Category: Notes On Painting

My brother, Fran, was eating lunch when we stopped by on Friday, lasagna that he had warmed on the stovetop. It looked so good we decided to go out for Italian that night. Nearby Pasta Villa was the obvious first choice. Since they don’t take reservations we made a point to be there at 5. The bar was full and there was a forty minute wait in the dining room. We called Lucano’s on East Avenue and got in there.

The night was still young. We stopped at Studio 402 for Sam Fratto‘s show of Arcadia paintings based on photos he took in the Adirondacks. I use the word “Arcadia” as in an idealized wilderness, a utopian place of unspoiled nature, harmony, and simple life. Like the retreats Kirchner and his fellow Brücke artists would take at the lakes outside Dresden where they bathed and created artworks depicting each other in relaxed harmony with nature. I’m hoping this genre comes back.

Next stop was next door at at Colleen Buzzard’s for Karen Sardisko‘s show, “Paintings and Re-Imagined Monoprints.” I really loved this one on the big wall. Diptych’s are tricky. The two halves have to talk to one another. Getting one painting to work is hard enough. Getting two paintings to work with each other and have whole efficacious is a real trick. ( I almost said “kick ass” in that last sentence but settled on the synonym, “efficacious”)

The sculpture garden on UCLA’s campus is one of the wonders of the world. I’m so happy Peggi’s sister took us over there when we were in LA. I posted a photo of these Matisse marvels while we were there and remarked how different the light made the sculptures look and feel. Now that I’m back home I called up the photo I took in New York to compare.

One hundred years ago the downtown Los Angeles space now occupied by Hauser Wirth was home to the Globe Grain and Milling Company. Before I learned the history I was guessing it was once a convent or monastery. There is an open air herb and vegetable garden in a central courtyard and a restaurant next to it. Some of the galleries are large and light filled. Others, like the space where David Hammons’ ‘Concerto in Black and Blue’ is installed, are completely dark.

Someone on Hauser Wirth’s staff had the foresight to preserve the chunk of industrial history (“ruin porn”) in the photo above. The blue with black stripe section on the right is part of a Mary Heilmann installation. And they added the plant, of course, but to recognize the beauty in the crumbling and long neglected chunk of wall was a masterstroke.

Why are the galleries so spread out in Los Angeles? Why is everything so spread out here? You can’t miss with Hauser Wirth so we started there. Representing legends like Chillida, Guston, Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse and living artists like Henry Taylor, even their book stores are worth (wirth) fighting the traffic for. They have galleries all over the world now and each is an experience.

In LA there were three valet parking attendants manning a curbside stand in front of the former Globe Mill complex. We found street parking and went inside to the big, open air courtyard. Birds were singing above us as we chatted with the gardener while he trimmed an arugula patch. He told us they grow the greens for their restaurant, Manuela’s, which was just behind us.

British artist George Rouy was showing new work in the front gallery. His paintings remind me of a watery Francis Bacon, nowhere near as sculptural, but almost as intriguing. He clusters figures that appear engaged or entwined with one another but you can’t quite make out what they are up to. And their bodies are not fully shown.

In the rear galley space we found David Hammons’ installation, “Concerto in Black and Blue,” big empty, unlit rooms that we explored with tiny blue flashlights. It was a bit like the tunnel at a carnival. The shadows were interesting and there was just enough visual information to find the exits of each room. Maybe if there were more people and an dj inside (like the video) it would have been more engaging.

Their website says Manuela’s “is illuminated and animated by specially commissioned works from artists Paul McCarthy, Mark Bradford and Raymond Pettibon.” We missed those but found a mural by Mary Heilmann and we had lunch while sitting under a beautiful Henry Taylor painting. On the way out we asked if there were other galleries nearby and they told us the next few were about a mile away.

Christine Sun King’s graphic, deaf-centered work fills three floors at the Whitney. The large, graphic, charcoal drawings are bold but too similar to sustain their impact. I fell in love with this small one, labeled “Hockney Future.”

I have seen cooler cars on the street in California but not in a Chelsea gallery.

I have not seen a cooler door in a Chelsea gallery.

This great big cube was sitting out in the middle of the room at MoMA, part of “Vital Signs: Artists and the Body.” Before I knew it I was running my fingers along the boards , concrete and wire mesh. I was completely lost in the object, something that clearly had a history, when I heard the guard yelling, “No touching. No touching.” On the wall behind me, across from a Ana Mendieta performance video, a screen was playing, footage that captured the Canadian artist, Jackie Winsor, stuffing the piece with newspaper and surrounding it with wood before lighting it on fire.

Gaston LaChaise’s “Floating Figure” used to sit on a pedestal in the Outdoor MoMA sculpture garden. I miss that but every time I visit Matisse’s ”The Back” the work gets better. Of course it is the same as it was 100 years ago but my appreciation of the form he constructed has only grown. It’s as if he decided to make it really difficult for himself. Figurative sculpture where the model has turned her back to him and flattened her form so he can show his mastery by pulling her form from the shallow slab of clay.

