Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Moby's Music for Our New Flat Earth

by Gregg Chadwick

Thomas L. Friedman's new book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century'', argues that the fall of the Berlin Wall was the first in a series of important events that have ushered in the 21st Century. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing dissolution of the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe allowed us to see the world, maybe for the first time, as one whole fabric.

Moby
April 1, 2005
photo by Gregg Chadwick

"It was a result of events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000 ...The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space.’ The Berlin Wall was not only a symbol of keeping people inside Germany; it was a way of preventing a kind of global view of our future,' the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. And the wall went down just as the windows went up -- the breakthrough Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system, which helped to flatten the playing field even more by creating a global computer interface, shipped six months after the wall fell. 
The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level. Suddenly more people could connect with more other people from more different places in more different ways than ever before."
-Thomas L. Friedman, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century''

It is the last sentence that I think will prove to be the most prescient for artists around the globe. More people are connecting with more people from more different places in more different artistic ways than ever before. In the past, new art was engendered as differing artistic cultures slid along each other like massive geological plates. In our age, music and art can be created in real time over a vast "flat" landscape. Global distinctions are breaking down. Artists are using the machines of business and industry to stay ahead of some sort of global homogenization. Instead artists like Moby are connecting and creating with a vast and potentially powerful community.

I thought of the collapse of the wall again when I read Kelefa Sanneh's failed attempt in the New York Times to use Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" as a bludgeon to beat Moby's new album "Hotel" into the ground.

Moby's music is built using techniques that are global. Musicians can gather in their respective studios and plug in across the globe to create one new piece of music. The opportunities are open and endless and just being touched on.

Kelefa bemoans this influx of technology into the art world :"Mr. Fukuyama, in his famous obituary, might have written (but didn't quite, of course) that "boredom at the end of music will serve to get music started once again." That's an appealing idea, but it's also appealing to know, listening to "Hotel," that it won't be necessary. The end of music seems to have ended itself."

Of course this is a willful misreading of both Fukuyama and Moby. "The End of History" is not an obituary but instead a birth announcement - a philosophical examination of political good news:

"Liberal democracy remains the only coherent political aspiration that spans different regions and cultures around the globe. In addition, liberal principles in economics – the “free market” – have spread, and have succeeded in producing unprecedented levels of material prosperity, both in industrially developed countries and in countries that had been, at the close of World War II, part of the impoverished Third World. A liberal revolution in economic thinking has sometimes preceded, sometimes followed, the move toward political freedom around the globe."
-Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History"

Moby in a recent interview with Jaan Uhelszki in SOMA magazine describes walking down a hotel corridor past rows of closed and forbidding doorways but with the understanding that behind these doors people "are doing the most intimate things...bathing, sleeping, crying, having sex, laughing, starting relationships and ending relationships."

Friedman in "The World is Flat" describes the fall of the Berlin Wall as opening the closed doors of Eastern Europe and goes on to show how the world's new digital railway has opened the doors of India and China. Moby's global concerns and global audience indicate that he is in the forefront of a new worldwide artistic community. The beauty that Moby strives for and finds in his music speaks to the denizens of our new flat earth.


Monday, April 04, 2005

Venetians Added Ground Glass to Renaissance Paints

In the current issue of "Science News", Barbara Berrie and Louisa Matthew, from the conservation department at the National Gallery of Art, report on new discoveries in the paint formulation of sixteenth century Venetian paintings. It seems that ground glass was added to the powdered pigments upon grinding in linseed oil to increase transparency and to speed the drying time of the paint. Microscopic traces of glass were found in samples of Lorenzo Lotto's pigments viewed by Berrie "using scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectrometry, among other sophisticated analytical techniques"

"Upon closer examination, Berrie found high-quality silica in a form routinely used by Venetian glassmakers. During the Renaissance, they obtained it from quartzite pebbles along the Ticino River in northern Italy. They would then grind the quartzite into a fine powder."




Lorenzo Lotto
detail: Allegory of Virtue and Vice, 1505, National Gallery of Art

"For the Venetians to be able to use this ultrapure source of silica was a real technological innovation. Traditionally, glass was made from sand, which is loaded with impurities such as iron. The iron gives glass a green tint. Using pure silica, helped Venetian glassmakers to create their colorless cristallo. Perhaps Lotto was trying to achieve the same clarity in his paintings. He was layering these paints so thinly, he must have been taking advantage of glass' optical properties, says Berrie."


