Speed of Life

Max Beckmann "Film Studio" 25 5/8 x 37 5/8 in. (65.1 x 95.6 cm) oil on canvas 1933 Saint Louis Art Museum The Los Angeles Film Festival opens today and runs until July 2nd. The screenings will be held in venues throughout Westwood. Star Wars empresario George Lucas acts as Guest Director this year. Lucas has this to say about independent film, "Throughout my life, I have been amazed and inspired by films that transport me to new lands .... The experience of discovering these new cultures, new stories and new filmmakers is exhilarating and rejuvenating." As Guest Director, George Lucas has elected to screen three films: Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" Jean-Luc Godard's "Masculine Feminine" Poolside chats will be held during the festival at the W Hotel. Anjelica Huston and Sally Kellerman will talk about photography with photographers Michael Childers and John Stoddart on Wednesday, June...

Nagasawa Rosetsu "Elephant and Children" ink on paper c. 1794 Asian Art Museum, San Francisco I recently wrote on the extraordinary ink on paper technique of the 18th century Japanese artist Nagasawa Rosetsu . Newly on view at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is Rosetsu's "Elephant and Children". This painting combines a daring composition with rich and varied brush techniques. The Asian Art Museum has determined that Rosetsu "depicted the elephant's huge body, large ears, trunk, and legs with minimal strokes using a flat brush, afterward using a round brush quickly but carefully to fill in details such as the children." Rosetsu's paintings are witty, at times charming, but usually contain a hint of mystery or even dread. Rosetsu "is said to have had a volatile temperament, and his life ended under mysterious circumstances, possibly murder or suicide."

"Ed Ruscha Monument" Kent Twitchell 1978-1987 Acrylic "(The Ed Ruscha mural) has always been such a popular piece in the art world and in Los Angeles. I had no idea it was in danger in any way," he said. "It was sort of my 'Mona Lisa'; I worked on it for nine years." -Kent Twitchell "Ed Ruscha Monument" Kent Twitchell (painted over - June 2, 2006) Ed Ruscha in a brooding Firestarter pose. Do they really want to mess with this man's portrait?

Katharine Close, an eighth-grader at the H.W. Mountz School in Spring Lake, New Jersey, becomes the first girl since 1999 to win the national spelling bee. After spelling "ursprache" correctly, Katharine Close stepped back from the microphone and put her hands to her mouth upon being declared the winner. "I'm just in shock," Katharine said. Asked what she'll remember most, she said: "Probably just hearing 'ursprache,' which is a parent language." The word "weltzschmerz", which we all should reflect upon as it means sadness over evil in the world, tripped up the second place finisher - Finola Mei Hwa Hackett, a 14-year-old Canadian.

Henri Matisse "La violiniste a la fenêtre" (The Violinist at the Window) charcoal on paper 1924 photo courtesy of the Palace of the Legion of Honor "Judging by Appearances" at the Legion of Honor is a rich exhibit of works on paper from the private collection of Joseph and Deborah Goldyne. The artworks have been arranged under broad themes by curator Robert Flynn Johnson, which leads to chance correspondences between disparate artists. Matisse's luminous charcoal drawing, "La violiniste a la fenêtre", with its silvery light seems apt for the fog shrouded skies above Baker Beach on a typical summer morning in San Francisco. (I imagine a similar view from Robin William's open window as I drive back from the museum through Seacliff towards North Beach.) Hanging nearby is a tiny Rembrandt study, which carries a similar force with the simplest of means. In one of my earliest drawing classes, the Los Angeles artist Tom Wudl looked at my work and said,...

Icon with Saint Theodosia. (detail) Byzantine (Constantinople), first half of the 13th century. The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai, Egypt In today's Los Angeles Times, Suzanne Muchnic reports on the upcoming exhibition at the Getty Museum: "Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons From Sinai" In 2004, the Metropolitan Museum in New York presented an exhibition on Byzantium which included works from St. Catherine's in the Sinai. Opening at the Getty Museum on November 14th will be the first exhibition in the United States to focus exclusively on treasures from the Greek Orthodox monastery beneath Mount Sinai in Egypt. Founded by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the in the 6th century, The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, lays claim as the the world's oldest continuously operating Christian monastery. The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai, Egypt photo - Bruce M. White Father Justin Sinaites, librarian at St. Catherine's, in an interview with the L...

