What was Larry Rivers thinking, filming his adolescent daughters naked or topless describing their developing breasts? The films, shot over the course of several years (every six months for over five years), are part of an archive purchased by NYU. The daughters, who say the films were shot against their wills, want the films; NYU says no.
It was 102 yesterday in Washington, it felt way hotter thanks to D.C.'s legendary humidity. Certainly, not the best time to visit. White hot, shimmering haze cloaked the city, so it was a relief to enter the Hirshhorn and immerse oneself in the refreshing velvet expanses of IKB (International Klein Blue) that recall the sea and sky of Yves Klein’s native Cote d’Azur. Though he was no slouch in the hype and self-promotion department, his work’s got the goods; it continues to hold up and is as fresh and beguiling as it ever was.
I finally watched an episode of Bravo TV’s “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.” Okay, okay, I was “chained” to the elliptical machine and there was nothing else on, but to my surprise, I actually found it quite entertaining. Not so sure about the art part, but the drama and intrigue and pretentiousness are delicious.
It’s certainly got a peculiar premise. All artists, no matter their medium, are given the same assignment: make something with junked appliances, create book jacket art, etc. It seems a silly not to mention simplistic way to judge an artist’s particular talent. (I was amazed the artist who drew the lot for Pride and Prejudice had never even read it. Shame on her. ) Update: whilst on the Bravo TV blog looking for an image, I read that another artist misspelled Jane Austen's last name in her piece! How can they be so culturally illiterate and sloppy?
With the exception of Jerry Saltz who is the art critic of New York Magazine, the judges, for the most part, seem like parodies of art world aficionados. (Woody Allen should keep them in mind if he ever does a movie with an art gallery scene in it. They’d be brilliant.) The socialite art consultant Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn is so icy cool you wonder if she’s got a pulse. Her monotone voice grates and what’s with her hair? Clearly the big money goes to vapid host China Chow’s extravagant wardrobe (Sarah Jessica Parker is a producer). She looks out of place and frankly pretty blah in her endless parade of Dallas-style cocktail dresses with hair to match. She’d be better served with a more subdued, chicer wardrobe by say, Jil Sander who happens to know a thing or two about Contemporary Art.
I like the idea of 3rd Ward, a kickass artist collective in Brooklyn. It’s D.I.Y. and collaboration at it’s best. I like the fact that it’s not just artists who can join; anybody can become a member and take classes, or for higher fees get space for a studio or office. How cool is that? Having worked within an artist’s collective, I can attest to what a creative atmosphere it can be and can only imagine the stimulating environment that is 3rd Ward. There’s a 3rd Ward magazine—it used to be the course catalog, but morphed into something much bigger with features and interviews. 3rd Ward even has a restaurant, in a trailer parked near one of its two locations: take-out only, but they have chairs and tables outside. And maybe the best thing about 3rd Ward? It's in the black, even turning a profit.
http://www.3rdward.com/
As if people weren’t getting narcissistic enough with all the social networking sites and-ahem-blogs out there, now Apple (proving how well it has its finger on society’s pulse) has introduced a new iPhone with a second camera lens that faces the viewer (instead of the view), so you can easily take photographs of yourself. No more struggling with capturing a good self portrait. But what’s most surprising about the phenomenon is the pictures are actually quite interesting. So kudos to all those self-absorbed iPhone photographers out there. Good job!
On a parallel front, en route to the river on July 4th for a much needed float, a friend whipped out her iPhone to show off her new Fatbooth app., a hit in Europe it takes your picture and than adds poundage making the relatively trim look morbidly obese. (Probably in Europe they say it makes them look like Americans.) I’m going to get a copy of mine and paste it on my fridge.
Edward Burtynsky: Oil, Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, DC,October 3 – December 13, 2009, Traveling through 2012.
Since his “oil epiphany” over a decade ago experienced while driving a car powered by gasoline and partially constructed with petroleum products on a tarmac road, photographer Edward Burtynsky has been traveling the globe steadily chronicling the soup to nuts of what he calls the “key building block of the last century.” From extraction and refining, to the car culture—and the freeways and mind-numbing suburban landscape it has promoted—to oil’s denouement in the form of tanker salvage, abandoned oil fields and vast dumps filled with automotive detritus, Burtynsky explores it all in his large-format color photographs that are haunting meditations on the real cost of oil.
Artillery 4.3 (2010):52
Kati Heck’s work, monumental, heroic, enigmatic, funny and always beautifully painted, draws on a Prado-load of old masters. Heck lives in Antwerp, home to Rubens where there must be something in the water. Her gorgeous flesh tones and abundant skin are Rubens 2.0. But just so we don’t get too comfortable with this connection she plays with anatomy in unorthodox ways, adding a cartoon foot here, a Pebbles Flintstone bone there and placing the occasional buttocks jutting out frontally beneath a figure’s trunk.
Heck knows her stuff and we also see Caravaggio, de la Tour, Brueghel, Guston and Salle digested and regurgitated á la Heck. There’s even a Roger van der Weiden background transformed into her take on Northern Renaissance scenery. On this rollercoaster ride through Jansen, Heck’s work flows from realism to cartoon, from audacity to restraint and back again.
In her spare, uncrowded canvases, negative space is not only a background but a player. The lack of visual clutter imparts gravitas to the figures and elevates the work to a heroic level. Heck has it all. She paints like an old master but she uses an inspired contemporary language. Her work is entirely her own and entirely fresh.
