Plan Ahead

January 5, 2007

2007-01-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Short notice: On Thursday I'll be seeing Anthony Lister at Lyons Wier Ortt.

Reminders

2006-12-15T09:12:00.000-05:00

Someone remind me: I want to see John Currin (at Gagosian until December 22), Marilyn Minter (at Salon 94 until January 20), and Andrew Wyeth (at Adelson until December 22).

October 5, 2006

2006-09-29T12:22:00.000-04:00

Check this out: Why the Nude? at the Art Students League of New York.

I found this while looking through my collected papers and postcards from Chelsea a couple of weeks ago, and I saw this image of Reclining Nude by Sharon Sprung. Compare and contrast to my painting, I Live Next to an Endless Party. The two paintings are almost exactly the same size (mine's a bit larger).

I don't want to say her painting's better, exactly, but it's certainly more. More what? Academic, traditional, technically accomplished, I guess. I want to say all these things without implying that there's anything inherently derogatory about them -- or anything inherently complimentary. Her painting is what I would have liked to paint, if I could have, which I can't, because I don't have the academic background. That said, I've transformed -- through a complex internal alchemical process -- my naivete into a virtue. My painting is more realistic, I think, in that it shows what's actually there, what you actually see, instead of the academic illusion we've all come to accept as "realistic" painting. The fact is, no human being has ever been as perfectly lit and posed as depicted in Sharon's work.

Of course, I'm wrong. Sort of. I mean, in the end, my naivete is not a virtue. I simply haven't had the training. I don't know if I want the training. When I start painting I'm aiming for that academic look, but I don't get there, and I'm not sure how much is because I don't want to and how much is because I just can't. And I don't know if I could, even if I did take the classes.

Anyway: The show and symposium sound really interesting. Why the nude? I ask myself that. A gallerist I showed my drawings to said they really loved my lines, and would like to see my lines applied to a different subject. I've given this a lot of thought and I still can't think of anything I'd rather draw than naked people. What should I draw? Fruit baskets? Sides of beef? Trees? To me, finally, all art is about human beings.

September 7, 2006

2006-08-22T20:29:00.000-04:00

The summer's almost over and I'm planning my return to regular gallery hopping in Chelsea with some really interesting-looking shows.

Christopher Morris leads off at Hasted Hunt with a series of politically themed photographs titled My America. Ordinarily I don't go in for photos, but I liked the last show I saw at Hasted Hunt, and furthermore I'm just totally seduced by the spare beauty of this photo, "Underground Agent."

The always-interesting Bellwether Gallery will be showing paintings by Everest Hall. Ordinarily I wouldn't be overjoyed by these paintings, but this one with the bee, if you combine it with a couple other works in the show, reminds me of a painting idea I had but never executed. No crystal skulls in mine, though.

Goff + Rosenthal will be showing new paintings by Isca Greenfield-Sanders. I'm curious to see what these look like in person; online they're kind of flat and not very exciting, but they could be really good.

Maki Tamura, meanwhile, looks very good online, and will hopefully look even better in person at Lucas Schoormans. This is the kind of fiddly detailed work I admire and enjoy.

Sixtyseven will be showing Wendy White, a definite head-scratcher for me. Maybe I'm just happy to be going to galleries again, but even this weird stuff looks good to me right now.

And finally, I'm thinking of seeing what Jade Townsend is going to do at Priska C. Jushka. Usually I avoid installations if at all possible, but seeing what Jade did with his last installation, I think this will be worth a visit.

May 18, 2006

2006-05-13T18:34:00.000-04:00

If I've fully recovered from my recent bout of ennui, I'll probably go to Bellwether as recommended by James Wolanin.

If not I'll just stay home and pretend I don't exist.

Screw It

2006-05-11T19:02:00.000-04:00

Oh, screw it. I'm didn't go out Wednesday and I'm not going out Thursday. So be it.

May 10 or May 11, 2006?

2006-05-08T14:03:00.000-04:00

This sucks. After a serious drought of openings, where I dragged myself to see things I really wasn't excited about, here comes this week where I have not one but two nights with openings I really want to see.

First is an artist recommended by good old Ed Winkleman, Jennifer Coates at Feigen. Her paintings look interesting. Perhaps not enough to make me want to go, but Edward's recommendation means a lot to me, so as soon as I read his post, I thought, yes, someone worth seeing.

Meanwhile in another window I'm going through the Douglas Kelley Show list and I find Alyssa Monks opening at DFN on Wednesday, not Thursday. My first reaction on seeing Alyssa's paintings online is "HOLY CRAP!" Because they can't be paintings, they've got to be photos. Wow. I mean, holy crap. I MUST GO.

This sucks.

April 27, 2006 Openings

2006-04-24T20:05:00.000-04:00

Slim pickings this week. Well, pickings have been slim lately. Maybe I'll be surprised this Thursday.