RB Morris at the Edinburgh Castle, San Francisco photo by Gregg Chadwick Lucinda Williams has called him the "greatest unknown songwriter in the country." Recently at the Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco, I heard RB Morris play the greatest unreleased song in the country - his post September 11th lament - "Empire Falls". "Empire Falls" is a heartbreaking look at America today. It would fit right in on Neil Young's "Living With War", Pearl Jam's new album, The Dixie Chicks' new collection, Springsteen's current tour and Michael McDermott's glorious upcoming album. Come to the Getty Museum on June 9th and hear it for yourself. Money back guarantee if the song doesn't move you. Well the event is free so no worries there. The Getty describes RB Morris as a "hillbilly beatnik hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, and a celebrated poet, playwright, and singer-songwriter. His songs reflect a range of musical styles from blue...

Gregg Chadwick "The Crossing" 72"x48" oil on linen 2004 Thinking About Art has my "Artists Interview Artists" piece up. I respond to a series of questions on the process of my work: Artists Interview Artists: Gregg Chadwick Thanks JT. And thanks to Sky Pape at Artists Unite for linking to my interview and my site: Artists Unite

Gerhard Richter "Breath" (detail) oil on canvas 1989 Milwaukee Art Museum Tyler Green's recent piece on the correspondence between Courbet's paint quality and Gerhard Richter's paint technique, echoes my own recent thoughts. The landscape motifs in many of the works at the recent Courbet exhibition at the Getty in Los Angeles were almost a framework to enable Courbet's paint pyrotechnics. Gustave Courbet "The Gust of Wind" (detail) oil on canvas c. 1865 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Courbet's paint is dragged, scumbled, rubbed, scraped, ladled on with a palette knife, smeared with rags, and fingers. Richter's work is also manipulated on the surface of the canvas while the paint is still wet. Richter's blurred, squeegeed marks create a new reality and for me evoke thoughts of grottoes, mists and Wagnerian myths. Gerhard Richter "Breath" oil on canvas 1989 Milwaukee Art Museum Nagasawa Rosetsu "Herdboy Playing a Flute...

Robert Heinecken Photo work from a guerilla special edition Christopher Knight reports in todays Los Angeles Times that the artist Robert Heinecken has died. Robert Heinecken's photo works took his photography directly into the world. In one of his most memorable artistic actions Robert Heinecken bought numerous copies of a current edition of Time magazine in 1969 and then, after adding his own ani-war images adapted from horrific news photos from the conflict, put them back on the newstand shelves for unsuspecting customers. Christopher Knight explains: "The pages of Heinecken's guerrilla "special edition" included superimposed lithographic prints of a recently published photograph showing a smiling soldier holding the decapitated heads of two anonymous Vietnamese youths. The shocking image was repeated indiscriminately over fashion advertisements and editorial news copy throughout the magazines. Between 1969 and 1994, he made 37 editions of variously collaged...

Gregg Chadwick October Off Ocean Park 72"x72" oil on linen 2006 My painting, "October Off Ocean Park" was painted in a series of starts, stops and absences. Major compositional elements were scraped down or painted over. I worked on the painting over a series of months then years. My artistic engagement with the work of Richard Diebenkorn helped me finish the piece. I knew I wanted to get the light of a Santa Monica evening into the work. But I wasn't quite sure how to pull it off. Not long ago I moved into a studio at the Santa Monica Airport, literally off Ocean Park Boulevard. I could walk out the door and see that evening light filtered through my memories of Diebenkorn's Ocean Park series. Richard Diebenkorn Ocean Park No.27 100" x 81" oil on canvas 1970 Brooklyn Museum Arthur C. Danto , in "Encounters and Reflections", writes at length on Diebenkorn's Ocean Park paintings: "Ocean Park itself is a community in Santa Moni...

Photo by: KB Projects Konstantin Bojanov, an art fabricator, at work on Richard Jackson's "The Pink Empire" . "As art with high production values has become increasingly common, the role of the artist has evolved into something closer to that of a film director who supervises a large crew of specialists to realize his or her vision." - Mia Fineman in The New York Times Mia Fineman's New York Times article on contemporary art fabrication is well worth the read: "Looks Brilliant on Paper. But Who, Exactly, Is Going to Make It?"

