I was reading today about the 2008 fellowships awarded by United States Artists.

What caught my eye was the word, fellowship.

Companionship, society, association, club, fraternity, guild, league...however you say it, it means connecting.

Fellowship is connecting from hand to hand, from thought to thought, from eye to eye.  It is a coming together of people in a common interest or endeavor. 

I like thinking about this hand-to-hand touching.  It is such a powerful symbol of the world uniting.  Why don't we have a hands-across-the-world day?  You know, like on April 16th at 7am EST every one walks outside and grabs a hand until the chain of holding hands circles the globe?  Surely someone has tried to organize this...it's a geographical challenge.

If you could only have one sense what would it be? That's not altogether a pleasant thing to consider.  How could I voluntarily give up any of them?  I'll give you one day of sight for 2 days of hearing?  No, not a pleasant thought. 

Take for instance, the sense of touch.  What is more exquisite than the softness of cashmere or the coolness of marble?  (I was in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, a few weeks ago looking at the Byzantine mosaics, and I walked barefoot across the marble floors...unforgettable.)

Could you give up the sense of touch if you got to keep the sense of taste?  (You know, the funny thing is that art is traditionally such a touchy thing, and yet, Rule #1 in a museum is Do Not Touch...)

But back to fellowships (and how did I get off on that touching tangent anyway!), one thing at ArtSlant is that we are into fellowship, paid or otherwise.  WE want to connect art and artists and art lovers and art goers because we love art.  In fact, the ArtSlant Team has just opened two new art cities - London and Berlin - just so we could connect with more art! 

And we want our art fellowship to include all types of artists - from the ones who get the accolades to those who walk into the studio everyday and simply punch the clock!

Hi Art World!  We are in league with you...

- georgia

Here's some images from this year's USA fellowship artists (taken from www.unitedstatesartists.org):

(Images top-bottom:  Tehching Hsieh, Punching the Time Clock on the Hour, One Year Performance 1980-1981; photo courtesy Michael Shen; Andrea Bowers, Quilts of Radical Hospitality/Edredón de hospitalidad radical, 2008, 2 fabric quilts (each 866.14 x 228.60 cm); photo courtesy Joshua White; Rodney McMillian, International Artist-in-Residence New Works 08.1, ArtPace, San Antonio, TX; photo courtesy of ArtPace San Antonio and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; photo credit Todd Johnson; Terry Adkins, Black Beethoven, 2004-2007, mixed media Recital In honor of Quinton Brown, Jr.; photo courtesy Terry Adkins and Pageant Soloveev, Philadelphia; Martha Rosler, The Gray Drape, 2008, photomontage; photo courtesy Martha Rosler)

 

October is fair season in London.  Art till you drop!  Here are a few offerings:

Frieze Art Fair Oct 16-19; opens: 11am

Zoo Art Fair Oct 17-20; opens 12pm

Scope London Oct 17-19; opens: 11am

Red Dot Oct 16-19; opens 11am

Affordable Art Fair Oct 23-26; opens 11am

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Here's some luscious previews from Frieze Art Fair-

Artist:  Jarbas Lopes

Artist:  Gillian Wearing

Artist: Piotr Uklanski

Artist: Satoshi Ohno

- georgia

For the art enthusiast, it is hard to deny the excitement of the fall openings. 

Whether it's New York or Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris or you-name-it, there is a brightness in the art world that surrounds the first few weeks of September.

It is a strange phenonmena: running from gallery to gallery, barely glimpsing the work (but taking it in anyway), stopping for a how-are-you or  a couple of let's-have-drinks.  It is really the utmost in frivolity and butterfly-flits...I go back year after year, never tiring of the ride.

And, incredibly enough, this phenomena seems to play out in city after city, no matter how far away.  In Paris last weekend with writer and art historian, Frances Guerin, we strolled the streets of Turenne and Sainte Claude moving from one crowd to the next, following the noise, taking pics, and dodging the occasional rain drop. Mostly people stand outside in the street in front of the galleries, so it is a social gauntlet to get in to see the artist and their work. We were even refused a glass of juice sans alcool (absolutement pas!) at one mini-party (a shame because the glasses were quite nice).  We gawked at the people, and snipped at the work and just had a ball.  The night ended in the rue de Rosiers where Chez Marianne was impossibly packed. 