  • sciencenews


  • And I highly recommend the color histories found on:

  • webexhibits
  • "De Kooning: An American Master" by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan Wins Pulitzer Prize

    "De Kooning: An American Master" by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Biography today.


    Portrait of De Kooning

    photo by Harry Bowden
     Courtesy of the Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco

    Saturday, April 02, 2005

    David Hockney - Hand, Eye, Heart, Space

    David Hockney's current exhibition of landscape watercolors at the LA Louver Gallery in Venice, California brings him back to the fields of East Yorkshire where as a teen on summer breaks from school he worked the fields he now paints. There is a youthful expansiveness in these new watercolors. Hockney's deep study of Picasso and Braque's cubistic space allows him to blow open these paintings in a way seldom seen in watercolor. The type of bent and overlapping space found in Hockney's earlier photo collages such as "Pearblossom Highway"(up the road at the Getty) is very much in evidence here.




    Moving from the foreground with its patterned arrangements of vegetation, to the lozenged fields in the middleground, to the horizon line in "East Yorkshire Spring" (above) which seems to bend with the curvature of the earth, leads us not to a single point, but to the vast interconnected nature of time and existence. We have seen these wide-open vistas so often in American films, especially Westerns, that it is easy to brand the vista as an exclusively American idea. In these works, Hockney seems to be discovering that these limitless horizons were already found in the landscape of his youth. And these limitless spaces are also found in the ideas of physicists such as Stephen Hawking. Hockney, throughout his career, has been as interested in how we see as in what we see. Light, color and questions on space and time have come to the forefront in both physics (light has become the cornerstone of reality and space and time have become observer-dependent) and the art of David Hockney.



    Thursday, March 31, 2005

    Robert Creeley Remembered 1926-2005

    donald sultan
    Donald Sultan
    Spring 1999
    "Robert Creeley is an artist’s poet....I think of him as one of the most
     thoughtful poets ever to explore this complex relationship between the eye and the object."
     - Donald Sultan, 1999

    "(Battery) There"
    Wherever it was, I took this place
    To be in mind as well as there
    Where persons walked with muffled forms,
    Marked by the high sky's yellow glare.

    The measured look placed all in squares,
    Boxed by a distance fixed in space.
    Lampposts blackened against the day.
    The shuffled passage of persons faded.

    The building, it seemed, they would never
              get to.
    Its vertical strips of window reflected
    Light from a world they might have heard of,
    But, try as they would, they would
              never reach.

    - Robert Creeley

    From the New York Public Library:
    "Over his lifetime Robert Creeley explored the profound connections between visual art and creative writing in collaborations with artists such as Georg Baselitz, Francesco Clemente, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, R. B. Kitaj, Susan Rothenberg, Marisol, and Donald Sultan. Since his early years as one of the originators of the Black Mountain school of poetry in the 1950s, Creeley worked with artists from a variety of disciplines. He employed an ever evolving "process" of collaboration through his relationships with artists resulting in a body of work that includes books and portfolios of poetry, art, prose, and criticism in a variety of media."

    The poem and image here were originally published in
    "Visual Poetics: The Arts of Donald Sultan"
    with text by Michael McKenzie

    Marcos Fine Arts Contemporary Atelier
    201 Nevada Street
    El Segundo, CA 90245

    Images © Donald Sultan
    Poems © Robert Creeley

    More on Robert Creeley, his life and work:
  • creeley remembered
  • Events this Weekend at the San Francisco Art Institute

    Speed of Life Study, 30"x22" monotype 2005
    Gregg Chadwick
    Speed of Life Study
    33"x20" monotype 2005
    From the San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction

    The annual San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction will be held Saturday, April 2, at SomArts, 934 Brannan St., in San Francisco.

    Works donated by such artists as Marcel Dzama, Jay DeFeo, Lynda Benglis,Gregg Chadwick, Imogen Cunningham, David Ireland, Annie Leibovitz, Larry Thomas, and Charles Hobson will be offered to the highest bidder. The range in value is expected to be $150 to $15,000 for the works. In addition to paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture, other items to be auctioned include art-related travel tours, restaurant gift certificates, and fine wines.