The nearby Whitney had free admission on Friday night so we stopped in after dinner and had another chance to see their Gaston LaChaise. It was only fitting that we finished our first night here devouring a HenryTaylor book in the hotel bar. The Meatpacking district is oh so arty now. “B Side,” the catalog from Taylor’s retrospective at MoCA LA was sitting on a shelf behind our table. Taylor is the reason we are in NewYork again, so soon after our last visit. We are here to pick up a print that was in his recent show at Hauser Wirth.

Saturday morning we had breakfast in a nearby diner and walked up the High Line to 18th Street where we began canvassing the galleries in Chelsea. We hit gold immediately with the Georgio Morandi show at Zwirner. It wasn’t that many years ago when we watched John Baldassari complete the purchase of a Morandi here. Morandi is a master. His landscapes, still-lifes and minimal abstractions are all luscious. We are not worthy.

“A De Keyser painting deliciously halts the human impulse to make meaning.” That is from a NYT review of Raoul De Keyser’s show here and I can’t do any better than that. The abstract Belgian painter who loved soccer had us giddy at this show.

We stopped at an Italian place, Don Giovanni’s on 10 Ave. for a beer. It was so comfortable in there I’m making note of the place. The owner said he’s been here 30 years now. It is an oasis. We must have stopped in thirty galleries and found Irving Penn photos on 26th Street, another master. We saturated ourselves with art.

We had dinner at another Spanish place, Salinas, where vegan blood sausage was on the menu. We sat at the bar and enjoyed an arugula salad, endives with anchovies and baked cod with spinach. Back in our hotel we watched Atlético beat Valencia 3-0 on my iPad.

“You do portraits. Why don’t you have a piece in this show.” I can’t remember who asked me that when we walked into Studio 402. It seems they have an annual self-portrait show. That would be a lot of self portraits if you submitted a piece each year. I participated once with an abstract piece. And I was big on anonymous portraits for a while.

I found the piece above the most interesting in this year’s show. No idea who he is but I feel I got to know him through this piece better than I did the others. It is striking, first of all, in color and posture. I found myself staring into his eyes the way he appears to be staring back at us. And I like seeing the struggle to get volume into the plane – the side of the head coming forward. It stands out among the academic portraits. I like the bold signature and the cross worn on the outside of his shirt. Are those three crosses in his signature?

Over at RoCo for the Members Show, the second time for us, I settled on this piece as my favorite. Although I wish the two figures had just a little more room and the black frame was not so strong an element. I had to look up goldpoint. Minor quibbles. I love the drawing.

Unique Fair paints like an old master and I love his show up now at the Little Theatre Café. It was just a few months back when I posted a photo of his paintings that were on display at RoCo.

“An artist must paint not what he sees in nature, but what is there. To do so he must invent symbols, which, If properly used, make his work seem even more real than what is in front of him.”

Well, no wonder no one else paints like Charles Burchfield. The Memorial Art Gallery still has some surprises and the current show there is a big one. For “Drawing as Discovery” they painted their walls a warm, rich black and brought out rarely seen treasures from their collection – drawings and works on paper that can only handle so many strenuous museum hours. This could be their best show yet. Certainly worthy of a catalog yet I couldn’t even find a list of artists. So you will just have to get over there and spend some time looking.

Burchfield moved to Buffalo In 1921 to work as a wallpaper designer. He gained national recognition in 1930 when the newly formed Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition of his early work. “Winter Moonlight” was purchased by MAG director Gertrude Herdle in 1953 from an exhibition at The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy (now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum).

From wall tag: “Goya emphasizes the most dramatic episode in the life of Artemisia, an ancient queen of Caria in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). After her husband King Mausolus’s death in 353 BCE, Artemisia mixes her late husband’s ashes with spices and water, and prepares to drink the bitter brew in an ultimate tribute to his memory. This drawing was a gift to the gallery from James H. Lockhart in 1978.”

Everyone loves Rodin’s sculptures. They are magnificent. When Fred Lipp suggested I look at Rodin’s watercolors it took me a while to get around to it. I pictured Rodin as the manliest of men. Rodin watercolors? I came across one in the Johnson Museum at Cornell and eventually bought a book of his watercolors. The gallery purchased this beauty in 1956.

Drop-off for the annual Members Show at RoCo was this past weekend. I was torn between submitting a photo from my “Portals and Planes” show or the abstract above. Interesting that it came down to those two. They are really very similar. Peggi helped me make the decision and the acrylic on paper has been entered.

While we were there we gave Bleu Cease a copy of the new Margaret Explosion cd, “Field Recordings.” Peggi was struck by the color scheme. I took the color out of East Avenue to heighten the matchy matchy.

We were out of town for the opening of “Queering Democracy,” the current show, so we took the opportunity to take in the show. We felt comfortable hanging around because we had parked using the new Flowbird app. You type in your location and the meter starts. It stops charging when gps notes that you left the space. Turns out we never engaged it properly so we parked for free and didn’t get caught.

The double portrait above by Rochester artist, Unique Fair, was my favorite piece. We talked to Bleu again on the way out and I had an opportunity to pass on a comment that Anne Havens wanted me to share with the Director. It is somewhat bothersome to have art shows hinged to secondary concerns, secondary to the visual that is. The wall tags are getting bigger than the artwork.