The openings are not really about the art, are they?... although certainly the art is at the center of  these extravaganzas.  But who can see it for all the people, much less spend reflective time with all the distractions.  No - it is the plain and simple celebration that we come for - the celebration of creativity.  Whether it be intellectual or whimsical, political or horrifying, awesome or restful...we create.  And this is what draws us like the moth to the flame.

A few highlights from last week's openings:

• Galerie Eva Hober: German artist, Maike Freess, shows new drawings
• Dominique Fiat Galerie - Philippe Gronon photographs (see our Gallery Hop review)
• Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin - Sophie Calle & Jesper Just
• Galeri Karsten Greve - Yiorgos Kordakis photographs (see Gallery Hop review)

(Images: Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin front steps; Frances Guerin arriving at openings; @ArtSlant)

- georgia

 

A friend and artist in Paris, Monte Laster, suggested we attend the opening of the FRAC collection (one of the largest collections of primarily French contemporary art) at the MAC/VAL Museum on the outskirts of Paris.  What luck!

Just a few days before that I had read a short blurb on this (fairly new) contemporary spot and made a mental note to go.  That's serendipity.

Further to this serendipitous (wait! I have to go look that up - yep it's a word) moment, my good friend in Rio emailed about the MAC//VAL, saying I should definitely get out to see it. 

Serendipity on top of serendipity.

According to Dictionary.com, "serendipity" means an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.  WOW!  This is something to be pondered - how does one gain this aptitude?

I had always considered serendipity, or the experience of coincidences, as a part of life beyond my control and simply a matter of LUCK.  Everyone had moments of serendipity - few and far between - and it was a glorious and fun thing when it happend. 

Now I find out that it is an aptitude, which implies improvement with practice, and I am rethinking my mistaken view of enchantment.  In fact, starting today, I am going to practice my serendipity aptitude.  As I go to the grocery store or take the metro to a rendez-vous, I am going to make a conscious effort to find such occurrences...discover them like land mines waiting to be tripped over...  I am adopting a new relationship to serendipity.  Perhaps, if you build it, the coincidences will come and all of that...

Back to the MAC/VAL:  Monte and  I met  up at the end of the Line 7 metro at Port d'Italie.  Then we took the Tram and a bus from there...MAC/VAl is not exactly in the center of town. 

The MAC/VAL is sleek, contempy and very large.  It hosts a huge permanent collection, temporary exhibitions, residencies, book store, restaurant, educational events, cinema...an outdoor expanse with sculpture and fountains..  It was built by Jacques Ripault and opened in November 2005.

I looked it up and found this article by SHIFT : 

In Japan you may imagine a quiet residential area when you hear the word "suburb." But in France, the suburban areas are where low-income groups and immigrants move to avoid high rent in the urban districts. And lately, it has been hard to keep the peace in the suburbs outside of Paris.

The museum, which was built by Jacques Ripault, opened in November 2005 in the suburban city of Vitry. After 20 years of deliberation, the prefectural assembly chose Vitry because the location is symbolic of its cultural policy to promote contemporary arts (see more)...

.The FRAC exhibit is presenting almost all of the collection - to be set up in stages.  The large warehouse-like room in which the work is being shown has racks at the back end filled with crates and boxes of work that is "to be shown" later.  It is a progressive exhibit, sort of like those progressive meals where you go from one house to the next for each course.  "High concept" one person said to me.  Naturally, I wanted to pull out my exacto knife and go tackle the boxes of yet-to-be's. 

Overall, the opening was like any other - milling, chatting, sipping, wondering who that man in the green shirt was...  There was a nice array of drinks, and I especially enjoyed the Badoit extra fizzy water in the brilliant red bottle.  There were little cups in which one could take a handful of peanuts or pretzels.  Very accomodating.  One could smoke outside in the sculpture garden, and you had to show your ticket to get back in to the opening.  We got chased out of the exhibition salon for taking our drinks inside, the usual, and I couldn't tell which pieces I could touch and got in trouble for that too.  The wonderful part of not speaking the language is that I can feign ignorance for everything....