Lee Sevilla in her car with Sandy Photo by Richard Hartog In today's Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez describes the predicament of Lee Sevilla . An emerging artist at 71, Lee Sevilla spends the nights overlooking the Pacific Ocean, sleeping in her car with her dog Sandy. The hours after work are spent at a local public library, where Ms. Sevilla works on her drawings hoping to scrape together a few more dollars to aid her living situation. Steve Lopez writes, "About 10 years ago, Lee Sevilla answered a lifelong dream, got a student loan and took a few art classes at UCLA. I discovered I've got a gift," she said, proudly showing me her pencil sketches of wildlife and domestic animals. "If only I could figure out how to make something happen with it now. I seem to be in a rut there too." Lee Sevilla Photo by Richard Hartog "She's an amazing woman, and so talented," said Roz Templin, a library assistant who, along with her colleague Kimberlee Carter...

Gregg Chadwick 关于金山 (On Gold Mountain) 68"x68" oil on linen 2006 For the immigrant Chinese community, San Francisco was known as Gum Saan - "Gold Mountain" - a place of freedom and prosperity. This new painting, is in part a visual poem on new Chinese immigrants coming to America. Many of these new immigrants are young girls adopted from China into American families. What will their stories be?

As John Cage said, “Our lives are changing to the point where people may have their own lives rather than lives that society has given them second-hand.” Art is in the forefront of changes in society, and artists are the best people we can ask about ways to take hold of our own lives by thinking creatively. -Kathan Brown Kathan Brown, the founder of San Francisco's Crown Point Press, has a new book out - "Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively: The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life" . The book is put together as a series of thirteen creative secrets gathered from working with contemporary artists as they created etchings at Crown Point. Wayne Thiebaud "Hill River" 2002 Color drypoint with direct gravure and spit bite aquatint 21-1/4 x 30-1/2" Wayne Thiebaud's corresponding creative secret is to cultivate sensuality. Richard Diebenkorn's is getting into the flow. Shazia Sikander's is to use every tool. Robert Bechtle's key is to know ...

Cover Image: Gregg Chadwick "Ossi di Sepia" monotype Bruce Boone's "My Walk With Bob" has been described by Dennis Cooper as a seminal and perfect work. Originally published in 1979, Ithuriel's Spear - a small press based in San Francisco - has brought out a new edition of this important book. "My Walk With Bob" contains a collection of short narratives by Bruce Boone and is regarded as a core text of the New Narrative movement emanating from Robert Glück's writing workshops in San Francisco. Robert Glück writes in the afterward of this edition that "the beginning of modernism is a man (Baudelaire) walking through a city. Bruce experiences his own version of the fragment in a walk with me through a part of San Francisco that reminds him of earlier eras both in his life and the life of our culture." The image "Ossi di Sepia" which graces the cover was steeped in my reading of modern poetry, especially Baudelaire and the Ital...

I have been thinking about Goya and Spanish painting while in the studio recently. Gregg Chadwick "Songs Of Almodóvar" 48"x36" oil on linen 2006 In Southern California, Spain is never far away. The lilting sound of Spanish is almost an aural fragrance in the air. Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746 - 1828) "Woman with Clothes Blowing in the Wind" Carbon and Watercolor on Ivory 1824-25 "I've no more sight. No hand, no pen, nor inkwell, I lack everything - all I've got left is will." - Goya in a letter to a Spanish friend. 1825 There is a wonderful piece by Robert Hughes on Goya in the Guardian. I have quoted a few lines concerning Goya's late paintings on ivory: "He was short of money, and friends proposed that he should make himself some by doing a new issue of the Caprichos, but Goya refused to compromise himself by repetition. Instead he spoke of something entirely new in his work: miniatures on ivory. Not the licked, froze...

Gustav Klimt "Apple Tree I" 42 7/8" x 43 1/4" oil on canvas 1911 or 1912 Estate of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer Quite a week in Los Angeles. Michael Govan has taken up his post as the new director at LACMA and the recently repatriated Gustav Klimt paintings are now on display at LACMA as well. Gustave Courbet "Stream in the Forest" about 1862, oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston At the Getty tonight noted art historian Linda Nochlin will present a lecture: "How Landscape Means: Courbet and His Territory" in conjuction with the traveling exhibition - "Courbet and the Modern Landscape" -which is currently on view at the Getty through May 14, 2006. * Details on the Nochlin lecture And UCLA finished a remarkable run through the NCAA Basketball tourney on Monday night. The Bruins fell short in the title game but played with remarkable courage and showed incredible class throughout the tournament.

