a multidisciplinary dialog
In previous critiques here on Art & Perception I referred to a lack of “robust colors” in some paintings. I wanted to show some positive examples of what I mean by “robust colors.” These still life paintings by Gautam Rao are just what I had in mind.
Posted by Karl Zipser
I made this painting in the summer of 1985, when I was sixteen years old. I painted it over the course of several mornings, standing on a dock in Woods Hole, Cape Cod. This is one of my first landscape paintings in oil.
I was able to do work like the above because I was part of a group of motivated students in the art class of Walter Bartman, a high school teacher in Bethesda, Maryland. Continue reading Inspiration from Mr. Bartman, my art teacher in high school
As an artist who has spent most of his employed life in the arts, (in many diverse fields), I have had to humble myself to criticism many times for shear lack of credentials. At first, this was very uncomfortable to bear, I hadn’t known the gift of honest opinion, insecurity of the “self”, (my own), always stepped in and “botched it” for me, (like a reflex). After-all, how dare someone tell me “what they really think”: Right! I have since learned from my folly, and furthermore, now cherish the “morsels of truth” that others seemingly can’t hold back from sharing with me from time to time.
Continue reading Learning to Accept Criticism: without hurting someone!
Posted by Karl Zipser
Accidents Happen
Hanneke van den Bergh’s husband dropped this ceramic sculpture and it shattered on the sidewalk. Her 50 cm high wood-fired piece was a central work for the exhibition to be installed that day . . .
Continue reading From clay to bronze, and back again — works by Hanneke van den Bergh
Posted by Hanneke van Oosterhout
This still life is about 13 cm wide. I painted everything from life. I drew directly on the panel with charcoal, then pencil. Then I made an under painting in acrylic in one day. I made the over painting oil in two days, one day focusing on the berries, the other on the cup. I think this is a good picture. Please tell me what could be done better. Photographers, have you any insights for me?
Posted by Colin
There is an old saw from the history of photography that the ‘negative is the score and the print is the performance’. This has been around for so long that photographers have absorbed it to the point that they no longer think about it. I was reminded of this saying yesterday though, when Karl referred to an earlier interview with Dan Bodner in which Dan said:
“A photo is a record of a moment that has passed, a dead moment. I don’t feel that I own the image as a photograph until I paint it as a painting. The photo itself always refers to the past. But a painting of the photo is a creation, which goes on living. The painting defines its own continuing moment in time.”
I obviously have no idea how creation works for Dan, but I wanted to point out to anybody else who followed the link that this was a very limiting way of seeing the medium. I’ve written more about this here.
You can be sure that reality didn’t look much like this photo. Or, for that matter, the rather different one that I’ve also linked in the post on my blog. No one artform has the monopoly on creation. And I think that in understanding what works for us we need to be careful not to be dismissive about what works for others.
Posted by Colin
I’ve been invited to become a contributor here at Art and Perception. I’m intrigued by the possibilities that this opens up. For you see, I’m not a painter, or a sculptor. I can’t draw, and I’m not particularly experienced as an art critic. I’m a photographer.
One of the things that I’ve come to understand over the last year is how little dialogue there is between the different branches of the visual arts. We might differ in our crafts, but our arts are often so similar. We share the same fascinations with seeing and depicting. With exploring light, texture and colour. Yet we don’t talk to each other.
Worse than that, we hold opinions about the other arts that are often bizarre. There are plenty of photographers around who would dearly love to paint, because that is “real art”, and Karl tells me that there are painters who still feel threatened by photography. This is a divide that never made much sense; has gone on too long; and stops us learning from each other and using that learning to grow our own art.
I’d like to take two examples drawn from recent postings on this blog.
This portrait by Jon Conkey deals with exactly the same issues that I deal with in making a portrait - I don’t mean the technical stuff, but the artistic issues like how to blend depiction with abstraction, what colour palette to use, and where to place the framing. Thinking through the decisions that Jon made has been a valuable exercise for me.
As a second example, these figs could so easily be one of my photos. I don’t mean that they look like they are a photo, but that (I’m guessing) the motivation was the same, the style is very similar, and the thoughts about lighting and background must have worked in a way with which I am familiar.
So, to end this first post, I’m looking forward to the dialogue. If you dip into my blog, or my wider site, there will be lots of stuff that won’t interest you. But I hope that there will also be stuff that does.
Posted by Jon Conkey
I thought taking Karl up on posting a picture would be a good thing; I am firmly strapped down and ready. I thank you in advance for your honest and truthful opinion, please do not hold back.
Posted by Karl Zipser
Journalist and critic Nancy Geyer made this comment on The Thinking Eye:
. . . it seems to me that too many blogs, even the best of them, are falling into the trap of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” — they become mutually self-promotional, as if the bloggers don’t have to “earn” the right to be read. When I read a blog I’m looking for a thoughtful, informative, critical discourse without the distraction of all the networking that is going on.
