LYNN DUNHAM

2012-02-04T09:44:00.000-05:00

When you are stuck in a creative slump, try applying this process to unlock what lies within... Tham Khai Meng of Ogilvy and Mather on the Art of Creativity:

Conversations in Post-Minimalist Abstraction, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY

2011-06-11T12:05:00.000-04:00

Conversations in Post-Minimalist Abstraction, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY

2011-05-26T15:49:00.002-04:00

Great overview video of the new 1stDibs bricks and mortar at 200 Lex (New York Design Center)

2011-05-21T11:04:00.003-04:00

Mitchell - Installation view at the RMA Institute, Bangkok thru June 12

The full portfolio of Mitchell's Abstracts - 2011 collection is at Jim Kempner Fine Art, NY

2011-05-01T06:43:00.005-04:00

MITCHELL: Abstracts, 2011, Archival Pigment prints - 36 x 36 (44 x 44 inch paper size) - A Solo Exhibition at the RMA Institute, Bangkok, Thailand opens May 21 at 4:30 pm. Concurrently, works from this collection will be available from Lynn Dunham Fine Art in the United States.

ABOUT THE WORK: Mitchell’s Abstracts 2011 collection is comprised of 39 images which follow the rudiments of Concretism, a non-objective art form of the 1940’s that defied all the norms of the Contemporary Art of its time. The central characteristic of this art movement produced works without the influence of any external factors, such as nature, people, or things. By definition, Concrete Art does not require the artist to have a definitive concept or subject. It is about the inventive play of lines, planes, and color, forming unspecific patterns and true expression of an artist's spirit. It is this movement which gave birth to Constructivism, Suprematism and Neo-Concretism, Minimalism and Op Art, all periods in art history which are embodied in Mitchell’s work since his departure from the commercial arena. He has recently employed the process of creating assemblages which he chronicles through the lens putting a contemporary spin on the principles art movements of the past century.

Mitchell’s prominent and innate sensibility is clearly related and is presented particularly in the culmination of two years’ work with the Abstracts 2011 collection, a portion of which has been selected to be exhibited in this solo at the RMA Institute. With his fresh perspective, he employs a 21st century point of view and establishes a new personal archetype. Mitchell states, “The conventional notion that photography is about representation is/has been rejected in favor of pure abstraction. The images themselves along with the process of image making are the subject rather than the depiction of something identifiable.”

2011-04-28T13:06:00.002-04:00

The Madness continues!!!! So funny Jim!

The Madness of Art

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/rental-inventory.html?soid=1103564827998&aid=BP-I9fU76AQ

2011-04-26T15:29:00.000-04:00

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/rental-inventory.html?soid=1103564827998&aid=BP-I9fU76AQ

2011-04-10T08:29:00.004-04:00

BILL ARMSTRONG: C-print, BA #490, 2009

Bill Armstrong to Lecture

April 14, 2011

Opening: Thursday, April 14 - 7pm

Bill Armstrong, NY based photographer represented in NY by ClampArt and in the UK by Hackelbury, will give a talk about his abstract color work that spans over 30 years. Armstrong has exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Institute, Hatward Gallery - London; Musee de l'Elysee, Lausanne; and FOAM, Amsterdam. This lecture at SVA is presented by teh Photography Department.

209 East 23rd Street, 3rd Floor ampitheatre. Free and open to the public

2011-04-07T21:21:00.014-04:00

Mitchell: SIGNALS No. 8

Limitless is based on an unapproved memory-enhancing drug. Within minutes, everything around the central character, Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) becomes clear as the drug ramps up his brain power end memory. He cannot only access memories long thought lost but he can also form new memories quickly and easily.

When choosing fine art for set decor, set decorator, Diane Lederman chose an number of works by Mitchell. Much of his abstract photography is neurologically oriented with references to the reconstruction of memory.

Watch trailer here.

2011-04-04T11:52:00.004-04:00

The Madness of Art and its Creators at the Jim Kempner Gallery Chealsea art dealer Jim Kempner interacts with New York's eccentric art world in "The Madness of Art". Webisode I features contemporary artist Robert Attanasio's pithy analyisis of the relationship between artist and dealer followed by Chicago artist, Tony Fitzpatrick who drops by and tries to explain that old adage "time is money". Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery - where the absurd, the obscene, the glamorous and the routine converge! THE MADNESS OF ART

2011-03-26T15:38:00.002-04:00

Kim Keever

2011-03-23T22:17:00.005-04:00

JOIN US MARCH 21ST FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

WORKS BY MITCHELL, BACHLER AND KENNEDY

PRESENTED BY A SURFACE LIBRARY AND LYNN DUNHAM FINE ART

551 WEST 21ST STREET (#402 - 4TH FLOOR) NY, NY

MITCHELL: ABSTRACTS 2011, AB 054 36 X 36 INCHES (45 X 45 FRAMED)

ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT - EDITION OF 5

SIGNED, DATED AND NUMBERED VERSO

Aaron Yassin: IMPEIBOCHK

2011-03-16T08:08:00.000-04:00

This work will be shown at the Architectural Digest Home Show
by Lynn Dunham Fine Art in Booth M16, Pier 94 -March 17-20

2010-12-04T10:30:00.003-05:00

Open Door Interiews

Laurie Frick - Extraordinary

Artist's Statement
Frick uses pattern to replicate the feel of neurons firing in the brain. The use of vaguely familiar cut-up materials are representative of everything the brain processes, the amount that is seen and the amount stored - including the periferal things to which only partial-attention was given.
"I think neuroscience will find there is a link between how the mind processes pattern, and the underlying structure of the brain. How do I connect an abstract idea of neural processing to neuroscience in everyday life, and the rationale for my explorations? I like the idea of art artist expression anticipating scientific proof.", says Frick.

Neuroscience?
Frick has straddled both the world of technology and visual art. Over the past several years, she has studied the developments in neuroscience and believes scientists will begin to unravel the mystery of how the brain uses memory to develop an instant attraction to visual objects and surroundings. She believes aesthetics, is related to brain fluency and the desire to re-experience the familiar. Mathematical proportions are relevant, the attraction to external patterns may emulate the internal neural structure in the mind. "There is a human desire to find the neural mirror to ourselves, even at the most basic level -- the firing pattern of hippocampal neurons.
I'm currently investigating the notion that there is a statistical pattern underlying all cognition. If you could capture the neural rhythm and replay it, you might actually simulate the original experience.", says Frick.

Read more about Frick - Carolinas Health Care Artist-in-Residence in residency at McColl Center in Charlotte, NC.

2010-09-12T18:37:00.005-04:00

JONATHAN LAURENCE, Master, mixed media 8 x 8 inches

JONATHAN LAURENCE, Camden Maine

April 19, 2010 - 7:05:53 pm
a three legged dog looks out across a bay at 44°6′14.546″N 69°4′39.161" W

This is a fragment... a moment... a memory...

Photography is less than 200 years old, as technology has evolved, it has vastly influenced the way we create, view and respond to imagery.

Shapes is an exploration of documenting and sharing the world that surrounds me. I visually record my experiences with my iPhone™ and upload them to Facebook™, instantly contributing to the ever evolving global visual community. In this way, the images take on a life of their own.

Volume 1 is a selection of pictures, chronologically placed, from moments between July 2009 and July 2010. This is one year of my life.

Jonathan Laurence is a mixed-media and digital artist incorporating processes that span from painting and photography to video and installation. He grew up in Rockport, Maine where he first began his studies in the field of photography at Rockport College (The Maine Media Workshops). After earning his Associates Degree in 2005, he went on to pursue a Bachelors of Fine Art at the Art Institute of Boston where he received the competitive Presidential Scholarship. Graduating in 2007, Laurence returned to the Maine where he works as a freelance multimedia producer, consultant, and artist.

Jonathan has exhibited widely across the east coast and his techniques have been published in multiple digital media guidebooks, including Christopher James’ “The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes“ (Second Edition). He is a regular contributor to Maine Magazine. Maine Home + Design highlighted him as one of the top 60 most collectable artist in Maine (2010). In 2009 he received “The Rising Star Award” from the Palm Beach Photographic Center. Laurence teaches courses at the University of Maine, The Maine Media Workshops (Rockport, Maine), Toscana Photographic Workshops (Bologna, Italy), and Nordphotography Workshops (Oslo, Norway).

He also enjoys of eating and cooking good food, travel, adventure, design, films, art, music, looking, making, assembling, floating, learning, teaching, and generally anything positive.

His bio doesn't mention how engaging he is...which he is....and if you didn't have the opportunity as I did to see this work in Rockland at Assymetrick Arts, you may have a look here. And the 365 photographic essay SHAPES, in book form is available at BLURB

LYNN DUNHAM:

2010-07-22T18:32:00.000-04:00

LYNN DUNHAM:

2010-07-20T09:19:00.005-04:00

"INTERSECTIONS OF ART AND SCIENCE"
by Diane Calder

"Invention is not the product of logical thought."--Albert Einstein"Organized perception is what art is all about."--Roy Lichtenstein (Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Scripps College, East Los Angeles County) Since ancient times, when the Greek goddess Techne served as the inspiration for science as well as for art, individuals willing to look at the bigger picture have acknowledged some degree of mutuality in these seemingly disparate fields. The Greek verb, tikein (to create), and the word "technique" are both derivations of Techne's name. As techniques are employed to make mechanical instruments such as telescopes and microscopes more sophisticated, our range of vision into worlds previously unimagined is extended, opening opportunities for creative artists and scientists to interact.

These sorts of interactions and the focus of In the Minds Sky: Intersections of Art and Science. Curator Mary Davis MacNaughton’s discerning catalogue essay investigates the fusing of inspiration and intellect that probes the fundamental structure of nature, alters views of space and time and formulates new visions of the world. The exhibition presents the work of six artists who take their points of departure from scientific phenomena at extreme scales--from the cosmic to the sub-atomic.The surfaces of Nancy Macko's fourteen-foot long birchwood panels give birth to iridescent layers of meaning in Quintessence: New Constellations. Macko integrates her considerable skills as a painter, digital and graphic artist, as well as interpreter of feminist figuration into the creation of new galaxies filled with life giving, memory-bearing imagery. Constellations of winged beings light the way to free floating forms that suggest ancient ladder climbers searching out honeycombs, or tethered astronauts inhabiting Macko's vision of an egalitarian future.Carol Saindon marks the entry to her dark-walled installation with the phrase, "Because Distance is Impossible to Perceive." Velvety charcoal and white chalk drawings of clusters of stars, inspired by satellite photographs, float on the black walls, suggesting a complexity of time and space. Saindon's vehicle for bridging ancient cultures and distant galaxies is a transparent glass boat projecting the sounds and undulating images of distant oceans as it rides a spiraling swirl of glistening fragmented glass.

Claire Browne's modestly scaled, intuitive pencil drawings on canvas composed of patterns of circles, conjure images of expanding particles that could be cells or constellations. In direct opposition to Browne's subjective, repetitive surfaces are the large scale oil images painted by British artist Mark Francis. These masterfully rendered works pair groupings of dull surfaced black dots that hover above painterly blurred strokes, dancing across sensuously alluring surfaces. The dots resemble viruses, keys to life and death. They allude to the boundaries crossed by Francis in his search for similarities between viral decoding and the modernist grid.The layered stains that float through Dennis Ashbaugh's two huge, color-drenched canvases are inspired by the most cardinal of human identifiers, DNA sequencing. Ashbaugh's gene sequence portraits reflect his fascination with a culture obsessed with science and technology. The less structured of the two works, Montecito Micropore, discloses a red field whose cracked surfaces contain iron filings, holding within it a suggestion of the possibilities and threats inherent in genome experimentation.Recent advances position brain research on the brink of mind boggling revelations. This fact inspired an explorative collaboration between Susan Rankaitis and Dr. David Somers. Rankaitis, an esteemed artist/photographer who deftly seeds fragments of scientific imagery and codes throughout her layered, collage-like surfaces has found her reverse equivalent in Somers, a neuroscientist who studies brain processes with MRI imaging. Together they have fabricated a prototype for a learning lab inside curved grey walls fourteen feet in diameter. They trust the viewer to enter this waiting room and collaborate in the construction of meanings from the hundreds of 5 by 7 inch images that Rankaitis and Somers have fabricated. Manipulated MRI images inform schemes of brain mapping; suggested correlations between various parts of the body and mind mix with images influenced by mass media. Art and science indeed intersect.

More on art and and neuroscience colliding:
"I’ve developed a hypothesis — I think beauty or the sense of great comfort from art is related to the viewer’s early experience and the desire to recover something recognizable. Not at the literal or narrative level of memory, but where pattern operates like music, and provides a rhythm that feels like a familiar recollection at the level just below consciousness. I think science will find attraction and desire are based on brain fluency, which is wired from the cumulative stimulus of individual life experience. By extension, I believe each of us has something like a ‘genome of sensory preference’, which could be mapped. And eventually it’s possible a predictive model of aesthetics could be built for each of us." Laurie Frick

The bloggesphere connecting like firing neurons transferring information in the brain... more about Laurie Frick here

2010-07-06T23:21:00.004-04:00

DIVERGENCE

the Sande Webster Gallery

Five Views On Photography In the main gallery July 2 - August 28, 2010

RECEPTION: Friday, July 9, 2010, 6-8pm

LOCATION: 2006 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 - (215) 636-9003

http://www.sandewebstergallery.com/

This summer the Sande Webster Gallery presents Divergence: Five Views on Photography. This exhibitionexplores diverse approches to the photographic medium. As the field continually evolves to incorporate digital technologies, artists are finding freedom from traditional processes and new creative opportunities for personaland aesthetic expression. This contemporary photography exhibition begins a dialog about the current and future state of the printed photographic image. Divergence showcases the work of Krantz, Love, Mitchell, Stein and Tarver.Gregg Krantz is a Philadelphia artist with a graphic sensibility expressed through a love of printmaking,photography and design.

