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A Sensibility
I’m acquiring more affection for the work of Martin Barré, especially the later ones. From 1986, this piece has the feel of its moment – it verges on 80s parodic modernism, like a Martin Barré,...
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Object Matter
From William Tucker’s book The Language of Sculpture, comes these further words on cubist construction: Pablo Picasso, Construction with fringe 1914 “Apart from their richness and power as individual...
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No Pop
It’s obvious that the realm of the mass media has increased hugely over the last sixty years, and continues to grow. It’s also clear that more people spend more of their valuable time paying attention...
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Invisible
Earlier remarks about the invisible greater part of an artwork used only classical, canonical paintings for examples. Actually, the point applies to abstraction more than anything, and the drive to...
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Caminero and Ai
The tale of the broken vase has come to an end, and in an August 14th. article in the NYT we can read “Mr. Caminero’s lawyer…said: ‘My client has learned what is appropriate behavior for an artist to...
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No Need to Read
I just came across a book that collects all of Jackson Pollock’s sayings, at least as they have been recorded. Unlike some artists, he wrote very little. One remark caught my eye: “You don’t got to...
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More Matter of Fact
Following on from the previous post, Andrea Fraser’s effort at desublimation is better yet. I think it transcends the obvious caption, “art as prostitution.” Again it’s totally objective, but it hits...
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Watching Landscape
Another one of Pollock’s remarks is a real eye opener for me, a lesson: “I don’t look at the view, I watch it. The land is alive, tells you things when you let it.” Very interesting, and inspiring....
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A New Artworld
On holiday I brought two books, precisely because of the excruciating contrast between them. The criticism of Patrick Heron is on a very high level, of both insight and rhetorical skill. It’s...
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Networks
Lane Relyea describes the reconstitution of the art world around systems of communication, around networks, and he makes a strong case that the ruling paradigm today is information. The database and...
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Andrea Fraser
I remember in Artforum a few years ago a piece on institutional critique by Andrea Fraser, and also remember being underwhelmed. To me it seemed conventional, a reiteration of familiar insights,...
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Enlightenment
Lately I’ve been enjoying Andrea Fraser’s writings, and I’m not sure that blog readers who follow me to Stella, Barré, Motherwell or Riley will also come along that way. The fact is that I am a...
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Abstract East and West
My blog readers wouldn’t necessarily know it, but I have made a pretty close study of Chinese art, historical and modern, and even written about it. There is a chapter in my book on that topic in fact....
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Bureaucratic Fantasy
Here’s a moment of high comedy from Chin P’ing Mei, an account of Taoist ritual:“This lot consists of nine memorials…the one submitted at the time of the ninth recitation to the Ruler of the Most...
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Lost Boundaries
One moment in Lane Relyea’s book that caught my attention was this: “The rise of networks might not mean the end of of all insides and outsides, but it does mean that, with boundaries and the...
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New Beginning
The blog is starting up again, and it’s gratifying to know that readers I had before are happy to see it come back. The occasion is the imminent publication of my book, my first book. Artists don’t...
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Politics and Art of the Abstract Type
It’s been an interesting nine months. Like many I’ve been completely captivated by Bernie. Never in my life have I felt like giving money to a politician, but can’t anyway since I’m not American. For...
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A Normally Sensual Artist
A few years ago I heard the prominent art critic and historian Katy Siegal describe Motherwell as “an intellectual,” meaning to distinguish him from more intuitive or emotional artists—to distinguish...
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A Critique
Recently an article by Laurie Fendrich was circulating on Facebook. It’s worth reading, but this is what I said about it: I like most of what she says, but object to this: “Painting contains its own...
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The Death of Abstraction
Everyone has heard the claim that painting is dead. That’s one idea that deserves to be looked at more closely, and I will do that. Without giving too much of the book away I’ll just say that...
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