While there I noted down my own  set of rules for art openings that go like this:  Don't touch; don't spill; don't expect to feel comfortable; don't stay long; don't stop moving (it won't be abvious that you don't know anyone); don't walk too quickly as you might crash into some art; and, if you really want to see the work, it's better to go early in the day when no one else is around. 

Looking at art takes some focus and some aptitude.

Just like serendipities.

- Georgia

(All images courtesy of ArtSlant)

 

on the go  with Thomas Regan

Thomas Regan lives between Maryland, USA and Paris, France.  He is an avid traveler and photographer.  His photo essays include many fascinating and beautiful images from great art spots of the world.  Tom is truly a man on the go...

(Image above: Tom Regan (middle) with friends, George & Dean, relaxing in West Hollywood, CA)

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, LUXEMBOURG

The following images were taken by Regan on a trip to the Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg (MUDAM). 

Fondation Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
10, avenue Guillaume
L-1650 Luxembourg
Tel:     +352 45 37 85-33    
Fax: +352 45 37 85-30
www.mudam.lu

Luxembourg's new Museum of Modern Art has opened its doors to the public for the first time on July 1, 2006

The "Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean" -to quote its full name- has been designed by the famous sino-american architect I.M.Pei.

Built at a cost of 90 million euros and offering 6000 sq. metres of exhibition space, the new museum is without doubt one of the country's most ambitious architectural and cultural projects to date. The museum will progressively unveil its collection of more then 230 works by more than 100 artists of international renown, while presenting themed exhibitions open to all domains of contemporary creation: photography, painting, multimedia, fashion, design and graphic arts.

(All images courtesy of Thomas Regan.)

Have you ever found yourself caught between two choices?

The photo sort of says it all - don't you think? 

Things can get twisted in those moments.  Should I or shouldn't I? Go or stay?  This one or that one? 

Indecision can be so painful, especially when it goes on for a long time.  I have definitely had my troubles with indecision.   

In exploring my inability to make decisions, I found out that it was my basic outlook that was getting in the way.  I simply put too much stock in the result of the decision.  Rather than focusing on the act of deciding, I hemmed and hawed over the potential results.  This naturally involved quite a bit of mind reading and fortune telling. 

Finally, after years of being hopelessly indecisive, I found out that you Just Decide.  Poof.

Before I came to this new-found ability, I had often thought there should be decision-making classes like 3-hour workshops, or maybe a weekend retreat, in which you practice being a decider. 

It could start each morning with a series of rapid decisions - put the pressure on to force the novice into the waters:  Banana or orange? Coffee or Tea?  Shirt or sweater? High heels or flats?  Then it could move into a mid-morning workshop - say Favorites:  Favorite color, movie, song, book.  Fast-paced, blurt it out kind of decision making...then maybe move into more important areas like large-goods purchasing or pet adoption...

Hey this is beginning to sound like LIFE. 

In fact, as I write this I am coming to the realization that life is one, long, decision-making workshop.  And now that I consider this further, I am beginning to get a little freaked out by the sheer volume of decisions one has to make every single day simply to get by...No wonder I felt inadequate.

WHAT ABOUT ARTSLANT?

So where was I and how does this relate to ArtSlant?  Oh Yes - the photo.  That's where this all started. 

I found these pictures in my file of photos from Art Basel 2007.  I didn't go this year and was feeling a little left out.    While looking through them I thought of how many interesting photos people must take as they are travelling on art-related matters.  People really can take some nice photos. 

I decided (in one of those rapid-paced moments of decision-making supremacy) that I wanted to have a summer showcase on ArtSlant of art adventure photos.

IT WILL BE CALLED ART ABROAD

I am starting it off with the above photos from Art Basel - they really aren't much, but I like them.  And, more than that, I like the concept of "abroad" because it is a non-distance - it could be right next door to someone who lives in Iceland.  One's starting point is the determinant.

So, that's the decision du jour.  We are looking for submissions for Art Abroad - send your choicest pics from your art travels.   And that means deciding which one to send...now that can get complicated.

