Dear Void: Your Questions About the Art World Answered Here

Leap Into the Void has been averaging about 4,000 visitors a month, and most of those arrive here by typing one thing or another into Google. Looking over search terms that this site collects, it seems that by typing multiple terms (like the name of an artist and a particular work, or the name of a show and some other detail) will often push my typing to the top of the list. Case in point: a recent surfer typed in "MOCA Index" and a couple of days ago my review (in the previous post) was listed first, with MOCA's page for the show listed second. 

I also get folks that arrive here by mistake. Sometimes I get mail:

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 12:57 PM, daphné polski wrote:

Hi, 

My name is Daphné I am a french student in Art and I am searching since more than a week the email adress from Mr Charles Saatchi I was looking for it everywhere and the only way that i found was to send you an email. 

I've seen on google an email that he send you 2years ago so I hope that you have still his email.

I know it's a weird request but please i'am begging you to give it to me and i swear I won't give my sources (insert 'wink' emoticon here) but it's so important for my studies and my career in the Art field !!!!!! Because i am looking for an internship and I am coming in London in October. He is my "guru" and i need advice 

Pleaseeeeeeee 

Thanks in advance 

Daphné

This made me think that in addition to writing about artists and shows, Leap Into the Void could become a forum to answer all your art-related questions. If you have a question, feel free to post it as a comment, or you can find my email in the right under "About Me" or by clicking here. In addition, the comments section will allow others to throw in their own two cents or offer their own take on things.

With that said, let's get started.

Dear Daphné,

I think you are are referring to a previous post I made on my blog, Leap Into The Void. 

When Saatchi started up his web site for artists, he sent a mass email to a gigantic database his gallery culled together that asked people to submit their artwork. Being a non-native writer and reader of English, perhaps you didn't detect my sarcasm by referring to CS as a personal friend. His email--which was essentially spam--was written in the familiar as a ploy to generate more Internet traffic to his community of web sites. The "My Gallery" web site also provided him with a database of eager young artists his minions could cull through--potentially allowing him to invest relatively small sums of money in an artist's production--that could have the potential to create a large financial gain.

I expect that your desire to intern at Saatchi Gallery is focused on learning more about the business aspects of the art world. There are many great gallerists in London showing artwork of import and quality. Some have a keen eye, and place importance on ethically promoting artists that they admire to a larger world. Those dealers value art as an important cultural artifact over its value as a tradable commodity. If you are unable to secure an internship with Saatchi, I suggest you get in touch with some of the other galleries in London that exhibit artists you admire.

Good luck in your endeavors,

Void

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Index: MOCA and the Conceptual Mafia

Sam Durant

During the recent brouhaha over Eli Broad withholding his collection from the LA County Museum of Art, the argument was made that Broad’s foundation would be better equipped to loan out art (and thus keep it on display) than LACMA. This is a valid point: with permanent collections that are grossly disproportionate to institutional wall space, both LACMA and MOCA are forced to put a lot of great art in storage rather than on public view. Index: Conceptualism in California from the Permanent Collection extends MOCA’s run of permanent collection shows as if to let potential donors know that their gifts will be seen, rather than left to molder in a crate.

Andrea Bowers and Rodney McMillian

In contrast to BCAM’s monument to blue-chip gallery and auction house bread and butter, MOCA’s Index displays art infused more with intellectual rigor than formaldehyde. Index builds on past survey shows that focused on conceptualism—as well as the museum’s broader interests in contemporary practices that aren’t so easily categorized (or crated and shipped to art fairs).

Richard Hawkins

Unfortunately for this show, there’s no catalog, and little in the way of related events. Much on display is the product So Cal schools’ faculty (and their protégés). Since these are still alive and local, there was a great opportunity that was sadly passed over.

John Baldessari

Some of these teacher-student relationships are made evident by their accompanying wall didactic. A T. Kelly Mason was donated by his Art Center professor, Mike Kelley. Mike Kelly’s instructors at CalArts—Doug Huebler and John Baldessari—are on display too. John Baldessari traded work with Ed Kienholtz, and later donated the Kienholtz piece to MOCA, along with work by his mentee Meg Cranston. Asherette Stephen Prina is on display, along with his mentor.