Krantz’s recent photographic works are abstract narratives that document surfaces and patterns indicative of particular places. His close-up, detailed photographs capture the texture, color and quality of light in his West Philadelphia neighborhood as well as his travels abroad. Through subject matter and rhythmic phrasing in each series, Krantz heightens one’s perception of the invisible dimension of time. His photographs ofurban facades, geometric forms and painted surfaces are transformed into a personal vocabulary that are arrangedin series, like musical compositions, in varying qualities of tone and harmony.

Arlene Love is an accomplished figurative sculptor turned street photographer. She has been working on anongoing photographic project called Walking Distance over the past few years. She doesn’t search for exotic newplaces and people to photograph. Her camera goes with her as she goes about her life within walking distanceof her home. The people on the streets of Philadelphia are as interesting to her now as were those in Mexicowhere she lived for many years. Nothing is more interesting to Arlene Love than simply watching people – exceptphotographing them when they are blissfully unaware of her presence. Love has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, and is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Mitchell rejects the assumption that photography is about representation. Pure abstraction and the process ofimage making are the subject of his work. His photographs have more in common with the sensory experiencesassociated with color field paintings and ambient sound than they do with the tradition of photography. Images areshot with the purest of intuition and from a perspective largely influenced by aura occurrences associated withTemporal Lobe Epilepsy. Auras can produce heightened abstract emotions, affecting the visual field. Concepts and meanings in words that might invigorate the imagination, or perhaps for the intellect alone are explored in his titles, which enhance the imagery. While the experience with auras, is not always evident in the result, it is irrefutably connected in the process of creation.

Phil Stein creates dimensional photographic collages of the urban landscape. He finds inspiration in the random visual fragmentation that occasionally occurs in live streams and video downloads. The Streets series explores various themes of image reconstruction based on these common algorithmic accidents. Digital processes are used with a variety of fine papers to create this body of photo-based work. The resulting artwork is a combination of photograph, collage and sculpture. The world through Stein’s digital lens is made up of bits of visual information. He creates a new way of seeing the world around us, defining what it means to be an artist in the digital age.

Ron Tarver began his recent series of ethereal black and white flower portraits as a journey through his ownbackyard. Beginning the first day of the season, Tarver set out to document the spring flowers of the Northeast,beginning with crocuses then on to the next blooms, such as magnolia and tulips. Tarver captures the beauty ofnature in such intimate detail. There is a sensuality to these images that is revealed in the graceful curves of eachpetal. Tarver is a master at his craft and presents sumptuous images that remind us how incredible our naturalworld truly is. Tarver, a 2001 Pew Fellow, is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oklahoma Museum of History and the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

2010-06-26T09:51:00.007-04:00

Sara Vanderbeek: Four Photographers, 2008 (detail 1 of 2)

I just received the latest issue of Blind Spot (BS) - stunning as usual! This is a tri-annual art journal that publishes unseen work by living photographers. Remarkably it is free of commercial and editorial content. Images are selected and published collaboratively rather than curatorially. While today, the de rigueur artists’ statements and essays to support work seem to have become as important as the work itself, BS presents artists and their works without any introductory, biographical or explanatory text. This is enlightening in the art world where over intellectualizing has sometimes spoiled the pure experience of viewing and appreciating art. As its creators have stated, BS is not about photography - it is photography.

BS juxtaposes emerging artists with those who are established creating a significant milieu where each can benefit from the other. By publishing accomplished artists on an intimate scale, BS enriches its readers viewers. Since its launch in 1993, BS has featured over 300 living photographers including Uta Barth, Gregory Crewdson, Tim Davis, Rineke Dijkstra, Adam Fuss, and Vik Muniz, many of whom have gained critical and audience acclaim through their exposure in the magazine.

Blind Spot is a photography publication of exemplary design: This tri-annual journal is a "must have" for fine art collectors and artists. To view the BS archive of the past fifteen years click here. It is distributed internationally and is found in some of the best independent bookstores, museums, and larger booksellers around the world. For information on where to find BS click here.

For the link for BS artist submissions click here.

2010-06-09T08:57:00.003-04:00

2010-05-26T13:38:00.013-04:00

JANUSIAN by MITCHELL

at
THE VIEWING ROOM

551 West 21st Suite #402 – 4th floor New York, NY 10011

An inaugural New York Solo Exhibition of abstract photographs
June 2nd-4th daily 10am-5pm by appointment

Opening Reception: June 3, 2010, 5-8pm

Mitchell’s 14 piece Janusian collection referencing "Janusian thinking", a thought process characterized by the concept of merging view points to reach a conclusion or decision will be presented at The Viewing Room for a very limited one night exhibition. The term, “Janusian” stems from “Janus”, the Roman god of gateways and doors who is usually illustrated as a two headed figure facing in opposing directions. But it is the interplay of perspectives – the exchange of information and communication which Mitchell alludes to in his minimal and dichotomous compositions; the point of engagement whereby the transference of ideas occurs.

Dunham will also include works from the Multifarious and Linear collections – both of which are also rooted in minimalism.

ABOUT MITCHELL
Contrary to the assumption that photography is about representation, pure abstraction in which the notion that something representational must be depicted is rejected in the vast majority of work. The images themselves along with the process of image making are the subject rather than the depiction of something identifiable. Images are shot with the purest of intuition and from a perspective largely influenced by aura occurrences associated with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

“I am searching for those slow motion frames from the mislaid footage of our lives, those elongated experiences we lost or slept through, echoes of memories, some thing in the mist of personal history, the blinkered image, the half frame peep beyond the curtain, it’s almost audible; the sound of snow—slightly deaf in one eye”, says Mitchell.

Immersion into the artist’s abstracted and mesmerizing imagery may be equated to visually experiencing ambient sound; in much of his work he engages senses beyond sight. It may not be the factual world we envision through the artist’s eyes nor lens, but what we experience through his introspective mind which is so compelling. He transports us to a realm of contrasts within which we find ourselves between definition and uncertainty; past, present and future; reality and the imaginary; even life and death. In his work these opposites coexist in a paranormal state as we are transported to a limbo where the unreal becomes real, the subliminal becomes obvious and disturbance becomes peripheral. In this semi-conscious disconnect he imposes; the amorphous becomes transformed to a clear and tranquil reality. Although the creative process for Mitchell has been inherent throughout his fashion and commercial career, it is in his fine art work that he reaches a higher level of aesthetic and conceptual thinking to which both his imagery and titles are testament. His inspiration is internally and externally environmental. Some years ago he was diagnosed with a neurological condition associated with aura oriented seizures which can create a temporary altered state of consciousness. In these episodes his physical and mental awareness can become intensified and dimmed concurrently. The onset of this condition has enhanced his sensory perception denoting a pivotal point in his career. We all may be memory collectors from our plastic camera holidays but behind the lens there are those of us who take pictures and those of us who are artists. Undeniably when Mitchell is behind the lens, he is a consummate artist.

ABOUT THE VIEWING ROOM: The Viewing Room, home to artists’ studios and fine art dealers/consultants has been featuring First Thursday openings for some time. It is the location for both the Manhattan studio of painter, James Kennedy and exhibition annex to Surface Library. Surface Library is an atelier and gallery in the Springs historic district of East Hampton, New York just across the road from the Pollock Krasner House. The gallery exhibits works of proprietors painter, James Kennedy and ceramicist, Bob Bachelor among others.

2010-04-15T23:05:00.003-04:00

Work of Art, Bravo’s new reality show debuts 11 p.m. (ET/PT) June 9 with judges, critic Jerry Saltz and dealer Leanne Greenburg Rohatyn and Bill Powers, there will be no lack of theatre. The series features 14 artists in competition for $100,000 and a solo show at The Brooklyn Museum and i understand the pilot is hilarious.
Very much in the style of Project RunwayProject Runway, the show follows a similar casting protocol resulting ina collection of trained and untrained artists, one host (Connoisseur China Chow), one mentor (auctioneer Simon de Pury), and three judges (art critic Jerry Saltz, Half Gallery owner Bill Powers and gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn) — but that the editing remains much the same.

Work of Art’s first episode introduces audiences to the artists and asks them to execute a challenge. In this case, the task was to create a portrait of one of their colleagues - very art school but not so sure anything is wrong with that.

Not sure the next best thing will be revealed but the entertainment factor and value is anticipated to be great and someone gets "their 15 minutes"

2010-04-07T10:19:00.013-04:00

Neuroscience and Art

"The struggle for scientific truth is long and hard and never ending. If we want to get an answer to our deepest questions—the questions of who we are and what everything is—we will need to draw from both science and art, so that each completes the other. From: To answer our most fundamental questions, science needs to find a place for the arts." By Jonas Leher

In working with Mitchell, (Mitchell's BIO) whose abstract photography is directly related to Neroscience, I have been seeking like minded artists. Here are some links on the topic of neuroscience and art: The work of Steve Miller, intergrating science and art. I like this quote on his website: "It seems to me that the most important gifts the sciences and arts have to offer eachother is a recognition and a synthesis of their different approaches to thinking, their different ways of being in the world. When these differences come together, often uneasily, we witness the full complexity and the mystery, and ultimately the grandeur of being human. Alan Lightman "Nature" vol 434, March 17, 2005. - -- A photographer who has had a history of experiencing/enduring repeated strokes Christian Erroi BIO Images --- Laurie Frick, mixed media artist states on the topic of neuroscience and art: I use pattern, words and color to replicate the feel of neurons firing in the brain. IQ points, bits of memory and accumulated media are all chopped up into a brain memory salad. Neuroscientists think memory is closer to bits flying out a blender than the often cited file-drawer analogy. I imagine the brain breaks down visual time into bits where the novel and odd are as important to recollection as the intensely emotional.

I use vaguely familiar cut-up materials as a stand-in for all the stuff you encounter in a day, where 24 hours are broken into corresponding mathematical equivalents and reorganized into a whole. Science is just moments away from explaining how our minds take in rhythm and how visual recollection and memory affect how each of us respond to art. Many neuroscientists are trying to assess from brain scans what is visually pleasing or beautiful. I think attraction is built on early experience, brain fluency and the desire to recover something recognizable. Not at the conscious or narrative level, but where pattern operates like music, and provides a rhythm that feels like a familiar recollection.
Mapping the brain is possibly the last big frontier, and it seems within reach. I compulsively study neuroscience – maybe deep down I worry about the slow deterioration of my mind and memory….does a fixation ever resolve anything? --- Susan Rankaitis, photographer in collaboration with neuroscientist David Somers. Her Limbick works at Robert Mann Gallery. Intersections of Art and Science at Scripps College - --"I Remember Better When I Paint", narrated by Olivia de Havilland, is the first international documentary about the positive impact of art and other creative therapies on people with Alzheimer's and how these approaches can change the way we look at the disease. A film by Eric Ellena and Berna Huebner, presented by French Connection Films and the Hilgos Foundation.. Among those who are featured are noted doctors and Yasmin Aga Khan, president of Alzheimer's Disease International and daughter of Rita Hayworth, who had Alzheimer's.

2010-02-24T22:19:00.016-05:00

Aperture Panel: Abstraction in Photography, Hammer Museum

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. Artists Susan Rankaitis and James Welling and UCLA Associate Professor of Art History George Baker debate a host of approaches to the abstract photographic experience in this panel discussion moderated by Lyle Rexer, the author of The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography.

2010-02-08T12:14:00.005-05:00

The Laumont staff with Mitchell's new work now available for exhibition. Stunning work!

2010-01-25T09:42:00.005-05:00

The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography

APERTURE
Text by Lyle Rexer

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations--from the Photo Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1940s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers--Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind and Barbara Kasten among them--took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores the influence the history of abstraction exerts on contemporary thinking about the medium. Many contemporary artists--most prominently Ilan Wolff, Marco Breuer and Ellen Carey--reject photography's documentary dimension in favor of other possibilities, somewhere between painting and sculpture, that include the manipulation of process and printing. In addition to Rexer's engagingly written and richly illustrated history, this volume includes a selection of primary texts from and interviews with key practitioners and critics such as Edward Steichen, László Moholy-Nagy and James Welling.

ABOUT THE BOOK COVER: Bill Armstrong's work featured on the cover of Rexer's latest book

The Mandala photographs are loosely based on Buddhist paintings known as mandalas. Mandalas are concentric circles of images that depict central themes in Buddhism, such as the Wheel of Life or the Map of the Cosmos. Through abstraction, simplification and blur, I hope to create a context for the exploration of these broad spiritual themes that, rather than relying on a codified system, remains open and invites the viewer's personal interpretation.
Like the other portfolios in the Infinity series, the Mandalas are made from collages that have been photographed with the camera's focusing ring set on infinity. Extreme defocusing allows me to create rhapsodies of color that change as one gazes into them: they pulsate as if alive. This sense of "being" within the inanimate invites an inquiry into the idea of the interconnectedness of all things.

Whether seen as celestial spheres, imaginary objects, or microscopic details, the Mandalas are meant to be meditative pieces--glimpses into a space of pure color, beyond our focus, beyond our ken. Their essential purpose is to create a sense of transcendence, of radiance, of pure joy!

2009-10-19T15:41:00.003-04:00

David M. Mitchell's Diaphanous Collection
represents a sanctuary: a room, a window, a key-hole,
the double mirror – the see and not be seen. A gentle transition
between the inner spaces we create and the outside world we dream of mastering: a simplicity, a gentle passageway to the
physical beyond the machinery of consciousness.
-a simple wish of mind-

Limited edition c-prints are available
unmounted, acrylic face-mounted on various substrates
or mounted and framed under glass.
36 x 36 inches – edition of 5, 48 x 48 inches – edition of 3
60 x 60 inches – edition of 2

2009-10-19T13:59:00.013-04:00

Linear 8
acrylic face mounted C-print, 36 x 36 inches

Luminaries: Window 3

acrylic face mounted c-print 24 x 24 inches

Excerpted from East Hampton Star, Jennifer Landes:“Mr. Mitchell’s photographs are clearly the stars of the show, although it is almost too easy to like their showy, filmy beauty. What makes them more intriguing is the puzzle of abstraction they present. If they are straightforward film photographs, what was the original subject and how far removed are we? It often seems as if he has managed to capture pure atmosphere in his “Linear” series. Yet in another example, “Window 3" from the "Luminaries Collection,” the subject seems to be another painting or a drop cloth and paint-stained canvas strips. The thick acrylic facing, clear as it is, provides another distancing device, and the viewer can never be certain just what is being viewed. Once peace is made with that conundrum, however, the pure beauty becomes its own reward.” For David M. Mitchell's bio click here.

