Two places at the same time and nowhere at all

1:59 AM 2/27/2008

Two places at the same time and nowhere at all–

If Gerhardt Ricter can work in two completely separate aesthetic schemes at the same time, non-objective abstraction and fuzzy foto realism, then I can work on neo-geo and automatism-chance based non-objective paintings at the same time; or nearly the same time. I don’t have a studio large enuff to accommodate working on two separate ideas at the same time. This means that this scenario unfolds in a very linear way. These two separate making energies follow one another. The results can exist side by side but not the manufacture. If I were to create paintings in two divers aesthetics at the same time it would be too confusing I think. Of course this is just a guess on my part. I believe that I would find this kind of multi-tasking difficult to…. I am searching for a word to describe my overview of this multi-tasking event. I find it difficult to construct paintings with a single focus in play. However, I can imagine one painting being ae-automatism-chance oriented and the next being neo geo. In many of my mainstream paintings over the years I have incorporated neo-geo elements as detail or major element. The neo geo paintings of 2004-2006 grew from a position where the geometry started out as detail, then expanded to become the majority structure with ae-automatism-chance areas being reduced to detail. Ultimately in 2005 neo geo became the structure of 100% focus of the painting.

Just had a flash. If I get a NC painting grant to work on a collection of ae-automatism-chance paintings, and Ron C wants me to workup a collection of neo geo for a show in Philadelphia in September of 2009, it could prove to be an interesting year. I would be forced to paint both of these streams at the same time. Ouch, forced is a word/concept that really doesn’t apply here. I do have a choice! Can you say schizophrenia?

 

 

arguments + - reference artistic multi-tasking = reality

 

I found the following statement on the internet and forgot to write down the reference and location. So sorry — if anybody cares to do it, please correct or add the reference. Thanks. dpn.

“…baffled by the fact that he seems to vacillate between realism and abstraction, or even between various styles of abstraction, often at the same time. These vacillations seemed to me so extreme when I saw a retrospective of Richter’s work in Chicago in 1987, that it looked like I was seeing some kind of group show. “How can you say any style is better than another?” Warhol asked with his characteristic faux innocence in a 1963 interview. “You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling that you have given up something.” For most artists in America, it is important that they be stylistically identifiable, as if their style is their brand. To change styles too often inevitably would have been read as a lack of conviction. But what the show at MoMA somehow makes clear is that there finally is a single personal signature in Richter’s work, whatever his subject, and whether the work is abstract or representational. It comes, it seems to me, from the protective cool to which I referred-a certain internal distance between the artist and his work, as well as between the work and the world, when the work itself is about reality. It is not irony. It is not exactly detachment. It expresses the spirit of an artist who has found a kind of above-the-battle tranquility that comes when one has decided that one can paint anything one wants to in any way one likes without feeling that something is given up.” Arthur Danto writing on Gerhard Richter’s show at MOMA [Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting] 2002. [Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting February 14–May 21, 2002 Second and third floors. Purchase the exhibition catalogue ..”

 

http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2002/02/18/29661.html

“Ranging from photography-based pictures to gestural abstraction, Richter’s diverse body of work calls into question many widely held attitudes about the inherent importance of stylistic consistency, the organic evolution of individual artistic sensibility, the spontaneous nature of creativity, and the relationship of technological means and mass media imagery to traditional studio methods and formats. However, while many contemporary post-modernists have explored these issues by circumventing or dismissing painting as a viable artistic option, Richter has challenged painting to meet the demands posed by new forms of conceptual art.”

 

 

My gestural related painting is of two minds; intellectual and emotional. Intellectual in the sense that the structures sometimes are intellectually invented as parody or appropriations of my past work and the work of other gestural oriented ae painters. Emotional in the sense that these structures are invented as purist-automatism-chance structures referencing only themselves at the moment they are made.

My work; me; them; ---Seen together, these works call into question such widely held assumptions as the importance of stylistic consistency, individual artistic sensibility, and spontaneous creativity. They also explore the impact of technology and media imagery on the traditional methods and formats of painting.

