Saturday, February 28, 2009

Matta@ Pace 57htSt.









I went to Pace 57th St with Gillian to see Matta’s paintings. Being a fan of his work there were a couple I liked but for the most part I like what I’ve seen in museum collections better. I first encountered his painting when I was a teenager at the Clarke Art Institute in Williamstown, Ma. They had one in their collection that went to the Williams College Museum and is still there. It is from the early 40’s .It’s similar to the one at MOCA-LA.and MOMA ‘s “Here, Sire Fire, Eat!. I am most attached to this period of his work. I like the sense of a vast space populated with some mysterious unknown
debris and most of all the holes in the atmosphere; the implication of the way to another half revealed world.While a lot of his work has a science fiction / surrealist primitive quality ,there are also some paintings which have imagery that looks like sculpture from New Ireland in the South Pacific. It was fun to see Matta’s paintings overlooking 57th St. after having read about him in the DeKooning biography by Stevens and Swan.

“The Europeans remained focused upon 57th St., where they gathered at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery and 51st St., where she lived. Even being at the occasional party together did little to close the gap between the surrealists and the other artists. At one party, deKooning said wryly,” I tried to tell Miro of my admiration for his work in English.
So you see, the contact was not such a thing.” There was one essential exception, however- one surrealist who had a an early and pronounced effect on Americans: Roberto Matta Echaurren( universally known as Matta). He had arrived in New York in 1939, before the great wave of emigres. An ambitious Chilean who had joined the surrealists in Paris several years earlier, Matta had been a protege of Breton’s, and, like Breton, came from a background that respected elegance, intellectual airs, and a certain hauteur. But he had never been fully accepted by the french surrealists. In New York, he was more open to the Americans than the Europeans were. It helped that he was young- in his early thirties- and spoke excellent English. Julien Levy wrote of Matta’s arrival:

Matta burst on the New York scene as if he considered this country a sort of dark continent, his Africa, where he could trade dubious wares, charm the natives and entertain scintillating disillusions. He was chock full of premature optimism and impatient disappointment; believing ardently in almost everything and in absolutely nothing, as he believed ardently and painfully in himself, which was the same thing,
everything and nothing.”

Among deKooning’s friends, Gorky was most influenced by the arrival of the surrealists- and , in particular, by Matta. Both by background and temperament, Gorky was naturally attracted to surrealist whimsy and lyrical reverie.” Gorky had surrealism innate in him because of his Armenian background, independently of the Surrealists,” said Robert Jonas.” They didn’t implant it in him. Fantasies and dream images have been present through the ages. And his Armenia abounded in them.” It was only natural, then, that Gorky was eager to mix with the surrealists themselves. When Matta arrived in 1939, Gorky quickly gravitated to him. By 1941, the two had become very close friends, even though Gorky begrudged Matta his swift success in America. Gorky’s lyrical landscapesof the early forties reflect Matta’s influence. Matta urged him to be freer- to dilute his paint in order to achieve an airier, more extemporaneous effect and to use any accidental drips to spark improvisations.”


Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta Echaurren (b. 1911-d. 2002), “Matta,” was born in Santiago, Chile in 1911. He earned a degree in architecture from the Universidad Católica of Santiago in 1932. Matta apprenticed under Le Corbusier, working on projects such as the iconic proposal for Ville Radieuse and travelled extensively in Europe (1935-37). André Breton invited Matta to join the Surrealist circle in 1937 and Matta would participate in the Paris Exposicion International du Surrealism the following year. In 1939 Matta left Paris for New York, where his increasingly biomorphic paintings quickly attracted­­­ the attention of the New York School. Following a break with the Surrealists, Matta moved to Rome (1948), where he resided until 1955. He lived the rest of his life in Paris, London, and Tarquinia (an Etruscan city, north of Rome, in the Lazio region of Italy), yet maintained strong ties to Latin America. Matta’s involvement in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s included his strong support of president Salvador Allende in Chile.



