His name is Jeremy Newton, and he's a graduate student at a university where I used to teach. He was invited to participate in a group show at Centraltrak in Dallas. The opening was tonight. That pink scumble of stuff above is a detail of a carpet of Pink Pearl eraser rubbings Jeremy made last year. The guy's a natural. He scattered a layer of eraser rubbings on a gallery floor before he'd ever heard of Barry Le Va. Maybe he still hasn't heard of Le Va. I don't know.
The trouble with what I saw tonight, though is that idiot gallery visitors don't look where they're going. Jeremy told me that his initial installation with the piece humbly and simply lying on the floor didn't work out because oblivious folks kept stepping on it. He had to set it on a low pedestal for the opening. Much was lost. Confining his oddball material to a raised platform took away some of its stubborn, mute factuality and made it only "art."
I've seen it in other contexts, and it's better than that.
Paul Cullum, writing in Vanity Fair, discloses a memo from horrible, horrible factory painter of tepid banalities Thomas Kinkade to the director and crew of his film, Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage. At least that's the title in Cullum's piece. IMDB lists the title as Thomas Kinkade's Home for Christmas. Whatever.
The memo contains 16 items which Kinkade wanted the filmmakers to bear in mind while working on the project. Here's one:
15) Nostalgia. My paintings routinely blend timeframes. This is not only okay, but tends to create a more timeless look. Vintage cars (30's, 40's, 50's, 60's etc) can be featured along with 70's era cars. Older buildings are favorable. Avoid anything that looks contemporary -- shopping centers, contemporary storefronts, etc. Also, I prefer to avoid anything that is shiny. Our vintage vehicles, though often times are cherished by their owners and kept spic-n-span should be "dirtied up" a bit for the shoot. Placerville was and is a somewhat shabby place, and most vehicles, people, etc bear traces of dust, sawdust, and the remnants of country living. There are many dirt roads, muddy lanes, etc., and in general the place has a tumbled down, well-worn look.
Everything should have a pleasing coat of moss on it. Like Hobbits and really stupid fixer-upper village dwellings in the rain. Jean Baudrillard, writing of the death of reality in "The Precession of Simulacra," says that nostalgia isn't what it used to be. I guess not.
The movie was released on DVD November 11 with no theatrical run, presumably because it's abysmally awful. Iceland, which is bankrupt and starving, will host a theatrical release tomorrow. Poor Iceland.
Warning: viewing the trailer is not advised. It is included here for evidentiary purposes only. Just use your imagination to conjure a feeble Peter O'Toole mouthing "Art is about LIFE." Poor Peter, money must be an issue for him. Just like Iceland.
Painters can make good films. Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is wonderful and moving.
And Robert Longo's film based on William Gibson's story, Johnny Nmemonic is engaging, proto-steampunk stuff.
But this Kinkade stuff makes me shudder: there's an audience for it. They walk among us and like moss-coated memories of shabby miracles.
The above image, from a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, shows an architectural model of Renzo Piano's current idea for the new Kimbell Art Museum building. Published reports indicate that the model is accurate in the overall proportions of the structure and its placement relative to the existing 1972 Louis Kahn masterpiece. However, the project will likely evolve before construction begins in 2010.
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth announced plans to add another building to the justly celebrated 1972 structure by Louis Kahn. Renzo Piano, who worked in Kahn's studio around the time the Kimbell was designed, will design the new structure, which will be located just west of the existing museum. Just what the building will look like is not clear to me, but here's an illustration from the Dallas Morning News:
Adding to a masterpiece like the Kimbell is going to be a tricky job. The museum announced plans for an addition to Kahn's building once before to a storm of criticism from architects and the public. The earlier plan was to attach more vaults in imitation of the original structure, which would have seriously messed up the building's extraordinary aesthetics. This time the museum and Piano had enough sense to construct a separate building.
Here's an aerial view:
Here's another view:
I really love that building. I hope the addition causes no harm.
I saw two shows in Dallas over the weekend that just about set the limits for the spectrum of activities covered by the blanket term "contemporary art."
At the Dallas Museum of Art the Olafur Eliasson survey "Take Your Time" celebrates and explores the conundrums surrounding perception and consciousness -- specifically the consciousness of perception considered as experiences in a continuous duration. It's all Bergsonian philosophy and the embededness of perception in the ever changing objects of its awareness, except when it's all look at the facts of the museum experience and how that context attends what you're getting out of these things you're looking at. The audience Saturday was enthralled. Smiles and appreciative murmurs abounded. Fun philosophy. (image via www.olafureliasson.net)
At Conduit Gallery I caught the last day of a smart, hip show by Fahamu Pecou, a painter and graphic designer based in Atlanta. His day job involves working with assorted hip-hop performers, helping to design the particular street-smart, tough guy images of masculinity so central to marketing their music and personas. This led Pecou to generate a Warholesque campaign for himself involving a series of paintings based on imaginary covers for (mostly) actual magazines like Artforum and Tema Celeste featuring himself as a star. His campaign slogan: "Fahamu Pecou is the shit." It's all the intersection of public image, race, and constructed gender executed with a fierce wit. The title of the painting above is Warn a Brother.