2009-10-13T14:28:00.006-04:00

I.M. Pei on the new Centurion Condominiums in NYC at 33 West 56th Street, NY, NY

and The Team who executed the tribute to an elegant neighborhood

Stillman Development International is no stranger to the fine art arena. The firm has collaborated with architects associated with award winning museum quality endeavors the likes of Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie, Michael Graves & Associates and Pei Partnership Architects with I.M Pei. Furthermore the firm works with its own curator to enhance the projects with placement of works by significant artists, including Alex Katz, Robert Indiana, Robert Cottingham, Donald Sultan and Wendell Castle, among others.

It’s no surprise that brokers are drawing analogies between Centurion & 15 Central Park West. Both projects have proven developers and celebrity architects who pay attention to each and every tiny detail. However, one could argue the limestone façade of Centurion is actually better. The stone is imported from France and has a soft finish which is noticeably different from other types of limestone. Considering this is the only Pei condominium in New York, we’re not all that surprised the building is selling fast, and at prices that snuggle right up to $3,000/foot. (from the nyc condo blog)

ICA: Dance With Camera

2009-09-20T08:51:00.001-04:00

ICA: Dance With Camera

Posted using ShareThis

2009-06-15T07:55:00.010-04:00

I am at NeoCon Chicago representing works by Robert Brasher, R.R. Lyon, Vince Romaniello and David M. Mitchell. Mitchell's work is particularly apropos to the commercial interior design as his large scale c-prints are a available in multiple sizes. Although the work has commercial appeal, he maintains the status of fine artist in that editions are very limited.

2009-05-10T22:22:00.001-04:00

Art Chicago: Carl Hammer Gallery, from Chicago, sold a Martín Ramírez for $100,000, and Russell Bowman Art Advisory, also from Chicago, sold a 1971 Jim Nutt painting for six figures to a private collector. Jerald Melberg Gallery, of Charlotte, North Carolina, sold a six-figure piece as well, among other sales. Chicago’s Carrie Secrist Gallery said it had several museums interested in The Hadal Project, an 11- by 24-foot photo print by Angelo Musco (which will be featured in this year’s Venice Biennale), priced at $115,000. A roughly 4- by 8-foot version of the same piece sold out multiple editions for $16,000, one to Kansas City’s Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the even-smaller version, priced at $4,000, sold out too.
“The best part,” said Secrist, “was that no one asked for a discount.”
In general, Chicago galleries seemed to fare particularly well. G.R. N’Namdi Gallery sold four pieces by the fair’s second day to both new and existing clients, and Kavi Gupta, an organizer of and exhibitor at sister show Next, almost completely sold out his booth, which included works by German artist Ulf Puder, among them Mobilien, an oil on canvas for $8,500. Stephen Daiter Gallery, with photos by Wayne Miller, Art Shay, Helmut Newton, and Paul D’Amato, saw steady traffic throughout the fair's run.

2009-05-07T21:07:00.012-04:00

Gregory Coates at Art Chicago

Photos: Ilona Pawlak at GR Namdi Gallery - Art Chicago

SURFACE LIBRARY GALLERY hosts TEXTURES
by guest curator Lynn Dunham

June 25 – July 26th
Opening Reception: Saturday June 27th

SURFACE LIBRARY Gallery will host “TEXTURES”, an exhibition of artists as alchemists surveying aesthetic significance from unexpected and repurposed materials. In celebration, SURFACE LIBRARY will host an opening reception on Saturday, June 27th from 6 – 8pm. Guest curator Lynn Dunham of Art Rent & Lease has assembled a group of artists who find unexpected beauty in unusual materials with an emphasis on texture.
Participating artists include international and local artists whose work is currently on rotation with Art Rent and Lease – a cyber-gallery that rents, leases and sells fine art to business and residential clients, including eco-friendly Green Art. Lynn Dunham brings her unique art-acquiring concept to SURFACE LIBRARY in support of emerging and established artists and to promote sustainable, green and environmentally friendly art.

Guest curator Lynn Dunham has chosen works by David M. Mitchell, Vincent Romaniello, Gregory Coates, Matuschka, Gabriel Schuldiner, Roger Thomas Justice, James Kennedy, Lori Glavin and Tanya Bell – all of whom explore texture with unconventional materials. Site-specific work by Lori Glavin and Gregory Coates are relevant to the Art Rent and Lease "green" certification, whereby works are created with re-purposed materials.

SURFACE LIBRARY is an atelier and gallery, co-founded by Irish abstract painter, James Kennedy and potter, Bob Bachler, to create and present their art and design work. The gallery is also proud to present exhibits featuring new artists in multi media.

It is located at 845 Springs Fireplace Road, East Hampton (opposite the Pollock-Krasner House in the Springs District). Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday from 1pm to 7pm, and by appointment. For more information, please call 631.291.9061, e-mail at info@surfacelibrary.com or visit: http://www.surfacelibrary.com/

2009-04-09T12:52:00.005-04:00

Science and Art coming together

Wainscott Artist, Steve Miller's name has come into converstion twice this week in two completely different settings and then on Twitter. So I am thinking there is a reason and I am no longer asleep at the wheel. How could I have missed this New Art TV segment. Great stuff!
For more about Steve Miller go to his website,

2009-03-24T07:40:00.004-04:00

Film trailer of a 27 minute documentary on Michael Flomen and his photography. World Premiere: Thursday 26 March 2009 at 9 pm Cinéma ONF, 1564 Saint-Denis, Montréal, Québec

Represented by Hasted Hunt, NY 529 West 20th Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10011

TEL 212-627-0006

2009-03-24T06:45:00.006-04:00

Michael Thompson, Woman with White Mask,
New York City, 1998. Digital C-print,
60 x 76 inches. HASTED HUNT

The AIPAD Photography Show - NY March 26-29, 2009 at the Park Avenue Armory

MarchHasted Hunt is one of over 70 dealers exhibiting at one of the most important international photography events, The AIPAD Photography Show New York , presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) from March 26-29, 2009. At the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street and Park Avenue in New York City.

The 29th edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York will open with a Gala Preview on March 25 to benefit the John Szarkowski Fund, an endowment for photography acquisitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. View the Show press release.

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park AvenueNew York, NY 10065212 616-3930 http://www.armoryonpark.org/

Map and directions.

2009-03-22T08:49:00.002-04:00

Staring into Amnesia 3: Private collection / Courtesy of Boers-Li Gallery and ArtShortCut

Opened February at Arken Museum of Modern Art's unique exhibition space The Art Axis. It's a journey into a jumble of memories of China's past and pondering of the good life. In the 1960s and '70s this train ran in northeastern China transporting ordinary Chinese people to and from work, visits and journeys. Now at ARKEN's Art Axis, its purpose is to make museum visitors think about the dreams and values in our society. "Starring into Amnesia by Qui Anxiong is the first installation in a series of exhibitions in the museum's UTOPIA project. It opened on February the 6th. UTOPIA exhibition is the first of three exhibitions of contemporary art shown in ARKEN's Art Axis in the period 2009-2011 - one per year. Each exhibition will feature a significant, international contemporary artist in exploration of "the good life." The first artist is the Chinese Qui Anxiong (b. 1972). Qui Anxiong has converted this train car into a multi media work, Staring into Amnesia (2007). Viewers are expected to interact by boarding the train, sit down and be transported through China's history. Video clips of documentary and propaganda films from China from 1910 until today pass by the windows as fragments of memories alternating with silhouettes a la Kara Walker, of ordinary scenes. What is is juxtaposed with what was and what will be in this artistic metaphor for passage of time. Will it lead to Utopia? With its 6,000 drawings - one movie and the interaction of the masses, Staring into Amnesia is the principal work of the UTOPIA exhibition.

2009-03-21T10:44:00.001-04:00

View fine art photography blog by Marcus Bunyan at his artblart blog with a multitude of info and links concerning fine art photography. And more Bunyan work at his website.

2009-03-15T12:12:00.007-04:00

“Sounds of Complexity”

Concerning criticism some artists may have of those utilizing modern technology as a means to an end, the following supports my theory that technology is a current, contemporary tool and to ignore it would be counter evolutionary. Art, technology and also science can comingle and if Leonardo da Vinci were alive, he would not only be using computer technology, he would be inventing it! There is absolutely no question in my mind that photographers who choose not to take advantage of digital and computer technology are no more artists than those choosing to embrace the tools of the 21st century. So for the elite purists, I am posting “Sounds of Complexity” which validates my premise that audio visual digital technology and science can be synchronized to achieve fine art. Classic photography is no more art than that which is manipulated. It takes great artistic prowess to know just exactly how much or how little to incorporate technological enhancement.

"Sounds of Complexity" is an artistic project that moves from the field of cognitive science and neurosciences. It's an audiovisual performance in which the sound materials and the visual mappings are the consequence of very complex and stratified processes that hardly can be represented with symbolic forms in our world. It's an attempt to make audible and visible the dynamics and the interactions that for their richness, variety and complexity are unheard and invisible.

The audio material of the performance derives from the analogic recording of cerebral activities through an analogic elettroencephalograph (EEG) and corresponds to the discharges of billions of neurons situated in the sixth layer of human cerebral cortex, disposed vertically respect to the scalp.

The crude sound of brain is translated in an audible frequencies through techniques of pitch shifting; such material is then processed digitally in real time and the corresponding frequencies transformed in a Cartesian space to form visual trajectories projected on four screens that react dynamically; "it has to be considered in the first place the possibility offered by such sounds to represent the oscillatory phenomena, cyclical and rhythmic that govern our cerebral life, whose function is to synchronize periodically the activities of approximately 1000000000000 neurons, in order to allow the emergence of advanced phenomena like consciousness. The most part of cerebral oscillators are in the range between 10 Hz (alpha rhythm) and 40 Hz (gamma rhythm)." More on the digital art revolution.

2009-03-02T07:29:00.016-05:00

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Every artist should view these for inspiration and every collector and curator should look at these to disconnect from the market mentallity and let go of the notion of art as commodity.

Jonas Mekas has made excellent observations which spaek to all artists - not only filmakers. I urge you to stick with these two videos where he speaks about his retrospective but more importantly the process and value of art making. It has given me renewed energy to continue work in foam whether anyone will show it or buy it! I hope it fuels others in forward motion despite the gloomy economy.

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 1

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 2

A vist to the Castle of the Marquis de Sade & the Studio of Cezzane.

Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol avant-garde approaches to filmmaking helped established film as an art form before and during the Fluxus movement.As early as the 1950’s, leading avant-garde filmmaker and diarist Jonas Mekas was experimenting with new technologies, developing his signature approach and in-camera style of editing ( illustrated in this video). Decades later, he has continued to be at the forefront of digital innovation (see http://www.jonasmekas.com/). His 365 film project on his web site is testament to his commitment to the art of film. Incorporating archival and new footage, he released one film each day throughout 2007. This work was exhibited in 2008 at Mary Stendahl Gallery “From Fluxus to Media Art” one year ago.

For the exhibition, Mekas personally selected films from this collection to document creative impulses of important Fluxus artists. Appearances by George Maciunas, Shigeko Kubota, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier and Andy Warhol were featured.His recent 9-monitor video installation “Fluxus and Warhol” (2008), premiered at this exhibition. The monitors featured the latest innovation in Wetsinghouse digital technologies. Edited between frames, Mekas’ inserted text making comparisons between Maciunas and Warhol.

Also at this exhibition were 40 film stills entitled “Warhol Series #1”. The collection examined the career of Andy Warhol. Produced in edition of 10, these still images recorded Warhol during the early days of his Factory with Baby Jane Holzer, vacationing at his estate in Montauk, Long Island with friends Lee Radziwill, and the 1971 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art when Warhol covered the walls with his novelty cow wallpaper.

2009-02-27T13:08:00.010-05:00

SO GO SHOOT SOME HORSE SHIT

AND MAKE IT LOOK BEAUTIFUL...

Lester Hayes, a pioneer of abstract photography who took photographs of ordinary things, using a sheet of mylar plastic shimmering in the breeze, to produce stunning images, and he did it all with the Kodak Instamatic. Kodak awarded his ingenuity with a major one man exhibition in New York City, but became disinchanted when Hayes discovered a tiny flaw in the camera that ultimately contributed to its demise. It was good for 1000 shots and then it self distructed!

Here's a recent shot off my phone:

2009-02-17T09:31:00.008-05:00

David M. Mitchell: Friday

David M. Mitchell: Thursday

David M. Mitchell: Wednesday

A photograph captures a memory or documents a moment in time. When we look at photo albums of our past we can begin to wonder if we really remember the moment or is it just the snap shot we now remember from having viewed it repeatedly? We are all memory collectors with our cameras and are not inhibited by the medium. It doesn’t come with the same daunting strings attached as a paint brush and paint for the non artist. But behind the lens there are photographers with cameras and there are artists with cameras. Undeniably when David M. Mitchell is behind the lens, he is an artist. His emotive work doesn’t merely document a moment in time. It captures the essence of time passing and sometimes a complete disconnect or suspension in time beguiling the viewer with a gift of serenity. Through his metaphoric alluring imagery he engages the senses beyond sight. The work could even be described as sonic – if audible the sound would be ambient.

It is not the literal world we envision through the artist’s eyes or lens, but what we experience through his introspective mind. He transports us to a realm of contrasts which lie between definition and uncertainty; past and present; reality and the imaginary; even life and death. In his work these opposites coexist in a paranormal state as we are transported to a limbo where the unreal becomes real, the subliminal becomes obvious and audio disturbance becomes ambient sound. In this semi-conscious disconnect he imposes; the amorphous becomes a crystal clear tranquil reality.

