This is one of my favorite songs and videos ever. I love the dinner party-- the dancing, the food and guests all seem genuine and fun. I want to be there. Without knowing the lyrics, we know what this song is about. He's singing, "You are a super hot lady, and if I was a younger guy, I'd be flirting like crazy with you. Your boyfriend over there is a doofus for being angry and is totally missing the point of life." Then in the middle (03:54), the song changes and Farid does a serious and soulful breakdown. The song is now about every romance that has ever happened or will happen on the face of the earth. It is so beautiful Farid can barely stand it (05:22), but the dinner party crowd is drunk and luckily their cheering gets him out of that deliciously wistful serious place. The Arabic and English translations are below.
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Thursday, October 24, 2013
Farid El Atrash-- Hebeena Hebeena
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Jerry Saltz on Art’s Insidious New Cliché: Neo-Mannerism
I feel like I've been saying this forever! Thank you, Jerry Saltz.
From: http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/jerry-saltz-on-arts-insidious-new-clich.html
William Powhida's good imitations of bad art, at Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles. He's right: Don't paint like that.
Call it Neo-Mannerism. We all know it. That ever-expanding assembly of anemically boring, totally safe artistic clichés squeezing the life out of the art world right now. Earlier this week, I called out one of them, in a review of the (very good) work of Bjarne Melgaard: bad-boy installations, reeking of transgression but not actually transgressing much. That got me thinking about a trend that's even more widespread and just as annoying.
Scads of artists are trying to be junior postmodernists. A phalanx of work has appeared that might be called "Modest Abstraction" or "MFA See, MFA Do." It's everywhere, and it all looks the same. In sculpture there's Anarchy Lite. Those post-minimalist formal arrangements of clunky stuff, sticks, planks, bent metal, wood boxes, fabric, old furniture, concrete things, and whatnot leaned, stacked, stuck, piled, or dispersed around a clean white gallery. There's usually a subtext about wastefulness, sustainability, politics, urbanism, or art history. That history is almost always straight out of sixties and seventies Artforum magazines or the syllabi of academic teachers who've scared their students into being pleasingly meek, imitative, and ordinary.
Looking at 2-D work, I'm this close to that old Carter-administration-era croak of "Painting is dead." Again. Nowadays we see endless arrays of decorous, medium-size, handsome, harmless paintings. It's rendered mainly in black, white, gray, or, more recently, violet or blue. Much of it entails transfer techniques, silkscreening, stenciling, assemblage, collage, a little spray painting or scraping and the like. There might be some smooshy blocks of color or stripes or other obvious open-form abstraction or geometric motif. A few painters are doing the same thing but with brighter colors, larger areas of paint, hints of gesture, or even drips. All this work has readymade references to preapproved, mostly male painters like Albert Oehlen, Christopher Wool, Michael Krebber, Wade Guyton, Laura Owens, and Sergej Jensen*, or to the Minimalism or Pop movements, and of course it all calls up Warhol, Richter, Kippenberger, or Prince.
Then there are all the fussy collages of cut-up porn, furniture catalogues, ads, Internet screen-grabs, modernist architecture, urban wastelands, endangered species, sixties protests, or (of course) art-historical jpegs. We also see small-scale, colored, neatly framed, or cut-up photographs about photography. All of this Neo-Mannerism is an art of infinite regress. Defensive. Predictable. Safe. Well-defended. Loved by brainy magazines, websites, and curators but so far up its own ass that it can't breathe.
If art comes from everywhere and everyone thinks differently, why does so much of what we see these days look the same? Reams of artists influenced by and using the same art-history, artists, styles, and stuff. You know what that leads to. As Keith Richards wrote of a former dope dealer of his who got addicted to his own stuff, "Brad's dead now. It was the usual old story. If you're dealing in this shit, don't dabble in it." Artists making this generic work are Brad.
It's spreading, too. Even our wonderful smaller galleries on the Lower East Side, in Bushwick, and the like are awash in it. All this art is dying to be understood. And it is, instantly, by everyone, in the exact same way. Never mind that Oscar Wilde said, "The moment you think you know a work of art, it is dead to you." It fills galleries and biennials and is already so dead-on-arrival it may as well put a gun to its own head. It's all intellectual wallpaper, pricey placeholders, ham-acting, and showbiz. I know artists are facing knotty times, and I say this with love, but: Enough.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Expo Chicago 2013
I went to Expo Chicago this year and was pleased to see a lot of painting. There were lots of big, bright abstract works, but also quite a bit of figurative stuff, which felt like a nice change of pace for Chicago.
