Speed of Life

In this exchange between Shahzia Sikander and Art:21 on the nature of art practice, the conversation touches on the place of spirituality in contemporary art. Art:21 defines spirituality as follows: Spirituality A questioning of humanity's place in the universe, marked by an interest in self-reflection, mortality and meditation. Spirituality is often associated with things that are mysterious, felt before they are understood, and beyond the scope of human thought, time and history. Distinct from religion, spirituality is an attitude and not an organized set of rituals or beliefs. Conversation between Shahzia Sikander and Art:21: ART:21: Do you see any links between praying and fasting - practicing your religion - and the process of making art? SIKANDER: I think the hard part is when you're out of practice. ART:21: The hard part of what? SIKANDER: Oh, the hard part of the lack of discipline is when I feel less productive. Like, if I am painting regularly and ...

by Gregg Chadwick It's all things Tut in L.A. this week. I happened to be in the bowels of LACMA yesterday and the energy was high. Security was tighter than usual and media types were everywhere. Look forward to long lines, expensive merchandise and fluff pieces appearing in news outlets across the country. My major problem with the exhibition is the way that our museum has been hijacked to serve corporate interests: "I hate to say this, but it's very similar to how we would go market another entertainment event, like a major awards show or sporting event," says Tim Leiweke, president of AEG, the sports and entertainment presenter that developed Staples Center, among other venues, and is financing the exhibition." Royal diadem found on the head of Tutankhamun  when the British archaeologist Howard Carter opened his coffin. The objects in the exhibition are magical. They bring us to another time. And they help illumine the artistic legacy...

Opening June 17 at the SJICA : Monotype Marathon XI Exhibition: June 17 - July 9, 2005 Closing Reception and Auction: July 9, 5:30 -8 An exhibition of over 125 prints produced in a marathon weekend of Bay Area print workshops. Gregg Chadwick "Whispers of Siam" 33"x20" monotype 2005 Notes on the Monotype Process: Spontaneity characterizes the monotype. A monotype is made by brushing printer's ink or oil paint onto a smooth surface such as glass or a metal plate. The image is then transferred to paper before it dries, using a printing press or other means of pressure. Because most of the image is transferred in the printing process, only one strong impression can be taken, hence the term monotype (one print). Additional impressions of the residual image are sometimes printed (ghosts). They are significantly fainter than the first pull, yet at times these lighter open images are more successful as works of art. The personal nature of the monotyp...

JL at modern kicks wrote in with the original source for the contemporary art in Iran link in the article below. It was originally on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website under modern and contemporary art in Iran . JL was particularly pleased to see the work of Farah Ossouli discussed. Farah Ossouli (Iranian, born 1953) poster paint on heavy cardboard Both Farah Ossouli and the Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander "appropriate the language of miniature painting, yet re-present it in a contemporary idiom." Nice clip of Shahzia excerpted from the PBS documentary series Art:21 — Art in the Twenty-First Century. JL also dreams of going to Iran one day. Any way that we can arrange an art blogger tour to Tehran?

Currently on view at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is the exhibition "Masterpieces of Persian Painting". In Saturday's International Herald Tribune , Souren Melikian reviewed the show, prompting Charles T. Downey's dreams of visiting Tehran one day. Tyler Green has also been caught in the exhibition's spell. Most importantly, even viewed on-line, the works are gorgeous. In lieu of a published catalog, a significant number of the works in the exhibition are accessible via the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art's website: "Masterpieces of Persian Painting" "The Flower and the Bird" Mohammad Yusof Indian Moraqqa’ First half of 17th century Golestan Palace While researching some of the artists in the exhibition I came across an article on contemporary art in Iran which provides a nice introduction to a culture that is sadly undervalued in the West. Mohammad Ehsai (Iranian, born 1939) The Echo of the Word ...

