Juan Melé: Marco recortado n.º 2

I think this is fascinating:



Juan Melé
Marco recortado n.º 2 [Irregular Frame No. 2], 1946
Oil on masonite, 27 15/16 x 18 1/8 x 1 in.
Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, 1997.102

“The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art From the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection,” at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University; reviewed by Robert Smith, NY Times:

Our notions of the origins of shaped paintings are readjusted by “Irregular Frame No. 2,” a distorted grid in shades of green, blue, rust and yellow made startlingly early, as these things go, by the Argentine artist Juan Melé in 1946. In this flamboyant little work geometry turns blunt, in advance of Minimalism, and cartoonishly savvy, in advance (and somewhat contradictorily) of the abstract painter Elizabeth Murray.

The Computer Ate my Blog

Chris,
You have been a model of conscientious posting on this blog. I have not. Well, not recently, anyway. (I hope my long piece on New York's Extended Minimal Moment last fall will keep me as a collaborating blogger in good standing.)

For here, let me note a couple of things that involve us singly or jointly:
.Congratulations on your show at Root Division in San Francisco. This has been a great summer of shows for you! I hope you'll post some installation pics here.
. This follows group shows you'be been in around the country, including Philadelphia and Atlanta. How did they go?
. Apropos of Atlanta, boo-hoo, the show that I curated that you're in, Luxe, Calme et Volupte, is now down. The gallery website still has the great online catalog of the show. And my blog account of the show will remain up for the forseeable future.
. The Richard Serra show is coming out your way soon. I hope we can dialog about that. I had quite a lot to say on my own blog--two posts worth.
. And, of course, a new season is just starting up. Things should be interesting in NY and elsewhere. I'll be in Chicago this weekend, so perhaps I'll have something to say from there. I trust you'll make your usual rounds in SF.
. I had a good spring, with solos in Scottsdale and New York --with two reviews in NY and sales all around. (That breeze you feel is me still exhaling.)

Now, about that title. The computer DID eat my blog. I'd been wanting to clean up the font mess on my pages--all those default pinks and blues (who chooses those colors, anyway?)--and streamline it. Not being even remotely conversant with HTML, I took advantage of Blogger's new features. I even saved the code for my blogroll--my one stab at cyber intelligence. Well, while the sidebar type and the font colors look quite snappy, if I say so myself, the leading between the lines of text was all mooshed together, as if it had been put under pressure. Clearly it was (and is) a code thing, but I'm at a loss to rectify it in any kind of conventional way.

So I spent today--Labor Day, appropriately--toiling paragraph by paragraph, to set things right. There were some good paragraphs. I found that if I imported them (and their embedded code) into posts with mooshed text and then introduced the mooshed text into it, somehow, miraculously, the leading between the lines would be restored. I've been at it all day. I think I should have it mostly fixed by tomorrow.

Then I should be more up for a real post here, one with pictures. And how was your Labor Day?

Matisse @ SFMoMA

One more post, while I'm on a roll: Ann and I were at SFMoMA on Saturday and saw Matisse: Painter as Sculptor for the second time. Boy, what a great show, in so many ways: focuses on the lesser-known side of a great one; a really strong selection of work; installed over several galleries with lots of room between clusters of work so there is a feeling of time, of breathing, of space; lots of little gems one would never have the chance to see.

Like the drawing below, about 8 x 10 inches, a quick ink drawing. I'm really taken with this: it's a head, a mountain, a crystal. In a few quick strokes, c. 1900, Matisse makes a captivating little world.

This terrible photo was taken quickly of a page in the catalog: in the little book shop adjacent to the exhibition, when no one was around, I opened the book, took out my camera, walked up to the register and said to the young hipster behind the counter, "If I took a picture of this page would you have to stop me?" He looked around nervously, and said, "Well, uh... I'll just walk over here," and went to straighten up gift cards or mugs or something. I took a couple of quick snaps, quickly put my camera away, and waved him a thanks. It's a lousy picture, but you get the idea:

Storr and Nozkowski & de Keyser

You said: "...did you notice that all the examples he (Storr) gave in the Brooklyn Rail interview (including Nauman and Baldassari, Ryman, and Angelo Filomeno) are of the male persuasion? One exception: Louise Bourgeois—and jeez, she had to work into her 70s before anyone took notice. I know, this is another topic, but it’s all connected, isn’t it?"

I say: Yeah, I kinda sorta noticed, but didn't pay it too much mind, which, you know, uh, is kinda sorta just the way, uh, well, male privilege, or something. I notice things like that, but they don't always snag me. Sometimes do, sometimes don't. The artists Storr talks about are a narrow slice of names in the Bienalle, and these particular names are artists who have been important to him for a long time, are ones that he personally relates to. Not defending, necessarily, just think it was the slice of conversation. I do know that the actual roster for the Biennale includes way more than a handful of women, though I can't make an accurate head count because there are many names about which I can't be certain if they are male or female.

Peter Schjeldahl wrote in The New Yorker, "He (Storr) rose to prominence in New York in the nineteen-eighties as a critic championing artists at eccentric or challenging angles to fashionable taste, many of them women—notably Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero, Susan Rothenberg, and Elizabeth Murray—along with Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Gerhard Richter, and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov."

You said: "By the way, I appreciate Storr’s comments about Nozkowski and De Keyser. Nozkowski is one of my favorite painters."

