High Society, C. Brown

Writhing bodies, swirling paint, gargantuan size, and intrusive color are just a few things we expect from a Brown painting. But in High Society, I am reminded of a joke: the Aristocrats. It's a sort of comedian's joke, said to one another as a sort of a "warm-up" before sets. Its about a family showing their act to a talent scout, and the result in bestiality , urine, incestuous pornographic sex, and probably some blood. at the end of the repulsive act, they announce the title of the family trope: The Aristocrats. High Society is in the same branch of social commentary, the upper class as barbaric and uncouth despite the the fact that they are fashionably clad in their top hats.

Snap Judgments: Desouza Focus

This exhibition was organized by the International Center for Photography, which is both a school of photography, and a museum. The show includes over 200 works and exhibits 35 different artists from dealing with African themes. The result was a mix of fashion, collective work, installation, video, but mostly large scale photography.

Because the aesthetic and conceptual angels varied so much between each artist, it was a bit overwhelming. I read all the information on the wall, and yet it was difficult to navigate. All the artists are of considerable fame, according to their resumes, and they all deal with the same continent. However, the transitions weren't smooth, or intentionally disruptive. Fashion photography was in the same room as feminist issues, which was cause for pause, while memory/time based work was along side work about over populated cities.

After some thought, I though it was best to focus on one particularly compelling series, that of Allan Desouza. Allan Desouza's resume is lengthy and impressive, he has had numerous literary works, fiction and nonfiction, published as well as fifteen years of exhibitions. His work displayed here represent a sample from his group of works call the Lost Pictures, where he uses technique to further the content and aesthetic of these "found" pictures.

Perhaps it’s my bias as a painter, but the surface quality of these forced you to stop, and look. It is not apparent what was done with these at the beginning; I detected some digital tampering, which made my heart sink. This is an example of what photographs can really be: frozen memories, or reminders of the absence of memory, and how we live with that, how we deal with the past.

Desouza used photographs that had been taken by his father during his childhood in Kenya. He used a scanned copy of the photographs and taped them within private places in his own home in Los Angeles: the kitchen, the bathroom, so on. Hair, food and other remnants of daily activity accumulated, creating the surface on these enlarged prints. What I don’t understand is the need to digitally work the photographs. Personally, that construes the authenticity of the experience, both on our part and on the artists.

WHITNEY (Bi) 2008

"The Biennial certainly matters to its principal curators, the Whitney's Henriette Huldisch and Shamim Momin, who, whatever critical hits they may take, join a small professional circle of people privileged to have cut very publicly their own cross section of contemporary visual culture. But mention the Whitney Biennial to a critic, dealer, collector or a curator from another institution, and the sighing and rolling of eyes will begin.

Bad memories of Biennials past account for some such responses, as must a hardening conviction of the futility of the program's brief to take a snapshot of art production now, or of the national prospect refracted through recent art, or ... something."

Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic

Unfortunately, I did not have the luxury to partake in all the controversy of the Whitney show. But I think it is perhaps more interesting to engage with the exhibition from a distance. Sitting in Memphis, looking at the images from a computer screen. To Whitney's credit, they included eleven two minute videos of the artist with the work, speaking accordingly. (available for free, on iTunes.)

Now, obviously this is no surrogate for real engagement, we have to still be aware that these videos are produced by the museum, and perhaps understand the function of them. As interesting as it could be to try and understand the performance of these exhibitions, that are largely viewed like Deb Balls for the art set: a fantastic display of talent, and the artists announcement into The Society.

Perhaps its becasue I am distanced from the art market, I am still in school, my dreams have not met reality as of yet. But, I may have to disagree with the cynical nature of criticism when pointed at these shows, a few of the artists are indeed dong challenging work. Others, like New York's esteemed Jerry Saltz cleaning observed:

"At the Whitney, 2008 is the year of the Art School Biennial. Not because the art in the new Biennial is immature or because the artists all went to art school—although I bet they did—but because it centers on a very narrow slice of highly educated artistic activity and features a lot of very thought-out, extremely self-conscious, carefully pieced-together installations, sculpture, and earnestly political art. These works often resemble architectural fragments, customized found objects, ersatz modernist monuments, Home Depot displays, graphic design, or magazine layouts, and the resultant assemblage-college aesthetic, while compelling in the hands of some, is completely beholden to ideas taught in hip academies. It’s the style du jour right now."

