paintings + drawings

Advertisements for myself.

Today is the last day for "Fate, up against your will."  - the show I guest curated for Suzanne Shade's online art gallery The Beholder.

If you haven't visited it yet, get over there. Time is running out.

In brief.

Larry Smith is a witty guy.

Thankfully, so is the idea behind his new book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-word Memoirs.

I dunno about you, but I’m sick of what the whole memoir genre has become – longish, tired retellings of a traumatic childhood spent raising a cat who died from tonsillitis, all while negligent hippy parents partied on.

That’s where Smith comes in. His book is the perfect antidote. Hundreds of life-stories, many interesting, from the famous and not so, in under six words. Guaranteed.

My favorite? It’s the one that opens the collection. From activist and author Robin Templeton “After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.”

Six bits.

1. Tyler Green connects the dots from futility myths to globalized economies in Francis Alys’ work. Nice one.
2. Second House says gimme shelter says Nancy Spector to Martin Bromirski, maybe. Earlier, Martin nags on White Columns’s continued borish behavior. Higgs look out -  the villagers are coming with torches.
3. Poons and Taylor are rediscovered. via Sharon Butler.
4. Slovak Zizek sez Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN was more than a Mexican PORKY'S. Huh. Can't believe that idea hasn't come up in grad film theory classes by now. Wait 'til you read what he spritzes about the brilliance of the lackluster CHILDREN OF MEN. via AFC.
5. Sellout shuts down. Get back to work, you. Deborah F has returned to blogging on her own site.
6. Absolutely unrelated to art, but look at these Turkish angora cat clones. They glow in the dark.  via Amy Wilson.

New drawing.

untitled, 2008, 15" x 34", mixed media on paper.
probably for SoEx's annual benefit auction.

John Zurier at Larry Becker Contemporary Art.

A few last stars linger on.
I see them from my window. The sky is pale,
A remote hint of day begins from afar.
A silence rests spread out over the lake,
a whisper lies in wait among the trees,
and my old garden listens, sleepily,
to breaths of the night that sweep across the road.

Edith Södergran’s Early Daybreak. From "Love & Solitude Selected Poems 1916-1923."

The thing I remember most about seeing John Zurier’s “Night Paintings,” besides a near uniformity in painting size, was a greenish stripe painted on the left side of one of the canvases. It wasn’t that the dark field had bled beyond the picture frame onto the side. The stripe seemed to be all about intention - creating that feeling of seeing an object, like say a tree, in pre-dawn light. It's there, but not really all there.

Another way I found myself looking at the series was to imagine the individual paintings were all tiles of a darkened sky. Almost like pieces for an ill-fitting puzzle.

Either way, the pieces remind you that painting can still be some serious shit even while, or maybe because of, being steeped in a lyrical beauty.

In his artist statement about the distemper paintings, Zurier writes “I remember the first painting problem that really engaged me. I tried to paint the sky seen between two buildings so that the whole of my painting would be nothing but an empty blue space. I wanted the painting to be filled with a pale empty sky. I thought it would be very easy to do, but found it nearly impossible. The painting was a failure and I had to put it off for a long time.

In a way, my concerns now are not much different in that I want the maximum sense of color, form and clarity with the simplest means. I think the ancient Chinese painters were right. The most difficult thing in painting is depicting the appearance of emptiness where nothing is painted.”

“Night Paintings” opens March 1 at Larry Becker Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. The artist will be at the reception.

Photo:     Night 26, John Zurier, 2008, Distemper on Linen.

Scott Eiden.

get your own.

This just in.

Oakland’s Mercury 20 has begun posting rather intensive interviews with their artists, by intensive I mean meandering.

Having been on the scene for only a little while, the artist-run space has had a spotty exhibition history – some shows seem to be engaged in a contemporary dialog while other exhibitions lean toward the notions of weekend watercolorists -- but is trying really hard to make a go of it.

First interview up is with East Bay sculptor David Seiler, whose work falls somewhere in between.

The middle ages.

As always, I’m proud to be getting on this late.

More than a month ago (January 14 to be exact), punk turned 30. Yep, that angry and ugly stepchild of rock has officially tumbled into the grey zone of middle age.

In celebration, Theresa K. has a great post about the Sex Pistols’ ill-fated last show (at SF’s Winterland) - which is considered by many experts (I use this term loosley) as the end of the punk era.

You’ve already seen the images and videos of the Pistols' performance, so here’s a little something from The Avengers, one of two local bands that opened the show. Enjoy.

In the studio.

Cindy Sherman working on the film stills in 1986.

Rachel Whiteread building/vacating "House" in 1993.

Both are lifted from the short lived Channel 4 series "State of the Art." More segments - including Anthony Gormley and Joseph Bueys are here. Also check out Anish Kapoor on Marsyas at the Tate.

Back from a brief vacation.

Time to get to work.