    The reception and silent auction begin at 5:00 P.M., and the live auction commences at 7:00 P.M. The auctioneer is Malcolm Barber, from Bonhams & Butterfields. SKYY Vodka will sponsor the open bar. Co-chairs of the event are Nicole Fife and Will Wick (Art Auction Committee) and Carol Baker and Linda Fairchild (Art Advisory Committee). The Art Auction benefits the Scholarship Fund at the Art Institute. Tickets are $85 in advance and $100 at the door. For more information and to reserve tickets, contact SFAI Events at 415-749-4569

    The following galleries have contributed artwork to the auction to date:

    Aurobora Press, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, Bobbie Greenfield Gallery, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, Catharine Clark Gallery, Charles Campbell Gallery, Crown Point Press, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, Fraenkel Gallery, Gallery Paule Anglim, Hackett Freedman Gallery, Haines Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, K Kimpton Contemporary Art, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery, Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art, Paulson Press, Richard Levy Gallery, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, Toomey Tourell Gallery, Traywick Contemporary, Trillium Press

    And at the Institute this Friday:

    guerilla advertising

    Grand Opening of The Offices of the Anti-Advertising Agency
    Friday (this Friday) April 1, 2005 5:30-7:30
    McBean Project Space at the San Francisco Art Institute
    800 Chestnut St. San Francisco, Ca

    Mission Statement from the Anti-Advertising Website:

    Outdoor advertising has become unavoidable. Traditional billboards and transit shelters have cleared the way for more pervasive methods such as wrapped vehicles, sides of buildings, electronic signs, kiosks, taxis, posters, sides of buses, and more. In urban areas commercial content is placed in our sight and into our consciousness every moment we are in public space. Over time, this domination of the surroundings has become the "natural" state. Through long-term commercial saturation, it has become implicitly understood by the public that advertising has the right to own, occupy and control every inch of available space. The steady normalization of invasive advertising dulls the public's perception of their surroundings, re-enforcing a general attitude of powerlessness toward creativity and change, thus a cycle develops enabling advertisers to slowly and consistently increase the saturation of advertising with little or no public outcry.


    The Anti-Advertising Agency co-opts the tools and structures used by the advertising and public relations industries. Our work calls into question the purpose and affects of advertising in public space. Through constructive parody and gentle humor our Agency's campaigns will ask passers by to critically consider the role and strategies of today's marketing media as well as alternatives for the public arena. Our work will de-normalize "out-of-home" advertising and increase awareness of the public's power to contribute to a more democratically-based outdoor environment.


    Our work may result in traditional advertising formats - signs, posters, postcards, and stickers - or more conventional artistic formats - performance, installation, artists books - or some combination of the two.

    Arts Writing and Elitism

    A wonderful discussion is continuing on the place of arts writing and elitism in contemporary art. From Mark Vallen's
  • art for a change


  • "A poet living in Southern California made a few points I’ve been wanting to touch upon. Although the poet practices a discipline apart from that of the visual artist, the two are linked in many ways. When artists malign the public for having ‘bad taste’, or when critics say that ‘art is not for everyone’, they fail to see how this is a problem of acculturation. For instance, in much of Latin America crowds fill stadiums during poetry festivals, while such an event is impossible to envision for the US: “I wish I had been present at the forum because the same thing is happening in the world of poetry. Some academics say that poetry is not for everyone. But how come that is not so in many other countries? I grew up in Persia and poetry was in our blood. In the smallest villages, even the illiterate could recite poetry by heart. In Afghanistan they have resorted to sending a poet to get rivaling clans to talk to one another. This is how much they respect poets and poetry. Yet, in this country sports and television rule. Why? You were right on the dot ... money and attention. Same thing is happening to other forms of art and people like you and me can either shake their heads and say: how sad... Or we can do something about it. Even the smallest contribution is community service and can have a tremendous and lasting effect on the fabric of this country's life and culture."

    The image of a stadium filled for a poetry festival in Latin America is, on one hand a damning indictment of current US culture , and on the other hand a source of immense hope for change. The arts are incredibly powerful and important.

    Gerard Bourgeois at the Sarah Bain Gallery

    Gerard Bourgeois
    Gerard Bourgeois
    Après le Bain
    41" x 54" oil on canvas 2005

    Currently on view at the Sarah Bain Gallery in Brea, California is a new collection of paintings by Gerard Bourgeois. These seemingly Degas inspired images of a woman at the bath are rich in painterly nuance accomplished by a rigorous process of painting, readjusting, overpainting, sanding, scraping down and finishing. Like a frescoed wall eroded over time, the images in Gerard's paintings emerge from the accumulation of paint. The history of the painting, with its ghosts and pentimenti, is the painting.