In fact, two of the artists make work that directly references the gallery experience, one with a literal white cube where he holds therapy sessions inside, another with a coy play on the salon style presentation as a way to depict her studio. I beg to argue that these ideas are not ground breaking in any form, based on the fact that I, a relatively novice character in the Art World, have had similar ways of thinking about representation.

Beyond that however, is something that as a painter, I find remarkably ironic. The shows lack of painting is nothing new, in fact it is expected. Installation and video are more sexy, but lets look at the presence of the cube. Three the Eleven chosen to be in the whitney focus are all dealing with the idea to represent their concept. Perhaps its just me, but that basically just painting cubed.

Mary Heilmann: "The Painter's Painter"

Yellow wave, 2007
Armoy show 2008 (right)
surfing on acid, 2005
"To Be Someone" retrospective (left)


There are several suspicious ways to understand the reason for Mary Heilmann's sudden presence on white walls. In 2007, she had her 1st retrospective starting at the Orange Country Museum of Art, and in November of 2007 she was simultaneously featured on the cover of both Artforum and in Art in America, now she is one of the only painters present in both the Armory Show and the Whitney Biennial.

The articles in both Artforum and Art in America, are unapologetically pandering to this idea of Heilmann as some survivor in the wake of Abstract Expressionism, or a platform to infer that painting as an archaic medium. To effect that the collective tone is: "Look at this nice womens paintings! they are so pretty, and playful!" It's almost like they are talking about a forgotten grandmother's "Sunday" painting.

Unfortunately, the atmosphere is far more elevated: this is a blatant example of white liberal guilt: a women who was working in a male dominated tradition was ignored by the art society. She is an educated women (MFA from Berkeley), who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. After her MFA in 1969, she moved to New York, after Rothko's suicide, after Agnes martin left for New Mexico, and when the AbEx was beginning to lose its cool. Too late. Missed the boat. Or, no. Wait a second... she must have be overlooked becasue she was a women, not because she makes decorative saccharine, and unoriginal work. That isn't fair, let's look at this through a larger lens. She has consistently been making saccharine, rip-offs for some some thirty odd years.

What I am trying to get at is the proverbial elephant in the room, her work is Rothko surfing on acid! I don't know if there is a reason why Artforum's contributor was a Berkeley Professor, but honestly, my guess is that they did the drug together in the sixties. These paintings serve a a nice reminder of the days when you "fighting the good fight", right Anne?

I was angry went back in November about the shameless promotion of this women, and I have a suspicion its not in her best interest. I have read interviews with Mary, and she appears to be down to earth and completely pleasant. Why are they exploiting this person? Is it because they need to put a women of the same (basic) generation as the dominant males in this aesthetic? I couldn't responsibly assert this beyond an assumption.
*417

Jedediah Caesar: the cube

THIS IS THE WRONG POST FOR THE IMAGE. ITS NOT LETTING ME DELETE.
\THIS IS NOT WORKING

the cube, part two

The Accidental Aesthetic: Walead Beshty

His photgraphs are interesting, as is his resume: Yale MFA grad. Surprise, Surprise. Well, I suppose if ou are on of the lucky six per cent that make it through the ivy gate then you should be able to make a broken cubes of glass interesting. The reason, however, I have these three Whitney artists together is becasue they are all working with the idea of the cube. Now, to me, the irony is asstounding: in a show the tkae the "tempeture" of new art, which usually incudes the exclution of painting (here as defined by the use of a two dementional frame) we now are presented with a CUBE ad noseum.

THE LAST POST WON"T DELETE> THIS IS THE CORRECT LOCATION

Dogma and Celebration

While the aims of Dogma 95 may be multiple, an all important ambition is to unsettle an increasingly dominant film-making reality characterized by (mostly America’s) astronomical budgets and marketing and distribution strategy’s, among other things, stardom and technological special effects. The Celebration is a film made under the Dogma manifesto that presented ten strict aesthetic commandments by which Dogma directors swore to abide. The rules are similar to that of Cinema Virte movement in the 1960’s, the use of a handheld camera, the search for truth, and authenticity through a character driven plot, an almost documentary style of filmmaking.
What is interesting in The Celebration is the direct parallel between the idea of the Dogma movement in response to extravagant cinema and the story of Helge’s sixtieth birthday party. Where there was a set order of speeches of praise speeches over dinner, reenactments of family traditions, and so on. The rules are those of an overtly well-heeled family, rules designed to keep in place a happy, extended family. The eldest son, Christian, administers a project throughout the movie in which to expose the buried reality. It is not an anarchic rule revolt: rather he employs each occasion for the following of a family rule to substitute his own rule, in effect to bring out the truth. As the eldest son, his is the first speech over dinner, and he uses it to drop almost casually the revelation of his father’s sexual abuse of him and his sister, as children. His mother later requests that he makes a speech in the form of an apology: Again, he follows the rule, the rule of reply- and accuses her of having known about the sexual abuse., and willfully ignored it.
The manifesto is a call to overturn the bourgeois cinema; the family in the celebration is clearly upper-class, they live in a house fit to be a hotel, they are dressed in black-tie, but apparently not affluent enough: the women are still subservient to the men, an the there is a fair amount of racism that amounts in song. The result is a class revolt by the servants, who help Christian out at every turn, for instance the maids hide the guest keys so that everyone is force to listen to Christian. And just as the manifesto attacks the individual in film, thus demoting the director from his position, so does the celebration topple Helge from his autocratic command of the family, and exile him. The collective replaces the individual in manifesto and in film.