Jonathan Harr's new book "The Lost Painting" is being billed by Random House as the true story of a search for a lost Caravaggio. The book is scheduled to be released in November. "The Lost Painting" will be remembered as one of the last works pitched to the press by Jonathan Karp who resigned this week as the editor in chief at Random House. Dinitia Smith reported in the New York Times on this years BookExpo America at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan: "Jonathan Karp of Random House optimistically called Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting" "a page-turning work of suspense about the mysteries of a religious painting." "We showed lots of restraint," Mr. Karp said. "We didn't call it 'The Caravaggio Code.' "

by Gregg Chadwick The exhibition "Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits" opens today at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Rembrandt "Hendrickje Stoffels, Possibly as the Sorrowing Virgin" 30 7/8" x 27 1/8" oil on canvas 1660 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Tyler Green's thoughts on the exhibit during its first stop in D.C. bring up an important question, "No one knows why, near the end of his life, Rembrandt painted so many religious figures who devoted their lives to spiritual goals and who were killed for it. Arthur Wheelock, the NGA curator who put together this show, brought these paintings together in an effort to spark some thought on the question." Tyler Green's superb piece concludes with an echo of Lawrence Weschler's "Vermeer in Bosnia" by providing a wartime context to Rembrandt's portraits of martyrs: "Just as now is a time of battle in the Middle East, so too was the Netherla...

by Gregg Chadwick As the evenings grow longer in late Spring and voices from the clubs down the hill from my studio drift in on the breeze, I feel a human quickening that the 17th Century Japanese poet Bashō would have understood. Art's ability to speak across the centuries never fails to inspire me and provide hope for the future. I am currently reading "Bashō's Haiku" , translated by David Landis Barnhill . Barnhill's translations from the original Japanese are crisp. Each word is chosen carefully and the original verse order is maintained. These translations have an almost clipped brevity - like a Zen master's clap to focus his students. Barnhill's deft word choice allow Bashō's images to suggest layers of meaning without overlaying a modern American voice onto the poems. Gregg Chadwick "The Porcelain Sea" 48"x38" oil on linen 2005 Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) was born into the samurai class, but rejected that world a...

Wanted to thank: Hans Heiner Buhr in Georgia (not the state- the country) for his comments on Silk Road. hans heiner buhr Marja-Leena Rathje from Finland (now resident in Canada) for her comments on Lalla Essaydi. marja-leena rathje Linden Langdon for her work in Tasmania. linden langdon Vvoi in Portugal for his thoughts on contemporary art. vvoi And Laila Carlsen from Norway (now in SF) for her friendship, inspiration and amazing work. Laila Carlsen "Dance" 60" x 45" oil on canvas 2005 Laila - when can we expect your blog?

Update: May 2008 - Painter and Model: Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping Sells for $33.64 Million Both Franklin and Todd pay homage to the Lucian Freud article in the London Times . Lucian Freud "The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer" 54"x42" oil on canvas 2005 This painting will be the most recent work in a a retrospective exhibition , curated by William Feaver, on show this summer at Venice's Museo Correr (12 June-30 October 2005). The exhibition is organised by the Venetian Civic Museums on the occasion of the 2005 Venice Biennale.

by Gregg Chadwick While glancing at the schedule for this week’s National Critics Conference (May 25-28, 2005) at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, I came across the description for Elizabeth Zimmer's "Kamikaze Writing Workshop." Obviously the word "kamikaze" has shifted in tone and meaning since it first entered the American vocabulary during the last years of WWII. I doubt that Zimmer’s criticism class will make a fiery plunge into the conference hall as a final project. But I was reminded of the important work being done in the fields of aesthetics and history by Emiko Ohnuki – Tierney at the University of Wisconsin. Cherry blossom send off. Kamikaze means "divine wind" in Japanese, and originally referred to a miraculous typhoon that saved Japan from a Mongolian invasion force in the 13th century. The Japanese Navy used this term to describe their suicide attack planes. In America, the word "kamikaze" describes actions that are...