The first stop on our art tour was the inaugural show at Marian Goodman Gallery, a collection of work by artists they represent. The Denzil Forrester “Two Islands, One World” show on Walker Street included a portrait of Lee Perry and funky scenes of music centered island culture. Robert Pokorny’s “Lost in a Dream” showed pop/surreal, mash-ups of Guston’s building blocks. Peter Kim’s reduced palette of simple organic, almost flat forms felt very familiar to me, like something I was fumbling to do years ago. The small oil paintings by Dorian Cohen on Henry Street reminded me of Holly’s paintings in Bloomington. The galleries are spread out here so we wandered and struck some gold before reaching the lowest portion of the lower east side where we had Basque food at Ernesto’s.

Friday was devoted to mining the galleries in Chelsea. On the train I looked to see what was at Hauser Wirth and learned they were closed until Saturday’s opening. But there are two Hauser Wirth’s in Chelsea so our first stop was 18th Street where they were showing new Henry Taylor paintings and prints, a show called “no title.” We fell in love withTaylor’s work at his Whitney show last year and here we were on opening day with his new work.

The four Henry Taylor paintings in the photo above each started with a print from an edition of his drawing of a young boy. Taylor’s paint handling is so full of life. It is luscious and rough and tumble at the same time. I loved how these four variations illustrate his mastery. The show had just been hung and the opening was that evening. One wall of the gallery was lined with Taylor’s etchings, all done in 2024 and each in an addition of 25. I started photographing them all but I stopped at the third. Something happened to me as I studied it. I was delirious. I asked a gallery attendant how much they were. He took our name and number and said it was ours when the show comes down.

In the book store I breezed through the new Chillida book (written by his daughter) and discovered it was full of pictures so we bought that. They gave us another cloth bag, this one egg yolk yellow. It looked so good on Peggi who was wearing all black. I was floating on air when we left but I kept thinking about how loose the purchase offer remained. Did we really buy it? We decided to go back to opening later that night. Maybe even meet the artist. 

A block away I dismissed Kibong Rhea’s silvery landscapes as b&w photos printed on canvas but they were so beautiful we stayed in their company. We discovered they weren’t photos at all but multilayered acrylic and polyester fiber paintings, foggy day dreamscapes. A reminder to keep my mind open. I loved the large Carrie Mae Weems photos on canvas at Gladstone, shown with very little light on them, photos of wall panels surrounding construction sites that over time take on the look of abstract expressionist paintings. 

We had dinner at an Italian place and returned to Hauser Wirth in time for the opening. We had a glass of champaign and were assured by Jonathan that our transaction was solid. We hung with the work and got into deep conversations about it with total strangers. We left before Henry showed up. 

There are two David Salle shows in Chelsea . He is showing monotypes and paintings of cartoon-like characters at Pace Prints and AI assisted paintings at Gladstone. Salle himself walked into the room as I was photographing his painting above. I’m not particularly fond of his paintings but I really enjoyed his “How to See” book and there is no denying he is a great painter.

According to a New York Times article Salle jokes that he sent a program to art school, teaching it how a painting works by feeding it a balanced diet of his favorites — Arthur Dove for line, Edward Hopper for volume, De Chirico for space, Warhol for color — as well as his own “Pastorals,” before administering a final exam. He effectively reverse engineered David Salle paintings.

Funny thing is in my Photos library my photo (above) has one of those AI “Look up Artwork” icons on it and when I clicked on it it took me to “The Dinosaurs of Avignon” by Martin Davey, a hideous painting that I can only hope was generated with AI. An AI creation misidentified by AI as another AI painting.

We were sitting with Jason Wilder on a blanket in the middle Parcel 5 on a magical Sun Ra Sunday when I took this photo. I spotted Jason’s name on the list of First Friday art shows so we made Fatty’s our first stop. A new building in a newly developed section of town, the atmosphere in Fatty’s is more cafeteria than bar. Kyle from WAYO’s “Up on the Roof” was spinning 45s. Fatty’s struck me as over lit but the section devoted to art is under lit.

Jason asked a writer/friend (identified as Emily) to write in any form about some of the found photographs in his collection. Emily improvised short pieces and coupled with the photos full of questions make magical pairings. I would suggest stopping by in the daytime when there is a little more light on the work

Up on the fourth floor of the Anderson Arts Building Diane Foley was showing her “Drawings from Memory.” Some of the figures were so detailed it was hard to believe she was not drawing from life and up close they did not look like drawings. I asked her about it. Diane said there was only one actual drawing in the show. They were indeed drawn from memory but she photographs her drawings and takes them into photoshop where she layers other scans and textures onto the drawing and then prints the work digitally.

Next door at Coleen’s four tattoo artists were showing their paintings in an exhibition by Art Collective Stanley DuBois: Who made the Potato Salad?! with Alexander Bost, Cedric Harris, Story and Sage Williams making it real. We got pretty comfortable at this show and discovered Story plays saxophone. He and Peggi talked shop and Story put the next Margaret Explosion gig on his calendar. Colleen, who grew up going to a Black church, explained the significance of the potato salad question but I didn’t follow it.