All posts by keith

Art

Richard Diebenkorn–notes on beginning a painting

  1. attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.
  2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued—except as a stimulus for further moves.
  3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.
  4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable
  5. Don’t “discover” a subject—of any kind.
  6. Somehow don’t be bored—but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.
  7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.
  8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.
  9. Tolerate chaos.
  10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

From The Art of Richard Diebenkorn Jane Livingston, etal

Art, books, General

Noah Scalin

from SkullADay was on the Martha Stewart show today, promoting his book Skulls! (of which I was one of the lucky winners drawn for the signed copy for my papercraft skull–see my previous post), which looks real nice from the glimpse we got on the show, showing off some of his Skull_A_Day creations, and making skull potoato stamps.  Looks like a fun time was had by all.  There’s more about his experience on his blog.

Can’t wait to get my copy of the book!

General

Speaking of Rude Sculpture

(See my previous post.)
Here’s an interview with Richard Serra, arguably the most controversial sculptor of our times.

In the Eighties Serra created one of the most controversial works of public art of the 20th century, a curved wall of steel entitled Tilted Arc . It stood, 12 feet high and 120 feet long, in Federal Plaza in Manhattan for just eight years, while local opposition reached such a pitch that, after a combative public hearing in 1985, a jury voted that the piece should be dismantled and removed. Serra sued the federal government over the issue of ownership but, after a protracted and bitter court battle, lost his appeal. In May 1989 the piece was cut into three parts and consigned to a New York warehouse where it has languished ever since.

‘I don’t think it is the function of art to be pleasing,’ a bruised but bullish Serra said at the time. ‘Art is not democratic. It is not for the people.’ His attitude did little to endear him to the New York public, even as the contemporary art world rallied around him.

Art, Life, Politics

Sculpture is RUDE

Deborah Fisher explains why public sculpture is inherently rude, and argumentative, and why it’s good to challenge our “internal notion of reality”.

A sculpture is this essentially rude thing, whose sole purpose in life is to take up space. It should therefore be unsurprising that public sculpture is, more often than not, the site of outrageous conflict, and that the overwhelming response to that inescapable fact is generally to settle on the most numbingly bland public work possible.