Paul Ramirez Jonas, midterms...

Paul Ramirez Jonas' top of the world.


Paul Ramirez Jonas gave an artist presentation last week at RISD. He's quite the lecturer, interweaving jokes, movies, audio, work sources and artwork into a whirlwind of a talk. His artistic output ranges immensely, going from huge, city-wide public art projects, to smaller works, from performances, to solid sculptures.

I had seen his commission for Cambridge, Mass. Before which was a public art project consisting of building a small park (barely large enough for a bench) which was placed on the Y of a busy intersection. Once built, the park got a fence which was lockable, and he distributed keys to the members of the community. Other notable projects included going to the highest point in 50 states (documented in photographs), and a prototype satellite which has been covered in flags of all the nations without space programs of their own.

A one on one crit the next day was worthwhile, but extremely short. He picked up on small things in the work and was able to critique the work in the truest sense of the term, giving positive and negative feedbacks for all shown works. I showed him a sound piece which he encouraged me to show for mid-terms (the following day) so upon his departure I had to procure the materials for the presentation of a sound work (headphones, shelf, hooks, 80s style boombox, etc.).



My mid term crit was productive, but had the feeling that what was being talked about the most was what was not there (we've all had crits like this before), not because the work was not up to par or poorly crafted, but because of the infinite options involved in the sampling of music and the presentation of the sound. In retrospect, the loud, monotonous musical conglomerate I had constructed would not likely be listened to in its entirety by almost any gallery viewer, seeing the sound was to be emitted through headphones. Needless to say I spent much of this weekend attempting to clean the track up and trying different variations and options for my concept to exist. Just a week ago I had never worked with sound and I spent this weekend tweaking noise art, go figure...

James Elkins @ RISD...

The number of visiting artists at RISD is somewhat ridiculous. Our first day of class Dean (chair of sculpture, deansnyder.net), told us last academic year there were 240 lectures at RISD and it was impossible to attend them all (seeing as they at times overlap, that's a very true statement). Needless to say, I went to yet another lecture yesterday. Here's the scoop...

Art historian James Elkins is from the Chicago Art Institute (the second best art school in the country). He's an art historian that is super smart (Painting MFA+Phd=artistic genius), having written 19 books and published at least three times that many articles. He falls into the category of art historians that therorize and draw original conclussions, which much like critics that criticize seem to be lacking these days. So, I was looking forward to hearing him speak. His lecture was based upon the history of first year art studio teaching; and over the course of the lecture we were (twice) informed many of his other lectures (One on drawing and if we can critique it as a specific medium, in particular) would've been more interesting. But, he was brought in by the Foundations department who instructed him to do this lecture; which in actuality was quite interesting.

James proceeded to outline the 4 models of first year art instruction (The Roman, The French Academy, The Bauhaus, and the Post-war Art School.), then gave his ideas for a better method of teaching 1st year art. The core of his teaching suggestions revolved around actually telling first year students about the history of teaching first year art, and that, in reality no one knew how to actually teach it properly.

The talk was interesting and throughout it he gave tons of names about art instruction and critical theory; Which when I get the time I'll sort out and look into.

Ramirez-Jonas today, midterms on Thursday...

Holy Picasso Batman!!!

That's Pablo Picasso's, Le Reve (The Dream) from 1932.

Most of you heard about the incident involving the painting which occured a couple weeks ago, but became public 2 days ago. For those of you who didn't here's a link to a detailed description of the encounter, as witnessed by author Nora Ephron. I can't imagine being the one to damage a 139 million-dollar Picasso.

Patrick Dougherty @ Brown University...

Last night I attended a lecture by Patrick Dougherty at the List Arts Center at Brown University. He is a folk artist of sorts (never completed art school), grey-haired in his fifties, with a corny sense of humor (His installation at Brown is titled rooted squares) that reminds me of my father (a 50-something engineer). At the age of 35 he decided to leave his career in the health field, build a log cabin and start making sculpture.

Initially influenced by tribal and native American shelter construction, he builds large scale sculptures made of interlocking tree saplings. His works have been commissioned around the world. Dougherty builds 8 to 10 pieces each year and to date has made around 180 sculptures. The works are temporary, usually lasting a little over a year. The lecture was interesting and I found Patrick to be one of the most sincere artist I have seen speak recently.

He has been featured in many publications focusing on craft and when I questioned him whether or not he considered his work craft or art he did not take it as being offensive or critical. He responded he didn't know or care, that if it was interesting to him, he made it. When asked if his work is something specific, he admits to usually simply nodding yes (environmental art? Yes; Site-specific? Yes; Craft? Yes). Being true to himself seems to be working quite well for him, and to be honest I am quite envious of his working methods and success.

His homepage, which is worth checking out, can be seen here.

Paul Ramírez Jonas...

(Image courtesey of Zach Feuer Gallery)

Paul Ramírez Jonas is coming to RISD next week to give an artist lecture and do studio visits for the sculpture MFA program. He is represented by Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL). and earned an MFA in painting from RISD in the late 80s.

He is a conceptual artist that incorporates sculpture, performance and photography into his work. His stuff looks great and I can't wait to hear exactly what he has to say (both about his own work and my ideas). I'll get more in depth with this after I actually see him talk and after he comes to the studio for a critique next week. Thought I'd update stuff quick, mid-term crit is coming next week, so I better get sculpting...