 

 

http://www.cultureflux.com/April03/richter.html

"You see, Richter doesn't fit the formula for success that many art curators and influential critics and other art powers-that-be have carefully crafted in the rarefied atmospheres of the upper echelon of the art world. In fact, Richter breaks every "rule" that is imposed on 18-year-old art students and then hammered home in reviews and lectures by many contemporary art critics and curators. Rules like "you better have your own recognizable style" or "only new is good" and the oddest rule of all: "painting is dead!"

 

Just had a flash: At my MA review (University of Iowa/Iowa City; Feb 1966), the faculty committee scolded me for being too divers. They felt that my work needed to be more focused. Yikes! I had forgotten this bit of criticism of my work early on. Even then, i couldn't be pigeon holed into painting in a singular self identifying style. GREAT! OH! they also wanted me to draw and paint the human figure. They thought that this would add a sense of personalization to the work. Can you say schizophrenic? What? I just remember this event. For some reason I have completely blocked this memory from my histrionics.

 

9:03 AM 2/27/2008

This morning looking at googled "minimalism+sculpture". The usual suspects show up first -- Jud, Andre, and that ilk -- the blocks, cubes, plates, and all things geometry in wood and metal. Then an entry came up for Frank Stella. What about looking at a 1967 minimalist Stella next to a 2006 wire-like floor or wall sculpture. Talk about diversity and possible audience confusion! Stella through his fame diverts any idea for audience confusion. There is over the top advertising out there discussing Stella's every move. This is the stuff of celebrity. Some may also say the curse. Look at the current crop of celebrity melt-downs. Sorry to digress here. Me. I plod along in total obscurity. This is also a blessing and a curse. Can't win they say? In the end, what is your definition of "win"? I don't have one!

 

http://thinkingaboutart.blogs.com/art/2007/06/a_quote.html

“Warhol's "Factory" a whore House? no seriously Warhol's BEST work is the paintings he made in the first 3-5 years .The ones he painted by hand ,all those tarted up photos are just That! A little messy paint to give some color but then again if you don't have an eye you probably think the painting that just went for 70 million or so is a masterpiece... like to hear what Old Masters we a talking about ? and if you ever wondered why you couldn't quite understand why Rubens was such a great painter because you have seen some real dogs so many times ?did you know he had 5 price levels The highest price for the ones he painted and everything else is everything else As far as Sol Dem Witt Take a look at Ron Davis from the mid 60s or for that matter Frank Stella But its mostly about I don't want my art to look like a object or product AND don't you think its time for a change?AND I just wanted to cause a little trouble with the art retards And have some FUN...Peter”

Posted by: peter Reginato | Sunday, July 01, 2007 at 12:49 PM

 

“Well, I don't want to say Andy wasn't a "sellout" because I think he'd prefer that he was remembered that way. But I do think the Factory years were definitely some of his best. I think the "Factory" itself was a performance piece. "Power" is a desirable level to be at in one's professional career. "Power Transfer" is an even higher state. Look at the "stars" we have because of Warhol (Lou Reed, Nico, Taylor Mead, Basquiat, etc)The Large Mao paintings, the Disaster series, the movies. Also the critique of "tortured, solitary, impoverished, original" authorship. That is his legacy. The paradox of his embrace of the world as it is and his anemic, pallid persona.”

Posted by: chris lee | Sunday, July 01, 2007 at 08:21 PM

 

 

9:31 AM 2/27/2008

Enuff already. What is my point here? My point = authenticity. And this idea wraps around late 20th and early 21st century definitions attached to: Artist, Hand-Made, Factory, Art, Advertising, Money. This list has no end really. As a person who calls himself an artist, I define my self as a maker. I hand make all my stuff. I have no assistants. I prep and make everything; myself and by hand.