Monday, February 16, 2009

Bjerklie Perfomances@ Parkers Box








After work on Friday, Jan.24 I went to John Bjerklie’s third opening of “When a river Changes Course” at Parkers Box in Williamsburg. The opening was from 6-9, I had some time to kill beforehand so I went to Spoonbill and Sugartown bookstore. I love it there ( it’s my idea of heaven ), I bought a book by Jed Perl called “Antoine’s Alphabet” about Watteau. So I went to the cafe and read and drank espresso awhile before going to Parker’s Box. When I got there I noticed some changes from my previous visit.
The floor had overlapping sheets of ply wood strewn about the space creating an undulating springy uncomfortable surface to walk on.
The debris/crate wood had been pushed back, tidied up a bit
Two TV monitors were placed on a low bench 
 John Bjerklie was greeting people with a straw sun hat and a red bandage wrapped around his head(ala Van Gogh). He disappeared up into a lofted area and appeared on the television screen( in his “studio”, under surveilance). On the second screen another artist came on and advised John on his motivation to paint. The joke was that John smeared paint all over his paper and then smeared the paper all over himself (his attempt to put himself into his work). He left and another artist, Cindy Towers came on with a cape and boxing gloves and started having a painting contest with John. John got a cell phone call in the middle of the contest , so I realized I could call him . I got out my cell phone and called and offered him money for his painting . Every time he got close to accepting an offer, I countered with a lower offer (mimicking his price slashed writing on his other TV screens) until things degenerated into bickering with Cindy and I hung up. Cindy left and Steve Brauer came in they have a conversation and the whole bit turns into high jinks; eventually Cindy comes back, they both leave downstairs and end up in the lofted space with John other artists come on.ETC... 
 A lot of people came to the opening, it was crowded for a long while. John had some other video’s he had recorded earlier that incorporated the same theme’s:
How the artist sees themself.
How the artist thinks they’re perceived by society.
The anxiety of wanting to be financially successful and artistically successful.
Eventually I got tired and went home.


John had another opening Fri. 2/13. For this he made video tape of himself in the lower studio, shown on one screen, while on the other he ran a live feed of himself up in his lofted area. This time he was competing, taunting, cajoling, and muttering with himself. The themes of his conversation were similar to his earlier performance but because he’s talking to himself I felt greater clarity about listening to the artist’s inner voice. One funny bit was John writing his phone number on a paper to sell his work a la QVC Cable television. The huckster side of his personality was selling the work out from under the poetic side. The whole piece became one giant organism to me. Quite profound;to so literally hear the voice of the artist coming through his work. I mentioned this to John’s dealer Alun Williams and also that I see this as related to J.Beuys, in particular his Honey Pump sculpture. Alun said that John was also influenced by the work of Paul Thek.
SUNDAY 2/22/09

John did another performance on Sunday 2/22/09. It was more heavily attended than the previous weeks. He had made another recorded video of himself to play against. When he did the phone bit Marina Abramowicz called him up ( she was attending with Alana Heiss). They ended up buying work from John over the phone. Alana Heiss negotiated to buy the paintings John was making for $50. He told her to put the $50 under a 5 gallon bucket on the gallery floor, she did and he threw the paintings out a window in the lofted area of his piece. The paintings were still wet when she picked them up and left.
During this performance I noticed the dialectical nature of the 2 screen presentation more prominently than I had before. Two screens talking to each other seems original to John’s work( there is picture in picture but not two seperate television screens in discourse with one another and an artist talking to his alter ego ,no less). The diptych was reflected in a painting on paper vignette of Okey-Dokey Man and a Do Not Be Afraid painting that were casually strewn at the foot of the painting loft. Clearly ,Okey-Dokey Man is getting the message.