Paul Ramírez Jonas' homepage can be accesed here.

Sean Ward @ Rare Gallery...

Recently I made the trek from Providence down to Manhattan to check out the opening at Rare Gallery, featuring paintings by Sean Ward. There were roughly 60 people that Saturday evening, not enough people to get in the way of viewing the art, but enough to have a few enjoyable conversations over the course of the evening. It was nice that Rare held their opening until Saturday, avoiding the recent Friday night over-crowding trend, which is getting all too common in Chelsea.

Ward’s show, New 65 Inch Paintings and Then Some, was situated in the main gallery. Ceramic heads (also by Ward), slightly larger than life-size and decorated in various glaze and enamel were interspersed aside Sean’s large-scale paintings, filling the space while avoiding feeling crowded.

Confronting people as they walked through the main door was Expression Painting #1, a large photorealistic painting of a grisly mouth, with crooked yellowed teeth and bloodied gums. The image is revolting, causing me to question who (or what) this mouth belongs to; perhaps some monstrous beast or a murderous cannibal of sorts? Metal dental apparatus holds the mouth open for the viewer’s inspection, allowing us to see the metallic fillings as they reflect a mysterious light source shining from above. You can see the individual taste buds of the tongue in a section where teeth have fallen out, leaving the mouth with a section of gapping hole.

Up close his painting surfaces are quite smooth, unlike many of his previous canvases, which tended to be dirtier and more textured upon closer inspection. His subject matter feels familiar, that of the horror movie juxtaposed against the horror of our everyday realities. To the left of Expression Painting #1, hangs American Interior without Figure, a detailed painting of a room overflowing with flag paraphanallia. Aside red, white and blue drapes sit a bed whose dustcover, quilt and pillows have been invaded by the United States, a rug bellow the bed and a hooked rack above the bed continue the flag theme to its manifest destiny. The image feels exceedingly awkward and freakishly surreal when hung aside the image of the terrifying mouth. The overly kitsche composition, which in all probability was appropriated from Martha Stewart Living or Better Homes and Gardens now feels like the setting for something horribly wrong.

This ambiguous feeling of both fear and serenity is more clearly explored in the piece Interior with Blood and/or Wine #2, which consists of a dining table and chair looking quite ceremonious, floating in a background of pristine white, invading this austere environment is a hand that appears to be purposefully dumping a red liquid onto the table, soiling the clean situation leaving the white upholstered chair stained with the wine (and/or blood). It is an amiable decision to leave this decision to the viewer; leaving us to ponder whether the wine spilling from the non-discreet green mug might as well be, as Christ said his, “body and blood.”

Ward specifically cites Christianity as a jumping off point in what may be the most successful work in the show, St. Sebastian. For those unfamiliar with Sebastian, he is a man who died under the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century. He has been a common subject historically in painting, being depicted as tied to a pole and pierced with arrows. Ward’s Sebastian is in actuality Pete Sampras, clutching his Wilson tennis racquet, eyes cinched and screaming in agony while hundreds of small red arrows fly towards his face.

It is exciting to see a painter with such excitement and exuberance in his work come to NY and have such a strong debut. After seeing these over-sized paintings with such quirky, open-ended subjects I can’t wait to see what Ward makes next.

Sean Ward New 65 Inch Paintings and Then Some is on display at Rare Gallery 521 W 26th St. New York, NY through November 4th.

Jenny Holzer @ RISD...

Going into artist Jenny Holzer's lecture at the Rhode Island School of Design's Auditorium last Wednesday I was not a fan of her work. I attended the lecture secretly hoping, deep down inside, she could make a believer of me. She couldn't, and I found that after her truisms, it's all downhill.

My main criticism of her work deals completely with its context. With so few components to her work there needs to be a greater connect between the content and the context (between the text and the site/object she places it). I see greatly varying degrees of success in even my favorite of her series, the truisms. For each poiniant example of her truisms (ie: placing the text "We should raise boys and girls the same," on the Jumbo-Tron at a Mets game), it seems there is a more confused, less thought out example ("Protect me from what I want," written on a BMW V12 race car).

Often times it is stated she uses mass communication devices in public spaces as a means to get a message to the viewer when they least expect it. I understand her use of modern advertising techniques to an extent, but there are times when it does not seem to communicate an idea effectivley. To cite an example specifically from within her lecture, her projections of various authors' writings onto multiple castles ("Because who wouldn't want to project onto a castle") fell short. Her explanation of a projection onto I.M. Pei's pyramid at the Louvre left me scratching my head in disbelief ("Because I couldn't believe they'd let me..."). Huh?

While watching her talk I also learned that in recent years she has stopped writing the texts that are projected as well as having ceased setting up the projectors. With this being stated how is she the artist? She defended her hands-off approach before her talk's conclusion claiming that when doing a bench for example, "there's placement of the text, size of the text, size of the bench..." In some instances I don't have a problem with an artist-free piece of artwork, but in this instance I feel a little jipped. Her art consists of someone else placing text that was created by yet someone else onto an object that is often times arbitrary. The importance of an artist's hand stops when the idea becomes great enough to stand on its own, but in this instance: where is the art?

Jenny Holzer presented the 31st Annual Gail Silver Memorial Lecture on October 11, 2006 at 6:15pm in the RISD Auditorium.