I question the authenticity of attributed works by these people who are called by experts and themselves, artists. This list grows every day. Here are a few suspects. In my mind these people are not artists but better defined as business men CEO's in charge of an industrial complex or manufacturing enterprise where the product/s look like art. Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Dale Chihuly (others I am sure) -- this first set of names are people who (most of the time) advertising of their work and shows hides the fact they didn't participate in making the final product; they just signed it (maybe -- Warhol assigned this task to assistants at times). A second tier of people -- Elizabeth Murray, (plate steel sculpture guy)[I forgot name]– oh yes Richard Serra, Gerhard Ricter, Willem de Kooning late works (more I am sure, again) claim to author their work with open credit to help from assistants. I believe that any artist who is in the blue chip range has to have assistance in making the work because of the demand for it; the numbers of works needed to support the enterprise. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t????

What does this mean? In the end, who made the work? How is value attributed? When does this stuff become fraud? If I pay a million dollars for a “Stella”, “Koons”, etc, what do I get for my money? What will be its future value? How does the real world feel about attributed art, authenticity, art? Certainly old masters that don’t hold up to being made by the master him/herself are of much, much lesser money value than authenticated works. Will this happen to Stella, Koons, Warhol (all the others listed here and all those who can’t prove authorship of self)? I think the answer is yes; now and in the future. These questions are already being asked. Proof is being challenged in the courts over authenticity of works by Chihully and Warhol, even some recently found Jackson Pollock paintings; recent paint analysis proved them to be fakes because the paint on these things was developed after Pollack’s death. Just goes to prove that money counts in the art world over the art itself and the artist’s who make it.

AE and Automatism

D:\artstatements\aeandautomatism.txt

1:45 AM 9/15/2007

AE and Automatism

 

I have always wanted to work within the classic American Abstract Expressionist School of painting since I can remember. When I first started to study art, I was immediately attracted to painters working this way. I fumbled around with other approaches, but when I finally did hit my stride in AE, I was elated. This was 1963 or there abouts.

Working within this tradition is difficult because it is easy to fall under the spell of one artist or another. My first giant as an influence was Hans Hofmann. Then came Philip Guston. I tried to merge these two and come out somewhere along my own road. I kinda succeeded toward the late 1960’s, then I got trapped into believing what I read at the time. This kind of painting was dead. Of course the POP folk were now established and the minimalists were also underway. What did I do? I went another course and worked with the figure in an abstracted realist way in drawing, brush paintings and sprayed paintings. This lasted from 1969 to 1973. I tired of this approach and went back to AE. I have never really strayed since. Oh, I worked on a program of abstracted seascapes from 1981 to 1987. In late 1987 I finally came back to AE and have been here one way or the other since. Oh, again, I strayed into geometric abstraction from 2004 to September 2006. Then I came back again to AE and automatism with a focus on non-gesture [as an intellectual insert], paint pouring, paint manipulation with knives and scrapers of various sizes, monoprints from polyethylene plates of various sizes, paint transfer using waxed papers and similar impregnated papers as transfer platforms.

All of my AE work has involved strong use of Automatism. Some of my first solution ideas and moves involved intellectual structures; painting moves and ideas out of my past and their deliberate use in a paining or a conscious choice to use a structure borrowed from another artist or my own past. Some of my first solution ideas arise from pure improvisation. Improvisation in its pure form is the most exciting process for me when it works, and the most horrifying when it fails. At the moment I am enjoying a new found trust in my ability to carry out first solution ideas; locate the love areas and destroy them –paint them out for the good of the project’s forward progress. Over the years trying to save the love areas (those ares in a painting you just love because they are juicy or something) –trying to save them, for me, breeds anxiety and ultimate failure whentry to solve the rest of the painting around the love area [francis bacon audio interview on the subject of destroying paintings]. Francis Bacon speaks to this destruction eloquently in a BBC interview with ?????. So, saving the love area means the painting will fail. I have experienced this at the rate of 100% failure. Now, I get rid of the love area immediately and move on. How exhilarating. I think the new paintings on paper, wood and canvas are much more exciting because I no longer try to save the love areas.

In the end, I still want to continue the AE movement in painting. I don’t buy into the current thinking that this approach to painting is dead. It comes in and out of fashion commercially. But there are many, many painters who continue to work in this way. I find the AE approach still alive and full of unexplored territory. I continue to take this road because the road still offers unseen vistas as I travel it.

funny thing, there is some renewed interest in writing on abstraction. ARTnews April 2007 issue.