Painting in the studio today... Gregg Chadwick Silk Road 48"x38" 2005 Private Collection

by Gregg Chadwick Modern Kicks reports today on the 2005 DeCordova Museum's Annual Exhibition. The report from Modern Kicks: " those of you who haven't already been hearing a lot about Lalla Essaydi, expect to do so." Encouraged by Modern Kicks prompting I add my thoughts about Lalla Essaydi: The Boston based photographer Lalla Essaydi grew up in Morocco. Her childhood experiences in a remote family residence inspired a return visit two decades later in which Lalla began a series of images that she recently described to T. Trent Gegax in Newsweek's International Edition as her reinterpretation of "the Arab female. We're always seen as the woman who's oppressed, when we're actually negotiating every day." Essaydi creates and then photographs henna scripted tableaux of women in draped interiors. Essaydi's henna calligraphy runs across figures, skin, floors and walls. The arabic words comprise, as reported by Gegax, "Essaydi...

by Gregg Chadwick A new mayor has been elected in Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa - the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since the city's pioneer days. L.A.'s last Latino mayor, Cristobal Aguilar, left office in 1872, when Los Angeles was a frontier town of barely 6,000 people. Villaraigosa's win exemplifies the growing clout of Latinos in California, after decades of population growth that failed to lead to a rise in political power. This is a positive step that bodes well for the future of the city and the state of California. But there is still much to be done. As Bruce Springsteen said at his latest concert in L.A. - "The American government's border policy is a disgrace." Across the Border in Ensenada, Mexico photo by Gregg Chadwick On her blog today, Megan McMillan thinks of Wim Wenders' film, "The End of Violence", after overhearing the gardener's working at her apartment complex. Megan McMillan's description of t...

by Gregg Chadwick In response to Tyler Green's response to the Guardian: Diego Velazquez' "Juan de Pareja" is my favorite painting in America. Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez Juan de Pareja oil on canvas 1650 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York photo by Gregg Chadwick This is one the paintings that made me want to become a painter. Richard Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park #54" is my favorite painting by an American. Richard Diebenkorn "Ocean Park 54" 100" x 81" oil on canvas 1972 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art See: Diebenkorn and Kitaj Off Ocean Park R.B. Kitaj's "If Not, Not" is my favorite painting by a living American artist. R.B. Kitaj "If Not, Not" 60" x 60" oil on canvas 1975-76 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Video Art in Tom Bradley International Airport - CA Deadline: May 23, 2005. The City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department seeks to establish a pre-qualified pool of up to twenty (20) Video artists/artist teams to be considered for the upcoming Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) projects at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Artists who have experience working with multiple screen projections and are capable of occupying an entire space on a grand scale are being sought. The artists should address the context of the airport and the City of Los Angeles and help create an impressive moving visual art environment. This is an exciting opportunity for Video Artists to collaborate with a team and generate work that will enhance a dynamic space and engage millions of visitors each year. The artwork will be exhibited on a video wall and/or a linear “film strip”. The video wall is comprised of 20 40”LCD screens and covers an area approximately 25 feet wide and 10 feet high. Th...

From Gerald Nicosia in the San Francisco Chronicle " Phil Cousineau has long been a powerful presence in the San Francisco literary scene, but he is best known as a filmmaker and writer who has carried on and reinterpreted the work of Joseph Campbell, especially regarding the omnipresent influence of myth in modern life. Phil Cousineau photo by Gregg Chadwick Last year he also had a best- seller with "The Way Things Are," a collaboration with the religious philosopher Huston Smith. All this while Cousineau has been publishing -- in very limited editions -- collections of his own poetry, whose influence has been noted by a great many other major poets of his generation, including Antler and Jane Hirshfield. But his latest collection, The Blue Museum (Sisyphus Press; 152 pages; $12 paperback; P.O. Box 330098, San Francisco, CA 94133), comprising poems selected from his entire life's work, is a book readers will be unlikely to forget.  l to r: Gregg...

by Gregg Chadwick There is a cinematic light to the skies in Los Angeles at dusk and a Disney-like quality to the shopping arcades and restaurants. Encounter at LAX photo by Gregg Chadwick The level of energy is similar to New York but it is spread out horizontally and tends to dissipate along the edges as the city leaks into Orange County. Prompted by Megan and Murray's recent newcomer's thoughts on L.A. and my current exhibit at the LACMA Art Rental and Sales Gallery, I have begun to think about Los Angeles as a muse as well as a subject. What siren calls does this city sing? Ed Ruscha "LACMA On Fire" At my opening at LACMA last Friday, more than one person came up to me and asked if I was in the business -referring to film and television. As an artist in L.A. you must not forget your place on the periphery. But in that benign neglect, there is freedom for a visual artist. There is a sense of possibility even. And chance. Gregg Chadwick...