"A Walk with Ganesh" Gregg Chadwick, 72" x 84" oil on linen 2005 My brother, Kent Chadwick , is a Seattle writer and recently finished a poem inspired by the painting above: "A Walk with Ganesh" Obediently, I begin, but it is a curious way to experiment with no design and venture out in thought alone. It is my father who has traveled to where elephants wander, to where they’re worked and tended. It is my brother who has breathed the red dust of Bangalore, who was told by a Bombay cab driver, “Ganesh was just in my car!” At home I know just what I read— that he broke off a bit of his tusk to take dictation, to copy down at divine speed the inspired, sculpted rush of Ved Vyasa’s verse creating the Mahabharata. Oh, to compose as swiftly as a god can write! Oh, to out sing one’s breath! Obediently, I begin a journey measured in mouse steps— a journey in...

" If the Princes of the world had to fight hand to hand, goodbye to war. But while there is someone in the world who can sacrifice thousands of victims how and when he pleases, Without risk to his person, enslaved humanity do not complain of his barbarity, for the blame is yours." -Giambattista Casti, "Gli animali parti" 1802 "Contemptuous of the Insults" Goya 1816-1820 From: "A Revolutionary Age: Drawing in Europe, 1770–1820" organized by the Getty as a companion exhibition to the traveling exhibition " Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile" "Sometimes the most determined of invaders, equipped with strong armies and copious intelligence about its enemy can make myopic blunders that later seem close to madness" Robert Hughes, from "Goya"- on Napoleon's invasion of Spain Three years into our debacle in Iraq it is helpful to turn to art and history for some perspective. Napoleon invaded and occupied Spain from 1808...

Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I 138 x 138 cm oil and gold on canvas 1907 Altmann Collection, Los Angeles A legal arbitration panel in Austria recently decided that five Gustav Klimt paintings, stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family during World War II, should be returned to Maria Altmann who lives in Los Angeles- the legal heir to the looted collection. The two sides began mediation following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that Altmann could sue the Austrian government. It was announced today (thanks for the heads up Tyler ), that the five paintings will go on display from April 4 through June 30 at LACMA . Suzanne Muchnic in the Los Angeles Times reports that "the exhibition was initiated by Stephanie Barron, LACMA's senior curator of modern art, in January after the Austrian arbitration court ordered its government to turn over the paintings to Altmann, ... Barron proposed the show in a letter to Altmann's attorney, Randol Schoenberg, who presented the ...

Bamiyan Buddhas March 12, 2001 Destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas On March 12, 2001 the Buddhas in Bamiyan were destroyed in Afghanistan. Despite a resounding chorus of international condemnation, the Taliban ignorantly declared that the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism were more important than the world's artistic heritage. And so, the statues were blown apart, exactly six-months before the destruction of another pair of cultural icons, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The Bamiyan Buddhas were towering figures carved into the sandstone cliffs of what is now central Afghanistan sometime around the third century A.D. The statues were the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. Like classical Greek and Roman sculptures, which provided major influences on the Buddhist sculpture in this region, the Bamiyan Buddhas were originally brightly painted and most likely gilded. This region was known historically as Gandhara and occupied areas of present day North W...

"And history will soon forget about you, but the heavens they will reward you." -Nick Cave, "Faraway, So Close" Cassiel and Gorbachev in Wim Wenders' film - "Faraway, So Close" "Faraway, So Close" marked Mikhail Gorbachev's feature film debut. The guardian angel, Cassiel, looks over his shoulder while Gorbachev meditates that "a secure world can't be built on blood; only on harmony." On March 10, 1985 after the death of Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed leader of the Soviet Union. In 1988, Gorbachev began withdrawing Soviet forces from Afghanistan. More than 15,000 Soviet troops died during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989). Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which had kept Eastern bloc nations under Soviet domination. The Soviet Union's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov jokingly described the decision as the Sinatra Doctrine, bec...