Peter Blake, The Letter "E", 2007
Silkscreen, embossing and glaze on somerset satin 300gsm
52 x 37.5 cm, signed and numbered, Edition of 60

Via Paul Stolper Gallery

Random Thoughts - Last Paris Trip

Day Two
Breakfast at Deux Magots
Lunch at le roi au café 1) boiled eggs with mayonaisse 2) Duck confit with potatoes lyonnaisse
The train Blue degustation

Paris - Day Three

Clay slept in till about 9AM, which for him is quite extraordinary. I even showered and dressed before him. We stopped at Café Flore for petit dejeuner. The chocolat was not as thick as at Deux Magots, but still very tasty. We got on the Ste Germain du Pres stop to go to
Lunch La carguille Freebie of clams 1) Makrel on the bone with cucumber tartar sauce oysters and large langostine 2) Dorade Gris with parsnip puree
Market – 1) Gamba a la plancha 2) cod with cilantro broth and black beans

Day four

Breakfast take out pain chocolat
Lunch cafeteria at galleries Lafayette
Dinner Atelier Maitre albert

Fun with video...

Tauba Auerbach, E, 2005, Ink on paper, 50 x 38 inches

Via Tauba Auerbach

Jackson Pollock - Guggenheim Application (1947)

Jackson Pollock, Mural, 1943
Oil on canvas, 8 feet 1.25 inches x 19 feet 10 inches
University of lowa Museum of Art

I was wondering if Pollock was name dropping in his application...

"I intend to paint large movable pictures which will function between the easel and mural. I have set a precedent in this genre in a large painting for Miss Peggy Guggenheim which was installed in her house and was later shown in the "Large-Scale Paintings" show at the Museum of Modern Art. It is at present on loan at Yale University.

I believe the easel picture to be a dying form, and the tendency of modern feeling is towards the wall picture or mural. I believe the time is not yet ripe for a full transition from easel to mural. The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state, and an attempt to point out the direction of the future, without arriving there completely."

Alas, that year Pollock did not receive the Guggenheim Fellowship.

January 23, 1992 - December 29, 2009

Liza...



She outlived them all. I didn't expect it, but Belmont died at such a young age and Pascale died in 2008. Liza was inscrutable. She never liked to have her back touched. She'd hiss at you if you went too far below her neck. She didn't seem to like the other cats at all. She was a loner and stayed clear of any and all affection. But, that was while the other cats were alive.

As soon as she was the last one left, she completely changed. She loved to be petted. Loved to have her back scratched. Loved to have her chin rubbed. She began liking ice in her water. She liked jumping into the tub after a shower to lick the tub. She would sleep on your chest. She would crawl into your lap to be petted. In the last month, she was allowed to go outside on the deck, which she loved. She became a different cat when she had us all to herself.

We are once again cat-free. For at least the last 20 years, we have not been without a cat. We had as many as four (plus three foster kittens for a weekend). It seems very lonely now. We have no plans to find a new pet, and may remain pet-free for quite a while. It feels strange.

Perpetual Inventory by Rosalind Krauss

Robert Rauschenberg, Renascence, 1962.
Oil and silkscreen on canvas, 36 by 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm).
"Random Order." Location 1, no. 1 (Spring 1963), p. 30.

What I culled from:

Perpetual Inventory by Rosalind Krauss
October 88, Spring 1999, pp. 87-116.

An interesting read regarding Robert Rauschenberg, the psychologizing of the artist's means, his work after the early Combines and the Random Order project and the introduction of photography into his oeuvre.

As for trying to eliminate the psychological from the work, his example of the "sad cup of coffee" resonated:

Speaking of the talk at the Cedar Bar of the Club, he complained, "They even assigned seriousness to certain colors," and then, turning to the way the New York artists had infected Beat poetry: "I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's Howl, about 'the sad cup of coffee.' I've had cold coffee and hot coffee, good coffee and lousy coffee, but I've never had a sad cup of coffee."

To refrain from describing something in such a Freudian way is compelling, but alas, he is misunderstood when his Black Paintings are read as somber and, for that matter, sad.

Random Order is seen by Krauss as a shift by Rauschenberg to a new relationship to the 'integrity of the picture plane':

Rauschenberg seems to have wanted the continuity of the mirrorlike photographic surface to stamp its character on his newly revised sense of his medium, thereby replacing the collage condition of his Combines with the seamlessness of the photographic print.