*424

"Whatever" drug commerial parody

LINK to original commercial

I smoke pot and some of my friends don't
It's whatever
they drive Hummer's and I just walk to be Green
It's whatever
I eat locally grown produce and they get Beef from Iowa and grapes from Cali
Its whatever

I tell them when we're heading out to a Libertarian rally
And at the party haven,
I'm the one talking to Bill Maher, and my girls just sit there until all the pot is gone
its time to go, he shouts:
"Hey, get back in your SUV and work on your carbon footprint"

they don't have to worry about living life, I live it for them, until I go off to college
They aren't just my problem, they are everyones problem
we are everyones problem
its whatever.

Fiona Rae : Night Vision (1998)

(2440 x 2135 x 51 mm) oil and acrylic on canvas.

Night Vision, is a work about the juxtaposition of geometric and painterly language. The scale of the painting alone is necessarily confrontational to human scale. When viewed at a close range it has the ability to consume our field of vision, which is not uncommon in this type of work. However, unlike most, Night Vision quietly (discreetly!) commands our attention from across the room, it promises secrets and begs you to step close enough to wait for a whisper. (Note: this is in the Tate, so you may get the odd eye from the badge-clad crew.)

Rae's work presents a humming flat grey, which acts as a field of reference when dealing with the spatial elements of the work. Long rectangles, equally flat, pleasingly disrupt the movement of the controlled drags of paint that were pulled over them. After a brief conversation with the work, I believe these elements are to be seen as three distinct, separate, layers of space and language, united by tone. Rae's attempt is to highlight the similarity with the different languages: they are all presented with equal control and slick attention to composition and space relations.

The secret, as I understand it, is that both geometric and gestural marks require equal amounts of formal control. The artist is displaying a quick wit in her ability to document a ideological peace conference between two (arguably) warring abstract camps.

*235

Hamlett Dobbins' Invention of a New Star (2001)

the invention of a new star (thicket)
oil on canvas (25 in. X 21 in.)

the invention of a new star (for gelsy)
(48 in. X 48 in.)

These paintings illustrate delicate preciousness, both in manner and palette. Thicket, in particular, achieves this by creating surface tension within the handling of the paint: the matte Pepto-Bismol magenta background corresponds to the layered, physical texture of the lighter, biomorphic cotton-candy pink. We are left to understand the idea of editing by the visual clues surrounding the central form, the curious black outline peaking around the edges, and again within the form itself. Dobbins is leaving behind traces of the paintings past, and the idea of the passage of time within the work itself.

The idea of "precious" apparent in this work in not only indicative in the scale, but how the paint itself is presented. Drips, bulges and surface quality contradict the clean lines, and reinforce how the gestural marks humanize the plastically sweet colors.

On the contrast, for gelsy, is of considerable difference of scale and subject contrary to the similar central forms and title. Gelsy, it seems, is a reaction to thicket in several ways. The first of which includes the more conventional standard of a large abstract painting, the second being the composition and color choice. The use of black in thicket teases the eye and challenges the senses, like a sexy La Perla slip under a frothy taffeta gown. In Gelsy, the use of black now consumes both the picture plane and monopolizes the spectrum of color. In fact the reverse happens, we are left only with a portion of Pepto Pink to inform the connection between the two paintings. However, this does not make gelsy less engaging, but unfortunately I am dealing with a pixelated copy. I would like to infer, nonetheless, that the surface is equally rich in flat color as it is in more playful areas. Gelsy, in affect, is a response to the precious scale and treatment of thicket, it is an over taking of senses. And, most irresistibly, is the idea of this growing, voluptuous, self-contained star.