Here is a professional giving free advice. Is Nancy Geyer on the mark?
[There are a lot of comments but I need to bring them here –Karl]
Posted by Rex Crockett
Karl kindly invited me to post on his blog, and within moments of receiving his invitation, I had an idea, and here I am with it. Except after writing what’s below, I went, “Well, this is more of an article than a post. I’m not really asking questions; I’m making statements. I don’t see how this really invites a return response.”
But after writing it, I couldn’t see how to turn it into something more interactive and less assertive without turning it into something it wasn’t and thus losing the whole flavor, and I don’t really want to mess with this post because it’s from the heart.
Karl had a comment regarding one of mine on The Fall of the Art World. He said, “But I do hope some more critical comments come in. We don’t want to get into some silly artist group-think here, do we?”
I agree with that; moreover, it got me thinking about that whole group-think thing.
I was reminded of a comment of Claude Monet’s regarding his development as an artist. He said that at a certain point his career, rather early actually, he found it counter productive to hang about in cafés talking endlessly over absinthe or coffee under clouds of pipe smoke with the various artists and hangers on in the Parisian art scene. He decided he needed to spend more time painting, and painting in his way at that — outside, in the fresh air, with nature as his teacher.
I’m neither an anthropologist nor a psychologist, but I do enjoy people and am endlessly fascinated by their social dynamics. As a perpetual student of said, it is fairly obvious that there is a certain liability to only talking about things, whatever the subject, with only a certain group. Groups evolve their own agreements, but those agreements may not accord with widely held perceptions. At times such cohesions may be inspired and elevating, at other times merely serve to make for inclusions and exclusions of memberships, and at other times can serve to render the group completely out of touch with reality.
You see that kind of thing in all the arts. In jazz, if you use any chords that have less than four notes, you’re “not doing jazz,” so you hear (in bad jazz) only a lot of weird chords. Musicians will make jokes about the “jazz police.” In certain art circles if you do any recognizable representations of anything, you’re being “literal.” “Kitsch” takes on a special meaning. Among certain groups of computer programmers, the hostility to ordinary computer users is palpable; e.g., non programers are called “lusers” — a variation on “nuser” for “new user.”
On and on. Group think. The deadliness of this is that it can knock you out of touch with your audience. The jazz policing ends up costing you any audience but some real creepy cats. Fear of literality and kitsch makes for paintings that are indecipherable without a book that explains them — an irony lucidly and humorously put in Tom Wolfe’s _The Painted Word_. Contempt for ordinary users makes for programs that no one can figure out how to use and documentation that is so technically nomenclatured as to be useless, and so, no work.
Now here is another irony. It so happens that I did that Monet thing. I actually traveled around the mountains of California for several years, living on the road, doing these brush and ink paintings specifically calculated to be do-able from a backpack. It was a rejuvenating and enlightening experience. It was very good for my work. I would not trade that time for anything I’ve ever done in life. It was not a lonely time. I still sold my work in lot of ways, on the street, craft fairs, various personal contacts, and so on. I met all kinds of interesting people. There is a whole nomadic culture in the Western US. The lifestyle worked. I made money. Not a lot, but I didn’t need much. Yet at a certain point, only about eight months ago, I started to yearn for the kind of patter I’d grown accustomed to at other times of my life when I had other artists
to talk with.
So on the one hand, while I see Monet’s take on things as a very wise move on the part of an intrepid explorer, I think I’ve gotten to some stage in my life where I feel a certain responsibility to other artists as well as students. I could not fulfill my social responsibility with the nomadic life. I know Monet had a hard time of it too, and he eventually settled down. To see the guest lists for his mature era parties is to see the who’s who of French culture and politics of the time. So he evidently reached the same conclusion. Certainly he managed to find a way to “keep his vision pure,” as he liked to say, and still be a social person.
With other artists, it’s possible to explore really new ideas before you take action on them. Other artists are likely to be more willing to experience edgy work. They can see through the rough edges to the inner jewel. A little (or a lot) of wackiness is tolerated or amusing. The strong passions that artists feel are well understood by others with such feelings. When I’m doing a show or speaking to an audience of collectors, buyers, or customers, I’m definitely putting on a show. I’m acting, and I’m acting more conservatively than I really am, but around other artists? Well, I remember this one group show I was in. I was looking at the other exhibitors all laughing and yucking it up, and I thought, “These are my kind of birds. They’re all crazy, and I love them.”
Arthur Whitman is an artist and critic writing for on-line and “real” newspapers. He was offered the opportunity to write professionally because of the high quality of the reviews he published on his blog, The Thinking Eye. I interviewed him recently via email. You can ask him questions here on Art & Perception.
