Tag Archives: sfai

Community, Sights

Three reasons to be excited about art

Please excuse my previous griping post and have a look at this:

1. Brendan Fernandes and Ohad Meromi at Art in General

I helped to install these two artists’ shows, and I’m very excited about the quality and experimentation in both of them. I feel very fortunate to work with wonderful staff and interns at Art in General in the production of shows by really kind, thoughtful artists.

Brendan Fernandes’ exhibition, From Hiz Hands, opens in the ground-floor Project Space tomorrow, Friday, December 10 at 6pm. In addition to a massive wall text and audio piece, there are three super neon signs you can see from the street.

Ohad Meromi contribues Rehearsal Sculpture, a likably obscure set of sculptures, props and setting for participatory action. Ohad’s prior work (see Harris Lieberman Gallery, of the sweetly ligature’d logo, for pics) are really fun combinations of formal and vernacular design with social overtones, so I’m really interested in this more explicitly performative and experiential work.

2. Mark Bradford, artist, MacArthur Genius, and artist-philanthropist-role model.

Bradford, who exuded articulateness, integrity and rigor in his talk at SFAI, is a role model. His most recent feat of fearlessness is committing to donate $100k to support other artists in the pursuit of their own projects that might not be otherwise funded. How awesome is that?

3. Via HWT, this image by Frances Twombly, found on ArtNet:

Frances Twombly, Balloons, 2004

Frances Twombly, Balloons, 2004

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Art & Development

odds and ends

1.
I think the conceptual artist Glenn Ligon is fantastic. And I, for one, think Americans should be proud to have the Obamas in the White House. So it totally floats my boat that the Obama family has selected a work by Ligon for display in their home.

2.
I was right! Fred Tomaselli’s lecture was great — brisk, jocular and razor-sharp. Again, there’s nothing like hearing a thoughtful, well-spoken artist share his narrative of artistic development. Plus, his work is so stunning! My colleagues and I were unanimously impressed and inspired.

This coming Monday, October 12, Xu Tan, who’s currently showing his Keywords project at YBCA, is speaking at SFAI.

3.
Pae White’s exhibition at the Mills College Art Museum closes in 10 days. I saw the show’s iteration at New Langton Arts, where it blew my mind.

4.
It seems to be a good time to read.
Research is critical for my studio momentum. Here are texts I hope to synthesize into my art practice soon:

Calvin Tomkins’ profile of Bruce Nauman, “Western Disturbances,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2009, p. 68
(Reassuringly, Nauman’s studio practice also involves a lot of sitting, reading and thinking. I also love how the author characterizes Nauman’s work as “uningratiating.” I am driven to make work that’s also rather unspectacular, though I’ve yet to shake the urge to apologize for its visual paucity. It seems pointless and maybe a bit classist, but it’s true, people still like big, colorful, spectacular art.)

In “Thinking literally: The surprising ways that metaphors shape your world” (Boston Globe, September 27, 2009), Drake Bennett describes psychologists who are uncovering how metaphors are crucial tools in human thought. I find the writing style a bit too commercial, but I’m enjoying the idea that scientific research can validate the intuitive decisions involved in making phenomenological installations. Perhaps there is a sensory, non-literal, common ground through which an installation artist can communicate with her audience, without an intellectual interpretation….

I think this idea might work well in parallel with “Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag.

Benedict Carey’s “How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect” (NYTimes.com, October 5, 2009) seems like another great, timely reference, because it touches on the ideas of aberrations (which I’ve been thinking about since the Galaxy show at BAM), and seems to related to the slightly-off effects my viewer-oriented installations aspire to create.

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Research

Podcast Reviews: Art school lectures

In the studio, I listen to a lot of podcasts, including lectures by contemporary artists, lit, conversations on astronomy, to public radio arts and culture shows. In the past few years a lot more interesting podcasts have popped up, so I thought I’d spread the good word and post reviews of notable podcasts here.

I’ve already mentioned the fantastic artist’s lecture by Kerry James Marshall at SFAI, as well as the really great presentation by Johanna Drucker at SVA.

SFAI’s podcast features world-class artists, but is rarely updated, and seems under produced (it’s just an audio recording of the lecture, but the levels aren’t balanced, and some of the Q&As should be cut or filled in). Likewise with CCA on iTunes U, except CCA’s recently hired some professional with a broadcast voice to conduct interviews. Though, with a podcast of first-year students seems more like an enrollment tactic, rather than intellectual endeavor.

SVA’s got a better-produced series of podcast lectures. As I mentioned, the Drucker lecture from the MFA Art Criticism and Writing department is great. I also tried listening to Barry Schwabsky present a paper on the ontology of painting — but had to stop due to a fatal flaw: the lecture was presented bilingually (English and French), but the levels were not balanced, and the translator was blasting my ears while I could barely hear Schwabsky. Too bad.

But SVA really excels with their Graphic Design lecture videos, including a Paul Rand series with notables like Milton Glaser, as well as a series presented by the design genius, Steven Heller. I haven’t got a portable player for videocasts, so I’m just scratching the surface of the design lectures, but they seem better produced. Learn more at the nicely designed web site, of course.

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