In Praise of Shadows

Good little book--easy read. Only thing I don't understand after finishing is why this cover art would be chosen for a book on aesthetics that values subtlety, tradition and shadows.

Wolf Kahn by Justin Spring

Glimpse of a House by the Beach, 1965

I recently went out to my parent's house and as I was leaving my mom pushed this book into my hands. She got it at a talk of his in 1996 and it is signed which is pretty cool. I really like Wolf Kahn's work but I guess because I grew up with the book on our coffee table I never thought about reinvestigating it. That's the unfortunate thing about growing up with a mom with great taste in art...takes me longer to admit I agree with her.

Anyway, I read the first two pages of the book and am totally engrossed. The first essay is by Justin Spring and basically outlines Kahn's development. The second is by Louis Finkelstein and gets more into formal aspects of the work. I really like seeing the work he made when he was around my age just getting out of school. Its like seeing someone's baby pictures. You can see how they grew into the person they are now but when you see a baby you have no idea what they will look like as an adult. The work has the same threads of questions and interests but it manifests itself in really varied ways until he has been working consistently for about 10 years.

Portrait of Frank O'Hara, 1953-54

That's when the nuances get really interesting and he seems to pull away from being influenced by other artists and seems on a path all his own. Finkelstein notes the painting at the top of this post as a really important development. Kahn is able to establish space with color. The house in the distance only seems distant due to the diagonal of purply gray yet it is completely flat. How poetic. The book has been helpful in pointing directly to things like that. I know that particular painting is strong and different from previous works but still have a hard time verbalizing how it has been constructed to do that. It seems like so much of my education has been looking and absorbing that it feels really good to see words that confirm the why. So anyway, note to self, read the text in your books and listen to your mom.

Near the Potomac, Near the Canal 1987

A Poem and a Painting

In honor of the first flakes of winter spotted today, here is a nice little painting by David Fertig

And here is a beautiful poem that reminds me of the simple things I am thankful for this year.

Kay Ryan is a contemporary poet whose work I really love...

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

A life should leave

deep tracks:

ruts where she

went out and back

to get the mail

or move the hose

around the yard;

where she used to

stand before the sink,

a worn out place;

beneath her hand

the china knobs

rubbed down to

white pastilles;

the switch she

used to feel for

in the dark

almost erased.

Her things should

keep her marks.

The passage

of a life should show;

it should abrade.

And when life stops,

a certain space-

however small-

should be left scarred

by the grand and

damaging parade.

Things shouldn't

be so hard.

BIALA

Yesterday I went to Tibor de Nagy and saw one painting that made my entire trip to NYC more than worthwhile. It was by the artist Biala in a little side gallery with about six other pieces some by Jane Freilicher and others by Nell Blaine. I passed over Blaine pretty quickly, the Freilichers were pretty nice and then this painting above hit me in the stomach. The richness in the subtlety found in person is something rare and stunning. It was a perfect painting.

"Biala's paintings seem touched by a tough ingenuousness — never sentimental or naïve, but slightly nostalgic in their playful intimacy. Suffusing them is the outlook of a painter who has found what she needs and knows what she wants to do. The results glow with a wondrous candor." John Goodrich NY Sun

I really hope there is a solo show of her again soon. They had one in 2007 and I didn't know of her until pretty recently. There is very little online and these have to be seen in person. Her palette, subject matter, touch, restrain all create a really magical work and again I see what I want to do and just how much work it will take.

First Friday Fun

This past friday I was in a show with 9 other PAFA MFAs in Old City. It was a good time and the show looked really nice. I ended up putting in two smaller works rather than the one in the postcard. It's at Margot and Camille and open on the weekends all month at 142 N 2nd St.

Brenda Goodman

Loss, 2009

Self Portrait 2, 1994

Here are two excerpts from a great interview of Brenda Goodman by David Brody on artcritical. Her view of the world communicated through her work is different than mine but her work is so felt that it makes me realize 1. not to be so fearful and 2. how incredibly far I have to go...maybe in the next 46 years...

"I guess for me why my work doesn't ever seem current is that I try and stay with the intensity and the emotion, the feeling, without making it ironic...I don't know if I have but I do everything I can not to distance myself in the work. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. Where we are now in the art world is that artists go out of their way to distance themselves. I try to do just the opposite."

"What I've learned most about painting in 46 years is the act of surrender: to look at something and to know that you can keep stubbornly working on it to make it look like the way you think it should, or you can let go of that preciousness - that precious area that's keeping the painting from being finished. You can just wipe it out and trust something bigger than yourself to let it resolve....To me this is one of the most spiritual aspects of painting."