Corbett and Dempsey had a great booth (bringing the figurative stuff!) Especially this:
This fantastic Wayne Thiebaud was there, which was new to me. He's made so many great paintings and drawings he probably doesn't even count this one. I'm not sure when he made this, but it looks both fresh and timeless.
In the same booth there was a Stephen Coyle (Seaside #2, 2013) and...
...this Tom Birkner (Foggy Foster's Freeze, 2013).
When ever I go to art fairs, I always look for trends. So I was delighted to see this artist had already done most of the work for me:
Other trends I noticed were...
1) Things that look like things (but aren't those things). This piece by Conrad Bakker is actually carved out of wood.
Even this cinder block and this book (The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen) are carved out of wood.
2) Paintings that are impossible to photograph:
David Klamen Pantheism, 2011. I had to include the man standing in the corner so you could tell what the heck was going on.
Ena Swansea's shiny, gorgeous oil painting on graphite on canvas. (14th Street Pile Field 4, 2013 at Locks Gallery)
(David Schutter, AIC 244 S, 2013, oil on linen at Rhona Hoffman Gallery) You can't tell what is going on here, but rest assured it is beautiful in person.
3) Big loud paintings with stuff stuck to them, or holes cut in them, canvas stretched over pokey things, or something crazy. Paintings with silicone, resin, or some kind of poured plastic.
4) Multiples.
5) Lots of wood, tree trunks, branches in the sculptural works.
And finally, every year I wish that I had spent more time taking photos of the people there.
Some of the most beautiful art ladies in the world can be spotted.
And elegant, all-black wearing German/Belgian/Swiss art dealers.
Wish I had a photo of the boys whose style I can only describe as "gay teen monk." They looked great. I have no idea if they were gallerists, or fashion students, or performance artists.
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Also that weekend and worth mentioning was the Fountain Fair. The performance piece by Claire Ashley was just as strange and surreal as it looks below:
About a dozen people were inside an inflated colorful cube doing a line dance while wearing yellow boots in a parking lot lit only by car headlights.
Monday, September 09, 2013
A mention of Lady Painters in Bad at Sports-- September 2013
http://badatsports.com/2013/edition-17/
"Woman makes strong case for ladies:
"Woman makes strong case for ladies:
In case you couldn’t tell, WTT? loves the ladies, and we couldn’t be more excited to see the rest of the art world catching on. One lady show opened up this weekend with two to follow next week at Heaven and at the Frogman Gallery. "Lady Painters” curator, Gwendolyn Zabicki, sent us a hot tip on some required reading by participating artist, Sarah Weber. “Had I written a critical essay for Lady Painters, I would have liked to have written the very excellent one by Sarah Weber for Being a Woman in an All Woman Show.” WTT? couldn’t agree more. You can prep for both of these openings next weekend by reading Weber’s statement now."
Friday, August 30, 2013
Hey, I curated a show called, Lady Painters, through Pop-Up Art Loop.
23 E. Madison St.
Current Exhibit: Lady Painters
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Friday, noon - 6 pm; Saturdays, noon - 4 pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12th 5-9pm
Gallery Address: Frogman Gallery, 23 E. Madison St.
KAREN AZARNIA
ANGELA BRYANT
MELODY SARANITI
http://www.popupartloop.com/active.php?id=108
Current Exhibit: Lady PaintersGallery Hours: Wednesday - Friday, noon - 6 pm; Saturdays, noon - 4 pm
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12th 5-9pm
Gallery Address: Frogman Gallery, 23 E. Madison St.
Lady Painters is a three-person exhibition featuring painting and installation by artists Karen Azarnia, Angela Bryant, and Melody Saraniti.
About the artists:
KAREN AZARNIA
Karen Azarnia received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008, and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Union League Club of Chicago, IL; the Riverside Arts Center, IL; as well as recent group shows with the South Logan Arts Coalition, Chicago, IL; and Julius Caesar, Chicago, IL. She has been awarded multiple CAAP grants, Individual Artist grants from the Illinois Arts Council, and currently
serves as Director of the Riverside Arts Center Freeark Gallery. This fall she will attend a residency at Oxbow in Saugatuck, MI.
serves as Director of the Riverside Arts Center Freeark Gallery. This fall she will attend a residency at Oxbow in Saugatuck, MI.