Chris Burden

Taking a step back, curator Philipp Kaiser seemed to focus on the formal in his placing of the work. There’s a predictable trio of works by Jorge Pardo, Pae White, and Frank Gehry. Next to Baldessari’s eerily pre-9/11 montage of exploding twin towers is a Charles Gains’ explosion drawing. Around the corner from Ed Ruscha’s compendium of stains is Jeffrey Vallance’s stained handkerchief from the Vatican. Other pairings are much more subtle; across from Chris Burden’s conceptualism-with-a-sledgehammer is an almost invisible slowly rotating 9” circle built flush into the wall by Charles Ray.

Charles Ray

A few of the artists were collected in depth, so we’re able to see multiple projects by people like Richard Hawkins (next to a Polaroid-and-text montage by John Boskovich) and Sam Durant. Around the corner from Sam are other recent CalArts faculty like Andrea Bowers and Rodney McMillian. Sharing the upper level of the bunker are more recent grads (and new acquisitions) from Amanda Ross Ho and Sharon Lockhart.

Michael Asher

Looking at Asher’s wall-mounted piece of pink plexi, I couldn’t help but think back twenty-five years to the opening of MOCA’s Temporary Contemporary (now the Geffen). At the time they commissioned Asher and received another piece of Plexiglas (that time orange) which labeled their entrance “The Michael Asher Lobby.” After the run of the show, Asher offered to sell the piece to MOCA, which would have given them one of a handful of permanent, site-specific works by Asher. Like the recent “Kunst aus Los Angeles de 60er bis 90er Jahre,” Asher’s inclusion in these conceptualism survey shows becomes misrepresentation of his practice by proxy.

Stephen Prina

In addition to the dozen CalArtians already mentioned*, faculty like Martin Kersels, David Askevold, Jonathan Borofsky and Allan Seklula are shown with alums like Jack Goldstein, Mitchell Syrop, James Welling, Christopher Williams, Dave Muller, Nayland Blake, and probably a few I’m missing. Though grouped under the rubric of conceptualism, art school alliances weren’t homogeneous. Not shown at the Geffen are many of the CalArts painters and photographers whose work shares an affinity. And among the post-studio artists were practitioners who considered themselves politically oriented or more intellectually focused, and colleagues who may have felt accused of practicing a form of “conceptualism light.”

Jorge Pardo, Pae White, and Frank Gerhy

Unlike the art scenes of Paris and New York, where an artist need only head to a Montparnasse café or the Cedar Bar to have a conversation with a peer about their work, Los Angeles’ diluted metropolis offered little opportunity for that same type of scene. Fortunately for the young David Salles, Larri Pittmans, Uta Barths, and Cathie Opies of the world, places like CalArts offered a concentration of practicing artists where the necessary conversations and arguments could take place.

John Boskovich (detail)
[I accept my parents completely and without judgment]

Index: Conceptualism in California from the Permanent Collection is on display at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA from August 24 though December 15, 2008. Art Talks will take place at 6:30 on Thursday, August 28 with David Lamelas and at 3:00pm Sunday, November 23 with art historian George Baker.

*Asher, Baldo, Huebler, Durant, Bowers, Kelley, McMillian, Hawkins, Boskovitch, Gaines, Cranston, Prina, etc.

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Man Pays Over $60,000 for a Sheet of Paper

MFA Sheepskin

1987 BFA Diploma

Twenty years ago I got the last of the Bob Fitzpatrick-signed diplomas, when Catherine Lord was Dean and Tom Lawson was a visiting artist. Oddly the older one has the more modern design, a wacky vertical format, and came in a cloth-bound presentation case. I suspect some students complained and wanted a more traditional design with an old-style font. The cost to mail these certificates has doubled, while the tuition has gone up 4½ times.