2009-02-16T19:25:00.007-05:00

I was in Philadelphia this weekend and
discovered one of the city’s Fine Art treasures:

GALLERY 339
339 South 21st Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

215.731.1530

Martin McNamara is director and part owner of Gallery 339,
Philadelphia's only art gallery dedicated to photography.
Mr. McNamara began developing the business five years ago,
and the gallery opened with its first exhibition in April 2005. The focus of the gallery is
contemporary photography, exhibiting a mix of local work as well as photography from around the world. McNamara's interest in photography developed as a collector and he is not partial to one specific area of photography.

Now exhibiting “Extended Views”
An exhibit of recent panoramic landscape photography by
Tetsugo Hyakutake and Daniel Lobdell.
Both artists, although working in a panoramic format,
embody a unique language of their own while examining
our historical and cultural relationship to the urban landscape.

2009-02-15T07:49:00.011-05:00

Brian Eno Interview Part I - 77 Million Paintings

Brian Eno Interview Part 2 - 77 Million Paintings

This may be old news but still worth a look. Read this article about the artist's relationship with the MAC. And more articles here.

2009-02-10T15:14:00.005-05:00

Have your images printed on the

Epson Stylus Pro 9800 by a professional:

Artist Jane Martin offers archival inks and papers (a range of Epson and Hahnemuhle papers - and other papers and canvas for significant orders). Print size: up to 44 inches wide by length of your choice. Bring your file (300 dpi suggested) on a CD and leave with a perfect print. Same day printing available. Color-correcting and Photoshop.

email: janewmartin@mac.com or call 324-7179.

Reasonable rates

Springs location.

2009-02-08T07:37:00.007-05:00

Melancholia: James Elaine and William Basinski

William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 25 years in NYC. His haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of liferesounding with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, TheDisintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of2004 by Pitchfork Media. Art Forum selected The River, his transcendental 2-disc shortwave music experimenton Raster-Noton, Germany as one of the top ten albumsof 2003. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented internationally, most recently at Cite de la Musique, Paris, and REDCAT at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles for The Museum of Contemporary Art’s VISUAL MUSIC Exhibition. Basinski’s new album,the Garden of Brokenness, was released in January 2006 on 2062/USA and is distributed internationally. Listen to William Basinski and similar artists here.

2009-02-05T13:07:00.028-05:00

Kindred Spirits with Shared Aesthetic

Related to the intriguingly ambiguous

narratives of Jane Martin,

is the work of Fine art photographer,

David M. Mitchell of the UK,

living in Bangkok and Painter, James Kennedy of the UK,

living in Springs, NY.

Currently James is visiting Thailand.

Follow Surface-Library Gallery Thai Travel Blog

Jane Martin: Depth Sound

David M. Mitchell: Amorphia

David M. Mitchell: Archaeopteryx

David M. Mitchell: Fate

Jane Martin: Shelter-Sky

Jane Martin: Sudden Dance

David M. Mitchell: Numinous C print available in limited edition of varied sizes.

Click here for more information

James Kennedy: Burning the Chafe, 48 x 52 inches, Oil on birch

Click here for more information

PRESS FOR JANE MARTIN

By Eric Ernst
Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
Dec 15, 08 3:11 PM

In her current exhibition (it is now closed) at Guild Hall in East Hampton, “Reckoning and Rapture,” Jane Martin is showing works conjuring intriguingly ambiguous narratives brimming with sensuality and an understated yet powerfully emotional psychological tension.
The exhibition is particularly interesting in its demonstration that these effects are perceived less by the viewer’s eyes and more through the emotions, reflecting, as the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once wrote, that one should never “pretend to understand the world only by the intellect, we apprehend it just as much by feeling.”

This has been an ongoing theme in Ms. Martin’s work over the last few years, most powerfully in the images from her series of video stills in the “Closer Far Away” series, featuring swaying nude female forms dancing to unheard yet delicately insistent rhythms. Allowing the figuration to take on mysterious qualities of apparitional wood nymphs furtively darting in and out of mystifying banks of fog in a primeval forest, the works juxtapose a certain surreal and dreamlike ambiance with the implied rationale and immediate impact of photographic reality.

Creating an environment in which madness and sanity are interchangeable emotional components, these works construct an intriguingly vague story line that is a product of the cadences and melodies elicited more by what was partially hidden than what was immediately visible. These words could apply directly to the work of David Mitchell.

In “Shelter-Sky” (video still, archival pigment print, resin, mixed media on wood, 2005), for example, the figure is frozen in motion, the strange intensity of the forest scene accentuated by the thick banks of fog from which the figure materializes. This effect is also heightened by the layers of resin that are poured over the photographic image, the elegant sheen invoking a great sense of depth while further underscoring a sensation of ambiguity and emotional distance that is powerfully arresting.

This construct is also prevalent in some of Ms. Martin’s more recent works, such as “On Wings, Lifted II” (video still, archival pigment print, resin, mixed media on wood, 2008) and “Reckoning” (digital C-print mounted on Dibond, 2008), each of which immediately establishes ineffable psychological overtones with the figuration of dancers frozen in motion, moving to what seems to be a cacophonous harmony that is silently dissonant and expressively jarring. Embodying a profound combination of mystery and sensuality, they illustrate the essayist Havelock Ellis’s observation that dance “is no mere translation or abstraction from life, it is life itself.” Interestingly, this existential narrative, which initially seemed a product of the ambiguity of the figures themselves as unrecognizably hazy seraphs, gains even more impact in the recent works in which Ms. Martin focuses on fragments of images that she then configures and constructs into a kind of psychological portraiture.

In works such as the two triptychs, “Immersion #1” and “Immersion #2” (both Digital C-Print, gallery mount on Sintra, 2008), for example, while posture and pose are still important elements in the compositions, the action derived from motion becomes more reminiscent of a stop-action sequence than of a single cell from which one discerns the artist’s thematic concept. In addition, and perhaps most important, while the figures are partially obscured by steam and condensation, Ms. Martin makes the personas of the models a more immediate element. This is accomplished through a narrative derived from stringing together shards of a given instant, thereby creating a disjointed portrait of a moment in time, a stream of consciousness that is somehow simultaneously openly revealing and opaquely vague.
This dichotomy reaches an apogee of sorts in the nine-panel “Inward Appearances” (video stills, archival pigment prints, resin, mixed media on wood panels, 2008) in which the grid of abstracted photographs offers a psychological narrative that is contemplatively disrupted, like fragments of memories that may pertain to a specific moment, even though their meaning changes depending on the order in which one confronts them.

This same effect is also a factor in Ms. Martin’s series in which the human form is replaced by images of waves, the differences in configuration of each swell managing to tie them together as pieces of an ever changing plot that one understands as much through their relationship to abstract imagery as to representational reality.

________________

Detail (section) from my latest Topographic Tiling Series of 12x12 inch pieces are intended to wall mount intuitively in accordance with the particular environment.

Lynn Dunham: Topographic Tiling Segment 2008, 12 x 12 inches poly-eurathane foam, latex, acrylic and ink

2009-02-02T16:19:00.006-05:00

Calvin Klein's house on the beach in Southampton may get the wrecking ball. This former Dupont estate, once a stately summer retreat of classic Georgian architecture akin to Winterthur became this monster of a house which should house a bat cave but instead an aquarium large enough for a whale is on the lower level. Read more about this in the current news here and a 1984 NY Times related article.

2009-01-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

Ellen Frank and Cities Of Peace Exhibiton Video

2009-01-26T12:16:00.003-05:00

"I figure that this guy has just lost everything in the Market because his Broker was a 'Goniff' (Yiddish for thief) who had only his own interests at heart. So, either Our Man is going after the Goniff himself or he's about to send him this pistol wrapped in the NYTimes Stock Market pages with a note that says (Be honorable and due what you have to do.) I'd swear I got this idea from Shakespeare...ah yes, Anton and Cleop'tra. Chilling." Izzy Seltzer

For more Izzy Seltzer Photography/Humor go to

Izzy Seltzer

2009-01-19T18:28:00.001-05:00

Congratulations...

Gregory Coates

has a new web site!

2009-01-18T11:28:00.007-05:00

Falling Water by Winn Rea

was featured in an exhibition at the Alpan Gallery last month. The artist created an evolving installation of spiral cut plastic water bottles suspended from the ceiling forming a waterfall of swirling plastic ribbons. The Long Island City based artist reminds the viewer of a necessary concern for the environment. Winn Rea - New York Times Review

NY: Alpan Gallery Alpan Gallery Call for Entries

ABOUT THE JUROR: RHONDA COOPER
Rhonda Cooper has been the Director of the University Art Gallery at Stony Brook University since 1983. Before coming to Stony Brook, she was Curator of Exhibitions at The Queens Museum in New York City and Curator of Asian Art at The Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio. Other museums and galleries at which she has worked include The Harvard University Archives, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Rhonda Cooper received her M.A. in the History of Far Eastern Art from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and did additional graduate study towards the Ph.D. at Cornell University. She has taught arts management and Asian art history at Stony Brook since 1984. She has also taught at the Art Institute of Boston and the University of Bridgeport. Rhonda Cooper is the author of many articles and exhibition catalogues and co-author of the book Masterpieces of Chinese Art.

2009-01-17T13:12:00.012-05:00

I missed this last summer - Brian Belott at Cheim Read….

The I WON’T GROW UP show emphasized work with compositional elements evocative of the creative freedom and wonderment of younger years which paid homage to the abandonment of adulthood and endless youth of Peter Pan.

It was art patron and advocate for contemporary artists, Beth Rudin deWoody and artist, Donald Baechler who curated a show last summer at Cheim Read where up-and-comer, Brian Belott exhibited along side Donald Baechler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Jared Buckheister, Brendan Cass, E.V. Day, Phillip Estlund, Mark Fox, Beka Goedde, Gary Hume, Chantal Joffe, Chapman Brothers, Jonathan Hammer, Mike Kelley, Misaki Kawai, Jeff Koons, Tim Liddy, McDermott & McGough, Ryan McGinley, Paul Morrison, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Djordje Ozbolt, Kembra Pfahler.

Performance work by Belott and collaborator Larissa Valez who currently performing at DTW and later in May. See more about DTW at:Dance Theatre Workshop ...

Brian Belott in his Park Slope Studio

2009-01-17T12:05:00.004-05:00

The World

oil and alkyd on canvas 36" x 34"

I have just added a link to Fred Bendheim's who is in the Art Rent and Lease stable of artist (with me).

These abstract paintings are the result of over twenty-five years of exploration through painting. Although they contain references to nature, macro and micro systems, Eastern Philosophy, and to other art, they are primarily self-referential. Each painting’s structure is made from lines, often a single line that forms a circuit or isometric pattern. Within this line is a myriad of shapes, colors and gestures, which together primarily express feeling. A single line or circuit derives from the artist’s intuition of a universe that includes endless differences and yet is essentially one.
Lines are also metaphors of life: they have a beginning, a middle and end. They are records of their own creation--each line being made of many moments. The paintings describe the essence of form, they express the essence of feeling, which is energy.

2009-01-15T20:28:00.004-05:00

Shepard Fairey’s ubiquitous illustration of President-elect Barack Obama,

seen throughout the 2008 election season, has been purchased by and will be exhibited in The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Mr. Fairey’s mixed-media stenciled collage that depicts President elect Obama above the word “hope,” was created by Mr. Fairey, a Los Angeles-based artist known for rock-music album covers and a sticker campaign featuring the wrestler Andre the Giant. Martin E. Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, remarked that the Obama poster was “an emblem of a significant election, as well as a new presidency.” The portrait which fetched $75,000 in donations is expected to be on display by Inauguration Day.

Frank Shepard Fairey, who usually omits his first name, born February 15, 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina is a contemporary artist, graphic designer and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scen and became known initially for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's best known and most influential street artists. He usually omits his first name.

2009-01-11T09:55:00.002-05:00

All emerging artists need to read this article by Renee Phillips' in Art Calendar for emerging artists. Click here. It is very encouraging amidst our gloomy economy.

2009-01-10T11:40:00.002-05:00

GLOOMY LANDSCAPE:

As financial downturn hits art market,

the days of easy Monet may be over

By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) _ The mood was frosty at London's Frieze Art Fair. Bidders were sparse at Christie's and Sotheby's. Even Andy Warhol's multicolored skulls failed to lift the art world's gloom. A week of slowing sales and sagging prices suggests the global financial meltdown has finally ended the art-market boom that saw paintings and sculptures become must-have commodities for the world's elite.

At Sotheby's and Christie's — where price records have tumbled regularly in recent years — the major autumn auctions of contemporary art generated at least a third less money than predicted, with many works going unsold. "A lot of the froth and hype has gone from the contemporary market," Melanie Girlis, art market editor of The Art Newspaper in London, said Monday.

Art world observers have been predicting a crash since the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis began rippling around the world. Many of the buyers driving the art world sales frenzy were hedge fund and private equity millionaires — among the first to suffer as the credit crunch took hold.
But prices stayed high, thanks in part to Russian and Middle Eastern buyers who were insulated from the worst of the economic woes.

In May, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought two paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud for a total of $120 million. Last month, a Sotheby's auction of works by Britart star Damien Hirst defied market jitters by generating almost $200 million.
Now, however, the economic crisis has spread around the world, bringing stock market turmoil, failing banks — and plunging art prices — in its wake.

Christie's postwar and contemporary sale Sunday raised just under $55.5 million, against a pre-sale estimate of $100 million to $132 million. Twenty-one of the 47 lots failed to sell.
Sotheby's contemporary sale Friday raised a total of $38 million, below the presale estimate of $54 million to $75 million. The star lot, Warhol's pop-art paintings of human skulls, sold for $7.5 million, below the estimate of $8.7 million to $12.2 million. Both auction houses said they were pleased with the results, which some observers had predicted might be even worse.
Cheyenne Westphal, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's Europe, said bidding had been "rational." She said that while pre-sale estimates had proved overoptimistic, "the sale was assembled in a very different economic environment from that which prevailed today."
William Ruprecht, Sotheby's chief executive officer, said "there's no question that there's a reduction in price that some people are willing to pay for objects." "But there's also no question that there's an awful lot of interest in important works of art," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview in New York. "I do not look at the marketplace ... as in any sense frozen or not moving forward, be it with some price adjustments, because that's what's happening. There's a price adjustment going on in a number of categories where there's been big price appreciation," Ruprecht said. He added that the demand and interest from the United States was "a surprise to us" and that some longtime collectors, particularly in the U.S., see the falling prices as an opportunity to find a bargain.