Guston@ L&M Arts


My daughter Gillian was going to fly to Chicago after working for me at Showman Thurs.2/12. Her plane didn’t leave LaGuardia until 7pm, so we had time to go to L&M Arts to see the Philip Guston show. She is a fan of his work, me ...not as much. The show was of about 8 paintings from the early 50’s; when he’s still doing abstract expressionist work. Flat shapes that seem to become cartoon like imagery are working there way into these paintings. I like the way the shapes are conjured up out of the atmospheric gray pink haze. It’s a fun show and L&M is such a good place to see abstract work.
I had been to L&M once before while working on a movie; an art consultant brought me there to look at paintings to copy for the movie. The production company had bought the rights to quite a few paintings and I copied a lot but they still didn’t have enough. We went to L&M on a day that it was closed and had a look around to pick something out, I don’t remember if we did pick anything but I do remember the De Kooning's next to the Pollack's and getting to go to all the floors in the building and look at a lot of contemporary and modern painting; sometimes in semi-darkness(very magical). I had fun recognizing who painted the various pieces. We ended up in a small room on the top floor with a bunch of small paintings sitting on the floor leaning against the wall. I remember there was a Monet and some painting facing the wall, the stretchers looked like they were made of barn wood, the back of the canvas looked as old as time, we turned it around and it was a cubist painting by Picasso from 1910; I thought I was in heaven. I had always wanted go back to L&M with Gillian, as I knew she would love it, and I finally got to.

Morgan Library

I went to the Morgan Library with Lynn Brown to see the Thaw Collection of drawings an oil sketches. In the last few years they put a modern addition on and it ‘s like being in a humungous hotel lobby. I’m a fan of modern architecture but this is so out of character with how old school traditional the Morgan Library is that I can’t imagine what they were thinking; maybe they get a lot of people at certain times and they need a place for them to wait. Luckily it was quiet the afternoon we went. The Thaw collection was divided into two sections; drawings and oil sketches.
There was a great variety within the drawing collection. “A pen and ink study of a Renaissance temple by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–ca. 1501) drawn ca. 1470 and a mixed media representation by Jim Dine (b. 1935) with imagery inspired by a dream, dated 2000, signal the wide chronological, technical, and conceptual range of the exhibition.

French drawing is represented by a dynamic study of Italian gamblers by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) and a floral design by Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840). Two exquisite portrait drawings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) that have been long hidden from public view are among the highlights of the Thaws' recent acquisitions. They represent the first full-length studies by Ingres to enter the Morgan's collection, joining three portraits and four additional sheets from the Thaw collection and nine other drawings by the artist.
The modern drawings represent the diversity of the medium during the twentieth century and include fine examples of major artistic movements. Collages by Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) and Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) expand the traditional definition of drawings. A small sketch by Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) records one of his signature sculptures in a play of frenzied lines. A major work by Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) headlines a group of postwar drawings by Americans Franz Kline (1910–1962), Agnes Martin (1912–2004), and Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923). The exhibition concludes with a spare line drawing from 1993 by David Hockney (b. 1937) of charming dachshunds resting.” So much great stuff by a lot of my heroes.

The oil sketches were in a seperate room. “Among the works on view is Jean-Michel Cels's Clouds and Blue Sky, one of a group of eight studies of clouds and sky that Cels executed between 1838 and 1842, and John Constable's Hampstead Heath with Bathers (ca. 1821–22), a study of the sky emphasizing cloud morphology and weather effects.” Nice stuff!

Bonnard @ the Met

After work I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my daughter Gillian( an art student @SUNY Purchase) to see the Pierre Bonnard show. It was in the Lehman Atrium, a nice place to see special exhibits. I loved Bonnard paintings since first seeing them back in art school, so it was a particular treat to see a large amount at once.
I was always a fan of his pattern painting, but this time I realized how wonderful his figures are. The closer they are to you, the more they blend into their surroundings, they seem to be increasingly made of energy and light, it's profound. It reminded me of something Giacometti said about when seeing a figure from across the street,you can see the whole figure but that when they come in the cafe, the closer they get to you the less you can see.