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Salvador Dali and the Costa Brava

A Gorilla-Slide and My Nose, Photographed by Robert

For our dinner at el Bulli we planned to spend a couple nights in Roses, Spain, and since the closest train station is miles away in Figueres, the four of us traveled by car. It looked like surrealism would follow us around, from the food at el Bulli to the roadside gorillas.

Plaster Loaves of Bread, Eggs, and Gold Mannequins on the Dali Museum in Figures

There are three Dalí Museums in the area; two are in Figures, and easily reached by train from Barcelona. Inside one will find large crowds, school groups, and a few well-known works by Salvador Dalí. Also on view is Dalí's personal art collection, including work by El Greco and Marcel Duchamp, among others.

Salvador Dali's Mae West Room

One enters stage right to see Dali's iconic lip sofa, fireplaces (in the nostrils), and framed photographs. By climbing a set of stairs and peering through a Fresnel lens, the image comes together as Mae West. In some ways the museum reminded me of Olafur Eliasson's Take Your Time. Both artists make clever work, and when you mash a bunch of it together, you get clever fatigue.

Salvador Dali's Tomb

On a lower level is Dalí's crypt, remodeled after his death to include an exhibition of his gold jewelry designs.

A View of Cadaqués from the Cap de Creus

Much more worthwhile was a drive to Dalí's beachfront villa in Port Lligat, a remote fishing village on the Costa Brava. GI-614, Carretera de Roses a Cadaqués, is the winding two-lane road that takes you through the rolling terraced hillsides to a small bay on the other side of the peninsula. Just beyond Cadaqués is the village of Port Lligat where Dalí bought a small fisherman's shack in 1930.

Outside the Casa Museu Salvador Dalí

To visit Dalí's home you need to make a reservation months in advance, and plan on getting lost if you use a GPS device. They only allow eight people inside at a time. With our group we got to hear the docent's spiel in English, French, Spanish, and Catalan.

Inside the Outdoor Dining Room: A Rhinoceros Head with Wings

Most rooms are quite small, and the house follows the contours of the hillside as Dalí's career prospered and rooms were added on. There are the occasional surrealist touches, but it nonetheless feels like an incredibly restful place, with outside views framed through square windows.

A Room With a View

The home is divided into public and private spaces, with rooms for guests and servants and areas for entertainment. On the private side are rooms for sleeping and making art.

Dali's Easel Contraption

Everything (we were told) was left as he left it, except for two things: The paintings are reproductions (the originals moved to climate-controlled conditions in the museum) and the books, moved to the research library also in the museum. Oddly, the books were replaced by painted simulacra, a bit of post-mortem surrealist serendipity.

Also of note is the easel device Dalí had made to hold his canvases. In his decrepitude he could sit in the chair, and move the painting up or down (though a slot in the floor) with the touch of a finger.

Tools of the Trade: Fainting in Coils, as Lewis Carroll Would Say

Gala and Dali's Bed

More so when viewing Dalí's art does his repressed homosexuality, his fear and devotion to Gala--and their unconsummated marriage--come to mind. Oddly, their private quarters point to a parallel solitude rather than anything remotely sexualized.

The View From Their Private Quarters

On the far wall opposite their beds was an angled mirror, which reflected the above view. In the morning the sunrise could be seen without turning one's head.

Gala's Private Quarters

Through Gala's dressing room was a secret door that led to this onion-shaped room, off-limits to Dalí. If felt very much like I Dream of Jeannie's bottle-home. In the dressing room was a photograph of Walt and Lillian Disney, taken when they came for a visit in 1957. Walt looked happy but overdressed in a tweed coat, vest and tie, and Lillian looked like she had slept with a pea under her mattress, longing for a home with flush toilets and Wedgwood china.

Patio

Outside were the more public areas for entertaining. Though the whole place is whitewash and Spanish tile, one could sense his income changing as the spaces became bigger and more polished.

