The last post in a series on process.
De-installation. That says it all.
Here are two videos with two views of scale. The first is Morgan Wells cleaning up after his MFA show (via Manuel Dominguez Jr)
And the second is the Pulitzer removing their Serras (I think I first saw this on MAN awhile back). The handler who narrates is either a little camera shy or is remembering how a work at Castelli lost a leg in 1988 while attempting to disassemble a 16-ton Serra.
The ongoing series on process continues.
Videos from three artists installing their work in an institution.
Polly Apfelbaum lays out “Blossom, a sculpture in her Powerpuff girl pieces, last year at MOMA. I’m a big fan of Apfelbaum.
This spring, MOMA installed a piece from Sol LeWitt.
If you cannot get enough of those wall drawings, here’s another video. This one is at the Allen Art Museum.
Jan De Cock’s site-thinger “Denkmal” just closed at MOMA. Here’s a time-lapse of the installation. It is way better viewing with the sound off.
Part of process is the ability to imagine your piece in a different environment – outside the studio.
The piece on view in a gallery or at an art fair is a given. Galleries being a sort of halfway house, that transitioning place between the studio and the collector’s home or institution.
I like Martin Bromirksi’s paintings, but I like his idea for potential halfway houses even more. Well, actually I like the ideas and the paintings the same.
Anyway, here is Bromirksi on his choice of exhibition spaces:
Meatballs at Stuffy's is probably the first time I had what I'd consider a "real show" in a non-gallery space. I'd shown in other non-gallery spaces previous to that, the earliest I can remember was an artist clubhouse-type space in Philadelphia in 1991, but Stuffy's was the first time that I actually called it a show, had cards made, set dates, all that.
I was showing in a local gallery, but just wanted a place to see my stuff alone, and to have complete "creative control" of the installation and cards; hang them how I wanted. A big inspiration was seeing these weird seascape paintings installed at my local library... they just fit so bizarrely well there, and my own paintings were similar in scale with the same sense of "out there-ness".
When I started doing the paintings with circles it was while I was always eating at Stuffy’s. All winter long I had been going to Stuffy's, sometimes twice a day, eating their "Sub of the Season" - a hot meatball sub that was so delicious and cheap. I started to look at those meatballs every day and think about my little circle paintings, and started to think of the paintings as meatballs… not literally, not like pictures of meatballs... but the physicality, oddness, awkardwardness, sloppiness, etc… and to think about them in the Stuffy’s space. So I asked if I could make a show at Stuffy’s, and called it Meatballs at Stuffy’s.
I think my gallerist was a little pissed that I did the show at Stuffy's at the same time as my show at his gallery.. and was so into promoting Meatballs at Stuffy's, including making my own postcard announcements and distributing them all over. My cards were pretty funny; I got Stuffy's to agree to accept them as coupons good for 10% off your purchase at Stuffy's (stated on the card), and included the very deadpan "There will be no reception". (more backstory of Meatballs at Stuffy's is here.)
The Markel Building was the next awesome spot, the Guggenheim Richmond.
More in the ongoing series on process.
Last year, a piece by Deborah Fisher really captured my imagination. “Solid State Change” was a large sculpture she made for Middlebury College.
I grew up around farms. During my childhood there existed, close by, a large field (really, just a few acres of land) that was filled to overflowing with broken down, rusting farm machinery - tractors, thrasher and other machines whose function was a mystery to me. After years on the sun the tires had warped and twisted into rubbery licorice.
“Solids State Change” took me back there.
Fisher was generous enough to let me crib the creation process for "Solid State Change" from her site.
Here is her statement, a good place to begin. Next is the proposal and sketches for the project. In her own words, here is the strategy:
1. Let the tires and whatnot accumulate and deform the expanded metal shape
2. See what shapes result and "lock in" those shapes with a bunch of armature steel.
3. Build a fake curved wall and figure out the best possible relationship between the sculpture and the wall
4. "Lock in" that relationship with more steel.
5. Add cement, cut and cover naked screwheads, and generally finesse it into something that someone would
want to keep around for twenty years.
Below are photos of the piece in progress.
More in an ongoing series about process. Yeah, you got another week of this -- me bearing my soul to you, then a peek at sculptor Deborah Fisher's methods and then a run down of installation and deinstallation. Stop your bellyaching, and take it like a man.
I've written and spoken a gazillion times about my process. But, just in case, you've messed my blathering here is a quick rundown of how I do it (on a good day):
1. Source material. It's been an ongoing quest, for years I've gathered collections of cartoons, humor magazines, illustrated books etc wherever I can find them. I pillage some of them to get the images I will eventually use on the paintings and in drawings. I have a digital library of scans from the books. The scans are broken down into various categories - humans, animals, objects, cars, art etc - and within that various subcategories - drunk men, sexpot female, birds, drunk birds, sexy birds, trash cans, broken things and so on. I shy away form using images form anyone especially unique (like William Steig) or particularly well-known.
