DC 1980's

The Belmont Grocery in the Adams-Morgan Neighborhood, Washington, DC, Summer of 1984

Nihilism, drinking and dancing; and the brilliant new music…and hormones ruled the night.  Life was so heady in the '80's.  Didn't it seem like nuclear war was just around the corner?

We were lean and fabulous; pale, cold and tough:  the hair, the shoes, the style and fashion, the daring and wanton will to play all night long….

Julian Schabel, "The Patients and the Doctors", 1978

Of course, it ended in a train wreck relationship which was soul crushing but inevitably sobering.  A painful marriage that broke all chains of communication and the 80’s ended years early.  Our Neo-Expressionism died quickly, having grown too big for its britches and ironically usurped by the menial and anonymous “Neo Geo”…

Peter Hailey, "Two Cells with Conduit", 1986

I still mourn.  All of it:   Bad choices, the heat of the moment, the broad laughters and sweat on the club’s dance floor.  We were using and abusing with deep passion and regrets, walking home in the frozen night straight into the next onslaught.  

And then it was gone, and for what?  Shaved heads, goatees, and Metallica (which we all took as a joke), and junkies from Seattle?

It had to die.  It was a brilliant flash and we who survived re-emerged Born Again.  We looked away, not to some new thing but to the common; as if it were a new thing.  Our friends had marriages and children, careers…then we too….

We were radiant children of a time and place: 

altogether unique and lovely.  

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Conversation with a Friend

Hey Gregory,

Interesting questions and I don’t like my answers to any of them.

 Not selling anything regularly—some small stuff, prints from the website occasionally, a larger piece a couple years back.  Nothing big.

Collections…nothing too grand for painting:  Richard K. Thomas, a DC journalist (now retired—he was who brought me to DC from northern Michigan).  And a local businessman who bought the larger piece a couple years back.

Because of a strategic alliance in the ‘90’s with Mitzi Perdue of poultry fame, I have samples of my woodworking in some good private and state collections, including Bill Clinton, Lady Bird Johnson, former Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and the Perdues; as well as a jewelry box for CNN news personality Paula Zahn.  But….

Peer group?  No.

Art History?

Absence? 

My interest is in making good work, rather than art history.  As such it probably does more to promote art history rather than actually make art history.  Personal relevance is important, and the process of “making something out of nothing” is key for me.  I believe that we express ourselves out of the abundance of our heart, our core—I know that.  Does that contribute to art history?  It does contribute to the culture…and give meaning to my life and the doing of the stuff that I do…where is art history taking place, Gregory?  Who is it affecting? 

Projecting computer art on the walls of the campus may do more for art history than anything, because it’s that random encounter with artwork—big, unusual, and there in your path folks.  It may actually stick with someone--it may be more memorable than  typical art venue exposure.  I really like the graffiti on the trains that pull through town—same thing of big art flashing by unexpectedly.  A lot of it looks the same but still…I do appreciate it, and seeing it.

As far as “Absence”, what does Joan Mitchell’s work say in her absence?  Sam Francis?  How about James Turrell?  Aha!  And Pollock—Yes!  Warhol—I think I’m catching on….

I’m looking to surprise myself as I create; I believe that the surprise is contained in the finished product and possesses a certain “Wow!” factor.  That’s my deal right now—“look where this one went!”  Maybe create a little intrigue about how it got there….

Interesting questions.  Why do you ask?

The Wow of James Turrell

I’ve noticed myself speaking very excitedly about the Turrell retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art—much more excited than what I felt while viewing the show. 

Especially in Turrell’s immersion artworks:  to be conscious and aware in such an unusual environment is disturbing (pleasantly), disorienting (I can imagine walking into a wall without realizing it were there), and other-worldly. 

Maybe “other-worldly” is the right term.  In a work like “Breathing Light” (2013)  you are surrounded by colored light and exist in a physical space which doesn’t allow for any other experience… sound isn’t a part of the installation, touch isn’t relevant…taste and smell, forget about it.



"Breathing Light"

But there you are in this colored space…you’re not dreaming.  This is a real place, but unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.  Sense deprivation is a field of study for Turrell, and it is typically in a laboratorial, if not negative context (solitary confinement); but this is so extravagant and rich.  Indulging the sense of sight so thoroughly and without detail brings into play the mechanics of vision—the way the eye scans and moves to gather information—and what about afterimages?

"Breathing Light", view from waiting area

By the time you emerge from the retrospective you feel like the scales have been removed from your eyes (Acts 9:17-18) .  Having been under the exclusive influence of light and color for one to two hours, I wonder what I’ve been involved with, really.  The spiritual references to light speak of understanding, clarity and glory. 



"Skyscape"



The physicality of light, which I’ve never considered or encountered before now, is wavelengths or vibrations.  Breaking the human experience down to one element (light) and continuously exposing viewers to that singular experience renders an increasingly physical effect/impact on the viewer.

 “What is happening to me?” is a question that occurs during this experience.  Perhaps nothing or nothing that isn’t quickly restored upon leaving the museum and returning to daylight and the bustle of Wilshire Blvd.  Darn it.

On our flight back east I began reflecting on all of this.  Detail is eye pleasing—the eye hungers for it.  My window view from the airplane confirmed it:  I spent a lot more time looking down than up—you see the sky, you get it—but the landscape below was changing constantly and filled with detail and texture…fascinating. 

 I got excited, realizing that Turrell’s work is not eye pleasing.  It forces us to look at terrifically little; as such it goes against the nature of the eye.

etchings






The three dimensional references of the early work (the gorgeous etchings, as well as the light projections like “Juke”) are done away with in the shallow space installation, “Raemar Pink White”, as well as in the immersion installations, like "Breathing Light."