    Gerard's work is extremely sophisticated, notice the nuances of hip and shoulder, yet these paintings ring true emotionally. Based on intimate moments with his wife, the paintings in this exhibition are not mere exercises involving painter and model, but instead portray an intimacy normally found in the cinema.

    Gerard was raised in the South Pacific on the island of Vanuatu. Like a reverse Gauguin, Gerard left the color and light of the islands for the tans and grays of modern urbanity - first, to Australia and eventually to California. In this new body of work, Gerard seems to have found his voice, distilling the experiences of his background and travels into paintings that move beyond initial impulses into something deeper, more profound and mysterious.

  • gerard bourgeois


  • sarah bain gallery
  • Sunday, March 27, 2005

    Upcoming Lecture - Julie Weiss: “The Bias of Costume Design”

    “The Bias of Costume Design”
    a lecture by
    Oscar & Tony Nominated, Emmy Award Winning Costume Designer
    JULIE WEISS
    Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
    6:30 PM
    On The Re-Defining of Beauty Through Costume

    frida

    films include:
    Frida
    American Beauty
    12 Monkeys
    Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
    and many others


    •The costume as part of the character…or
    •The character as part of the costume
    •Can the costume dress the spirit
    •How does the costume help the written word?
    •The loss of individuality through dress
    •The definition of the veil as privacy or ownership
    •Is a trend without a story nothing more than a blink?

    $5 donation
    RSVP 310/ 397-7449
    Lecture held in ARENA 1 GALLERY
    3026 Airport Avenue
    Santa Monica, CA 90405

    hangarstudios@verizon.net
    310 397 7449 phone
    310 397 7459 fax

    Saturday, March 26, 2005

    The School of L.A.

    Update: RB Kitaj Exits


    los angeles#20- rb kitaj
    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 catalog essay for the original Human Clay exhibition, Kitaj wrote, "If some of the strange and fascinating personalities you may encounter here were given a fraction of the internationalist attention and encouragement reserved in this barren time for provincial and orthodox vanguardism, a School of London might become even more real than the one I have construed in my head. " Substitute Los Angeles for London, and the above sentence supports the brave efforts of many, including Caryn Coleman's
    and Mark Vallen's
    mission to encourage the development of a vital art press in Los Angeles.

    As artists, gallerists, curators, writers and collectors, we need to come together and refuse to accept the status quo.
    I hope that this School of L.A. which I have construed in my head, will become real. RB Kitaj - we need you.

    Wednesday, March 23, 2005

    The Looting of Cambodia

    apsara
    photo courtesy Heritage Watch

    "There is not a single site that is not affected," said Helen Jessup, the founder of Friends of Khmer Culture, describing the looting of Cambodia's artistic treasures. "The Western collectors continue to be as guilty as those who do this."
    -Jane Perlez in the New York Times


    Jane Perlez' New York Times article, on the looting of Angkor Wat, shed light on a growing problem in Cambodia and Thailand - the defacement and looting of national treasures for collector's cash. Hidden in the article, a single photo credit, is the identity of an organization that refuses to accept these events as inevitable. Headed by Dr. Dougald O'Reilly, Heritage Watch is actively promoting a series of measures to combat looting and the international trade in stolen art:

    "The initial phase of HeritageWatch’s projects will focus on education. By targeting a broad spectrum of Cambodian society and visitors to Cambodia we hope to slow the destruction of important archaeological sites. It is hoped that HeritageWatch’s  projects will raise awareness regarding the importance of cultural heritage in all sectors of Cambodian society. This will be followed with training in Cultural Heritage for those in the Culture sector and law enforcement, the creation of a national archaeological register, an evaluation of Cambodia’s heritage laws, and feasibility studies to select suitable sites for museums that would encourage sustainable development through heritage activities. The destruction of cultural heritage is, of course, not restricted to Cambodia and HeritageWatch seeks to broaden its efforts to other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian States where the problem of illicit trade in antiquities is also a problem."