Before closing, my brand of abstraction is non-objective abstraction. There is no physical references in my painting. Otherwise, abstract painting can deal with any subject the artist wants to engage from realism to non-objectivity. All abstract painting in any of its forms is subjective and reflects the personality of its maker.

dpn

 

________
addendum

I remember in graduate school how horrified fellow students and some faculty were about my interest in paint and paint application processes considered as legitimate subject matter for painting. Why not? Paintings are paint. Even at their most realistic in imaging, they are still paint on a flat surface. So to me, in 1964, paint and paint application was a legitimate subject matter for making paintings; exploring the painting process as subject was legitimate. It is even more focused and part of my painting experience today - 44 years later. Egad, how time flies???!!!!

______________
to be continued

base aesthetic/philosophy

D:\artstatements\thewayiworkoctober2007.txt

1:30 AM 10/8/2007

The way I work October 2007; updated January 2008.

Base aesthetic/philosophy: Classic American Abstract Expressionism.

Present focus: Automatism practice from as pure an interpretation as possible.

Medium: acrylic polymer

Support/s: Cotton duck canvas, paper, various woods, linen, plastics

size: canvas [4" x 4" to 72" long side]; paper [4x4 to 17x34]; wood [cut from 1x6, 2x6 and up; various plywoods; found woods]

Tools: Palette knives, drywall scrapers and knives, polyethylene plastic sheets as print plates and edges as scrapers/squeegees, cardboard edges as squeegees, wax paper as transfer (print) sheet, brushes; computer graphic/painting software

Statement: Painting results are what they are when derived from automatism and improvisation. They reflect my mood and place at the time I painted each one. The result image can change from one painting to the next throughout a studio session or the result can be a set of variations on the same theme. In the end, to me, the result is the result of many years of painting practice which is closely related to all phases and nuances of classic American Abstract Expressionism. At the onset of my art practice in 1959, I was naturally drawn to AE imaging. I practice this imaging today in 2008.

negatives = novelty, kitch, fashion…

D:\artstatements\noveltkitschandtheantisocial.txt

12:49 PM 10/16/2007

negatives: my take on some of the art now being shown in galleries everywhere?????

*****
novelty
kitsch
fashion [not fashion as fashion once in awhile breeds some very serious new art]
shock for shock
anti social
sexual
isms [fem, fag, etc]
cult
just to be different
no message
narrative [for me this is a no no; I don't respond well to narrative visual art]
telling hermetic stories — embarrassing to those who are not part of the joke
mannered historical ref art
bad art that shows a struggle is OK
glorified amateur conceptual and technical = embarrassment
political art = religious art = propaganda = scary = horrifying = politics = loss of freedom
film/video = narrative art for the most part
non-narrative video and film is ok; should add to this― music
music = abstract = pure = probs to achieve in visual art = worth while involvement

 

2:34 AM 10/18/2007

The clever, glitchy, shocky, “I love me”, psychedelic druggy art only scratches surfaces. On the whole the work is or lies only on a surface; not deep in concept and often technically shallow. In many ways you have to be a clever, glitchy, shocky, “I love me”, psychedelic druggy person to get it! Yes?

 

 

2:47 AM 10/18/2007

no stories. no drama. just paintin my music and lettin it all hang out naturally. lettin ma muse run free. lettin one moment in painting lead to another moment in painting and allowing it to unfold according to its own need and requirement. me, I am just a medium too. paint and me are the same stuff. havin fun. not tryin to impress anybody, just doin ma thing. enjoying my time. working alone in da studio. I am my own most enchanted listener. self arguments define painting sometimes. why not?

Duchamp is a fraud

D:\artstatements\truenew.txt

12:39 PM 10/18/2007

Duchamp is a fraud

Art. We gotta have boundaries. Art isn’t art because mr. x says the elements he/she puts together is art. In order for elements to become art they must meet some commonly agreed to definitions and defined criteria of what makes, painting say, a painting and not just a wiping of a brush. Hmmmmmmmm???? My argument just died!