"Raemar Pink White" (shallow space installation)

In the latest works the edges, seams and planes of the viewing space are removed, giving our eyes even less information.  There are fewer and fewer references to our previous experiences, our world.

"Breathing Light"

I left the museum feeling like a spiritual being:  sensitive, reduced by stages through each progressive work.  I felt as if I’d experienced the creation, through man-made spaces, ordered experiences and sensory deprivation/indulgence.  Turrell reduces this world and the vastness of creation to a focused experience of the first element, light.  His stated interest is in creating experiences rather than “art”....

Job well done, sir, and thank you for the memories.  Wow!

 

"Towards Disappearing" A Painting by Sam Francis, 1957, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

 I really love this painting!  I’ve never seen it before, and figured it was by Helen Frankenthaler.  The wash that was under the opaque brushwork looked like stains seeping out from the heavier paint.  I only associate that effect with Frankenthaler, but all that open space…the brushwork relative to the size of the painting was underscaled, but the composition—its critical groupings of shapes, brushwork, and spatters was so unusual! 

 

What does it take for a painting to strike you as weird? “Towards Disappearing” by Sam Francis is very pleasing in its sparseness, but perhaps the placement of its parts is not entirely precise—everything is roughed in by the transparent blue wash, then brushed over with heavier paint; but the unusual balance, particularly from top to bottom wins. 

The blobs on either edge of the canvas are perhaps too obvious in stretching the image to its full margin, but I refuse to belabor this point because of the sweetness of the main body. 

I find it easy to simply report the basics:  to look at the technique and process, believing that this tells about the painting.  "Towards Disappearing" illustrates the concept of a work being greater than the sum of its parts. 

This painting is more than the brushstrokes and qualities of the material.  It is more than Francis’ colors--they seem to be swallowed up by white canvas and then appear upon closer inspection; it is more than the many fine spatters of thrown liquid paint.  Technique doesn’t define this curious imagery.

The museum notes mention the artist’s travels to Paris and his encounter with Japanese art, and point out the simplicity of expression, the asymmetrical division of the space, the calligraphic quality of the brushwork and identity of the image.  This begins to open a door onto the work, but it is a genuinely weird painting. 

In Francis' painting the asymmetry, paint handling, the liquidity of the paint are its subject.  Its wash, drips/runs and fine splatters speak so to liquid characteristics—no impasto or thick film, no structure. 

And it doesn’t look like water lilies, birds, or anything--It's just a painting, not a painting of something.  Success!

For more on Sam Francis:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Francis

 

 

 

 

 



Discovering the Broken Obelisk

A sculpture by Barnett Newman, an Abstract Expressionist painter, a precursor to Minimalism; “The Broken Obelisk” is a geometric steel work residing in the courtyard of Mark Rothko’s Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Interestingly, the work was originally installed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Located on the corner of 17th Street and New York Avenue, NW, it was essentially at the entrance of the Corcoran College of Art and Design. My Alma Mater! Displayed there in the late 1960’s “The Broken Obelisk” was considered very controversial, seen as a reference to the Washington Monument and the social discord of the era.

I did visit the Rothko chapel during a short stay in Houston, however my path to realizing the piece followed a study of line drawings based on the square, and its axis’.



 Discovering the piece didn’t have to do with seeing the sculpture. Discovering that it was hidden deep inside the square, only to be found by deconstruction…an excavation…that was exciting!  Recognizing it, discovering it through a process of ideation, in the process of searching out an idea was more than a surprise.

Believing that something worthwhile will be had in searching out the basic, the fundamental, the essential, before you see it, is perhaps the important point here. 

Hope believes that vision will play out meaningfully, given the chance; even in the simplest exercise.

Ideation Drawing, 2013, 8 1/2" x 11"

Studies for "Discovering the Broken Obelisk", 2013, The Art Library, Brooklyn, NY

Who knew that this ideation would lead to a complete break from 25 years of abstract expressionist/surrealist artwork?  Nearly 5 years later I continue investigating related imagery alluding to order and peace beyond our everyday experience.

"Oblique Tetrahedron", 2017, 36", Welded Steel with Powder Coat Finish,  © James Thatcher

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Andrew Warhola

Concerning Andy Warhol

           I never met Andy Warhol but I was removed from his presence once.

 

 

 

But that presence seems to inhabit plenty of art work these days…my own included.   Whether I am manufacturing cabinets or knocking out dozens of paintings, the foray into production work hearkens to that 60’s Factory aesthetic; and pays homage. 

I’m surprised to consider The Factory as a precursor to some classic Minimalist artists and their use of industrial practices.  Picture their artwork (as different as it could be both visually and in attitude) as being directly influenced by Warhol:  The cube sculptures of Sol LeWit, the boxes of Donald Judd…He brought multiple imagery to contemporary art, as well as mass production, although the cited Minimalists pursued different ends and means.  Curious….

Portraits of Campbell soup cans (or was that Still Life?) were the uncomfortable birth of something different; made more so by its proximity to the triumph of Abstract Expressionism.  In the immediate wake of the introspective Abstract Expressionists came one who depicted the plainly visible world in iconic fashion. 

Similar to The Ashcan School, with its own depictions of the everyday, Warhol also staked out the territory of everyday life (the boring) as subject matter; as well as the controversy of “urban realism”*.  Consider the early Warhol as an extension of this classic New York interpretation of art/life….

Fun stuff!  …And what about Mr. Brainwash!?

 

*  Weinberg, H. Barbara. "The Ashcan School". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ashc/hd_ashc.htm (April 2010)