It is here that the illusionary picture plane of Renaissance painting and the "mirrorlike" photo-based image combine. A point is made by Krauss about the conflation of the indexical and the iconical in the work. Rauschenberg says, "A dirty or foggy window makes what is outside appear to be projected on to the window plane." It is interesting for me to think of his earlier works - the black monochromes that attempted unsuccessfully to be devoid of psychological effect to his white works that function as a screen upon which the trace of a referent leaves its temporary 'mark' - and to see how they relate to the photo-based work that followed.

Krauss speaks about Rauschenberg's "connections between shadow and photography, on the one hand, and index and silence on the other" and, through this, his relationship to Barthes and semiotic analysis. Rauschenberg's success at the 1964 Venice Biennale comes at the same time as the discussion of the concurrent work being done by Warhol. Both (or all three, if you count Barthes) are deeply interested in the use of the photomechanical method to produce work. Krauss says, "the media saturation of daily life had made the ubiquity of the photographic a subject of some urgency, whether for theory or for making art." Then much more is said about Rauschenberg and his relationship to language; that of the Surrealists, specifically, Breton and the work of Dante, which he illustrated. I found this section of Krauss's essay to be of least interest to me, but it definitely informs Krauss's post-medium thoughts and her thoughts about the use of language in art in her future work.

The relationship of Rauschenberg and Robert Frank is brought up - the use of the veil and/or screen in both of their photography is pointed out. Rauschenberg builds an archive from the images he takes and the images he "scours" from media sources. Some of these images are interspersed through Random Order. And then, the Atlas, begun in 1962, by Gerhard Richter is introduced to the essay. The Atlas was for me quite influential and to learn of Ritcher's first opportunity to see Rauscheberg's work in the 1959 exhibition Documenta II: Kunst nach 1945 was particularly interesting. The parallels of the careers of Richter and Rauscenberg, two of my earlier influences, is of note. It was in 1962 that Rauschenberg embarked on a similar series in his use of the photograph, its serialization, the use of the grid, etc. I had never specifically pondered these parallels but taking them into consideration will continue to inform my thoughts about the use of the archive in contemporary art.

Matt Lipps, Untitled (bar), 2008.
C-print on aluminum, edition of 5 + 2 AP, 48 x 35 inches.

I was thinking of Matt Lipps's work at some point while reading this essay. Something Krauss said was, "Rauschenberg's handling of photography would give us the sense of our connection to a place that is only possible through the intensity of our experience of separation from it, the sense that to see it directly is so painful that the image must somehow be mediated by the presence of a veil". In his newer work, Home Series, the artist uses images from his mother's home. They are photographed, printed, cut out, collaged and re-photographed. There are screens of color, as well as shadows (created by the collaged images of Ansel Adams's landscapes inserted into the space of the 'rooms'). The physical location of both the artist's mother's home and the landscape are conflated, but the artist is clearly operating within the psychological space of the home. Does the freedom of the 'natural' landscape offer release from the confines of the home? Does it function as a veil of that which happens in the home? I am going to finish with these questions, but it is something that I will continue to think about as I include Matt's work in the A3x10 project.

More to come in 2010.

Supper

You are invited to participate in an ongoing series of suppers conducted by Clay Russell and Calvin Phelps.

The suppers take place on the last Sunday of each month.

Guest include a mix of artists, architects, curators, gallerists, philosophers, writers, musicians and other cultural producers.

The suppers are limited to a small, diverse group of up to 14 people per supper.

From Wikipedia:

Supper is the name for the evening meal in some dialects of English - ordinarily the last meal of the day, usually the meal that comes after dinner. Supper is always an evening meal, but must be noted that supper is not a common meal in many cultures. In Britain, "supper" is used to describe a less formal, simpler family meal (perhaps at 7:00 or 7:30 p.m.). Alternatively "supper" was used to describe a late night snack. In some areas in the United Kingdom, supper is a term for a snack eaten after the evening meal and before bed. In Australian English, supper may refer to a late light dessert or snack had some time after dinner. In New Zealand it is similar – generally cake and tea/coffee served later in the evening, particularly when people have visitors. In most of the United States and Canada, "supper" and "dinner" are considered synonyms, both served between six and eight o'clock. Supper is usually considered lighter fare and a more casual setting, and may be served before a usual dinner time so that evening activities may be unaffected. In the Republic of Ireland, a chicken supper is a meal of chips, gravy, onions, peas and chicken breast. In Portugal, Spain, Latin America, Asia and the Arab World, supper may be taken as late as 10 or 11 p.m.