Christie's said the last few weeks had shown that prices for artworks were "finding a new level," but added it remained "cautiously optimistic" about upcoming sales. "We are seeing more selective bidding which represents a slowdown in the growth seen in recent years, as opposed to any decline," the auction house said in a statement from New York. "We have encouraged sellers to agree to reasonable and attractive estimates in forthcoming sales, as is standard in our aim of matching demand with supply in the auction marketplace."

At auctioneer Phillips de Pury, Saturday's contemporary art sale generated only $8.6 million, less than a third of the pre-sale estimate. The auction house blamed the extreme financial market volatility, which it said was leading buyers to take a "wait- and-see" attitude.
Nothing symbolized the modern art boom like Frieze, four days of champagne, chitchat, celebrity — and, of course, art — that has become one of the world's most glamorous art fairs since it was founded six years ago.

The glitter quotient remained high this year, as everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow and Sofia Coppola to Abramovich and his gallery-owning girlfriend Daria Zhukova came to inspect the work of 1,000 international artists in a tented mini-city erected in London's Regent's Park.
The fair did not release sales totals, but said the figures had "exceeded expectations."
But attendees said the mood was less frenzied than in recent years, when many pieces were snapped up in the first few hours. "It's like art fairs used to be," said Tom Heman of New York gallery Metro Pictures. "We're able to have much more of a dialogue about the work."
Some galleries even said they were glad to see the end of the feeding-frenzy atmosphere.
"It is nice that it's going back to normal and that it's time to talk about art again, instead of investment," said Claus Andersen of Andersen's Contemporary in Copenhagen.
The market's next test will come in a month, when Christie's and Sotheby's hold sales of impressionist and modern art in New York. Sotheby's auction includes Pablo Picasso's "Harlequin," which is expected to fetch more than $30 million.

The last such sales, in May, generated more than $500 million between them.
Some dealers remain optimistic amid the gloom. Hauser & Wirth, a leading contemporary art gallery with showrooms in London and Zurich, said it had had its best Frieze week ever, with several million dollars in sales of works by Subodh Gupta, Louise Bourgeois, Paul McCarthy and other artists.

"Quality (art) to committed collectors will always sell," said spokesman Roger Tatley.
"If it's a moment to separate the wheat from the chaff, the high quality pieces from the overinflated works, then that's a good thing."
___
Associated Press writer Ula Ilnytzky in New York contributed to this report.

2009-01-04T11:38:00.010-05:00

MONROVIA

East Hampton artist, Ellen Frank

will be speaking with Bonnie Grice

Monday morning at 9:00 am on WLIU radio (88.3)

about her up-coming exhibit,

CITIES OF PEACE opening at

CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THEDIVINE

JANUARY 7 – FEBRUARY 16, 2009

OPENING RECEPTION, JAN. 7, 6 – 9PM

CITIES OF PEACE is a series of nine monumental, 6 x 8 foot gold-illuminated paintings honoring cities traumatized by major conflict: BAGHDAD, BEIJING, HIROSHIMA, JERUSALEM, KABUL, LHASA, MONROVIA, NEW YORK, SARAJEVO.
The commemorative body of work was conceived by American artist Ellen Frank
and produced at her Illumination Atelier, with trained interns and scholars from China, Colombia, Estonia, Canada and elsewhere. Honoring cities either in the midst of crisis or in different stages of cultural restoration, the suite features Baghdad, Beijing, Hiroshima, Jerusalem, Kabul, Lhasa, Monrovia, New York and Sarajevo.
“The U.S. faces more than the enormous effort to repair our diplomatic ties; we need to promote healing and unity across borders,” says artist Ellen Frank. “This is my way of helping: I strongly believe that when people are in the presence of beautiful things—removed from the world of despair, fear, worry—we become hopeful, closer and beautifully at peace.”

CITES OF PEACE marries word and image in the great tradition of illuminated art, evoking
artistic traditions as diverse as illuminated manuscripts, religious icons, tapestries, embroidery, architectural mosaics, woodcarvings, and metalwork. Crimson leaf, the color of blood, is placed in each painting to honor the dead. While serving as memorials, the paintings are also intended as border crossings that enable visions of greater compassion and heightened consciousness among peoples.

CITIES OF PEACE will be narrated in a free cell phone tour by actor Fred Melamed, who is
starring in the next Coen brothers’ film, A Serious Man. The Cathedral is located at 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, one block east of Broadway. Hours are Monday - Saturday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Ellen Frank studied art history and connoisseurship at Yale University and holds an
interdisciplinary doctorate in English literature and the visual arts from Stanford University. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Ford Foundation fellowship, and grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Frank founded the nonprofit Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation, Inc., in East Hampton, New York.

watch Ellen Frank video

2009-01-02T16:19:00.000-05:00

Check out the

Sketchbook Project Exhibition

Get Connected!

2009-01-02T11:38:00.003-05:00

If you don't know about The Daily Campello Art News blog, I strongly encourage you to check it out: dcartnews.blogspot.com. Lenny Campello has been blogging since 2003, and is offering webinars in February.

Boot Camp for Artists - The Lenny Campello Webinars Sunday, February 01, 2009 at 11:00 AM (ET) (online at: bootcampforartists.eventbrite.com)
SESSIONS
How to Build your Resume:
Sunday February 1, 2009 @11am-12:30pm ... Proven tactics for building your resume.
How to Present Your Work:
Sunday February 15, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... Delivering a positive impression of the work.
How to Reduce your Framing Costs:
Sunday March 1, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... Inexperienced artists often fall prey to high framing costs and then find that these costs account for the largest percentage in pricing artwork.
How to get publicity for your art show:
Sunday March 15, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... In times of declining main stream media coverage of the arts, artists and gallerists find it very difficult to attract publicity.
How to establish a digital presence:
Sunday April 19, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... Discuss a variety of tactics for improving your Internet presence as well as expanding your artistic digital footprint.
The insider's view on art galleries:
Sunday April 5, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... former co-owner of the two Fraser Galleries in Washington, DC and Bethesda, MD and is currently the owner of Alida Anderson Art Projects as well as the curatorial advisor to several commercial art galleries in the Mid Atlantic.
How to approach a gallery:
Sunday May 3, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... proven methodology for approaching art galleries.
Contracts:
Sunday May 17, 2009 @11am-12:30pm... discuss and explain the most common aspects addressed in most gallery contracts.

2009-01-01T12:35:00.007-05:00

The artist, Rist speaking about the project

The Curator, Klauss Biesenbach speaks on the project

If you are using Safari as your browser, you have trouble viewing these videos in which case click behind the scenes with Pipolotti Rist and
MOMA curator on Pipolotti Rist

MOMA'S Sex Change

The Musuem's Piplotti Rist Show Cheekily Feminizes a Bastion of Masculinity - A New York Magazine, Jan 5 issue review by Jerry Saltz whose written aesthetic so perfectly describes this installation we can all enjoy through February 2nd.

The deliciously named Swiss miss Pipilotti Rist, who for two decades has been ravishing viewers with her fiesta-colored video visions, has risen to new heights of trippy bliss. Her opulently beautiful 25-by-200-foot wraparound video at MoMA—complete with two round breast-shaped projector pods protruding from the walls and close-ups of pink tulips, a black pig, and a fleshy nude—is catnip for the eye and a hormonal rush for an institution badly in need of one. It is one of the most seductively rebellious artistic gestures since Lynda Benglis’s notorious Artforum ad in 1974, for which she posed naked wielding a dildo. Benglis’s action slapped a biased art world awake; Rist’s Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) suspends us in a primordial sea of liquids, and performs a metaphysical sex change on the Museum of Modern Art. The atrium of this bastion of masculinism becomes a womb, and the museum itself a woman. In an abstract way, Rist makes the institution ovulate.
Rist’s installation is an impregnation and an incantation. It is also an exorcism. As I’ve said in these pages before, MoMA is—even with this show and the current Marlene Dumas survey—a place where very little work by women is on view, at least in the permanent collection. Rist’s installation comments on and reacts to this misogyny. She has hung magenta-colored draperies almost to the ceiling of the atrium, making it a ballroom, a Hopper movie theater, a bordello, or a living room. Her monolithic projected images caress and dissolve the hard-edged architecture. Drowsy droning music plays; bells ting-a-ling. The atrium has been carpeted, and a large circular couch with a hole in the middle has replaced Barnett Newman’s phallic Broken Obelisk. Shoes and coats are everywhere. People lie around, lean on walls, sleep, and sprawl in groups on the floor and couch. On one of my visits, the well-known painter Gary Stephen drifted by and said, “I wish I had some ganja.” This is museum as hallucination, opium den, Lotus Land, cubbyhole, and pleasure dome. Call it Trance Central station.
The images in Rist’s sixteen-minute video loop remix the colors of Fauvism, the fragmented form of Cubism, and modernism’s juicy jarring nudes. Rist’s quasi-narrative is pleasure, politics, and biology. In an interview she talks to curator Klaus Biesenbach about “our deepest craving to be synchronized with others” and “our love for fluids and water.” To some, Rist’s MoMA installation is little more than a hippy-dippy decorative circus. That’s a mistake, ignoring how clever and subversive Rist is. One subplot of her MoMA installation is to metaphysically induce a rush of psychic estrogen in the museum. By the film’s end the atrium is awash in a tidal sea of crimson and burgundy fluid.
At various points, a pig gnaws an apple, toes squish fruit, giant strawberries drift in clear liquid, a naked girl crawls in the grass. All hips, hair, and breasts, she caresses two earthworms as if removing the sin from Eve’s apple or stroking living phalluses. She fills another person’s mouth and nostrils with flower petals, eats tulips, digs into the dirt with her fingers. She is some sort of otherworldly Earth mother performing a modern-day fertility rite. MoMA seems to swell and stir to new life. A giant eye opens, a naked woman floats upside down, a trail of blood begins running up her breasts. Finally, a colossal female in a white bathing suit rises from the water. Between her legs is a flow of blood. The whole atrium goes red. MoMA comes of age.
What Richard Serra is to hard and dry, Rist is to soft and moist. Rather than only privileging the eye, as in Courbet’s yummy yoni shot The Origin of the World, Rist’s art is a full-body experience. Like Matthew Barney, who crawls like a symbiotic organism through space, or Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely's giant reclining nude that was entered between the legs, Rist wants to turn the museum into an ecstasy machine.
In the West, however, ecstasy comes with proscriptions. Especially if it’s too female—then it’s taboo. A widely circulated rumor has it that MoMA asked Rist to edit out the red between the legs. It turns out that so-called “belly-magic” is more off-limits than mind-magic. In classical terms, the Dionysian is still more fraught than the Apollonian. Thinking about this installation without the blood is like thinking about life without blood.

2008-12-31T12:10:00.001-05:00

From the New York Times December 12, 2008

Although it seems as if there just was one (there was, ending in June), officials at the Whitney Museum of American Art are already plotting the sequel, scheduled to open in March 2010. This week they are announcing the choice of curators, who in years past have consisted of all-Whitney teams, groups of outsiders, or variations in between.
This time the museum has paired Francesco Bonami, 53, a seasoned Italian-born curator with an international reputation, and Gary Carrion-Murayari, 28, a homegrown senior curatorial assistant. Mr. Bonami will serve as curator for the Biennial, with Mr. Carrion-Murayari acting as associate curator.
“It seemed like a good fit on a lot of levels,” said Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s chief curator. “Francesco is well known to the Whitney” — he helped organize the Rudolf Stingel retrospective in 2007 — “and he has been thinking about and looking at biennials. Gary is about investing in a younger generation of curators. Not youth for youth’s sake but tapping into the way they see.”
These Biennials are “a monster to wrestle,” as Ms. De Salvo put it, but the Whitney also wanted a young eye involved; thus an experienced curator was matched with a greener one.
In 2007 Mr. Carrion-Murayari organized “Television Delivers People,” which focused on video works from the 1970s and ’80s and newer examples that examined the relationship between television and the viewer. A five-year Whitney veteran, he also worked on the 2004 and 2006 Whitney Biennials and helped Mr. Bonami and the Whitney curator Chrissie Iles on the installation of Mr. Stingel’s show.
This year the Biennial spilled over into the Park Avenue Armory for part of its run. At other times it has spread into Central Park. The 2010 edition, it seems, will be a more concentrated affair, occupying only the museum’s landmark Marcel Breuer home.
Unless the curators find a special project that requires another sort of space. “I want to stretch the building’s dimensions,” Mr. Bonami said. “Sometimes Biennials go all over the place. This one will be more specific.”
Although the curators won’t start visiting artists’ studios around the country until January, and at this early stage they haven’t decided whether the Biennial will have a particular theme, they are already starting to focus on certain ideas.
“I grew up around the world of globalism,” said Mr. Bonami, who in 2003 became the first American citizen to direct a Venice Biennale and who recently organized “Italian Art Between Tradition and Revolution: 1968-2008,” which is on view through March 22 at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. “It was a time, around 1992-93, when there were no boundaries. But now my challenge is to reflect on the idea of Americanness. Setting these parameters, these limitations could be an advantage.”
Mr. Carrion-Murayari said the notion of globalism, which was important in past Biennials, feels dated. “We’ve gotten beyond that,” he said. “It’s not so much an argument anymore.”
Both curators said that their decision to concentrate on the Breuer building rather than consider other locations was not about keeping budgets low because of the current economic climate, adding that there might actually be a benefit to being focused and in one place.
The two men also said they were considering weaving works from the Whitney’s holdings into the Biennial, which would be a departure.
“We have talked about using the permanent collection,” Mr. Carrion-Murayari said. “We definitely want to consider it.”