- georgia

Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82, Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, May 08

Memories of Rauschenberg: 'A giant among artists, Diane Hathman, Los Angeles Times May 08

Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg dies in Fla. at 82, Mitch Stacy, SF Gate, May 08

Hetero-normalizing Robert Rauschenberg, Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes, May 08

...But Will His Market Hold Up?, Daniel Grant, The Wall Street Journal May 2008

Robert Rauschenberg: Obituary, Ed Schad, I call it ORANGES

Robert Rauschenberg Has Died, Will, on NY Turf, May 08

Robert Rauschenberg: Man at Work, Ovation TV, You Tube

Robert Rauschenberg - Erased De Kooning, You Tube

(Images: Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive I, 1964, oil and silkscreen ink on canvas, 84x60 in, Wadsworth Athenuem, Hartford, Connecticut; Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953, traces of ink and crayon on paper, 25.25x21.75x0.5 in, Retroactive I, 1964, oil and silkscreen ink on canvas, 84x60 in; SF MOMA @ Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, NY)

San Francisco was called the Queen City of the West, and the Palace Hotel near Union Square was called the Palace of the West. 

I sat in the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel.  When it opened in 1875, it was the carriage entrance and thousands flocked to see it.  And the crowd came to see the hydraulic elevators which were called "rising rooms."  This hotel has history.

I was entranced by the glass ceiling and the sheer elegance of that giant palm-filled room, sharing thoughts and musings on the San Francisco art scene with a number of people.  The evening before several family members and I had been in the Pied Piper Bar talking about the history of this hotel, studying Maxfield Parrish's mural, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, hanging prominently behind the bar.  It all seemed wildly romantic, without the Sturm and Earthquake...

Maxfield Parrish (1877-1966).  He was big in the late 60's when the rock culture took up the illustrative genre for the posters announcing the Filmore or Avalon. 

And of course when he was alive he was a household must - everyone had their Parrish print hanging somewhere in their home. They (whoever that is) named a color "Parrish blue," a luminous neon kind of blue.  Above all Parris was a colorist achieving his luminous surfaces by means of glazing - layerings of oil and varnish. 

In Art in America (March 1996), Ken Johnson said of him "Kitsch meets the sublime - illustrator Maxfield Parrish."

 

One of the quotes from Parrish is:

  "I'm done with girls on rocks!..."  

After painting them for thirteen years, he quit.  I wonder if there was a detox involved.  Imagine how many girls, how many rocks.

The Golden Age of Illustration, of which Parrish was a prominent force, continues today.  Look at deviantART.  Sure, we've gone from the bright side of the moon to the dark side of the moon.  The girls are more than likely emaciated and world-weary rather than aglow with virginal purity.  But it's 100 years later and a long walk through the woods.

And what's this got to do with ArtSlant? 

Nothing really.  It was just that the Joshua Petker interview was published in the San Francisco slant yesterday and he mentions Parrish in his interview.  I was reflecting on how post-romanticism seems to vie with post-modernism in capturing our attentions, and wanting to think about that a little more.  I don't really even like Maxfield but that's not to say thinking about him hasn't been satisfying. 

Then I was reminded of that weekend at the Palace Hotel last November sitting in the Garden Court when the weather was crystal, the bridge was gleaming, and I was running around the Queen of the West interviewing writers for ArtSlant...and it seemed, well, wildly romantic.

As I was writing this I read the legend of the pied piper (Robert Browning's take) which is about a man with a magical pipe who, after saving the town of Hamelin, Germany from rats, was betrayed by the townsmen and not paid for his services.  In revenge the pied piper lured all but two of the village's children with his magical pipe into a cave never to be seen again...now that's Sturm and Dragnet.  Guess Parris had his dark moons as well.

-georgia

Statistics can get under your skin.  If you had asked me a while ago "Do you like statistics?" I would have responded with an emphatic "No."  How wrong I would have been.

ArtSlant.com is a stat-machine.  We are continuously gathering, cataloguing, cross-referencing and cross-polinating statistical information on the art world.  In fact, we are in the midst of making this architecture much more accessible on the ArtSlant site - take note of our newly designed Profile, Venue and Exhibition pages.  These now pull in all kinds of stat-tidbits.  It's a who-did-what-with-whom without the gossip.