    Contact Information:
    Dr Dougald O’Reilly, Director, HeritageWatch, GPO Box 1395, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Ph. 012 832 160, e-mail: director@heritagewatch.org

    Tuesday, March 22, 2005

    Diebenkorn & Kitaj Off Ocean Park

    ocean park 54 - diebenkorn
    Richard Diebenkorn
    "Ocean Park No. 54"
    100" x 81" oil on canvas 1972
    San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

    "There is a kind of light on Diebenkorn's stretch of coastline - mild, high and ineffably clear, descending like a benediction on the ticky-tack slopes just before the fleeting sunset drops over Malibu - that is all but unique in North America, and Diebenkorn's paintings always appear to be done in terms of it. It is part of their signature."
    -Robert Hughes on Diebenkorn, from "Nothing if Not Critical"

    I think of Diebenkorn almost every evening when I step out of my studio for some air and catch the late afternoon light glowing on the horizon. The WWII era hangar at the Santa Monica Airport that houses my studio brings to mind a sense of the American space found in Edward Hopper, who was a major early influence on Diebenkorn. But the sea-light tempers the tight ruled architectural structure with Bonnard-like fluctuations of light and color. Lately, puddles from the incessant rains, mirror and distort the light and color of these moments. The tarmac surface seems to hold past and future paintings for those who have eyes to see. I have been re-reading Robert Hughes essays in "Nothing if Not Critical". And next to my brushes, the book is left open to a page on R.B.Kitaj:

    "Because the museum does nothing if it does not strive toward some ideal of visual literacy. Its mission begins from the belief that learning to see is as important as learning to read, and that seeing is not the property of one class. This literacy - a sense of the thickness of art's layer over an insufficiently named world, a knowledge of what alternative images it contains- is part of Kitaj's essential subject matter."
    - Robert Hughes on Kitaj, "Nothing if Not Critical"

    buddha of ocean park
    Gregg Chadwick
    Buddha Off Ocean Park
    72"x36" oil on linen 2005

    There is as much Kitaj as Diebenkorn in the atmospheres in my recent work. While studying briefly at the Royal College of Art in London I painted in the small studio space that Kitaj used while he was painting there as a student. Often I can sense a bit of Kitaj's combination of American upbringing and open armed embrace of European art and culture in my own work.

    From the catalog of a recent National Gallery, London exhibition:
    "For nearly forty years the American-born painter RB Kitaj played a central role in British art. At the beginning of his career he became associated with artists like David Hockney, Peter Blake and others of the so-called Pop generation, but he also formed lasting friendships with fellow artists such as Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud.

    Kitaj's Jewish identity in a post-Holocaust world is of central importance to his life and is a theme he has often explored in his work. In 1997 however, three years after the tragic and unexpected death of his wife Sandra Fisher at the age of 47, Kitaj returned to live in the United States and London lost one of its most colourful and influential personalities."

    kitaj_ifnot_not
    R B Kitaj
    "If Not, Not"
    60" x 60" oil on canvas 1975-76
    Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

    Saturday, March 19, 2005

    The Power of Suggestion

    da vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Woman's Head Almost in Profile 

    "Since the time of Pliny the Elder unfinished works were cherished because they seemed to reveal the thoughts of the artist. In the Renaissance, Leonardo honored the sketch as capturing the very instant of inspiration....Inspiration thus was valued as something even more urgent and vital than the conceptual planning of a work of art."
    From Peter Sutton's catalog essay accompanying the exhibition, "Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens":

    In the past few years, two exhibitions have captured my attention because of the light they shed on the process of creation. "Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman" was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York during the frigid winter of 2003. The current exhibition, "Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens", at the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California continues this theme. Both da Vinci's drawings and Ruben's painted studies are exploratory, yet supremely confident. These sketches allow the viewer to enter into the work and imagine what the fully fleshed out scene would be like.  

    rubens-oil sketch
    Peter Paul Rubens
    Head of a Man

    "C'est parce que, dans ce travail si spontané, nous saisissons sur le vif l'acte de création. Parce que, en tout contemplant, nous semblons prendre part à cet acte, que l'étude de ce esquisses nous intéresse tant."
    "Thanks to the spontaneity of this work, we grasp the living act of creation. The sketches interest us so because in their contemplation we take part in this act."
    —Leo van Puyvelde
    Les Esquisses de Rubens (Basel, 1940)

    The informality of these studies allowed da Vinci and Rubens to depict real people with vigor and appreciation unencumbered by the masks of madonna or moor. In these works we are privileged to step back into time and glimpse the genesis of art as well as encounter faces from the past. I can't help but wonder about these encounters between artist and model. Was there a flesh and blood woman who posed for Leonardo? Or did his immense artistic vision, honed by years of drawing, conjure her out of thin air? And who was the handsome black man who posed for Rubens? The open quality of these studies encourages this mode of questioning.