Over at Stux we have none other than the spectacularly named Thordis Adalsteinsdottir -- there's an appellation made for Google! -- with her latest paintings. I'm not sure I'll actually like them but I'm curious to see what they look like in person. And she's got a blog, so she can't be all bad. If I don't like her paintings, maybe I can just try to get her to repeat Max von Sydow quotes from Flash Gordon.

Meanwhile Joseph Marioni will be inaugurating the new space of Peter Blum Gallery. Joe is a later Abstract Expressionist apparently somehow still making a living by putting down approximately one color per canvas. Again, I'm not sure I'll like the paintings but I want to give them a try. You never really know until you meet a painting, after all.

More Op Art on display at Lyons Wier, this time from Miki Lee. I want to say hello to Michael Lyons Wier so I'll drop by. Op Art can be fun, too.

Next door Julie Allen is showing at McKenzie Fine Art. I want to see Valerie McKenzie, so I'll stop in. I have no image for Julie because I have no idea what this show will be like. Her work on the Web is pretty odd -- balloons tied up with string, stuff like that. We'll see.

If you've seen Emily Eveleth's work, you probably would say, "Oh, the doughnut painter!" Most of her work on the Web is paintings of oozy jelly doughnuts. To which I can only say, "Huh?" But it seems she does other things, too. I'll let you know. At Danese. God, I hope it's not more jelly doughnuts.

And finally, two more image-free openings: Christine Mottau at Ceres Gallery, which I will attend because I'm intrigued by an artist about whom I can find nothing whatsoever; and the School of Visual Arts Open Studios, which I may go to (if I feel like walking that far across town) so I can make fun of all the incompetent products of our higher education system.

May 4, 2006

2006-04-20T09:54:00.000-04:00

I love Mark Kostabi. Let's set aside his paintings for a moment; I just love Mark's advice column. Mark is part of why I'm here, typing this blog. I'm basing my approach to the world of art and a career in it on his advice.

And not just his advice column. Who he is. A few years back when I started down this fine art road I wrote to Mark about how I was selling drawings on eBay and how well that was going. He reprinted my letter in his column and put up one of my drawings which was, at the time, for sale. I was thrilled, of course, because I'm easy like that. Shortly after the column ran Mark had an opening at the Stux Gallery and I went. I gathered together as many courage molecules as I could and went up to Mark to introduce myself.

A quick note: If you've read this blog you probably think I'm the kind of person who can talk to anyone. I'm always writing about how I met this painter or chatted up this gallery director or whatever. But what you might not realize is, that's not me. That's someone I'm pretending to be. Oh, sure, I can talk to people. If someone introduced us, if you were a friend of a friend, say, then I'd talk to you so much you'd take to drinking wood alcohol just to get my voice out of your head. But to walk up to a stranger and talk to them? I hadn't done that since freshman year at college when I was away from home for the first time surrounded by strangers and I had no choice. I'm much more likely to ignore every human in the vicinity and try to pretend I'm invisible. Which at my size is very hard. Talking to people I meet in galleries is, for me, really difficult, but I do it by pretending to be someone who can do it, and I do it because I believe -- based on Mark's advice -- that it's the key to making it in the art world.

So I had to gather as many courage molecules as possible to go up and talk to Mark. And it turned out to be nothing I needed courage for. Mark was gracious and open. As soon as I told him I was the guy with the drawings on eBay, Mark started talking to me like we were colleagues. He began to introduce me to other people at the opening, and he did so saying, "This is Chris Rywalt, he sells his art on eBay." Just like that. In fact I remember he introduced me to Helen Garber; I promptly put my foot in my mouth when I said, "You can sell drawings on eBay cheap! I mean, how long does it take to do a drawing?" And she replied in measured tones, "It takes me a long time to do a drawing."

So that, ultimately, is why I love Mark Kostabi: He didn't have to be nice to me. He didn't have to make me feel welcome. But he did. Between his column and how he behaved when I met him, Mark made me feel that the art world was something I could understand, something I could enter. He made it clear that art people are approachable, that the doors aren't closed.

At the beginning of this I said we should set aside his paintings. Now let's get them back out here.

I won't say Mark is my favorite artist of all time. But I will say that I like his paintings. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a sucker for technique. And Mark's paintings are technically well done.

Of course with Mark there's the question of whether he did them or not, and how much he did. I like that aspect of Mark's art, in fact: It's not just about his paintings, but also about his concept, which was to simply bring out into the open something artists rarely discuss. When Mark claimed he had hired assistants who were paid by the hour to paint "his" paintings, with Mark's only addition being the signature, he was just making explicit a practice which has been going on for about as long as there have been painters. No one talks about it, but with any painting you can ask yourself, how much of this was done by the guy whose name is on it and how much by unknown studio gremlins?

For example, Salvador Dalí, near the end of his career, painted a number of these enormous works, almost two stories tall. They're beautiful examples of technique, massively gorgeous, resplendent with detail, overwhelming in size and scope. Every time I'm in Florida, I stop by the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg to pay my respects and to absorb some of the wonder that is Dalí.