2008-12-31T11:25:00.003-05:00

Two Kinds of Thickness in Abstract Painting

by Vittorio Colaizzi from The Painting Center blog

It is great fun to complain about the art market and the promotional machine, especially the gnawing fear that the exaltation and trauma of aesthetic experience is irrelevant to that machine. But if we nobodies can offer any resistance, it is only by continuing the conversation at the level of irrelevancy. There is a lot of painting out there, and some of it is very good, but there is also anxiety about the discourse around painting, and a fear that we rarely advance past a scorecard of stylistic referents. This might be the price we pay for the permissiveness that comes with a lack of centrality.
At the 2007 College Art Association conference, Lane Relyea chaired a panel on abstract painting and the thickness of paint. This was in partial response to a question that emerged in Artforum’s 2002 roundtable on death-of-painting theory and its aftermath. Robert Storr complained about a crisp, graphic quality to some paintings, noting that it seemed as if the painter wanted to get the material aspect out of the way in order to focus on the image, which is usually borrowed from the broader media. The following remarks are adapted from my contribution to that panel.
I would not presume to claim for any artist that facture is unimportant. Paintings have material qualities, and the visibility of these qualities seems to vary according to climate. For example, the viscous tactility of Gerhard Richter’s 1960s black and white photo-based paintings is always striking. At the time, these were aggressively antagonistic to the craft of painting, but now they are positively luxurious. This is not just because we read them through the lens of Richter’s own sentimental turn, because in a book, they are just as polemical as was the younger Richter’s rhetoric. Their tactility is still almost invisible in reproduction.
Reproduction remains a key issue for painting today. While Richter took reproduction on as intellectual and plastic subject matter, problematizing both photography and painting, some painters today vault over reproduction as a given, producing work that appears made for reproduction, or already having been reproduced. Again, I will not say that a painting by Sarah Morris is without tactility, but her mode of pictorial organization is easily translatable into other formats, as is evident in her installation at Lever House. Nothing essential to Morris’ work is lost in this project, because, as a trafficker in images, she is concerned with the significance communicated by her crisscrossing lines and colored facets.
Part of Morris’s subject matter is arguably Modernism’s formal language as refracted through the mechanical and digital image stream. Her work contains the memory of Mondrian, but Mondrian in reproduction. This earlier artist’s facture is imbued with an awkwardness and urgency that might come from the belief that he was making a difference. It would be a mistake to attempt to rekindle the utopian ambitions of 20th century Modernism, just as it would be a mistake to take too seriously the either/or dialectic that seems to be set up by the preceding comparison. For the purposes of a discussion of facture I do not propose that we should divide painters into thick vs thin and then assign concepts like authenticity or cynicism accordingly. Rather, we should note that while the materiality of paint and surface is not a major issue for some, paint still speaks more than one language for the others. In other words, painters rely on tactility for different reasons. Thick paint can be deployed as part of an existent code, or it can be integrated with the surface of the painting in a way that intimates the ongoing process. The latter mode often uses less actual paint, but relies on the materials as having-been-worked, instead of as part of a pictorial code. A brief consideration of the work of Jonathan Lasker and Robert Ryman will clarify this opposition.
In his self-described “abstract pictures,” Jonathan Lasker uses various means to repeat relatively simple shapes. Parallel lines or carefully sequestered scribbles sometimes project outward, but they are also corralled back into the pictorial idiom by means of their near-duplication by their neighbors. Such repetition denies each element’s uniqueness as an expressive statement. The presumed expressivity or personal engagement that has become a cliché of generous paint handling is thus assimilated and re-cast into a more analytical consideration of that cliché’s significatory function.
Robert Ryman’s many varieties of white paint are conditioned by his many grounds, which include canvas, steel, wood, and cardboard. The interaction between surface and ground causes the paintings to open up in a way that lets the viewer almost rehearse the procedure as he or she looks. Ryman’s “tape-removal paintings” of 1969, reprised in 2000-02, are among his most ingenious integrations of painting’s physical elements. They consist of thin sheets of fiberglass or vinyl taped to a wall and then painted, so that the paint strays onto the wall. The dried skin of paint holds the panels up, and the no-longer necessary tape is removed, leaving tabs of unpainted support, as well as tiny ridges where painted and unpainted areas meet. By painting very thinly, but instrumentalizing that thinness, giving it a job, Ryman disconnects materiality from thickness: The thinnest paint of his career is also the most literally consequential.
This same insistence on materiality outside of signification is evident in his most recent exhibition at PaceWildenstein on 57th street, “No Title Required.” The show contains a polyptych of ten wood panels coated in enamel and surrounded by wooden frames of maple, cherry, and oak, each contributing its own color. Ryman aimed the track lighting at the opposite wall in order to cast reflected light on the paintings, thus avoiding spotlighting their interiors as if they were pictures. He was also careful to let his brush wander from the central panels onto the “frames,” thereby asserting the paint as a substance in the experiential world with us, not sequestered into a pictorial fiction, This again is accomplished by a paradoxical thin-ness. While the panels are built up with numerous coats into a glossy sheen, the spill-over seems to only be one coat and is relatively matte and almost translucent; it is most real through its slightness.
At the end of the panel, during the truncated discussion period, Relyea asked if thickness can stave off the artwork’s inevitable reduction to commodity. I would argue that, by itself, it cannot, nor can any formal quality. But no quality is by itself. It always exists in dialogue with the other possibilities in the field, as well as the use to which it is put within the work. So while everything becomes commodity, some paintings might allow for moments of respite within themselves, by providing visual and tactile experience that is irreconcilable with linguistic systems.
The foregoing binary is a falsification of the complexity of painting, but it is a falsification intended to bring some truths about painterly practice into higher relief. It is hoped that painters and connoisseurs will find these categories useful, if only as an invitation to invent their own template with which to organize their experience.
Vittorio Colaizzi received both an MFA in Painting (2000) and a PhD (2005) Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University. His paintings have been exhibited in Richmond and Brooklyn. He has published in Art Papers, Smithsonian’s American Art, and Woman’s Art Journal (forthcoming) and presented papers at the College Art Association, Southeastern Conference of Art Colleges, and the Modernist Studies Association.
Virginia Commonwealth University is the top rated public art grad school in the country. http://www.vcu.edu/arts/arthistory/dept/graduate/

2008-12-31T10:11:00.006-05:00

Untitled, 2006, oil on canvas , 96 x 108 inches

More work by Brett Baker.

Simon gallery opened in 1996 to support its artists and promote the visual arts in New Jersey. The gallery's diverse sensibility focuses on contemporary painting, sculpture, and photography, both abstract and representational. Eight exhibitions a year feature the works of emerging and established artists from New Jersey, New York and around the country. This gallery represents Brett Baker.

Mary Ellen and Harry Simon, Directors of

Simon Gallery

48 Bank Street Morristown, New Jersey, USA 07960

2008-12-30T18:17:00.007-05:00

Take Joanne's virtual tour of Miami Basel earlier this month as reported by artist and blogger extraordinaire, Joanne Mattera. Nice coverage in particular of Jorge Fick works at Eric Firestone Gallery, Tucson booth.

2008-12-20T11:38:00.005-05:00

It's a winter wonderland in Southampton! Wishing all a safe and happy holiday.

2008-12-14T20:55:00.003-05:00

How and When I started to blog:
In a web search for info on the Philadelphia art scene last spring, I contacted the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the pr director sent me to the Fallon and Rosoff blog (http://fallonandrosof.blogspot.com/) where I tapped into the Philly scene and discovered blogging. I was doing this because Mark Borghi Fine Art (where I work part time) was exhibiting in a Philadelphia art fair at the time.

Fallon and Rosoff produce an art blog which is highly respected well beyond the Philadelphia market. They are two artists who are writers and curators as well. In perusing the Fallon and Rosoff site I found Vincent Romaniello’s blog (http://romanblog2.blogspot.com/) which lead me to http://anaba.blogspot.com/, http://modernartobsession.blogs.com
and http://www.artmostfierce.blogspot.com/ among many others and I became inspired. I even came across Gregory Coates, an artist with a resume and credentials a mile long without a web site or representation so I made him a blog (no charge). I just want to do good work. I don’t envision ever turning the blog into a profit center where I would charge for advertising. It is a goodwill effort to connect artists with resources and help with promotion. The link I have on my site which is a money maker is the Amazon widget which is designed to pay me 4% of sales coming through my blog portal. So far I think I’ve accrued about $25 in commissions! The main reason I have Amazon on the site is so I can recommend books and dvd’s related to the articles I post.

Why I got started:
I wanted to build a site in an interactive environment with informative links and posts I could access all in one place and share to help other artists (mostly emerging). I wanted to be able to connect with other artists so a static web site wouldn’t do. Also I have no knowledge of web design code. The “google blogger” method of blogging (https://www.blogger.com/start2) is very intuitive. Anyone can build a blog although I suppose it helps to have an art background of some kind. Although I have become a painter, I was schooled at Pratt Institute in graphic design and illustration.

My blog, www.lynndunham.blogspot.com is an un locked diary of sorts with an address book I share with like-minded people world-wide. I guess I am sort of an artist’s concierge at heart. Artists, collectors and curators can frequent my site to see videos I have posted and articles I have excerpted (with acknowledgements given). There are no copyright infringements. In addition to sharing work of other writers, I write myself and to share easy access to links specifically geared to emerging artists to provide assistance to unrepresented artists seeking representation. For example I posted the Guild Hall “Call for Entries” for the annual member’s show and was responsible for signing new members to the museum who exhibited. I posted and the call for entries to the Parrish Art Museum Mixed Greens which is an exhibition where established artists chose Alesses established or emerging artists on the East End to be exhibited together April 26 – June 14, 2009. I have promoted the new “Local Art Rag”, an east end publication in which unrepresented artists can advertise. There is also an impressive list of links featuring resources like artists materials suppliers, museums, galleries, art fairs, emerging artist on-line web sites, other art blogs and how to blog sites which I found helpful in getting started You would be hard pressed to find an artist who believes more strongly than I do in the value of gallery representation. I am not interested in making sales from my presence on the web. There is no a shopping cart with the exception of the Amazon widget which I use to recommend books and dvd’s related to the posts. It is not meant to be a profit center. The very purpose of art blogging in my opinion is to just make the art community larger. I have met artists from around the globe through the blog. “Why sit in a bar with a small group of artist (i.e. cedar tavern) when you can connect to the world with a computer. There’s just one catch…you can’t be afraid to talk to strangers!”

I am more interested in promoting work I am moved by and sharing interesting articles and links (and also my own in a very passive way – there are two slide shows of my work on the site) because many artists don’t have the financial means necessary to employ an agent or pr firm.

Favorite Posts:
One of my most popular posts was about marketing for emerging artists. I also recently posted a www.badatsports.com pod-cast of an interview with Chelsea gallery owner, Ed Winkleman who shares my emerging artist marketing philosophy and is interested in blogging for the purpose of sharing. I could not speak more highly of the gallery and the integrity of Winkleman. He admits he started the blog for self-promotion but it has grown into a site with a large following of artists as well as collectors to connect.

What google and blogging has lead to:
I found Art Rent and Lease last June in a google search when Bridgehampton gallery owner, Gideon Stein and I had a conversation about renting art in a soft buyers market. When I searched the topic I was lead to a start-up company based in Portland OR which now has over 700 works in inventory thanks partially to spreading the word through my blog.
I have paintings exhibited in the Art Rent and Lease on-line gallery (www.artrentandlease.com) and currently 20 paintings of mine are now in offices in NYC all earning a monthly income. While the corporations enjoy a monthly tax exemption, my work is in the public eye and providing an income so I can afford to work part-time in the MBFA gallery and have more time to continue work in the studio and share my thoughts and resources in the blogosphere.

That's it in a nutshell, wthe how and why of blooging for me. Look for Pat Rogeers article in this week's Southampton Press about the internet and how it touches the lives of artists.

2008-12-03T16:26:00.005-05:00

The interview with Ed Winkleman at Bad at Sports pod cast is informative for every emerging artist. If you don't have a full hour to hear it all, advance to the 40 minute mark and listen to the last 20 minutes. Ed gives solid advice for emerging artists seeking representation.

Click Ed Winkleman advice for the emerging artist to access his interview at "bad at sports"

and Mary Boone interview to see hear her talk about herself her career in art.

2008-12-03T16:25:00.000-05:00

Joanne Mattera Art Blog: The Downturn in Chelsea

2008-11-13T19:16:00.000-05:00

Joanne Mattera Art Blog: The Downturn in Chelsea

2008-11-13T10:46:00.005-05:00

Gregory Coates, Night Time, 2008, 96x96 inches

Oil and feathers on canvas
To lease, purchase or rent:

Gregory Coates at Art Rent and Lease

Here is a link to the new Gregory Coates blog. Gregory Coates . You will be able to see some of his newer work and a complete resume here.

2008-10-30T21:36:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween

2008-10-29T22:46:00.001-04:00

Bonac Tonic’s Second Annual B.Y.O.A Nov. 1 at Ashawagh Hall
Team Tonic will hang the show and a breadth of artwork is welcomed and encouraged, including painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, mixed media, video, and performance. Space is limited to only one piece per entrant, and visual art cannot exceed a maximum size of 2' x 2'. Drop off for artwork will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 1. The opening reception is that evening at 6 p.m. The Springs Improvement Society is also sponsoring the show, and half of the proceeds will be donated to the landmark, Ashawagh Hall, located on Old Stone Highway in East Hampton.