    What the World Whispers
    Gregg Chadwick
    what the world whispers
    38"x38" oil on linen 2005

    In my own work I am drawn to this world of nuance and suggestion. We are left with questions, mere hints about our time on earth and the thread of history and influence that links us to the past.

    Friday, March 18, 2005

    Goya, Napoleon and Bush

    Contemptuous of the InsultsFrancisco José de Goya y Lucientes, about 1816–1820
    "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

    Two 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 to 1813 prompting Goya's series of etchings, "The Disasters of War", and a related group of drawings . Currently on view in the Getty is a small, ink wash drawing from this period depicting a modish, probably anti-monarchist Spaniard (note the outfit- no pretensions to court style). He mockingly doffs his hat to two miniaturized French soldiers while expressing disdain with his right hand in response to the soldier's insults. The Getty's notes to the exhibition point out Goya's anti-Napoleonic stance as evidenced in this drawing which illumines Spanish contempt for the Napoleonic forces laying waste to their country. The Spanish people resisted the French occupation with guerilla warfare (Robert Hughes points out in his study of Goya that this is the first use of the now familiar term to describe battle by irregular forces) and eventually defeated and expelled the French forces with the help of the English army.

    One of the important points to bear in mind is the initial hope found by the Spanish middle class in the French Revolution and the possibilities inherent in a democratic society based on the Enlightenment with a separation between church and state. But Napoleon destroyed this goodwill through his own egoism and brutality. Invading someone else's home rarely endears one to the local population.

    While viewing this drawing I thought of our little-Napoleon and his misguided efforts to export democracy by force. His words from two years ago still ring hollow:
    "Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
    We will meet that threat now with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities."
    -George Bush March 19, 2003. From an address to the American people on the start of the war in Iraq. (Note the emphasis on weapons of mass murder and the not so subtle attempt to link Iraq with the September 11, 2001 attacks.)

    Napoleon was kicked out but in many ways Spain was still defeated. The Spanish people continued to suffer under both a puffed up, penniless monarchy, to be followed by the brutality of Franco in the 20th Century, and a fear- driven, reactionary and provincial Spanish church. It was illegal in Spain until the 1970's to declare oneself anything but Christian. This sad coda to an earlier, misguided occupation does not bode well for the people of Iraq.


    Monday, March 14, 2005

    Keeping Artists, Writers and Intellectuals Out

    land of plenty

    "The list of foreign writers, artists and intellectuals who, at one time or another, have been denied entry to the United States on ideological grounds is a long one. It includes English novelist Graham Greene, Italian playwright Dario Fo, and French actor Yves Montand, as well as Nobel-prize-winning authors."
    -Joanne Mariner

    Find Law columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner analyzes the case of Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan historian and former Sandinista official who was recently denied a U.S. visa. Tellez was barred from entering the U.S. for her purported involvement in terrorist acts, but Mariner argues that the decision to bar Tellez had little to do with national security and everything to do with politics:
  • Playing Politics with Visas
  • Superior Court Judge Rules Against California Ban on Gay Marriage



    Bouquet
    photo by Gregg Chadwick




    From Judge Richard Kramer's decision:
    "The state's protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional. In 1948 California's statutory ban on interracial marriages was challenged as violating the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. Advocates of the racial ban asserted that because historically and culturally, blacks had not been permitted to marry whites, the statute was justified. This argument was rejected by the court."


    Judge Kramer continues,"Simply put, same-sex marriage cannot be prohibited solely because California has always done so before."

