Speed of Life

Update: RB Kitaj Exits R.B. Kitaj at Hammer Museum RB Kitaj presented a lecture on his art at the Hammer Museum on Thursday, March 8, 2007 R.B. Kitaj Los Angeles no. 20 1990-2003 Collection of the National Gallery of Australia "Don't listen to the fools who say either that pictures of people can be of no consequence or that painting is finished. There is much to be done. It matters what men of good will want to do with their lives." -RB Kitaj We are fortunate to have Kitaj back in Los Angeles. Much like Alex and Jane Eliot, Kitaj should be declared a living national treasure. Almost thirty years ago Kitaj curated an exhibition, for the Arts Council of Great Britain, entitled The Human Clay. Let me be the first to propose a new exhibition incorporating Kitaj's School of London with our new - School of L.A. The School of London - School of L. A. connection is a natural one with Kitaj and Hockney working here and inspiring a whole new generation of artists. In the ca...

Three esteemed Mexican film directors are up for Oscars at tonight's Academy Awards: Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro "Hollywood often makes socks," Cuaron said. "I work with the studios when they decide they want to make a film and not socks." Guillermo del Toro In Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," up for six Oscars including best foreign-language film, fascist soldiers in post civil-war Spain torture rebels as an eyeless, child-devouring demon lurks nearby in a mysterious underworld. Alfonso Cuaron and his daughter Bu Writer-director Alfonso Cuaron's adaptation of the P.D. James novel, "Children of Men," is set in a ruined, post-apocalyptic England. Cuaron directed the third Harry Potter film as well as "Y tu mamá también". Cuaron's take on Harry Potter brought an eerie depth and a sense of real danger. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's film ...

Installation View: Rothko at MOCA The recent exhibition of Mark Rothko's work by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art at their Pacific Design Center satellite space was both profound and encouraging. The paintings, many originally from the Panza Collection outside Milan, were crisply installed in the high ceilinged space and gently lit. In one of the essays collected in the posthumous volume "The Artist's Reality", Mark Rothko expressed his hope that a democratically educated populace "through increased facilities for the seeing and practice and discussion of art, will actively and genuinely be moved by the creations of their contemporaries." I think that Rothko would appreciate the crowd that gathered to reflect upon his paintings. A group that took time to step away from an increasingly murky politcal reality to contemplate something deeper, richer and more lasting. Rothko wrote that "society profits most not when art at its highest applauds its...

Thomas Eakins, (1844-1916) The Cello Player, 1896 Formerly the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia Joseph E. Temple Fund, 1897 Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes has the scoop on the deaccession of Thomas Eakin's "The Cello Player" to help fund the accession of the "Gross Clinic": "Proceeds from the deaccessioning will be applied toward PAFA's co-purchase of Eakins' The Gross Clinic, which PAFA and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are co-purchasing from Thomas Jefferson University."

At the Sundance Film Festival “Grace Is Gone,” by first-time director James Strouse and featuring John Cusack, has won the the dramatic audience award and the Waldo Salt screenwriting award. John Cusack stars as a former soldier - Stanley- home from the front caring for his two daughters while his wife continues to serve in war-torn Iraq. Early in the film, Stanley is delivered the news that his wife has been killed in Iraq. Rather than tell his daughters of their mother's death, Stanley attempts to flee the reality of absence by taking his children on a road-trip. James Rocchi , from Cinematical, describes the film as a needed look at contemporary reality: "There's a certain play of light in Grace is Gone, and carefully composed moments as well as a swiftly-captured realism that still looks wonderful. Grace is Gone has the look of life, and the glow of art. The film is as affecting -- and as ultimately human -- as one might hope, and it still brings home the ugly real fa...

Senator Barack Obama speaks in remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr. -Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press Speaking today at the annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Martin Luther King Jr. scholarship breakfast in Chicago, Barack Obama evoked the memory and the social activism of Martin Luther King, Jr.: ''As I recall, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Manhattan, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Beverly Hills." Introducing Obama, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a crowd at the annual King scholarship breakfast, ''it's a long, nonstop line between the march in Selma in 1965 and the inauguration in Washington in 2009.''

This upcoming weekend Phil and I will be presenting the second in a series of exploratory workshops at the Esalen Institute. Gregg Chadwick "Immersed in Silence" 60"x48" oil on linen 2006 Upcoming Workshop at Esalen,Big Sur Phil Cousineau & Gregg Chadwick DEC 22-24, 2006 AT ESALEN INSTITUTE "Genius is the power for lighting your own fire." -- Emerson For thousands, one of the profound mysteries of human adventure has been the creative impulse. The irrepressible urge to leave our mark, to express ourselves, is an essential part of what makes us human. But while creativity is as natural as breathing, it is also notoriously elusive, challenging, and riddled with ordeals--like any grand adventure. This workshop will use a three-stage model of the Creative Journey -- Inspiration, Process, Realization-- to explore what it means to harness our imagination and tend our creative fires over the course of a lifetime. To explore this possibility, the course wi...