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Author Archives: Robert Linsley
Nasreen Mohamedi
Just discovered a great but lesser known artist—Nasreen Mohamedi. The obvious precursor for a drawing like this one is Agnes Martin, but in feel it recalls Gego. Other drawings are a bit more severe and mechanical. A click will help … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Asian Abstraction, Latin American Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Agnes Martin, drawing, feeling, form, Gego, grids, illusion, labor, Nasreen Mohamedi
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Economics of Blogging
Jaron Lanier’s new book makes a strong case that the digital economy is a rip-off, particularly of creators. This is something I’ve long thought, though my experience of it has been limited—until now. The previous post has a link back … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, labor, Linsley, money, science, self-reflection, society, technology, value
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Stones #2
…the earth…kept deepening beneath the spades, reckoning only with the diggers’ strength and endurance. Sometimes Voshchev would bend down and pick up a pebble, or other dust that had adhered together, and tuck it away inside his trousers for storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, emptiness, labor, meaning, nature, the inhuman, time, value
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Details 2
Sometimes I’m amazed at the endless particulars of life, which seem to multiply daily, but then maybe I’m in a state of wonderment at the human capacity to identify the same. All the details. The details of nature are astonishing … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, details, feeling, labor, meaning, society, value
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Critical Experiment
Here’s an idea for an amusing artwork in the form of a sociological experiment. Take two groups of curators, and ensure that the members of each group have no opportunity to talk to members of the other group. Maybe this … Continue reading
Tacit Criticism
As pointed out on this blog, the role of criticism is to make the implicit explicit, to explain what doesn’t need to be explained, because the implicit—or call it the tacit—contains the social content that must be questioned. I don’t … Continue reading
Homage to Gego
This drawing from a couple of years ago is an homage to Gego. Also dedicated to my good friends and inspiring artists Leah James and Alexis Harding.
Posted in Latin American Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Alexis Harding, drawing, Gego, Leah James, Linsley, space
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Improvisation 2
Stella quotes driver Mario Andretti in words that apply well to improvisation in the arts: “If everything’s in control you’re not going fast enough.” Piling on the possibilities is a good technique for an artist who tends to reflect. Feeling … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, Frank Stella, labor, Linsley, nature, value
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Order inside and out
I keep thinking about a quote from Emerson that I’ve used elsewhere on the blog: “I would write on the lintels of the doorpost, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the … Continue reading
Abstraction is so over
Bruce Hainley is a critic I have a lot of time for. Oddly, many of my friends don’t understand why. I get where he is coming from, and it’s the right place. If I was in a down mood his … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Ethics of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, aesthetics, backstory, meaning, nature, sex, society, subjectivity, value
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Jessica Stockholder
If we posit some kind of unlocatable boundary between painting and sculpture, then Pfaff appears to be on the painting side and Jessica Stockholder might be just across the line into sculpture. Or is it the other way around? This … Continue reading
Judy Pfaff
My frequent meditations on the work of Frank Stella come out of my deep interest in it, however, it’s important to realize that he hasn’t worked in a vacuum, and many other artists have made valuable contributions, opening up the … Continue reading
Paper Works
Last fall I saw a very nice paper relief by Lynda Benglis at the Blanton in Austin Texas, part of the Vogel donation to that museum. It wasn’t this one, which is in another section of that vast gift, but … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Arp, feeling, form, Frank Stella, Lynda Benglis, painted reliefs, shaped canvas
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Perennially New
An article of 1989 by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, called “The Current State of Nonrepresentation,” proves that certain ideas might seem fresh, but are hardly new: “…the task of nonrepresentation [is], typically, one which involves seeing a thing which is, for once, … Continue reading
Energy Shortage?
Jeff Rubin, in a book discussed in the previous post, actually does make a good case for a zero growth or steady state economy. Not that it’s desirable, but that rising energy costs will make it inevitable. And that may … Continue reading
Pessimism About Growth
I’ve been reading a book by Jeff Rubin called The End of Growth. I’m not sure that artists should celebrate the emergence of a steady state economy, and also not sure that predictions about the same are accurate. The merit … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, history, knowledge, labor, society
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Dokoupil
I always felt an affinity with J.G.Dokoupil, confirmed in spades by this interview, which I recommend to everyone. Dokoupil could be called a conceptual painter, and I’m a non-conceptual artist, so we should have a lot in common.
Politics of Blogging
John Kelsey’s article in last September’s Artforum, with its criticisms of digital networking, combined with some comments from my friend Scott Lyall, provoked me to take a step back and ask what it is I’m doing here. This post is … Continue reading
Edges Early and Late
I was reading the catalog for the show Frank Stella 1958, and one of the writers, Megan Luke, explains Stella’s thinking about edges, which led to the early Black Paintings. He noticed that many of the second generation abstract expressionists … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, form, Frank Stella, illusion, shaped canvas
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Shaped Canvas 8
This piece by Martin Barré is very similar to another by François Morellet shown on this blog over a year ago. The continuation of the line across several discrete panels makes their edges more vivid—the panels punch holes in the … Continue reading
Experience
This blog has quoted Emerson’s great essay, “Experience,” more than once. Here’s Benjamin on the same topic: “Most people have no wish to learn by experience. Moreover, their convictions prevent them from doing so.” How true. That is the truth … Continue reading
In Memoriam
The series Polar Coordinates for Ronnie Peterson was another tough one for me to learn to like, but now I love them. Somehow, the two layer structure, combined with the busyness of the “ground” layer, has some relevance to the … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, backstory, feeling, form, Frank Stella, prints, subjectivity, time, titles
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Swan Engravings
I did not like the Swan Engravings at first—critics talk about rich blacks, but I just saw a dull all-over gray, because I really don’t like that wiped-plate look so much appreciated by intaglio printers. But…having taken a longer and … Continue reading
The Price of Greatness
Readers of this blog will know that I am a great admirer of the work of Frank Stella. It seems I’m in a minority. I was talking to a friend who calls him the Leroy Neiman of contemporary art, and … Continue reading
Stella’s Prints
I’ve been enjoying Stella’s prints, and discovering one series after another. Usually each new one is a challenge. I have the catalogue raisonné of the prints up to 1982, and look at it with pleasure every day. And the prints … Continue reading
Empty Formalism of Education
In an earlier post I implied that university training has not improved contemporary art. Robert Hullot-Kentor reminds me of how profoundly hostile to art the university is: “Ideas make us think; we think ideas. They are what are urgent in … Continue reading
Learning down
This blog has occasionally commented on current affairs, particularly as to the role of technology in the economy. I think this is relevant to art, not least because the most overused word today (or one of them) is creativity. What … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, knowledge, labor, science, self-reflection, society, value
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Fear
Again Emerson provides a vivid perspective on contemporary America: “All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by fear…..Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions. One … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, feeling, self-reflection, society, time
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Those who make
As Harold Bloom has pointed out, Emerson is the ancestor of all American motivational speakers and aspirational gurus. Tony Robbins and his ilk are Emerson’s progeny, and if self-reliance has become an ideology then it has to be reinvented, or … Continue reading
The Machine
Another quote from the memoirs of Tapies strikes a chord. He talks about his first show in New York: “The shock I felt in that world was fabulous. Despite all I could have known or imagined about the American people … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Current Affairs, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Antoni Tapies, society, subjectivity, value
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