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Repository 213: Happy Birthday Jasper Johns!
The habit of regarding “art” as a thing apart from life is fatal to the development of taste. – Edith Wharton Dear Mr. Johns, I am writing to wish you the happiest of birthdays! It was a pleasure to see all of your work two weeks ago at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Despite the pomp of the Broad, “Resembling the Truth” was an intimate retrospective, full of important work from your private collection, as well as the major…
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Repository 187: Cultivating Your Creative Process with Critical Thinking in 2016
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy Every year I choose an overarching theme that relates to my work, my life and my projects. Last year was the year of slowing down (hence the fewer published essays here), the year before was the year of getting dirty (I made a lot of work in the studio that year and truly made a mess), and this year is the year of critical thinking….
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Repository 161: Art History Book as Checkbook
“Art should make us feel more clearly and more intelligently, it should give us coherent sensations we otherwise would not have had…that is what market culture is killing.” – Robert Hughes I just received the November issue of ArtForum – heavy, and full of art that looks better in the pages of a magazine than any real slice of life or contemplation. Much like a dress looking better in a photograph of a-102 pound model in the streets of…
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Repository 139: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose | Sturtevant (1930-2014)
‘it is only the unimaginative who ever invents. The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes, and he annexes everything’. – Oscar Wilde The American artist Elaine Sturtevant died two weeks ago in Paris, France – an event never to be copied, never to be reproduced and always to remain a unique and unprecedented event. Sturtevant spent her time as an artist famously re-presenting famous works of art by famous (mostly) male artists. She…
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Repository 105: Bon Mots | Marcel Duchamp on the Lazies and Tasty Affairs
I just completed the book, “The Afternoon Interviews”, a republishing of interviews by Calvin Tomkins of Marcel Duchamp. The beginning of the book is a current interview with Tomkins and Paul Chan from 2011 where Tomkins recalls his introduction to Duchamp. The second part of the book are the republished interviews with Duchamp from the late 50’s and early 60s. Calvin Tomkins has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1960. He continues to report for them, and…
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Repository 72: Art, Weaving and Words
‘Minamal’ – a typo created when writing notes for Diane Jacob’s recent overview of her work, “Comb Over” in Portland, Oregon. I realize the new word I created is a combination of the word mammal and minimal. This actually describes Diane’s works in this show to a tee – she has taken the most simple elements that define us as mammals, human specifically, hair and language and prepared some quiet yet complex pieces that stir loudly in the mind. These…
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Repository 65: Call to Artists – Eric Booth on Revisiting What Art Means
This afternoon I had the pleasure and privilege of talking over the phone with Eric Booth, one of the most inspiring arts advocates I know. Eric’s definition of art is very different than the “art world” definition, which is exactly what makes him unique and inspiring. Eric goes to the root of the word “art”, and reminds us that art simply means, “to put things together”. Basically that art is a VERB less than a thing – it does things,…
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