by Gregg Chadwick Artists create communities. And artists that share representation by the same gallery form a family. Dysfunctional maybe. But still a family. As a family of artists and with deep sadness those of us who exhibit at the Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco mourn the passing of Tom Fowler. Again, we are reminded how fragile life is. " More influential than current art trends is the religious or spiritual tradition of writing repetitive phrases as a form of meditation. Zen Buddhist scroll writings and Hebrew holographic writings are examples of this. Another motivation is the tradition of penitence. Saying a hundred Hail Mary's, or having to write mistakes over and over on a blackboard, is something we are all familiar with." - Tom Fowler Tom Fowler  "Why" There will be a memorial service for Tom Fowler at The Melting Point Gallery on Sunday, May 15, at 2:00 PM. The Melting Point is located at 1340 Bryant Street in San Francisco...

Carol Vogel at the New York Times reports: "Lawrence Graff, the London jeweler, successfully outbid five other contenders for "Liz," one of Andy Warhol's series of 13 paintings of Ms. Taylor, this one against a deep-red background. The 1963 painting was being sold by Irving Blum, the Los Angeles art dealer who had owned it for 40 years."

"Gregg Chadwick paints scenes from the life of Asia that reminds us of the monastic life of pilgrimage which has been all but lost in the West." -Ratnagarbha and Thomas Jones from "Urthona: Journal of Buddhism and the Arts" Issue 20 Gregg Chadwick The Crossing 48"x72" oil on linen 2004  Thanks to Anna Conti for her recent comments on my work and site. Enjoyed her tour of the downtown San Francisco galleries. And Tyler Green is pondering the state of art in LA while reading about the Tate in London. Provacative ideas. Also a must read is Megan McMillan's account of skipping out of high school to sit in the cool chill of Church's iceburgs.

by Gregg Chadwick This weekend in San Francisco (May 2005) an important and powerful film series by the British Director Adam Curtis was screened. Jeanne Carstensen from the San Francisco Chronicle explains,"The Power of Nightmares," Curtis' three-part series, broadcast on BBC last fall... asks hard questions about the scope of the global war on terror, such as whether al Qaeda is really as vast and powerful a network of international terrorism as we've been led to believe. But "Nightmares" also digs much deeper, into the roots of neoconservatism and radical Islamism, two conservative movements that have significantly helped shape geopolitical events since the end of World War II. As we near the four-year mark of a war that has no definable end, "Nightmares" asks viewers to consider the idea, and its implications, that politicians and citizens alike are now living in a society driven by fear above all else." Jeanne Carstensen continue...

by Gregg Chadwick HEAD Magazine , an online publication from the United Kingdom, is featuring a group of my paintings in their latest issue in a visual article entitled: "Remembered Like a Dream" . cover photo by Dominik Weyerke The staff at HEAD magazine describes the intent of their efforts: "HEAD Magazine is an online publication designed to showcase the creative talents of established and emerging visual artists from all over the world. HEAD Magazine was founded in 2003 by Steve Kraitt and Nicolene Hannan, and provides an editorial and advertising-free platform for exhibiting the work of photographers, artists, illustrators and designers. From the outset, the central ethos and conceptual objective of HEAD Magazine has been to provide artists with a global platform of the "purest" form. It was the primary intention of Steven and Nicolene to create a publication that concerned itself entirely and exclusively with the presentation of visual art, ...