So to celebrate our first-year anniversary (which just zipped by almost without our having noticed it) we've developed a few interesting little charts to share with the community.  It's a kind of stat-extravaganza.

We hope you enjoy this bird's eye view, and remember we're always Counting on Art...

- georgia

 

These stats cover the following timeframe:

Los Angeles:  February 8, 2007 - December 31, 2007

New York:  April 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007

Venues by Type	Los Angeles	New York
Gallery	277	388
Museum	36	17
Alternative	85	69
TOTAL	582	474

Exhibitions by Venue Type	Los Angeles	New York
Gallery	2174	2204
Museum	313	132
Alternative	124	317
TOTAL	2611	2653

Events Types Other Than Exhibitions	Los Angeles	New York
Artist Talk	56	39
Closing	30	6
Lecture	94	67
Opening	1841	1513
Performance	193	58
Reading	9	11
Screening	104	47
Tour	29	26
Workshop	21	10
Other Event	124	50
TOTAL	2501	1827

Profiles by Type	Number
Artist	8397
Curator	900
Arts Professional	57
Writer	47
Arts Org	189
Art Lover	10
TOTAL	9600

 

 

 

 

It poured Thursday for the gala opening of ART LA, the New Los Angeles International Contemporary Art Fair at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica (that’s a mouth full…).  Truly a downpour.  So it was puddle jumping in high heels and running for cover from the torrent that marked the start of the fair.

 

ART LA has been slow to peak; in fact, the Los Angeles art community has been pushing it up the mountain for a while.  And yet – by all accounts – this year is a breakthrough.  Light can be seen and kudos should go to Director, Tim Fleming, this year’s advisory committee, the Hammer, and lots of others as well as…

 

Last evening, Friday night, was the Chinatown float.  Parties and openings and performances and red paper lanterns holding sway.  A night of art buzz and art looking.  Despite the broil of the campaigners, and the roil of the market, the art crowd was out in the crisp night – seeing and seen.

 

- georgia

---

At The Happy Lion, the dark fantasies of Christof Mascher caught a lot of attention.  Coming from Hannover, Germany, this is Mascher's first show in the US.  From his exquisite small drawings to the large fantastical night scapes of mountains and mayhem, Mascher brings a Wagnerian touch to the Chinatown scene (with Tristan und Isolde and The Ring coming to LA's opera, Wagner seems to be setting the tone for at least part of our cultural experience.)

 

A few doors down at Peres Projects, Amie Dicke's installation, "Infinitely suffering thing," had a big crowd.  Where Mascher's work suggests, Dicke's forces.  I found myself wanting to turn away from the pig's legs and bagged woman but the impulse was overidden by the force of Dicke's imagery.  Tthe empty chair with the trailing sugar cubes and the just-stepped-out-of black heels was with me this morning - haunting. 

I moved with the crowd down the alley to Chung King Project.  François Ghebaly's new space is corner-perfect,  and the Dan Bayles work that has been on view since December 1 has been well recevied.

Across the way at Mary Goldman Gallery, I ran into Amir Fallah, whose camo-fort of Love and Prickly Tenderness, radiates against the back wall of the gallery.  Welcome to the love healing center  - we can all use a little of that.

And speaking of love, I experienced a strange mechanical kind of love (or at least a groping towards connection) with Meridith Pingree's sculptures at Fringe Exhibitions.  Comprised of many motion sensors, these objects clumsily but delicately shift and reform in reaction to motion around them.  A subtle kind of "you move me..."

 

From there, I wandered to Fifth Floor (a new gallery-boutique next to Fringe that was swamped on its first night ever...good luck to Robert!)  Then I stopped in at Bonelli Contemporary, which has taken up new digs on Hill, took the tour of the Urquhart show at Jack Hanley, and gazed in at Mountain Bar.  Last stop was David Salow Gallery, where I got this lovely pic of David's gallery glowing in the Chinatown float.

(Photos from top to bottom: The Happy Lion gallery through the windows; François Ghebaly in his office at Chung King Project; Amir Fallah at Mary GoldmanGallery; Meridith Pingree at Fringe Exhibitions; David Salow Gallery.)