Dalí's Palomar, or Pigeon Loft

I remember viewing the Dali and Film exhibition at LACMA and noted how similar his paintings were; an endless flat landscape that receded to a horizon line--that almost always bisected the picture plane. Looking at the still waters of the Mediterranean with its sharp edge that meets the sky, and the bizarre birc-a-brac tossed about, and his paintings seem almost representational.

Robert Poolside

The penis-and-balls-shaped swimming pool was built in the early 70's as a hangout for Dali's entourage of hippie boys and studio assistants.

Pocked Poolside Sculpture: A Self-Portrait as an Old Man?

Set at the tip of the glans of the penis-pool, the figure can only gaze and desire--but never possess. Like a decayed Narcissus at water's edge, his flaccid penis is held up by a crutch.

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Sayre Gomez at Sandroni Rey

Sayre Gomez' Blizzard, 2008

Standing in a gallery and looking at art on the walls, I can't help but think of the diagram of a cross-section of an eye, with ambient light reflecting off an object and inverting through the iris. In many ways a framed work of art operates in a similar way, with many lines of thought connecting through the glassed frame, back to the art historical, conceptual issues, commodity function, and the like.

Looking at Formal Exercise--Sayre's work at Sandroni Rey--I can't help but make a connection back to Picasso's use of chair caning in collage (glued down a hundred years ago) to the amalgamation of everyday detritus so common in contemporary art practice (I'm thinking of folks like Mike Kelley and Isa Genzken). Such historical connections mark the inevitable trudge of modernism--at least as it's told by the traditional stalwarts like Janson, Gardner, and Hartt.

Likewise, there's the artist's personal progression, from coloring books--to craft projects--to one's first formal exercises in 2- and 3-D design. Sayre charts this continuum in his collages, with tidbits taken from how-to manuals of grade-school craft projects. Formally the work exhibits the grammar of composition taught in higher academic settings. Taken together, the work can be seen as an illustration of the process of art education--one that eventually leads to an exhibition in Culver City's gallery district.

In some ways this can be seen as the most conventional model of artistic education--what Lane Relyea has referred to as the "Bauhaus model".

Sayre Gomez'
Formal Exercise: Make and Do/ Art from Many Hands/ Craft and Hobby, 2008

But there's another convention for training artists, familiar to both Lane and Sayre. What might be termed a "critical theory" model, popularized at CalArts. In this type of post-studio educational practice, classroom discussion may touch on craft and composition, but more time is paid to the work's function as a commodity, it's relationship to the institutions where it's displayed, and the political climate in which it lives. In this model, art schools can be seen as factories that churn out workers who in turn make objects for a particular class of individuals. This model is not explicit in Sayre's work, but it becomes implied in his depiction of the process of artistic indoctrination: the learning of skills and use of materials though play.

Installation Shot at Sandroni Rey

Besides an artist's personal interests, the work's audience must also be considered. At school it becomes one's peers and faculty; later it transitions to collectors and critics. Art school is a time for artistic experimentation, unfettered by concerns of the art market. With Valencia in his rear-view mirror, Sayre seems to be digging deeper into his artistic past, from SAIC to scissors and glue.

In Blizzard, a Baldessariesque block of color obfuscates a child's hands at play. Layered in the work one can read allusions to the conceptual and formal, to materials and creativity--the building blocks of art education. Formal Exercises can be seen as an attempt to show that you can't go home again, and that actually might be a good thing.

Sayre Gomez in a Still from Neil Beloufa's Yet-to-be-Released 2008 Video

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Berlin Update

Ingar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen's
Monument to the Homosexual Persecuted in the Nazi Era

I don't typically post news stories, but I expect this won't be picked up by the main-stream media. My last post shows some pictures of Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Debate about the holocaust memorial dragged on for years over who should be included and who should be left out. In the end, a similar block of concrete was put up nearby in the cruisy bushes of Tiergarten, inset with a video of two men kissing. Destroyer publisher Karl Andersson reports that on Sunday, someone vandalized the monument by bashing in the video monitor.

The sign says that the video sequence is experiencing a technical problem, but the broken glass points to other kinds of problems. At the monument's unveiling, openly gay Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, prophetically noted that, "Even today, discrimination is an everyday occurrence."