Karl Zipser: What inspired you to start writing a blog?
Arthur Whitman: At least two things inspired me. First of all, my move in September 2005 from Boston to Ithaca. I felt isolated, both from the local artists community and from the larger artworld. To some extent I still do, but The Thinking Eye has helped me considerably on both fronts. The other thing was my interest in writing: for its own sake, as a way of understanding art better, and as a way of establishing a reputation as a writer.
Karl: How did the blog help establish your reputation as a writer?
Arthur: I’ve always been told that I write well, so I wanted to apply that skill somehow. Having studied studio art and art history in school, and being the kind of person who devours exhibits and art books, art writing seemed a natural choice. I lack the kind of “pedigree” that would easily get me a standard academic or journalistic job doing this. So one reason (although hardly the only one) that I started The Thinking Eye is show people what I could do. The Ithaca Times (the “alternative” weekly newspaper where I live”) agreed to let me do reviews for them without seeing a resume, so apparently my strategy works. I’ve only done two pieces for them so far, but hope to be writing for them more regularly in the coming months. Big Red and Shiny, a Boston online magazine has also printed one of my pieces. Another one will be coming in October.
Karl: Are you comfortable with being called an “art critic”?
Arthur: I’m increasingly comfortable being called an art critic, although I don’t consider all (or even most) of what I do on my blog criticism.
Karl: You art criticism writing can sometimes be harsh, no?
Arthur: While I do try to be as open-minded and thoughtful as possible (and I believe I’m pretty good at this), some of the art that I’ve written about just strikes me as wrongheaded on one or more levels. I feel my job as a critic is to be honest about this. People should be encouraged to make value judgments about artwork. Inevitably, other people’s judgments are going to be at least slightly different from my own.
Karl: Has your work as a critic changed you attitude about receiving criticism yourself?
Arthur: As for my own artwork, I’m confident that for all its flaws, what I do is complex and intelligent. So I think I would have a hard time taking a critic seriously if they dismissed it wholesale. Of course, that is probably the case for most artists.
Karl: You have studied many exhibitions. What in your opinion is the biggest mistake that an artist, gallery, or museum can make when installing a contemporary show?
Arthur: It depends on the interests and intentions of those involved: the artist, obviously, but also the curators and the audience. You could say that a failure to negotiate among these interests is the biggest mistake.
Karl: Are we living in a great moment in art history?
Arthur: My guess is that although we’re not in one of the greatest periods–such as the Renaissance or the early twentieth century–we’re hardly in the Dark Ages either. But I think we’ll have to wait a few generations to have really a clear idea about this. Today, everything from neo-classical and realistic painting to the most “far-out” conceptual art is being made and has its fans and partisans. I think the sheer diversity of work being made and discussed in the contemporary scene makes it difficult to get a consensus about the health of the artworld.
Karl: Do you see geographical location of art movements as an important factor in art today, as it was in the past?
Arthur: I think its considerably less important than in the past. With the existence and prevalence of the Internet, cheap high-quality reproductions, art magazines, plane travel, huge museums and so forth, we live in a much smaller world than we did even 50 years ago. That said, I do think that visual art generally has a local character. For example, there are lot of artists that you see commonly in European museums that are very difficult to find here in the United States. There are a lot of artists that you can see in New York City that are unlikely to show up here in Ithaca, which is only a six hour drive away (and vice versa). I think that in an era of globalized popular culture, that this local character is worth preserving.
Karl: Do you think the internet harms the development of local art culture?
Arthur: I don’t think of the Internet as having a devastating effect on local art, although I’m sure its possible. When I said that I valued local cultures, I didn’t mean that cities or towns or regions should isolate themselves from the rest of the world. On the contrary, I believe that artists and other serious art fans should travel as widely as possible to see art. The Internet is simply another way of spreading information and opinions about art from all over. I have difficulty seeing that as anything other than positive. Living in a small town, one of my own goals as a writer has been to challenge the provincialism and poverty of influence that I believe prevents many local artists from reaching their potential.
Local art cultures (and local cultures in general) are important because they provide an alternative to the world of mass media, mass culture, and mass production. These systems tend to level out the differences between different places. People around the world can (and do) watch the same movies and TV shows, wear the same clothes, even read the same books. With art, the object is usually either one of a kind or exists as a limited number of copies (as with printmaking, art photography and some kinds of sculpture). So, despite efforts to send these objects around the world, art tends to “stick” to specific areas.
Balancing the local quality of art with the “global village” of the Internet is a challenge, but I am optimistic that good things will come of it.
Karl: Thanks for your time, Arthur. Would you take questions from readers?
Arthur: Yes.
Drawing still-life from her imagination has given a new dynamism to Hanneke’s work. Look at the rhythm of the forms she creates here. This looks like it would be awfully complex to paint (and where is she going to find a skull?).