2008-10-22T16:02:00.003-04:00

MEETING MATUSCHKA

Our converstion began a few months ago with a serendipidous meeting on the internet. Seeking someone of a similar name, I became captured by her website and forgot who it was I was looking for in the first place. Soon after which I entered a post on the blog. Matuschka came for a visit Monday where I shared my home and the Hamptons with her and her conure, Minimax. Like a pair of old friends (bird in tow), we shared lunch and conversation and a trip to Spanierman Gallery in East Hampton to see the Hans Van De Bovenkamp sculptures as well as compelling works by Josh Dayton, Fulvio Massi, Carol Hunt and Darlene Carneco all perfectly juxtaposed at the masterful hand of Arlene Bujese. Something about the sharing we as artists do is such a mystery to those surrounding us while so normal to us. There is a language which connects most of us which is unwritten. Enjoy this video of Matuschka surrounded by the beauty of a ruin and be inspired. This post is for Martin Bromirski at anaba and Modern Art Obsession

2008-09-27T09:33:00.002-04:00

PARRISH ART MUSEUM ARTIST'S OPPORTUNITY

Mixed Greens: Artists Choose Artists on the East End
Call for entries to East End artists to exhibit with the jurors in:

Mixed Greens: Artists Choose Artists on the East EndApril 26 – June 14, 2009

In a nod to the changing dynamics of the artistic community and an innovative approach to showcasing the creativity and talent of the East End, the Parrish introduces Mixed Greens: Artists Choose Artists on the East End. This Invitational Exhibition is an open call to artists who are invited to submit up to four works in digital format for consideration. Then a distinguished roster of nine jurors, including John Alexander, Michael Combs, April Gornik, Mary Heilmann, Richard Kalina, Michelle Stuart, Donald Sultan, John Torreano, and Joe Zucker, will review all submissions online and choose one or two artists to visit in the studio. Each of the panel members will then choose a single finalist and make a selection of works by that artist to be included alongside the juror's own work in the Spring show here at the Parrish. There is no participation fee. The exhibition, to be held from April 26 through June 14, 2009, will celebrate the artists and their work. The preview evening festivities on Saturday, April 25, will be open to all members of the community. Please plan on joining us for what promises to be a lively and engaging presentation of the talent of the East End.
Instructions for applying:1. Download the entry form. You will need Microsoft Word to view the document.2. Email the entry form along with your JPEG entry images (up to four) to mixedgreenssubmissions@gmail.com.3. Title your submissions Entries 1, 2, 3, and 4 to correspond with the entry numbers on the submission form.4. The deadline for submission is October 15, 2008. Click here to download the entry form

2008-09-27T08:35:00.010-04:00

Kathy Fuld, Wife of Lehman CEO, to Auction Artworks

(here comes the fall out)
By Lindsay Pollock

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Kathy Fuld, the art-collecting wife of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, is selling a $20 million set of rare Abstract Expressionist drawings at a November auction, according to two art dealers.
Christie's International, which is offering the works in New York on Nov. 12, declined to reveal the seller's identity. The auction house announced the sale of the drawings, including three by Willem de Kooning, four days after Lehman filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Sept. 15. Two New York-based dealers who specialize in similar works said Fuld is the seller. They declined to be named.
``These kinds of drawings are extremely rare,'' said Amy Cappellazzo, co-head of Christie's Postwar and contemporary art department. ``The collector considers drawing as a primary art form.''
Richard Fuld earned $34.4 million in 2007 running the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank -- pay that lawyers said may be the target of lawsuits by creditors. He sold Lehman shares that were worth $247 million a year and a half ago for less than $500,000 last week after the stock price collapsed.
The Christie's auction includes the de Koonings, five Barnett Newmans, four Arshile Gorkys and four Agnes Martins. De Kooning's kinetic orange-haired 1951 ``Woman'' in graphite, charcoal, pastel and oil on paper is expected to fetch as much as $4 million.
The collection was assembled over a number of years, according to Cappellazzo, who said the seller first approached Christie's and rival Sotheby's about an auction in the summer. Christie's completed the deal in August, she said. Fuld is well known in the art world for her passion for works on paper. High-Level Buyer ``She buys at the highest level,'' said New York dealer Joan Washburn. ``If you have a great drawing, you offer it to her.'' Fuld is vice-chairman of the board of trustees at New York's Museum of Modern Art and has promised a number of artworks to the museum including works by Jasper Johns and Louise Bourgeois. Phone calls and emails to the press offices of Lehman and MoMA seeking comment from Fuld were unanswered.
Among the drawings slated for sale is a 1946-47 Gorky drawing titled ``Study for Agony I,'' estimated to sell for up to $2.8 million. The drawing is a study for ``Agony,'' a 1947 red and brown abstract painting owned by MoMA.
Newman's 1960 black-and-white ink-on-paper ``Untitled'' is expected to fetch up to $2 million. The same work sold at Sotheby's in New York in 1997 for $244,500, according to the Artnet pricing database. Billionaire Ronald Lauder is listed among prior owners in the 2004 Yale University Press ``Barnett Newman: a Catalogue Raisonne,'' a directory of the artist's output.
The Fulds lent two other Newmans to the artist's 2002 retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, curated by Ann Temkin, who was recently named MoMA's chief curator.
Larger Collection
Dealers say the works at auction are a small part of a larger collection which also includes contemporary artists such as Brice Marden. A New York dealer said a Jackson Pollock drawing owned by Fuld was offered for sale this summer at the Art Basel art fair held in June in Switzerland. The works are likely to sell well, some dealers say. ``Judging from the images, I'd say the drawings are all at least A-minus works and my feeling is they will find homes,'' said New York art adviser Thea Westreich.
Since the Lehman collapse, Kathy Fuld has kept up her public appearances. Guests noticed her on Tuesday night at a farewell cocktail party at MoMA for retiring curator Kynaston McShine.
(Lindsay Pollock writes on the art market for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this story: Lindsay Pollock in New York at lindsaypollock@yahoo.com. Last Updated: September 26, 2008 15:33 EDT

2008-09-17T10:25:00.004-04:00

Wall Street Journal September 17, 2008
Christie's Morphs Into a Dealer

New York
In a move that upends traditional power relationships at a tremendously nervous time in the art world, Christie's auction house is going into the gallery business. Last year, Christie's International (The Group), the parent company of the London-based auctioneer, bought cutting-edge London gallery Haunch of Venison. Friday, backed by the seemingly bottomless pockets of Christie's billionaire owner, Francois Pinault, it opened a huge satellite gallery in New York with an impressive array of Abstract Expressionist masterworks on loan from top museums and collectors. As far as a host of art dealers and advisers are concerned, here comes trouble.

With Haunch of Venison, "auction galleries are crossing over a line that's always been faintly there in the sand," says Todd Levin of New York's Levin Art Group, which advises contemporary-art collectors such as financier Adam Sender. Traditionally, auction houses have been arm's-length brokers of art; transparency ruled. Art dealers have always been understood to have a financial stake in what they are selling. With Haunch, Christie's auction house now has a vested interest in some of its merchandise. "There's a little bit of distrust about auction galleries getting involved in artist's careers," says Priyanka Mathew, director of New York's Aicon Gallery, which deals in the currently fast-rising field of Indian and Pakistani art. With Haunch, she says, the attitude is "watch and wait."
Christie's sold a blockbuster $3.5 billion in art and antiques in the six months ended July 31, a 10% increase from the year-earlier period, but its annual pace of growth is slowing -- and art dealers tend to have an edge over auction galleries in a down market. So is buying Haunch partly a recession hedge for Christie's? "In a volatile economic climate, private sales can be considered attractive," says Robert Fitzpatrick, Haunch's international managing director. Collectors are attracted by the "discretion," he says, as they don't want to be seen parting with pieces they are known to own. Buyers, too, like to spend more time with potential purchases in a soft market, "coming back to look" at the art, he says.
Of course, Christie's, like its chief rivals Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury, has done some business privately for years. With Haunch, the auctioneer has made a "strategic decision," says Mr. Fitzpatrick, to turn over virtually all of those private sales in contemporary and modern art -- and even some Impressionist art -- to the gallery. Christie's private sales totaled more than $250 million last year.
And Haunch's business may turn out to be even more lucrative than that, since one of its clients, Roman Abramovich, is one of the world's biggest art buyers right now. The billionaire, who had one of the earliest VIP tours of the gallery in New York, reportedly paid a record $83.6 million for a Francis Bacon work at auction earlier this year.
Haunch, which also has sizable outposts in Berlin and Zurich, enters the New York fray when the decades-old rivalry between dealers and auctioneers has turned nasty. Dealer Andrea Rosen, at a panel at the Museum of Modern Art earlier this year, called auction houses "sharks . . . and opportunists," going after some artists like "the fish that's easiest to get," even as Phillips Chairman Simon de Pury and Christie's Deputy Chairman Amy Cappellazzo sat beside her. Haunch was tossed out of the prestigious Frieze art fair when the gallery was acquired by Christie's, and it isn't eligible for the powerhouse Art Basel and Art Basel Miami fairs. The issue, says Charlie Finch, art critic for online magazine Artnet.com, is that while the auctioneer says it will remain completely uninvolved in gallery business, "Dealers worry Haunch of Venison is just a fig leaf for Christie's." In a worst-case scenario for dealers, Haunch of Venison could raid artists, or build its own stars, cutting out dealer middlemen entirely -- or even bid against dealers at Christie's auctions with insider information.
Christie's stresses that Haunch of Venison's gallery business of representing artists and their estates is managed independently from the auction house. Haunch is a wholly owned subsidiary not of the auctioneer but of its parent company, Christie's International (The Group). (Ed Dolman, Christie's chief executive officer, oversees both.) Mr. Fitzpatrick says that while Haunch dealers have been and will be seen bidding at Christie's sales, they won't have inside information and will place bids only for clients, not for inventory.
The ties between the two entities, geographically and historically at least, are close. Haunch is in the same New York building as the auctioneer, in a 20,000-square-foot airy duplex at 1230 Avenue of the Americas. Haunch co-founder Graham Southern used to head Christie's contemporary art department in London. In 2002 he partnered with Harry Blain, a financier and friend of Damien Hirst's, to launch the gallery. Haunch of Venison, named after an address in London, kept a low profile until October 2004. Then, Mr. Blain placed bids on behalf of Mr. Pinault, the owner of Christie's, at Mr. Hirst's famous Pharmacy auction of objects from his restaurant of that name. Mr. Pinault paid $2.2 million, twice the high estimate, for "The Fragile Truth," a drug-filled medicine cabinet.
Haunch represents, in some cities, such well-known artists as Bill Viola, Richard Long and Keith Tyson. Its director of exhibitions, Michael Rooks, adds that a handful of dealers and their artists have been pleased to hear that some works by artists the gallery doesn't represent will be prominently featured in its New York show of contemporary sculpture, scheduled to open in November. There are "delicacies" to the situation, he notes, but even rival dealers realize "we offer a different kind of platform" for their artists.
Certainly, Haunch gives Christie's some business advantages: It offers spacious, striking venues to showcase work year-round, not just prior to the big spring and fall auctions. It allows the company to make careers, spotting art stars and showing their work internationally before they hit the auction block. Insiders expect the art world to change as a result. Haunch, notes Mr. Levin, "has money to throw at artists like nobody's business."
Ms. Peers writes on art and culture for The Wall Street Journal.

2008-09-13T11:52:00.028-04:00

At Jacobson Howard

33 East 68th Street New York, NY 10065
(212) 570-2362

Vincent Romaniello

Lynn Dunham

Gabriel J. Shuldiner

Gregory Coates

Garth Grennan at Mark Borghi Fine Art in Bridgehampton

brought this exhibition to my attention.

Artists on the blog who share an aesthetic with Bram.

Gabriel J. Shuldiner , Vincent Romaniello,
James Kennedy (send me an image James),

Gregory Coates and myself

“Jean-Francois Lyotard, the author of ‘The Post-Modern Condition’, notes that the knowledge gained through direct physical engagement, rather than through abstract reasoning, takes on special significance in our age in which the immateriality of the image world demeans embodied experiences. [Bogart’s work] reasserts painting’s potential to open for us a space of speculation, intuition and analysis.”

2008-09-09T08:46:00.003-04:00

I recommend this exhibit for any of my blog readers who can get to the city for this. I will not be able to be there so I am hoping one of you will be there to take photos for me.

2008-09-04T21:22:00.004-04:00

Artwork (I use the term loosely) which needs to be flushed. You have got to be kidding me.

From the BBC Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Inflatable feces raises a stink

McCarthy is renowned for his giant inflatable artworks
A giant inflatable dog turd brought down a power line after being blown away from a Swiss museum. The artwork, entitled Complex Shit, was carried 200 metres on the night of 31 July, reportedly breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again.
The sculpture, by American artist Paul McCarthy, was equipped with a safety system that should have deflated it. The fake feces has been returned and will remain on display at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern until October. McCarthy is well known for his inflatable artworks, two of which - Blockhead and Daddies Bighead - were displayed outside the Tate Modern in London in 2003.
The Zentrum Paul Klee, which opened in 2005, houses a collection of about 4,000 works by the noted Swiss painter.

2008-08-28T22:24:00.005-04:00

Work and Works in Process
by Ula Einstein
Noon to 6pm

September 6th and 7th
Artist in Residency Open Studio at
Safe T Gallery
111 Front Street, Gallery 214
Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York

212.677.2350

2008-08-28T08:56:00.006-04:00

Artists interesed in renting art in corporate venues

nationally should send emails to

carolynn@artrentandlease.com with

"Send Agreement and schedule A form" in the subject line.

Here is how it works:

The rental rate is calculated on the cost of the work divided by the number of months in the lease. For example a $12,000 painting leased for 24 month term would yield a monthly fee of $500 of which the artist would receive 40% ($200 per month - $4,800 over the 24 month term). The client may renew the lease (if artist approves the renewed term). You may also negotiate a purchase with the client separate from the lease at the end of the term. The purchase price on this work valued at $12,000 would be determined by you. A $2500 purchase price would yield $7300 (between the lease and the purchase) which is $1300 more than you would in a typical 50/50 gallery arrangement. If the art is not sold and the client wishes to change the art, the work is returned to you at the client’s expense. This art rental program provides you with a monthly income while you gain exposure. You may set limitations on the geographic location and the type of business with which you wish to be affiliated.

Carolynn Williams is curating the on-line archive of work available for the program. She will be proactive in sales and installation of any of the corporate placements in her Art Rent Lease stable. Williams is currently concentrating on the Philadelphia to New York region.

The website which averages over 10,000 hits monthly is http://www.artrentandlease.com/. The archive of artists is not yet complete and Williams has not juried the current roster. She is seeking submissions from a more sophisticated level of artists which is why I have posted this blog entry.