ANGELA BRYANT
Independent Curator, Gallery Director of Design Cloud, Owner/Director of Abryant Gallery and Consultation, Director of Exhibitions for O’Connor Art Gallery. As a curator, Angela Bryant has coordinated multiple exhibitions and shown over 100 artists. In addition to being the Gallery Director of Design Cloud, she is also the Director of Exhibitions for O’Connor Art Gallery at Dominican University where her programming highlights the work of both emerging and established artists in two‐person and group exhibitions.
In 2009, Angela founded Abryant Gallery, an art consultation service and rotating contemporary art gallery that focuses on young/new and emerging artists. In addition to being a curator, she is also an artist and the recipient of several awards and honors including the Presidential Scholarship Award, the Archibald Motley Award for Ragdale Artist Colony, and the Non‐Representational Award for the 36th Annual Beverly Art Center Competition. Her professional practice includes teaching as an adjunct professor, as well as experience as a jury member, a panelist, and a guest lecturer at multiple institutions. Angela holds an MFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited work in multiple locations including The Merchandise Mart and The Korean Cultural Center.
In 2009, Angela founded Abryant Gallery, an art consultation service and rotating contemporary art gallery that focuses on young/new and emerging artists. In addition to being a curator, she is also an artist and the recipient of several awards and honors including the Presidential Scholarship Award, the Archibald Motley Award for Ragdale Artist Colony, and the Non‐Representational Award for the 36th Annual Beverly Art Center Competition. Her professional practice includes teaching as an adjunct professor, as well as experience as a jury member, a panelist, and a guest lecturer at multiple institutions. Angela holds an MFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited work in multiple locations including The Merchandise Mart and The Korean Cultural Center.
MELODY SARANITI
Melody Saraniti received her BFA from Kent State University and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. She has exhibited in several venues including the Noyes Cultural Center in Evanston, IL and the Hyde Park Arts Center. She has been awarded four CAPP Grants, and was a resident of Oxbow and The Vermont Studio Center. Saraniti has shown regularly with Thomas Masters Gallery and was recently the Artist in Residence for the South Logan Arts Coalition.
Exhibition Curated by Gwendolyn Zabicki: Director, Frogman Gallery
Frogman Gallery is committed to showing the work of emerging and mid-career artists in Chicago. The name Frogman comes from the group of top secret WWII divers trained in underwater combat. Like a scrappy Italian commando, Frogman Gallery appeared from nowhere and may disappear at anytime.
Space Provided By:
Marc Realty
Marc Realty
PRESENTING SPONSOR
ART MATERIALS SPONSOR
APPAREL SPONSOR
PHOTOGRAPHY SPONSOR
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Mural Painting in Rogers Park
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| My pal Kent and I are painting a mural in Rogers Park. Here is how we did it. First, you should clean the walls with muriatic acid. Then, we primed the walls with two coats of masonry primer/sealant. |
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| We had the mural printed out in black and white in actual size on cheap paper. We traced the back of this paper with compressed charcoal. |
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| Then we traced the front of the mural with thick graphite pencils and it left a charcoal ghost behind. |
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| The bottom half of the transfer process. Measure carefully. Use a level and painters tape. |
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| We went over the charcoal ghost with sharpie markers. The sharpie bleeds through paint, so the lines show if you go over them. |
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| Painting (back to front). |
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| Almost done. We will touch up the bottom later and add a black trim around the entire mural when the other sections are finished. |
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| Blocking in another section. This is a drawing of the old Granada Theater in Rogers Park. |
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| A beach scene. |
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| We will paint this in tomorrow because it was raining today. Paint misbehaves in the rainy weather. |
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Back the next day to paint.
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| A view of from the train of the old Granada Theater (torn down in the 70's or 80's, I think). We have a little more work to do on the outlines. |
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This is where we were on the end of day 3 of painting. |
This was the end of day 5 of painting. We put a black trim around the mural.
We returned the next week, to coat the mural in an anti-graffiti coating.
My favorite part of the mural might be the electrical conduit that we had to paint over in the top right corner of this picture. I love little things like that.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Vanitas Skull
Just finished this vanitas painting for an Anti-Defamation League fundraiser. Not my usual subject matter, but it was a fun painting challenge.
vanitas skull
oil on panel
15in x 15in x 3in
2013
vanitas skull
oil on panel
15in x 15in x 3in
2013
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