Georgia.

Her work was first shown to Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery by her friend Anita Pollitzer in 1916. Later the same year, he included 10 drawings by O’Keefe in a group show. He followed that by O’Keeffe’s first solo show in 1917.

In 1918 Stieglitz offered O’Keeffe a “residency” in New York, underwriting a year of expenses to allow her to paint. She accepted and turned down a teaching career in Texas. In the following years they would spend the summer and fall at Lake George where the Stieglitz family had a home.

In 1921, Stieglitz had a retrospective of his own photography at The Anderson Galleries in New York. Several nudes of O’Keeffe included in the show caused a media and public furor. Following this in 1923, Stieglitz opened an O’Keeffe show at The Anderson Galleries with 100 pictures. In the years to come Stieglitz mounted at least one solo show for O’Keeffe every year.
In 1924, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz were married after his divorce to his first wife was finalized.

In 1927 O’Keeffe had her first museum exhibition which was at the Brooklyn Museum. It was however also the year that a woman named Dorothy Norman came into Stieglitz’s life. They became lovers and he her mentor. The film dwells significantly on the effect of this relationship on O’Keeffe’s emotional, mental and artistic states.

However Stieglitz continued to exhibit and promote O’Keefe making her one of the most important artists of the times. The result of which in 1928 six of her calla lily paintings sold for $25,000 US dollars, which was the largest sum ever paid for a group of paintings by a living American artist.

This relationship eventually led in part to O’Keeffe going to New Mexico in 1929 with her friend Rebecca Strand where they initially stayed with Mabel Dodge Luhan who offered O’Keeffe a studio. This started her life long love and connection with New Mexico. From then on until Stieglitz’s death in 1946, O’Keeffe split her time between New York and New Mexico. She continued to paint, while Stieglitz continued to represent her work, resulting in O’Keeffe’s work being exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

After the death of her husband, O’Keeffe spent several years, personally organizing Stieglitz’s work and papers in order to remind and promote the importance of Stieglitz influence on the modern American art world including his role in securing the position of photographing as a medium of fine art.

In her latter years, O’Keeffe continued to paint and draw. In 1950, she agreed to be exclusively represented by Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery. This continued until 1963 when she turned to Doris Bry to act as her agent. That agreement came to an end in 1977. However during that time, her eyesight started to fail. She initially lost her central vision with only peripheral sight left. In 1973 she met sculptor-potter Juan Hamilton who taught her to work with clay. He also encouraged her to continue to paint which she did with assistance until several weeks before she died in 1986 aged 98.

Georgia O’Keeffe had become one of America’s most significant artist and probably the most well known female artist in the world.

I enjoyed the movie. There were several things that stood out for me.

Sex always sells. Stieglitz’s exhibition of O’Keeffe’s nude body was what brought her name to prominence in the first instance. Talent, creativity and integrity are not often enough to propel someone to world wide recognition and acclaim.

Art has to be managed. Press releases, exhibitions, pricing, marketing, sales are all part of the process. Artists need someone to represent them.

The most notable quote was “work only becomes art when it’s bought by a rich person”. I don’t condone the idea, but I fear that too many people believe it to be true.

Creating art is a very solitary profession. However much love there is, it most often has to be completed alone. Whoever manages to do it together is rare and very fortunate.

I would have liked to have met Georgia O’Keeffe.

Another cultural event occurs this week; the Oslo Open.  September 23 – 27 2009

It started in 2000 as an initiative by artists who were looking for an alternative to the contemporary art scene outside of the big art institutions and established galleries. With two hundred signatures from artists living and working in Oslo and the support of a few representatives from those art institutions, the Oslo Open was created: an “open” meeting point between contemporary art, artists and the general public.

The Oslo Open concept consists of artists opening the doors to their own studios and inviting the public in to view their work and work processes in a relaxed and informal setting.  Over the years this concept has developed and now includes additional elements such as art in public spaces, video art and performance, as well as workshops, sound installations and artist talks.

Oslo Open has been a small but gradually evolving grassroots arts festival. Originally in 2000, 270 artists participated.  This year the Oslo Open 2009 has approximately 375 artists participating.

Amongst these artists will be Hanne Rivrud and Monja Wiik who are videographers.  Their new venture is the “Dinner Party”.  A wonderful period farce.  Both artists have achieved success in their own right, but have also very successfully collaborated over the last three years.  This is the their latest creation. 

The “Dinner Party” will be shown in Månekino at Månefisken, Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th at 6pm.

A brand new Biennial has emerged in Tel Aviv, Israel called ARTLV 09, organized by a group of Israeli women who are art collectors, gallerists and philanthropists. Over 300 Israeli and international artists will be showing at 7 locations in the city over the next three weeks.

The biennial has not been without issues. Two internationally renowned curators were initially invited to oversee the biennial and it was planned for the biennial to cooperate with similar cultural events in Athens and Istanbul at the same time. However with the bombing of Gaza in December 2008 and the curators demanding that the show be hosted without any Israeli government funding, the organizing committee had to quickly find replacements.

Despite the setbacks and the significantly reduced program and mainly Israeli roster of artists, it looks to be a good show, giving contemporary artists another venue to promote their work. The opening was attended by many of the city’s art elite, although reports in the Guardian suggested that many of the city’s general public were not aware of the event. It will be interesting to see whether the biennial flourishes in the coming years despite being based in one of the world’s most volatile political environments.

For more images…

As we wondered down 26th street in Chelsea, I looked into the window of the Stephen Haller Gallery. A piece of work on a far wall caught my eye; a riot of beautiful colors defined by many variations of circles. As I walked in, I wondered if it was shibori, a Japanese form of tie-dye that not only gives cloth distinctive patterns and colors but can also give three dimensional structure to the cloth.

It turns out that the work of Nobu Fukui whose work this is, is mixed media on canvas over panel. Magazines are layered to create a collage with overlays of circles and are painted, but what gives it the three dimensional texture that I mistook for shibori was hundreds of pearl-like beads that had been glued to the work and then daubed with paint.

The result is a very dynamic kinetic power that looks ready to be unleashed from the canvas. What is also quite intriguing, is that although from afar, it looks like non-objective work, but on closer inspection, the theme of each piece becomes apparent.

The exhibition continues until October 17th 2009. Fukui’s work is also currently on exhibition at the Haggerty Museum at the Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI in “Jump Cut Pop” until October 4th.