by Gregg Chadwick April 26 The Basque city of Guernica was firebombed by the Condor Legion of the Nazi Luftwaffe sixty-eight years ago today prompting Pablo Picasso's painting "Guernica". The fascist states of Germany and Italy had provided men and military aid to the forces under Franco who were trying to wrest control of Spain from the democratically elected government. Picasso "Study for Guernica" graphite on paper 1937 "A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one's thoughts change. And when it's finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it." - Pablo Picasso News of the firebombing of Guernica reached Paris on April 27th in a broadcast by Radio Bilbao. Within that week, Picasso abandoned his initial ideas for a painting destined for the Spanish Pavilion at the soon to open World's Fair. On May 1st he began a series of gr...

by Gregg Chadwick Bruce Springsteen's latest album will be released on April 26th, 2005. But the title track, "Devils and Dust" is already available. Like the compelling story in the newspaper that you find well after the hype of the front page, the characters in this new song are riveting yet invisible to the general public. The music is stripped down, at times hardscrabble and barren like the physical and emotional landscapes that these characters roam. As a painter, when I listen to Springsteen's hard fought melodies and stark vocals, I see images. And many times I see images painted by Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper Gas Museum of Modern Art, New York Hopper's figures share with Springsteen's characters a very American way of being. Not always pretty- but always present. Both Hopper's paintings and Springsteen's songs are lit by a sort of American light that exists not to create atmosphere, but to light objects. This same light is ...

by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick "Poem of the River" 36"x29" oil on linen 2005 Julie Weiss, who designed the costumes for the films Frida, American Beauty and Twelve Monkeys, recently stepped into my studio to view my new paintings. She was struck by the garments of remembrance that ran across the wall: saffron robed monks, a trio of women in kimonos, a boy in blue running across an open beach. Julie Weiss said, “ The paintings all together are like a ribbon across time and experience. We are following these monks on their journey. We see with their eyes as they pass by storefronts and streets. We are with them in fate, chance and accident.” This ribbon began a few years ago in Thailand during a journey with my father. He was acting as a visiting lawyer involved in issues of justice and human rights. I would scurry out at dawn to wander the alleys of Chiang Mai and would catch the monks on their small morning pilgrimages. The morning of my last day wa...

Miranda July, recently involved with the Learning to Love You More project which made stops along the West Coast as part of the Baja to Vancouver exhibition and was in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, has a new film and a new blog . Miranda July, The Swan Tool "I loved Miranda July's piquantly original first feature film, "Me and You and Everyone We Know", about a fragile, quirky,and imperfect human connection. It was probably my favorite among the American Dramas I saw at Sundance, and I loved it like a poem or perhaps like a piece of performance art for which Miranda July is known; it is also poem-size, the kind of exotic delicacy likely to bloom only in festival soil." - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

by Gregg Chadwick California's actor governor knows all about film screenings. After his latest off the cuff and out of control quip: "Close the borders. Close the borders in California, and all across Mexico and the United States. Because I think it is just unfair to have all of those people coming across, and to have the borders open the way it is. We in California have to still finish the border. That is the key thing -- to have borders and to keep the law, enforce the law.", Schwarzenegger told hundreds of newspaper publishers at the Newspaper Association of America convention at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Arnold needs to arrange a private screening of Sergio Arau and Yareli Arizmendi's film - "A Day Without A Mexican". In an interview with Bija Gutoff on the Apple Final Cut Pro site Sergio explains the genesis of the film: “I was waiting for my car to be washed, and this guy handed me a tip,” says Sergio Arau. “In a restaurant someone...

by Gregg Chadwick Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany Is Elected 265th Pope, Taking Benedict XVI as Name The newly elected pope is a divisive figure and an acknowledged opponent of a contemporary, pluralistic and modern culture. In a world beset with war, over-population, environmental degradation, religious strife, AIDS, prejudice and racism, we need a religious leader who embraces humanity in all its colors, genders, orientations and talents. Instead we are presented with a man who is according to Rose Marie Berger of Sojourner's Magazine, "dogmatic, and rule-bound. Inclusive language makes him queasy. Liberation theology and women's ordination give him hives." The new pope sees pluralist modernity as heresy and homosexuality as a moral and psychological disorder. As Cardinal, Ratzinger predicted that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church’s main enemy this century. "Art itself, which in impressionism and expressionism explored the extreme...