essential creativity
Some art teacher in Philly exacts revenge with this seething, but smiling, summary of stereotypical art students. Having taught a few myself, I can verify and relate, although strangely I looked for myself and couldn’t find me. But it is a reminder of how much of an influence comic books are on a young artist. It is a predominant theme through all of these.
See the whole lot at: “Which Art Student Are You?”
Art is so… fancy. Art tries hard to be cool. Art is bedfellows with intellectuals, critics and scholars. Art dresses in clothes that it feels it should be wearing, because that’s what’s in Vogue. Sketching, on the other hand, wears shorts. Sketching drives a ‘67 Ford Bronco and hides a bag of weeks-old Milano cookies in the glove compartment. Sketching is flippant, carefree and Summery.
No one pays much attention to the sketchers. It’s more like a means to an end. In the early days, sketches laid the foundation of bigger works. The da Vinci sketches, for example, aren’t so much art as a peek into the working mind of an artist. An artist meant for bigger things. The sketches, beautiful sure, but not a destination so much as the twiddling, tinkering, pondering train ride to Gettysburg.
The truth is, it’s all in the sketches. Sketches are the ideas. And Baldessari, Burden, Keinholz and Warhol destroyed the notion that art necessitates execution.With that being the case, I can see an argument for redefining the role of sketches. Or at least our perception of it. The materials and techniques need to advance, though. Watercolors, guache and other lame sounding materials need to give way to more innovative techniques. This site might be paving that way: http://www.urbansketchers.com/ These guys have got the goods, and they seem organized. Pass the cookies, fellas.
Video game covers and trailers, to date, have taken on the same rule of thumb as comic book covers; gorgeously painted works of art on the outside but inside the numerous panels are too time-intensive to render in that kind of quality. Likewise, video games often look good in a trailer, filled with well-rendered cut scenes that don’t get lived up to in actual game play. That’s all changed.
Attending the press event for Playstation and then walking through E3 today, I was floored by the insanely good artwork all over the place – from posters, to trailers, to booth decorations to, yes, game footage. The frame rates, chip capabilities and disc sizes have all grown up before our very eyes, to a point where anything seems possible. That has actually been true for a while, but until this year, not many game developers were truly taking advantage of every piece of available space to them. They are now. And from an art direction standpoint, many games rival many movies. But more importantly, unlike movies, the gaming industry takes it on as a personal challenge to out-do itself every year with more stunning visuals and more engaging experiences.
Continue reading ‘Video games are gorgeous. The best part of E3 was the art itself.’
A few years back, The New York Sun ran an article about a (then) new art magazine, called Paper Monument. I have read and reread this article probably once a month since then. For one thing, it is exquisitely written and of course about my favorite topic of art, creativity and the importance of art and creativity. There is a lot of self-reflection involved in the launch of a new art magazine, that dares to print on paper, in the first place. But it begs questions about the role of art and how, in this crazy world, to reflect upon it. But it is a lesson for everyone, everywhere. I have used it, in speeches, as an example of how to think about new technologies, as well. Most importantly, this line “But nowadays, just standing still, and seeing, and thinking, is a revolutionary gesture.” I truly believe that is true. And it is a powerful notion. Following is the excerpt I try to remind myself of as often as possible, but the whole article is very interesting:
Danger Mouse is the guy who did that mash-up album of The Beatles’ White album and Jay-Z’s Black album. He’s back with another album ensnarled in controversy, called “Dark Night of the Soul.” But you knew all that. The album is a who’s who of musical and cultural importance; from The Shins’ James Mercer to The Strokes to Sparklehorse to Iggy Pop to. What was strange was that David Lynch’s name was also attached to it. That didn’t ever seem to make sense. Well, now, because of some potential lawsuit, the album has been released but with, get this, no music. That’s right, it comes with a blank CD. One guess what you’re supposed to do with that thing as, oops, the songs have somehow all turned up online. The thing you might not know is that there’s a show opening tomorrow night (May 30th) of David Lynch’s photographs that appear in the music-less album’s attached book. The show is at the Kohn Gallery on Beverly and is also called “Dark Night of the Soul.” And the music playing in the background will be, you guessed it, the unreleased music of Danger Mouse and crew.
The chaos of it all got me thinking about David Lynch movies, shows, photos and weather reports. It’s all stream of conscious. It doesn’t move in a linear fashion, or even in a temporally correct kind of way. Instead it meanders in and out of environments and realities, the only thing you have left to hold onto are themes, which you eventually come to realize, are the most important thing anyway. It seemed weird for him to be involved in a music project from the beginning, but now that it’s all so confusing, it’s actually starting to make sense.
Here’s where you can listen to the album
As you may have noticed, my RAM (Random Artist of the Month) is actually more like RAW. That’s what makes it random!