*327

To: Hipsters and Anderson Enthusiasts

Concerning: The Darjeeling Limited and Anderson Land

I think you need to be honest with yourselves. This movie was just an excuse for our dear Wes to prance around Rajasthan, to play with his enormous Darjeeling-Dollhouse: the train that he cloaked as the (literal) vehicle for brotherly bonding and spiritual discovery.

If I wasn’t distracted by Anderson’s ability to get three of Hollywood's most fashionable noses together: Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzman; then I most certainly was going to be taken hostage by the dazzling optical riches set before me, in both the landscape and the sets. Oh, darn I think I may have gotten lost in the plot. Let's see if I missed anything: Are we still on the train? Yes, it appears that the color scheme is still an amalgam of blues and oranges. Check. Strange, irreverent wit? I think I remember something about sweet lime, savoury snacks, laminated itineraries, Futra font, Voltaire no. 6, pain killers, and cigarettes. Quirk, check. Hand made Marc Jacobs of Louis Vuitton suits (not unlike the ones Anderson dons himself) and $3,000 hand-painted loafers? This is new.

Now guys, I know. Your horn-rimmed glasses are fogging up from sheer frustration. Girls, a bit of advice: you get wrinkles from scowling, no mater how well it works with your American Apparel. But, we have to confront the fact that this film does not carry the gems of Rushmore, where the emotional distance of the lens forces the characters to to reveal themselves. His formal concerns and plot devices were still new, handled with more control and complexitiy, here they have become formulaic and the same distance comes off as immature. Here I suspect more interest in the set design, where in Rushmore it supported the characters. Darjeeling lets them float within it, which I if you were in a Fellini film wouldn't be a problem.

Anderson's latest left us searching for character development, for substance. Dear, sweet hipsters, I warn you: even with a second viewing, it doesn’t exist in this film. And the few places where we encounter it, it is deemphasized by the fact that the rest of the ninety minutes are hollow, albeit beautifully designed. The moment floats away.

Let’s put this in perspective in terms of progression, inferred by time and experience. Wes is 38, and this is his fifth major film. At this point he has a responsibility to his audience, and let’s hope himself, to produce something beyond fashionable quirkiness inside a fantastically colored stage inside a box, viewed through a thick lens. Never before have the characters in Anderson Land felt so flat, they have always been self-involved privileged beings dealing with depression, parental issues, and (the inevitable) funeral. This film is filled is essentially a familiar formula, complete with his signature evasive cool.

He has attempted a film that deals with deep emotional (Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton) baggage, but gets tangles in his own aesthetic. This was a call for help. But don’t worry Anderson, a new season of Bravo’s Top Design is underway. I’m sure they would be honored to have you on the panel.

Anderson: Stay away from the Coppola’s! namely Roman, who co-wrote the film. Instead, let Sophia’s Marie Antoinette be an example: don’t let success (in her case Lost in Translation) give you a free pass to make self-indulgent Mille-Feuille. It may be the treat of a thousand layers, but its pure puff pastry.

To Hipsters: keep the glasses polished and the spandex tight, let’s hope he has something else besides the Fantastic Mr. Fox in the future.

*568

ER: emotional response

Red on Maroon, 1959. I scribbled it down in my notebook, Red on Maroon, Mark Rothko, RMMR, it was at this moment that I became aware of myself, I felt vulnerable. I looked down at my tablet: now covered in girlish cursive, peppered with sentimental displays of adolescent lust: hearts. What was happening to me? I devolved into a girl, a girl I never was! When I was fifteen, I sported Chuck Taylors and took myself very seriously, I thought I came into the world fully formed and with a raised fist. I made fun of the girls that drew hearts on notebooks.
I was in a room full of people, all participating in the same experience, but I felt singled out. It was like high school all over again, I was caught staring at my crush. Only this time, all I could do was relax my mouth and let saliva have its way with me. I uncomfortably tried to manage this cocktail of hormones, and deal with my inability to control my motor skills! But, at least people are leaving me alone, I must have looked "touched".

In short, it only takes half an hour to reduce yourself to scribbles and drool; this event will be endlessly haunting as I approach my elder years, and it becomes daily practice. However, that experience changed how, and why, I enjoy the event of looking. Time literally stood still, I was unaware of my own bodily functions, I was blissfully drunk through sight. At first, I have to admit, I was nervous. This piece had been built up so much in my head, there was definitely celebrity factor: the reproductions, the verbal discussion, its place in history... But, when it was finally just the two of us, it all made sense. And I think he got me, too.

(The author has been waiting by the phone for him to call, no word yet on the outcome.)
*324