I say: Ditto. I am a big fan of Nozkowski & de Keyser. Such a big fan that they both deserve to have images included here:

Top: Thomas Nozkowski, UNTITLED (8-67), 2005, oil on linen on panel, 22 x 28 inches Framed , 55.9 x 71.1 cm
Bottom: Raoul de Keyser, Retour 11, 1999, 43,0 x 60,0 cm, oil on canvas

Clyfford Still @ SFMoMA

Oh happy day! SFMoMA has finally rotated the paintings in the Clyfford Still gallery! The red one is a really interesting painting- it looks so fresh, and has a less rugged, knifey surface than a typical mid-50's Still. And the one on the right really works like a Newman, maybe even more Newman-y than Newman.

By the way, photography is forbidden at this museum, unless the guards aren't positioned properly.

Art & the Brain

Joanne, thanks for your answer about curating.

You talked about how curating uses another part of your brain, the more linear thinking part, the more rational, critical, perhaps even objective process. Though curating does involve an emotional side, as well, one does need to be able to step back and even justify one's reaction, significantly because, I think, as the curator you make choices for other viewers, and you want to support some theme, argument, narrative, etc. The personal investment is different- unlike your own work, you are external to the work of others, and know it less intimately. At the same time, as the curator there's all kinds of logistics to be aware of- deadlines, who's in and out, an essay, when it will hang, how it will hang.

I was curious to know if the curatorial work in any way enables you look at your own work with another eye, or does it do the opposite?

This somewhat reminds me: as you know, I've done a lot of writing about art, and I've done a fair amount of talking and writing about my own work, too, but I always find it so much easier to talk about the art of others. I carry this continual conversation and explanation in my head about my own art, but I've never wanted to reduce it to an elevator pitch, though I can see the benefits of doing so.

Just recently I had to talk about my work with a gallery director, and I went in with all of the words in my head ready to go. But strangely, once there, I found myself pretty inarticulate, as if I'd forgotten all of the things I wanted to say about my work. It wasn't nerves, and it wasn't because I wasn't prepared. There was a feeling of not wanting to explain and give my work away- I could describe it, describe the process, state the facts, but at the moment in the conversation where I was supposed to say, "My work is about..." my brain kind of shut down, I knew it was shutting down, and I felt myself resisting the idea of working to explain. I think I didn't want to give it away, I didn't want it encapsulated. Fortunately, the director already had a feel for the work, and was saying lots of what I might say- not all, but plenty. It was relief. And it had a happy ending. I'll be in a group show in San Francisco in September at Root Division.

A: Curating for a Painter is Like Cross Training

You ask: Has your recent curating experience prompted any ideas or feelings about your own art that reinforces or challenges what you're doing?

.

The simple answer is that curating (as with writing) gives me an opportunity to think about art in ways that I don’t think about, or address, when I’m in the studio. It’s like sculpture—thinking and working three dimensionally instead of on a flat surface.

Does curating challenge what I’m doing in the studio? No, but it does challenge me to think about art using a different part of my brain.

When I’m painting initially, the work kind of flows out, and it’s only after the fact that I stand back and look at it and think about it in a critical way. Then there’s a conversation between the intuitive and the rational that continues—sort of a creative alternating current—as a work or works come to completion. (I often work on several paintings at the same time.)

In the studio, above: I don't get this rational until the right brain has run some miles and the work is underway

Curating, on the other hand, is a much more rational enterprise. I have to be moved in some intuitive, emotional, maybe visceral way by an artist’s work, but I do a lot more linear, left-brain thinking about how a particular work it fits into a curatorial theme.

In the gallery, above and below: I start out with the left brain in high gear. The work has to fit into, indeed expand, the theme--which in "Luxe, Calme et Volupte" is visual pleasure: beauty (of sumptuousness, order and sensuality). Above: Tim McFarlane, Rainer Gross, Robert Sagerman. Below: Julie Gross, you, Maureen Mullarkey. The marble sculptures on the floor are by Julia Venske and Gregor Spanle. Exhibition at the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta (through August 25)

As an artist I paint primarily in encaustic. I love the medium, to the point that using feels as if it’s just flowing out of my hand. But I’m interested in other mediums and other modes of expression. And I’m interested in other artists’ work besides mine. Curating a show that’s not medium specific, but rather, about a theme—beauty, in the case of Luxe, Calme et Volupte—is a way to explore the ideas and artists whose work interests me.

So I guess curating, for me, is like cross training.

You also ask: Related to this, I'm wondering if there is other work you're messing around with in your studio? ... You recently mentioned getting a lot of nice heavy paper. What's cooking?

May I take a raincheck on this question? As you know, I had a very busy spring with the "Luxe, Calme et Volupte" show. And I also organized the first National Conference of Encaustic Painting at Montserrat College of Art. (Many people were involved in the conference, of course, but I conceived it and developed the panels and themes.) I hadn’t intended to take on two large projects at the same time, but life has a different sense of timing than my own. I also did some teaching and a lot of traveling (my blog is part travelog, part critical writing, part self promotion). Oh, and did I mention two solo shows?

So to be honest there’s not much in my studio at the moment. There is a lot of paper—gorgeous 300 lb, hot-press Fabriano that’s just waiting to become a series of gouache grids and another series of graphite grids (graphite powder suspended in alcohol that gets painted as if it were watercolor). But at the moment I’m recuperating from all that activity earlier in the year. I will answer this question visually as soon as I have some new work to show you—which will be soon.

Question for you: What's in your studio right now?