On one of these trips the museum's back room was given over to photos of Dalí. One of them showed Salvador in his studio, making that pop-eyed wacko face he always made any time a camera was pointed in his direction. In the background you could see one of those giant canvases along with some nameless somebody painting on it.

No one else is credited with painting these Dalí "masterworks." No other names are associated with them. They're not attributed to the School of Dalí or anything like that. No, these are Dalí's paintings, and his alone. Except apparently other people did work on them. No one's supposed to talk about that, though.

So when Mark opened up Kostabi World and had his assistants turning out paintings by assembly line, he was just being open and honest about something which everyone else wants to keep hidden. He's written about having a committee to determine what concepts get turned into finished paintings. And of course now he has a game show on local cable where contestants vie to name existing paintings.

I'm not normally one for conceptual art but I find this endlessly amusing. I think I enjoy it because, first, it pokes fun at the art world, and that's always a good thing. And second, because, in the end, I like the paintings. As I said, I wouldn't call Mark my favorite artist ever -- I'm still partial to the customs clerk Henri Rousseau -- but I like the paintings that have Mark's name on them. Who painted them? I really don't know. I can't tell if Mark is kidding about having a small army of assistants. Maybe he really does paint all his paintings and his assistants are just for show. Maybe they don't even exist. I guess I could drop by Kostabi World and see -- does it even still exist? Did it ever exist? Help, I'm trapped in an epistemological nightmare!

And I'm okay with that, again, because I like the paintings. Dismiss them if you will -- too "retinal," boring, repetitive, don't advance any art theory, whatever. I like them. They look good. Sometimes they make me laugh.

All of which is simply to introduce where I'll be on May 4, 2006: At Mark Kostabi's opening at Adam Baumgold Gallery. Can you tell I'm looking forward to it?

March 25, 2006

2006-03-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

I have no idea if I'll be able to make this opening, but, god, I really, really want to. Cory Marc -- who needed me to make some changes to his Website again, which is the only time he calls me -- and I were looking at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival site (which show Cory got into and I did not, so he gets to put on latex pants and hang out with the freaks and weirdos while I have to stay home in my basement). Among the truly crappy stuff on display he pointed out the work of John John Jesse. His Website -- which is pretty cool, even if it's Flash -- has a link to a non-existent page on Madeline von Foerster, but I found her new site through Google. Turns out a) her paintings look like the most awesome objects on the planet and b) her opening at Fuse Gallery is this weekend.

Also at Fuse at the same time is Melissa Murray, whose paintings look good but disturbing. Or is that good and disturbing?

March 23, 2006

2006-03-20T10:56:00.000-05:00

This Thursday I'll be down in Newark at Red Saw Gallery meeting up with Jeanne Brasile and Asha Ganpat. Jeanne wants me to meet Asha and also to see the work of a friend of hers named Alex who is showing at 27 Mix.

The only unfortunate thing about this is I'll have to miss the opening of Eric Zener at Gallery Henoch. On a previous trip in the gallery was open because some poor underpaid guy was working late and I got to see a couple of Eric's paintings. And they're really fantastic if you like photorealism, which of course I do.

March 16, 2006 Openings

2006-03-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

Glen Hansen has some fantastic looking paintings, and I can't wait to see what he's up to these days at the Fischbach Gallery, 210 Eleventh Avenue (between 24th and 25th Street).

James Lecce has some beautiful paintings which he apparently pours -- eat your heart out, Jackson! -- showing at McKenzie Fine Art, 511 West 25th Street.

No image for this one: "Media artist" Ben Rubin will be showing his "A Ticking Sound" at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery. I have no idea what this will be aside from some kind of wacky multimedia (i.e. noise and blinking lights and stuff) thing, but I'm intrigued in spite of myself.

And finally, I'll admit it: I'm going to this show to pick a fight. Hank Willis Thomas' printouts of his puerile Photoshop manipulations look totally worthless and I only hope I have the guts to ask the director of Jack Shainman Gallery why they're wasting valuable wall space on such crap.

March 7, 2006 Openings

2006-03-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

Christoph Schmidberger has one of the most annoying Websites I've seen in a while, but his paintings -- which look like he went crazy with an airbrush while on Viagra -- are almost certainly worth the trip. Even though there's nothing else to see on this particular Tuesday. Goff + Rosenthal, 537B West 23rd Street, 6-8pm.

More on March 4, 2006

2006-03-03T09:57:00.000-05:00

Charles Bell is a photorealist whose paintings I'd love to see in person. Louis K. Meisel Gallery, 141 Prince Street, 6-8pm.

And Brian Alfred is doing some paintings which I'd call... Pop? Op? I have no idea. But they look good. Mary Boone, 541 West 24th Street, 6-8pm.

I'll be going to see Inka's opening with a friend, so if we can come to some kind of consensus, maybe we'll get to these others.

March 4, 2006 Openings

2006-02-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

Inka Essenhigh is a really interesting painter. I've met her a couple of times -- once at a Mark Kostabi opening, a moment I will cherish always -- and I look forward to seeing her latest paintings. 303 Gallery, 525 West 22nd Street, 6-8pm.