Currently the site is geared to the renter outlining the specifics and tax advantages. The on-line gallery within the site just launched this week and I am helping to promote it with this post. If you are interested in Art Rent & Lease, e-mail inqiries to carolynn@artrentandlease.com

2008-08-24T22:06:00.003-04:00

Borders #3, 2004 Oil on Mylar with collage, 42" x 48"

Aqueous #49, 2008
Oil on Mylar - 55 x 50 inches

Nanette Carter
Renowned for her oil on Mylar technique, Nanette Carter is referred to by many as a visual storyteller. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Nanette Carter graduated from Oberlin College in 1976 and went on to earn her MFA from Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York. She continues to live and work in New York City and is currently a professor at Pratt Institute.Carter has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the National Endowment for the Arts and The New York Foundation for the Arts award. Her works are represented in many museums across the United States including the Studio Museum of Harlem, The Newark Museum, The Shomberg Library in New York, and The Library of Congress in Washington, DC.By special invitation of the U.S. State Department, Nanette Carter recently traveled to Syria as a Cultural Envoy for “The 7th Annual Women’s Art Festival,” along with a select group of female artists from France, Lebanon, Syria and Denmark. Nanette was chosen to represent the United States while traveling throughout the country exhibiting art and conducting various interactive lectures from November 25th to December 9th, 2007.Nanette began her trip in Syria’s capital, Damascus, where she had a solo exhibition with the local Kozah Gallery. She conducted workshops in Damascus and also Aleppo, teaching monotype techniques to university students and professional artists. Her travels and exhibitions were captured by four local newspapers as well as a TV interview in which she explains, “…as the Cultural Envoy to Syria, the fundamental objectives were to relay groundbreaking techniques, materials and ideas that are taking place in the Fine Arts in the U.S.”Introduced to many of Syria’s established artists, Nanette was amazed to learn about Syria’s long & rich cultural history. “Damascus is one of the oldest surviving inhabited cities on the globe,” she asserts.“Syria is a secular country where the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, French and Germans once ruled.”Nanette concludes, “I found Syria’s people to be hospitable, kind and gracious.”

2008-08-22T15:55:00.003-04:00

The large scale works of Marquez nearly always reflect his sinical observation of modern society. Using appropriated paintings (in this case Picasso’s Guernica), hidden imagery in shadows and reflections, “Slash, Bangbang, Boom” is a contemporary commentary on today’s society. He depicts a puppeteer as a joker (reflected in the mirror) standing behind a table or stage manipulating the marionette Pope. Cast in the shadow, is a scene of violence and despair. The artist implies the powerlesness of organized Religion to keep peace (in particular the Catholic church) or perhaps he alludes organized religion is actually the cause for the unrest.

2008-08-20T20:56:00.006-04:00

French Canvas is offering several specials to celebrate the end of Summer.
LARGE PRE-STRETCHED CANVASES Want to paint on large pre-stretched canvases but dread the shipping fees for large canvases? French Canvas is now offering FREE SHIPPING if you order four or more large canvases and discounted shipping rates if you order one, two, or three canvases. At these prices, why stretch your own canvas? Spend your time painting. We have the equipment, materials, and know-how to make top quality, professional, large canvases. Place an order online between now and September 15th for large canvases, and we'll issue a 10% credit back to your credit card.

LARGE STRETCHER BARS Buy any stretcher bars 48" and larger between
now and September 15th online, and we will issue a 10% discount to your credit card on all 48" and larger stretcher bars and cross bars.

STRETCHING SERVICE Want us to stretch your giclees or digital reproductions?
Send images between now and September 15th and get a 15% discount on all sizes 30" x 30" and larger.

phone: 800 934 3424
fax: 609 482 8069

French Canvas 200 B Whithehead Road Suite #102 Hamilton NJ 08619

2008-08-18T11:41:00.001-04:00

DON'T MISS THIS IF YOU'RE NEARBY!!!

Renovation yard sale
EVERYTHING MUST GO
SOME ITEMS FREE

homeowner/florist/caterer
Outdoor furniture, art, antiques, furniture, kitchen
cabinets, counter & sink, tiles,
new lamps, bed linens, kitchen wares,
giftware, containers, mint julep cups,
silver plated candlesticks,
silver picture frames, barware, linens,
porcelain cakestands,
silver plated floor standing altar vases
ribbon, fabric & seasonal items
floral supplies and more!

192 Halsey St. Southampton
Saturday, August 23 9:00am-3:00pm
Rain date: Saturday, August 30
631-283-4267

2008-08-06T22:21:00.003-04:00

Cecile Brunswick

I recently met Cecile during her visit to Mark Borghi Fine Art when she came to the Hamptons for ArtHamptons. Her name above links to her web site. Her paintings are abstractions of her travels, both physical and emotional. They may allude to sunflower fields in France, the Italian countryside, New York City's Central Park, Morocco or Mexico, but they all reflect her feelings for the places visited rather than illastration of exact imagery.

Morocco, the warmth and attire of its people, Berber music, ornate architecture, breathtaking mountain villages, and colorful crafts are all imprinted in memory and later painted.

Moroccan Enclosures, a series of works executed with oils on linen canvas or paper, often Japanese mulberry paper, refer to villages, palatial courtyards, moushrabiyas, or wrought iron window gratings. The latter two evoke past, and, to a degree, present restrictions placed on women's lives.

In Brunswick's words; "When art and creators become ambassadors both at home and abroad, the ensuing dialogue and friendships formed, invariably open up a dialogue for peace and understanding among people of differing faiths and cultures. Can there be a better way?"

2008-08-05T20:47:00.004-04:00

Buchenwald (or in this case) Dreaming of Butterflies
Pencil, Latex, Gouache on Paper
15" x 22 1/2"

In this installation at John Jermain Memorial Library: Pages From History or Reimagining the Self, Pasca seeks to make visible the alternative landscapes in our lives with images that invite the view to explore new spaces and histories. The exhibit runs through August.

Jesse Pasca is best known for his labor intensive 'micro-writing' and his grid-based drawings that act as physical evidence of attention in an increasingly digitized world. Pasca identifies our cultural fascination with all things technological and digital as the invisible tacit agreement that ties us to our perceived hope for evolution and transformation. For too long, "advancement" has been synonymous with increases in velocity, intensity and efficiency. A question of quality, of sustainability and the commensurate awareness of our (human) position on the planet requires thoughtfulness and, intention and attention. Examples of this work can be seen currently at Josée Bienvenu Gallery, in Chelsea, NYC at the microwave six exhibition. Pages From History is a more intuitive extension of this work- a more obvious invitation for the viewer to explore our individual and shared landscapes and histories. The artist is especially happy to be showing these works at the John Jermain Memorial Library. He said, "I spend as much time as possible in Sag Harbor, the pace is more human. I can stroll. Similar to growing one's own food the act of going to a library is subversive in our culture. In an age of immediacy, the search for knowledge needs to take on texture in order for it to 'stick'. There is magic in selecting a book from the stacks. Just the connection to the width or color of the spine of a book may hold some key. Bringing this work to the library is a joyful process for me. I imagine what narratives might be borne from the works." John Jermain Memorial Library hours:

Tuesday 10:00 am - 7:00 pm
Wednesday 10:00 am - 7:00 pm
Thursday 10:00 am - 9:00 pm
Friday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday 12:00 noon - 4:00 pm

2008-07-28T10:54:00.004-04:00

2008-07-21T14:13:00.002-04:00

A note for collectors of contemporary art to take a break from Scope Hampton and stop in the Walk Tall Gallery to see the work of

Gregory Coates who will be represented in this exhibtion to benefit Hoops for Hope.

2008-07-20T21:05:00.003-04:00

My sister, Liz, is walking 60 miles at the Breast Cancer 3-Day in Philadelphia this October! Net proceeds fund important breast cancer research, education, screening, and treatment.

If you'd like to sponsor her in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, click here.

2008-07-16T16:52:00.002-04:00

I don't know who shot this but I think I'll take summer in the Hamptons over China anyday!!!

2008-07-11T15:43:00.007-04:00

A Sample Advertising page in...

Local Art Rag (Hamptons Artist Directory)

There is a new publication in the Hamptons which is tailored to emerging artists or artists without representation. It is called Local Art Rag (Hamptons Artist Directory) . Unlike the myriad of free publications for hamptons shoppers, this one is a directory dedicated to the advancement of artists and the adverstising rates are unusually affordable. Distributed in galleries art organizations and restaurants throughout tht Hamptons, it is a most promising periodical in which to advertise. It is open to any fine artist seeking exposure and fine art oriented businesses.

Some of the advertisers are Eric Ernst, Stephanie Reit, Barbara Groot, Cynthia Sobel, Jim Hayden, Surface Library, James Kennedy, and myself in the next issue. I encourage all my art associates to take a look. I picked up my copy at Pamela Willams Gallery in Amagansett. The August issue deadline is this Tuesday (apologies for the late notice!!!) Call 631-987-2767 or e-mail Sally or Daniel.

Even if you are not an artist from the east end but would like really inexpensive east-end exposure consider this. Mention the Lynn Dunham blog when you contact Sally or Daniel. I'm eager to see how many of you join in. Let's all try and make this a truley comprehensive directory.

2008-06-27T10:22:00.004-04:00

An artist just e-mailed about her sister diagnosed with breast cancer. She is seeking prayers and support so I couldn't help but think of photographer and artist, Matouschka. I recently added her web site link to the artist's links but it is this link and posted an announcement of her new book "Bag It". Today it is Matuschka Beauty out of Damage I post to share her spirit and courage.

She boldly faced her altered stake with courage most fierce. Let her be an inspiration to us all.

"Oscar Wilde said one can either make a masterpiece or be one. Artist, Matuschka has managed to do both."Linda Vaccariello - Cincinnati Magazine, Ohio

Beauty Out of Damage was shot with a Canon F1 on 35 mm color negative filmand printed by the artist in 1993. The photograph generated 12 awards (including a Pulitzer Prize Nomination) after appearing on the cover of the Sunday Magazine section of the New York Times on August 13, 1993. Subsequently The New York Times received an unusually high amount of letters to the editor, ranking it as one of the most controversial covers in its history. In addition to photography awards, the artist received numerous humanitarian awards including The Gilda Radner Award, Person of the Week (Peter Jennings WorldWide News) and Humanitarian of the Year Award. In the mid nineties Beauty Out of Damage became one of the most published pictures in the world appearing in hundreds of international publications, books, and on TV shows and documentaries. Ten years since Beauty Out of Damage's debut, the image is still in demand: often published in scholarly and academic journals related to sociological issues on health, medicine, beauty and body image. In 2003 LIFE Magazine include this photo in a special edition entitled "100 Pictures That Changed the World." Beauty Out of Damage has been collected by numerous museums internationally and continues to be showcased in many exhibitions worldwide. This image is copyrighted by the artist.Beauty Out of Damage was shot with a Canon F1 on 35 mm color negative filmand printed by the artist in 1993. The photograph generated 12 awards (including a Pulitzer Prize Nomination) after appearing on the cover of the Sunday Magazine section of the New York Times on August 13, 1993. Subsequently The New York Times received an unusually high amount of letters to the editor, ranking it as one of the most controversial covers in its history. In addition to photography awards, the artist received numerous humanitarian awards including The Gilda Radner Award, Person of the Week (Peter Jennings WorldWide News) and Humanitarian of the Year Award. In the mid nineties Beauty Out of Damage became one of the most published pictures in the world appearing in hundreds of international publications, books, and on TV shows and documentaries. Ten years since Beauty Out of Damage¹s debut, the image is still in demand: often published in scholarly and academic journals related to sociological issues on health, medicine, beauty and body image. In 2003 LIFE Magazine include this photo in a special edition entitled "100 Pictures That Changed the World." Beauty Out of Damage has been collected by numerous museums internationally and continues to be showcased in many exhibitions worldwide.Matoushka is represented by Carrie Haddad Phone:518.828.1915 carriehaddadgallery@verizon.net http://carriehaddadgallery.com/index.cfm?method=Artist.ArtistDetail&ArtistID

2008-06-25T21:54:00.005-04:00

Gazapxuli, Djemal Kukhalashvili

10 x 20 inches

Angelozebi, Djemal Kukhalashvili

20 x 24 inches, Oil on canvas

Djemal Kukhalashvili (b.1952) graduated the Tbilisi State Academy of Art. A member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Works of the painter are presented in collections of the National Art gallery (Tbilisi, Georgia), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), the Center of the Russian culture (Moscow, Russia), in private collections of many countries of the world.

His son, Otar Kukhalashvili [otokuxala@yahoo.com] is living in Bridgehampton, NY. He is seeking repesentation for his father in the United States.

2008-06-22T07:36:00.005-04:00

My latest work with spray foam insulation and latex on canvas.

Cover it up and Lay it to Rest,

(blue chip giving way to new chip - a tribute to Steve Parrino), Lynn Dunham

Detail

2008-06-21T08:52:00.006-04:00

STEVEN PARRINO, Untitled, 1997

Enamel on canvas 60 x 60 inches (152.4 x 152.4 cm)

at Gagosian

I'm not suggesting we all stop creating or kill ourselves. I'm just observing our time and reminding myself and all other artists to forge ahead and try to just produce meaniningful work in a time of apparent meaninglessness. Whether we are in the period of Consumerism ,Comercialism, or Postmortumism, it doesn't matter. What matters is the work is vital.

Steven Parrino mangled and reinvented his works after they hadn’t sold at exhibition (haven't we all done some form of this?) He now posthumously is getting the attention as a serious artist he deserved in life. (Note to Larry: Living Artists want to Live!)

“Call it the dawn of the Dead Artist. The message from the market is clear as it is macabre. In a quest for fresh material blue-chip contemporary-art dealers are finding a healthy source of revenue buried six feet under.”

An excerpt from today’s NY Times. Read page 26 (I'd have linked this if it was on line but it is not posted to the NYT site)- so go buy the times and read today’s Dorothy Spears Article in the Arts and Leisure section.