2. Editing. I grab an image and then edit it for use. Cropping something out. Adding something in. Scaling it.
3. Painting. At the same time, I've started working on the painting object. Usually, the canvas is primed with white gesso. Enough coats and sanding are done to remove the tooth of the canvas. The field always has some underpainting, but never enough to offer any apparent brushmarks.
4. Tiling. The image is sized to fit the canvas. And then printed out in tile form. I used to print the image out on a standard sheet of paper then broadcast it on to the canvas. I could only do this at night, and the image would bend and flex as the lens in the project warmed up. Tiling is hugely wasteful, but way better.
5. Application of image. The basic outline of the image is traced on to the canvas using graphite paper.
6. Painting. The color for the image is applied above the field.
7. Application of image again. This time all the details of the image are traced on to the painting.
8. Painting. Outline of image is painted. Followed by washes of graphite paint to create the grime and shadows.
title: For most of us the universe is very small.
description: 24" x 42" acrylic on canvas, 2007.
9. Title. I live with the painting in the studio for awhile while I try to figure out what its immediately about. Then I try to come up with a title (I have a huge database of them -- mostly cribbed from novels, poetry and movies) that redirects what the painting can be about. (No I don't crib from PKD. This is just another example of my book collection. And I want you to think I'm cool.)
10. Music. During the whole process I have been listening to music. I love music. Playlists are here.
More in an ongoing series about process.
Enough talk, how about just raw written words.
Artists make lists.
I love, love, love to make lists. I mainly do it to procrastinate. List all the chores. List all my ideas. List all the shit I want to buy. List all the music I like...and on and on. When I'm done listing stuff its like I'm almost done with my piece. Except, well, I'm not. done. with. the. painting. yet.
Lists can help maintain focus though, really. Obviously the most known example of this would be Basquiat. We've all seen the drawings, paintings and sketchbooks -- they are great. Let's move on.
Philly painter Doug Witmer's studio list.
William Powhida's To do list (via Platform).
and because we are all about process right now. Here is Powhida's source material for Hypothetical Ideal Career Trajectory (via anaba).
Continuing on with a series about process.
Below are two more videos of artists at work or artists talking about how they work. And then I’ve added three more bonus videos that seem somehow related (or at least related to process).
After Namuth’s filming of Pollock, the second most famous art process flick would have to be this one - the muddy ‘70s toned video of Robert Smithson rocking the earth for Spiral Jetty. Is there anything more classic that the final shot, camera ensconced in helicopter as it pulls away from Smithson as he stands smack dab in the middle of his project, clothing flapping in the generated wind.
More recently, Kiki Smith and Mary Heilmann talk about the ideas behind their print projects at San Francisco’s Crown Point Press.
Even more recently, Julie Mehretu and her assistants work on a wall piece, and she discusses plans for a project at the Detroit Institute of Art.
Not quite necessary, but seemingly related are these three videos. Top to bottom: Faith Ringgold talks about her ongoing dialogue with her audience via the internet. Janis Kounellis makes an adjustment to his installation while assistants and installers standby. Sam Durant is seen in the first episode of a 36 part film documenting a part of his “Hire Me Out” project. In this instance, Durant is building a crate for his gallery, Blum & Poe. (Watching just one part of this should suffice – unless you are currently unemployed, but have dsl and some time on your hands.)
Continuing on with a series about process. Today’s videos again feature three well-known artists talking about how they work or capturing their process.
First up, from 1996 Louise Bourgeois explains how she comes to the subjects of her drawings. (You’ll need to click through here, embedding was not an option on this one).
Ida Applebroog let Scott Sinkler in for a studio visit in ’05. The result is a lot of atmospheric fluff shots, but it still offers the chance to see how she sets up her space. Plus there are some sweet shots of works in progress.
Last year Donald Sultan was filmed in his studio working on some drawings. The context is a little unclear, I’m guessing the drawings were for a project in Jaffa.
And Christian Marclay talks about his sound. (via Steven LaRose)
For the next week of so I’m going to be offering a series of posts that explore process through videos, jpegs and writings about the germinations of ideas, the craft behind the creation. Also on the docket will be some blathering about the installation and de-installation of work to wrap up the whole package.
First up will be a selection of videos from our more famous brethren. Today’s installment look at three generations of artists at work. The most obvious to start with would be an excerpt from Hans Namuth’s seminal film “Jackson Pollock 51, 1951." Music on this one was by Morton Feldman.
Next up is Cindy Sherman at work in the mid-80s. Sherman is transitioning out of her film stills into "Fairy Tale Disasters," her more surreal/Hans Bellmer pieces.
Finally, Dave Ellis reworks, reworks, and reworks and reworks some more a generic landscape painting into, well, something totally different. Soundtrack by Dhundee.
06/09 thru 07/03.
