Speed of Life

Louise Bourgeois photographed in 1990 behind her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970) Photo Raimon Ramis © Adagp, Paris 2008 "I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful." - Louise Bourgeois The artist Louise Bourgeois has died at 98 on Monday at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. It seemed that she would live forever. Her career has been historic. Holland Cotter has just written in the New York Times that "her psychologically charged abstract sculptures, drawings and prints had a galvanizing effect on younger artists, particularly women." I have been inspired by Louise Bourgeois' work for quite some time, having encountered her sculptures for the first time when I was a High School student taking classes at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. Her life ends but the mystery embodied in her artwork lives on. A recent bio provides the details: "Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911 to a family of tapestry restorers...

Gregg Chadwick Murmurs 36"x48" oil on linen 2010

Andy Warhol Portrait of Dennis Hopper silkscreen on canvas 1971 “The American art world often likes to put artists into boxes. You’re an artist, not a filmmaker. You’re a photographer, not a painter. But Dennis shows you can blur those boundaries, which is very current and exciting.” -Jeffrey Deitch Dennis Hopper has died at 74 just weeks before an exhibit of his work will open at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Over the years Hopper has created paintings and photographs along with his films. His photographs are noteworthy because of his unique access to his portrait subjects such as Andy Warhol and because of his romantic, brooding aesthetic. Dennis Hopper Double Standard silver gelatin print 1961 Jori Finkel in the Los Angeles Times noted that " most big museum exhibitions take years to organize, but new director Jeffrey Deitch had the idea for this show just a couple of months ago when visiting Julian Schnabel, a longtime friend of Hopper." “We’re rushing...

by Gregg Chadwick "L.A. is a city where people come to find themselves and explore new ways of thinking and being. They have a longing for an understanding of soul, and find themselves drawn to Jung." -Nancy Furlotti, (co-president of the Philemon Foundation which financed the the translation of The Red Book ) At the Hammer Museum until June 6th is the exhibition The Red Book of C. G. Jung: Creation of a New Cosmology . On display for the first time on the west coast is psychologist Carl Jung’s (1875-1961) Red Book . Many scholars consider Jung's Red Book the most influential unpublished work in psychology. The Hammer Museum explains that "Jung also considered the Red Book to be his most important work, or as Jung described it, the " prima materia for a lifetime’s work ." Jung's massive illuminated volume has spent most of its existence in a Swiss safe deposit box. Only a select group has ever been allowed to view Jung's Red Book . T...

Gregg Chadwick Book of Twilight (Crepusculario ) 16"x16" oil on linen 2010

JMW Turner Regulus 91 x 124 cm. oil on canvas 1828-29, finished 1837 Tate Gallery, London © Tate "I saw that the sun was a lump of white standing out like the boss of a shield." -Sir John Gilbert (after watching Turner paint on Varnishing Day) Last night the final episode of Lost was broadcast on ABC. After a six year run the series ends almost as it began with a close up of Jack's face. Six years ago, Jack opened an eye to the strange new world of the island. Last night his eye closed to the mystery. Satisfyingly, the mystery remains for us. The intersection of quantum physics and myth that seemed to engender the island remains tantalizingly out of reach. Jack's father may have walked offscreen into a heavenly light in the slide sideways/ slide metaphysical finale but on the island the tangible wreckage of a plane remains in the final shot before the credits roll. At the start of this season, Chad W Post on the WSJ's Speakeasy wrote,"So if Lost wraps up ...

by Gregg Chadwick John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925) A Street in Venice 29 5/8 x 20 5/8 in. (75.1 x 52.4 cm) oil on canvas ca. 1880–82 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915” is currently on view at LACMA and unfortunately closes today. The exhibition includes more than eighty paintings which range in date from the Revolutionary War era to just before World War I. The stories are myriad and the paintings are narrative heavy and engaging.The museum is open till 7 pm and if you haven't seen the exhibition already, rush on down today. Barbara Weinberg curated the exhibition “American Stories" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The website that the Metropolitan Museum put together for the exhibit is rich in detail and I enjoyed the audio elements with Barbara Weinberg and guests. The podc...