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Tag Archives: feeling
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
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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More Preparation
Been reading the memoirs of Antoni Tapies. I find them bland and a little disappointing for an artist of his stature, but here is one interesting observation: “A moment of lucidity will also free the artists from many hours of … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Antoni Tapies, emptiness, feeling, form, improvisation, series, subjectivity
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An abstract landscape
“Among the beds without flowers and the chipped cupids, the gnawing of actuality seemed for the moment silenced. In this place which had been left without meaning it seemed easier to feel meaning where there was perhaps none.” Anthony Powell
Willful Matisse
Kitaj quotes Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk: “Dare to use your own will!” There was no painter more willful than Matisse, a strange characterization of the artist of harmonious serenity, but accurate. The Bathers in Chicago, Decorative Figure On An Ornamental … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, emptiness, feeling, Matisse, nature, subjectivity, will
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Alexis Harding
One of my favorite contemporaries is Alexis Harding, an old friend. I think he uses gravity in a very good way, with a lot of intervention on the way down. He pours a grid of commercial enamel over artist’s oils, … Continue reading
Posted in Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Alberto Burri, Alexis Harding, feeling, grids, labor, Lucio Fontana, nature, sex, subjectivity
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Improvisation
Recently came across a 1991 interview with Stella. His comments on pieces made with poured metal confirm everything I said in an earlier post: “For the most part yes: they are improvised…They are worked over but the process of working … Continue reading
Preparation
Following Kitaj I’ve been dipping into Hasidism. Parallels between mysticism and art are too easy, and without much practical use, but insights can always help—if one is ready for them. Here is a hopeful observation from Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk: … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, feeling, Frank Stella, labor, RBKitaj, society, time, value
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New again
Emerson has something to say about the appreciation of pictures: “So with pictures; each will bear an emphasis of attention once, which it cannot retain, though we fain would continue to be pleased in that manner. How strongly I have … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, emptiness, feeling, form, meaning, Morris Louis, self-reflection, time
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Pulses
Been reading Emerson. He confirms something mentioned more than once on this blog: “Nature hates calculators; her methods are saltatory and impulsive. Man lives by pulses; our organic movements are such; and the chemical and ethereal agents are undulatory and … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Conceptualism and Painting, Principles of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Emerson, feeling, Jackson Pollock, meaning, nature, series, sex, time, value
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Frozen time
AJ Heschel again: “To the spiritual eye space is frozen time, and all things are petrified events.” A petrified event sounds like an artwork, but also like anything else made by human hands. Art can also aspire to be more … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, AJHeschel, feeling, form, nature, RBKitaj, subjectivity, time
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One sided
The well rounded, multi-talented person is at a big disadvantage today, because specialization is absolutely necessary for success. But to accept the influence of another art, to take ideas and assume perspectives, is a very good strategy. The advice Robert … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, literature, Manet
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Integration
My children go to Waldorf school, and recently I attended a workshop on eurythmy. I’ve heard about it of course, but never paid any attention. Surprise—it really is quite marvelous. It made me vividly aware of how many of my … Continue reading
Concise Manet
Manet: “Concision in art is a necessity as well as an elegance; a man who is concise makes you think, a verbose man bores you.” This is why I am bored by global conceptualism, not to be verbose about it.
Taste
One may or may not like Clement Greenberg, but to my ears the following remark contains a lot of sense: “…most of the genuinely original painting of the last century and a half has struck standard good taste, on first … Continue reading
How to continue
I’ve found that my smaller works tend to have more parts, and more detail. They are more intensive, you might say. The beauty of the larger works is in their ease and simplicity, but just today I looked at some … Continue reading
Posted in Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, Linsley, method, self-reflection, series, technique
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A Dream
During a day of doubt my faith in abstraction was restored by this Matisse: The forms don’t line up as I like them to do, but they are beautifully piled on top of each other, interlaced and jostling for space. … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics of Abstraction, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, literature, Matisse, meaning, titles, value
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Pragmatic Matisse
When artists talk about art they are usually more down to earth and concrete than theorists or critics. But even most artists get vague and wooly when they leave technique and try to express essences. Matisse was exemplary in his … Continue reading
A Flat Bird
In the catalog of the Stella retrospective in Wolfsburg I find a surprising member of the Exotic Birds series. At eight feet wide it is hardly a sketch, but it looks exactly like the preliminary drawings for that series. Most … Continue reading
Posted in American Modernism, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, cubism, drawing, feeling, Frank Stella, illusion, painted reliefs
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First and Only
Human history is so short that it is full of things that have happened for the first and only time, yet for the last couple of hundred years at least in the West, and for much longer in China, the … Continue reading
Lightness
Lightness is an aspect of abstraction that I particularly value. It is allied to the comic, which has been an important strand in art since the Baroque, and became dominant in the west in the early 19th. century. In its … Continue reading
Posted in Abstraction and Society, American Modernism, Ethics of Abstraction, Uncategorized
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, feeling, form, humor, illusion
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How Hummingbird?
Yesterday I saw a show by Patrick Howlett. It fit well with my recent thoughts on Stella because Howlett’s work is also distinguished by sheer pictorial invention. Abstraction should not mean but be, to paraquote a famous poet. The largest … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Principles of Abstraction
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, drawing, feeling, line, meaning, Pablo Picasso, Patrick Howlett, Paul Klee
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Questionable or Not
On the British web site abstract critical there is more debate about Frank Stella. I’m on his side but most aren’t. Much of the criticism seems to be based on a perception that the work does not hold together formally—the … Continue reading
Art More Intelligent Than Me
I’m always saying that my pictures are smarter than me, that they teach me what to do. In an old interview in the Brooklyn Rail Robert Hullot-Kentor says it well: “If art—when art is art—understands us better than we can … Continue reading
The Facts
This blog has given a fair amount of time to Frank Stella, and my attention was moving to other things—there are a few posts coming up on the topic of time. However, my interest in Stella has just been revived … Continue reading
Lack of Time
If time is so short, why does it feel so empty? Because time has to be shaped. What we call work. Content, or feeling in art, is a fugitive effect of the shape.
Posted in Abstraction and Society, Conceptualism and Painting
Tagged abstract art, abstraction, Boris Groys, emptiness, feeling, space, subjectivity, time, value
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Infinity of Images
Reading Groys can also be encouraging. In my case it confirms the avant-gardist qualifications of my work—surprising to me as much as anyone. One of the strongest pieces in his book Art Power is the opener, “The Logic of Equal … Continue reading
Achievement in time
Reading Boris Groys can be both enlightening and painful, not least because what he says rings so true. For example, the following words are a good description of my work: “To be an artist has now ceased to be an … Continue reading