There’s so much to like about Robert Longo, for me. He studied sculpture, but preferred drawing. He was/is heavily influenced by all forms of popular culture and mass media. But he did something that no artist did for me – he bridged a gap between drawing and fine art in a way I hadn’t seen before. All the drawings I had studied and admired in art school, and before, were more like sketches. Rarely would you see a drawing for drawing’s sake and if you did, it was usually of the Picasso variety, which felt like the pen was held with two fingers near the top. Longo’s “Men in Cities” series, which depicted business men (and women, actually) against a white seamless background, were rendered to perfection. The images were stark and gorgeously applied with thick lines and layers of shading. It’s said that graphite is his clay.
The writhing poses of his figures in that series added to the effectiveness of the image and the white seamless background which served to single out the image in some kind of hero-ized fashion was, potentially, ground zero for all the ads we see today on white backgrounds. It is not as though he invented the white backdrop, but for many, it was the effectiveness of that series that burned that graphic style into our brains.
I followed Longo through his career for a long time, buying his books and prints and even spending time emulating his drawing style. He has other great pieces of work, most notably his “Black Flags” series, but also continues to do extraordinary charcoal drawings that blow your mind and challenge your brain. He has an incredible eye for iconic imagery and depicts them in such a way that you are forced to evaluate your belief system and understanding of it. From Longo’s drawings, one can learn about photography, sculpture, fine art and graphic art. But one can also learn about the world, media and the place of the observer.
You see remnants of his work and style all over the place. Take this Portland artist, Zach Johnsen. His drawings/illustrations are also top notch, and he’s certainly got his own thing going on, but there is a lotta Longo in there. And that ain’t a bad thing.
It was sad to hear that Claes Oldenburg’s wife, whom he also worked hand-in-hand with on his art, died this past January. To think of him working alone, without her, reminds me of my own grandparents’ years that they had to live without their significant others. Although in my family, the women all outlast the men. It also reminds me that different artists work best in different kinds of environments. Some close the doors and hole themselves up and others open their studios and prefer the presence of others. Warhol, obviously, was the ultimate open door artist. In fact, it could be said that, later on at least, he had no ideas of his own, but to reflect the world that swirled around him. He let his own fame become his art. And what is fame without the audience?
To have been part of the Pop Art movement and remained alive, innovative, new and truly relevant has been nearly the sole proprietary space of Claes Oldenburg – and the man knows how to fill a space. The show at The Whitney, in NY, features a number of works by Oldenburg and I’m itching to go see it. It is, in some ways, a retrospective, but seems to be marking a turning point in the 80-year old’s life. How his art changes is something I am more than curious to see.
“Are you a grafitti artist, Toro?”
Ever since Nick Nolte shot down Reuben Toro in the Scorsese part of New York Stories with the single best put down in art history, if not movie history, I have not been able to get myself to fully embrace spraypaint as a medium. I have found myself marveling at it, awestruck in front of it and even switched a few nozzles myself, but for me the paint runs just a little too thin. It’s not that it can’t make you think, but rarely does the image reach inside and grab hold like a starfish clamped onto your heart.
This is all being undone, though, by a myriad of artists who have started to take the notion of “wall art” to new levels. Banksy comes to mind, of course. But also this guy, Blu, whose stop motion work is mind-blowing and other-worldly. And a third guy I recently stumbled across, Alexandre Farto (AKA Vhils), who has done something interesting by working with the texture of the wall itself. It is worth taking a look at this video. Nice to see the medium of graffiti go beyond what it has always appeared to be on the surface and reach somewhere a little deeper.
“Lighting is everything.” My Mom taught me that at an early age. It wasn’t an art lesson, it was a beauty lesson. But it was an art lesson, too. After all, how you light your subject determines a lot.
Then, when I got into drawing, my Dad sat me down with his long-time friend, Lee Chapman. At the time, Lee lived in a beautiful sprawling house with a pool, up in Laurel Canyon. He was an ad guy, but his true calling was fine art. We had his paintings in our house and I had already heard many stories about his drawing and illustration skills before I had met with him that day. It was intimidating as hell. “So, you like to draw?” I remember him asking me. “Let me show you something.” Continue reading ‘Lighting is everything.’
Recently, the annual MOCA fundraiser featured “blind” works by famous artists and non for to bid on. A great concept and a show that I would have gone to, if I weren’t deathly afraid of crowds of people circling around artwork. Thanks to the Internet, though, I can sort of glide in unnoticed and I am saved all the chatter and distracting movements and noises. This is one of the first art events I can say I’ve truly enjoyed – in large part because I didn’t attend it.
The view from “Try Harder:” Part 1 and Part 2
The view from W Magazine
The view from Arts Étois