Image of the Damaged Monument

Because of the similar look and location of the two memorials, it becomes easy to make comparisons. In the five acres of Eisenman's memorial each stelae could be seen as place holder for over 600 lives lost. Dragset and Elmgreen's monolith functions in a similar way for over 10,000 murdered homosexuals.

More importantly, each monument represents the two populations in the present era of their construction. The political will delivers (and western society expects) constant police surveillance for the memorial of murdered Jews, but a memorial to murdered homosexuals is left as an unguarded target for hate. And as Karl Andersson noted, "The vandalizing of the gay memorial is proof of its brilliant execution - two men kissing may be seen as lame by some, but is apparently enough to provoke violence."

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Berlin Journal

Since returning from Europe, I thought I’d post some odds and ends from the trip. Robert and I flew from Barcelona and spent four days before heading out to Amsterdam. It was my third trip to Germany and fist to Berlin. We stayed at a cheap but austere queer B&B, that felt like we were in the movie Fanny and Alexander. Rather than post separately on the different sights, I thought I’d regurgitate my Berlin experience in one long post. Click on the photos if you’d like to see a larger view.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing Norman Foster’s redesign of the Reichstag. From the glass dome one can look out over the city as well as down into the legislative chamber.

The rooftop also houses a pricey restaurant, which would be a wonderful place to watch the sun set, if you make a reservation far enough in advance. The day we were there, some kind of official dinner was taking place, as all the patrons had matching nametags.

Looking down into one of the building’s light wells, I could see Hans Haacke’s "DER BEVÖLKERUNG" which was commissioned by, argued about, then barely approved by the lower house. As someone once said, when bureaucrats request a piece of public art, what they’re really asking for is a medium-sized Henry Moore. The title of the piece (The Population) plays off the inscription on the outside of the building (For The German People). Soil was brought in from each of the 300+ districts and dumped around the lettering by the respective legislators. Seeds and plants that were naturally in the soil sprouted into the greenery that surrounds the lettering, and were allowed to grow wild. Haacke’s idea was that this mish mash of plant varieties would be a metaphor for Germany’s mix of white and immigrant populations. Unfortunately, blackberry seeds grew into invasive vines that would eventually choke out all other growth, which became an inadvertent metaphor for something else.

Berlin is the nexus of much of the last century's history: a couple world wars, the holocaust, a cold war--not to mention a few significant art movements. Because of this, memorials abound. Above is a marker for the Berlin Wall. A double row of cobblestones snakes though the city marking its former path.

In addition, there's a few places where remnants remain, showing the pox from "chippers" who were taking souvenirs. Oddly, what remains seems quite small and mountable compared to the current barriers being erected in Gaza and along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Was it Marx who said that history is played first as a tragedy and then as a farce? Then here is your moment of farce, with a fake American soldier.

There was a steady trickle of socialists, waiting our turn to take this picture in the former East Berlin.

One of my stops was to see Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Formally, the piece is five acres of rolling land covered with rows and rows of gray blocks of concrete of varying height. The blocks are a bit uneven, reminding me of a walk in an old dilapidated cemetery.

From the edges one can see across the monument, but as one walks through it, the ground level drops as the blocks rise until the horizon disappears.

At the far end I stumbled across fire exits for the didactic exhibit in the museum below. It seems that the authorities don't trust abstraction to get the message across.

A block away was a marker noting the location of Hitler's Bunker. Now on the site is a parking lot for a large apartment complex built for Communist Party Members in East Berlin in the 60's. Interestingly, the site was unmarked until the release of Downfall. In the basement of one of the buildings was a gay bathhouse. I asked my favorite Nazifile if he'd be interested in a little role play of Eva and Adolph, but he'd have none of it.

In America, this sign would have a red circle with a diagonal slash on it.

Though Robert wasn't much into looking at art, I had to go see Nefertiti and look into her one eye. Oddly, I had her all to myself.

At the Pergamon. Nothing like natural light on marble.

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