Stay tuned... and Ron Gorchov

Joanne- I am super busy (aren't we all?) and have not had time to have a clear mind to sit and think and write and respond. But I will.

In the meantime, consider Ron Gorchov with Robert Storr and Phong Bui in the Brooklyn Rail; it's good to see him getting a show at P. S. 1 and the attention he deserves. I remember first seeing a painting of his around 1978 or 1979; it was so good- loose and direct and almost simple, but looking unlike anything else, and feeling very much like a thing unto itself, complete.



Bui: You mean you don’t have a puritanical work ethic like most good Americans?

Gorchov: I hope not. My paintings are mostly made from reverie, and luck...

Storr: ...I wanted you to talk about what it is that makes letting go of a painting so hard, or that makes knowing where you are in the process so difficult to ascertain.

Gorchov: The biggest problem I had with letting paintings go was the feeling that there was an expense to getting a fresh canvas. And if I could make this painting as good as I could make it and keep going with it, however long it took. It’s not rational; I ruined painting after painting to get to a better one. Then I realized that I couldn’t make a painting incrementally better. If you could make it one percent better, maybe, but who cares? A painting has to evolve. With all respect to Myron Stout, I’m not that kind of an artist. Lately, I’m alone in my studio, after the preliminary marks indicate the limits of the elements, I only get one chance. I test the colors that I want, mix them, get the right brushes. I talk to myself—that form will be eight strokes; this form will be 3 strokes—and paint goes down. The next part is hallucinatory and difficult to explain. A decision will be made about adjustments later. Or it will be renovated. Or it feels perfect and can’t be changed.



RON GORCHOV
BATON, 1986
oil on linen
49-1/2 x 37 x 7-1/2"