Uh oooooh????? Art does come out of redefining elements. This is how the new is born. So — education is required for some of us to understand the hermetics of the new. Those of us who are engaged in the old which once was new and are trying to create a new out of this old need to be educated about the new elements and their combinations to make what could be defined as the true new now going on.

So — by familiarizing one self with the elements of this new, we begin to understand what the new artist is establishing in this new art.

In the end, the more education one can garner, the better informed one is (this is a truth for all levels of life and life’s little daily encounters). It all boils down to I like or I don’t like and we either move on or get fascinated to the level of deep engagement. That’s life!

The good new (good = personal value judgment and is very much an arguable element) requires the new artist to have a vision and the art thus forms a path revealing the struggle to achieve the vision. I say struggle because struggle reveals a commitment (personal value judgment here). Again we (I) can agree with the vision, misunderstand the vision, hate the vision, like the vision, be indifferent to the vision, yada yada the vision.

Is it all about vision? Is it about seeing? Is it about revealing a position that is personal? Yada yada?

Then there is the moral issues and honesty. For me, whatever form the new requires and an artist commits to this form and the new, there must be honesty involvement. Otherwise there exists something in this activity that becomes false and suspect. We as people feel dishonesty and/or honesty from deep within our gut. We know it to be honest or dishonest at the basic non-verbalness of our being. This is a truth in art.

the synapse

D:\artstatements\the synapse.txt

1:29 PM 10/19/2007

the synapse

When the synapses are working and there is a direct path from mind thru hand to the painting, the painting usually turns out ok; ok, I mean I will accept the solution that appears before me. this doesn’t mean that there won’t be additional “first choice solutions” to go through to allow the painting to continue its path to an end; not a finis, but an end when the “first solution choices” stop forming when focusing on a specific painting.

I often feel, after a short or long break from painting, that maybe the magic has left me. I won’t have any ideas form that will help to make a painting. As usual, 100% of the time I am wrong on this. After a few minutes in the studio after the break, my mink kicks-in with new “first choice solutions” either for new starts or for work on something that is lying about the studio. After these few minutes, I am off and painting again; having fund too.

 

 

1:36 PM 10/19/2007 EDT

about 30 minutes ago I had to tear myself away from painting to take lunch. If I don’t eat I get terrible head aches. Earlier today, before I went into the studio, I had high anxiety over the issue that maybe it will be a bad day or an non creative day in the studio. What self doubt! This must plague most artists of all artistic persuasions. Is my muse permanently out of the building? NOT!

Now that I am done with lunch and writing this note, I want to get back to work. I have some things that need adjustment. The “first solution ideas” are operating even now. They may be subliminal, but they are there. Ain’t life great?????????

always the voyeur

D:\artstatements\allwaysthevoyer.txt

2:45 AM 11/25/2007

always the voyeur

This for me is the job of the artist regardless of chosen medium. Being a voyeur. Observer. Through our structures the artist takes [we] note of what is happening in his/her [our] time. Some of this noting is criticism that at times is both positive and negative, private and hermetic and public and easily accessible by everyone.

The observing and recording comes in many forms and addresses all the input senses we possess; visual, sound, emotion –the static and the dynamic and all combinations possible. The list of observer connections grows every day.

I continue to make my observations using my choice of medium; paint on canvas, paper, and wood and combinations of the three. My observation pointer addresses the emotional sense structures taking in sound relationships to color and shape; thus probing the emotional side of our existence. This for some is a very private arena of spiritual-like meditation reflecting upon one’s self and all the relationships that make up our life. each individual interprets each painting privately and in as many definitions as there are observers. When not painting, I include my self as a member of this private audience.

deja vu

D:\artstatements\dejavu.txt

1:52 AM 12/7/2007

 

deja vu

When painting and my process evolves into something that looks familiar to me, I will move to erase the familiarity and restructure the painting process to reflect a process that becomes me. Creating paintings through a process that becomes me is my ideal. Success at times is debatable. Usually this familiarity exists as an image created by another artist who is usually very famous. This familiarity is quite derivative of this painter’s signature work. At least this is what I begin to see and feel as I paint. This derivative imaging annoys me no end. I sometimes attribute creating a familiarity painting to a lazy or tired mind. I loose my focus. I wander from my center. My muse has left the building.

formula art

D:\artstatements\formulaart.txt

2:20 AM 12/19/2007

formula art

I have been studying the paintings of Edward Lentsch of Minneapolis. He presents an image that seems fairly easy to make in large numbers. He also seems to work images out of a formula. I often ask the same question of artists and their work, especially after looking at an artists work over a period of years and the image seems close all the way through; how can an artist keep making the same image over and over and over and not turn the image into a mannered mess? How does an artist like Lentsch keep the image fresh over a long period of time? Small mind? Formula? Whenever i start to repeat myself I become bored with what is happening and the image and the painting dies. Maybe I have a short coming in that I can’t sustain a similar image over a period of time. But then again, maybe I do and don’t know it???? My repertoire seems to be made up of 4 or 5 reoccurring image themes that come and go with time. Since you can’t step into the same river twice, when an image structure reappears, it is a little different than before. Over time it has picked up some new add ons, revisions, and other stuff. My life (as is everyone’s) is like that river; we can’t step into the same experience twice. We are not the same from one minute to the next or from one year to the next. Easier to understand a change or series of changes that take place within us over a time frame of one year than it is over a time frame of one minute. Here we are dealing with time and its relentless grip on us and everything around us; or at least how our mind perceives/processes the data around us. In this sense the present doesn’t exist. Only the past and the future, the present becomes the past immediately. what is the accepted time length for the present. The future is always coming at us at the same speed, then suddenly it becomes the past too. Yikes! I can’t get my mind around this dialog tonight. Later. dpn

 

2:39 AM 12/19/2007

past

A painting created now, becomes a member of the past and our memory once it is made. Or does it? I make the painting now. Before I made it it was part of my (our) future. I made it. When/what was it’s present. Now after I made it it becomes part of my past. But when I come into the studio tomorrow (future) and open the studio door (now) (the present), turn on the lights, there is the painting existing in my present (again) becoming part of my past as I stand there looking at it. The event can never be fixed so we (I) can study int. As I study a painting (this newly created entity) I am awarre that it is constantly being viewed as a past event. This is the worse thing about the nature of time. It can’t be stopped so we can really analyze an event. An event never exists in a present but only in a future (as we wait for the event to start) and then it immediately exists in our past as memory that is constantly fading. I now ask, where is the clarity? Where is the reality? When I touch a painting, does the touch become an immediate member of my past. How long is the present?

 

repeatability

D:\artstatements\repeatablility.txt

2:48 AM 12/31/2007

repeatability

Working the way I do, conceptual and technical structure derived from purist automatism (as an ideal), repeatability is relative to the moment. Over time some image structures show up again and again. I believe they derive from a central part of my nature; exist as finger prints exist. These image structures, once fleshed-out, become a signature.

My working (making) structure doesn’t allow a repeatable element to exist as a precondition for starting point. This would violate the integrity of the experiment as it exists at this time. If a repeatable element shows up during the making process as part of a first solution idea, then so be it. It then becomes part of a painting and is subject to removal if the next first solution idea so deems. Don’t ya love the process? You can never step into the same river twice. Love it????!!!!!

Over the years, if or when I was trying to find an image that connected to a commercial market -clients, galleries, museums, etc.- repeatability is what I thought was important. I needed to make a series of paintings that related in all ways to each other; not to make things that are resoundingly different from each other; images that are consistent, similar, understandable (somehow through repeatability). Consistently related images creates a strength (what, how???). When i tried to do this, the images would get progressively mannered as time did its deed on the image and my interest in continuing the image. So far the Voyage series of 18 paintings done in the late 1960’s was the only set of consistently related paintings I ever produced that were exciting to make over the 1-2 years they were made.

In the end, even if a painting of a certain type of image was selling well, I had to give it up because eventually I simply got sick of making them. The abstract seascape paintings made from 1981-1987 was a project that ran overtime for me. In the end I made these damn things because they were selling. Eventually i had to end it and move on. In 1987 I returned to abstract painting and automatism.