    Monday, March 07, 2005

    Art Speaks

    at the met museum
    photo by Gregg Chadwick

    "In ads, displays, altars, graphic design, fashion, magazines, signage, architecture, television, movies, web sites, on and on we’re being addressed and coddled and seduced and terrorized and we can't talk about it because we don’t have words for it. Visual "language" is a one way communication."
    -David Byrne, entry from
  • david byrne's tour journal



  • I was at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles yesterday and was struck by the tortured language used in the wall labels. As soon as the text moved from historical information - artist, date, place, and provenance- the thoughts grew murky. Some of it is art historical posturing. But part of the difficulty is the lack of a contemporary vocabulary that engages visual communication as well as verbal communication. Yes, we are bombarded with visual stimulii. But the typical response from art critics such as Kenneth Baker, who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, is to declare that this visual white noise makes certain types of communication impossible for visual artists. That what we are left with is a palimpsest of earlier images. And all we can do is pick through the tattered and effaced clues to search for meaning.

    Contemporary artists can and do use visual language to communicate. We have not given all of this power away to advertising agencies. At times we too, "coddle,terrorize, or seduce." But we also can create a visual field that communicates an idea such as peace or contemplation without verbal clues. This visual communication is powerful,almost shamanistic, and quite wondrous to watch.

    David Byrne is correct in stating that we don't have words for visual language. But, just as importantly, we do not use our sophisticated visual sensors to receive this communication. As an audience, many of us have not developed the slow and careful process of looking deeply at art. In museums and galleries we race by, gobbling up wall label after wall label, without taking the time to stop and let the artwork speak to us.

    One painting spoke more forcefully than any other, yesterday, at the Getty. A Jackson Pollock work from the late '40's, on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. hung in a room dedicated to the Impressionists. Pollock's enamel and aluminum paint glittered next to a Monet. I sat and watched as the work stopped people in their tracks. A young girl grabbed her father's arm as he took her close to the painting's surface, almost into it. They spoke quietly and looked. And after a while, the girl stepped back and gently swung her arm in ovals miming the drip of wet paint onto a canvas on a floor.


    Saturday, March 05, 2005

    Temple of the Mind- Upcoming Exhibition

    temple of the mind (for montien boonma)
    gregg chadwick
    temple of the mind
    (for montien boonma)
    60"x28" oil on linen 2005

    Ordinary men hate solitude.
    But the master makes use of it,
    embracing his aloneness,realizing
    he is one with the whole universe.
    Lao-Tzu, Tao-te-Ching

    I am currently gathering a group of paintings together for my next exhibition which opens on May 6th, 2005 at the
    Art Rental & Sales Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
    5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036.
    The opening reception will run from 6:30-8:30 and will be held in the Leo S. Bing Center, Lower Level at LACMA.

    These new paintings are appreciations of the deep mystery of life and acknowledge the connection that exists between all existence.

    The exhibition will run from May 6th through June 9th.
    The gallery is open 11am - 4 pm
    Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday

    Closed Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.
    Phone: 323-857-6500



    Stolen Thai Crown?

    thai crownjpg

    An international art incident seems to be brewing this week complete with gold, royalty, theft, smuggling and muck-raking journalism. A gold crown on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of
  • "The Kingdom of Siam" exhibition, currently at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, appears to have been looted from a crypt in the historical city of Ayutthaya in 1957. It entered the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collection in 1982. After Jom Patch, from the Thai network ITV, reported last week that the crown might have been looted in the '50's from a sacred chamber at the Buddhist temple of Wat Ratchaburana at Ayutthaya, a furor erupted in Thailand.

    From Jesse Hamlin at the San Francisco Chronicle-
    "I am kind of brokenhearted,'' says Forrest McGill, the museum's chief curator, a Thai art scholar who wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of Michigan on the kingdom of Ayutthaya. "A group of American and Thai scholars has been working together on this for years, produced a major scholarly catalog and an exhibition of material that has hardly ever been seen before. And we can't get the focus on that because, for now at least, the focus seems to be on this one object.''

    Not to worry Forrest- the exhibition continues and the news stories on the crown will focus more attention on the exhibition than it would have received otherwise. The important thing is to use your knowledge of the Ayutthaya artifacts and the initial looting of the site to help trace the path of this one object from Thailand, to a mysterious art dealer named Klejman who acquired the piece in 1965, to Sotheby's from which the Philadelphia Museum acquired the work in 1982.

    Pattaratorn Chirapravati, a California professor and co-curator of the exhibition told ITV that the crown " was probably taken out of Thailand when Wat Ratchaburana was broken into." An interesting note: Pattaratorn is related to the Thai royal family - the great-great-granddaughter of King Chulalongkorn of Thailand.

    There is a precedent for the return of historical artifacts to Thailand- In 1988, the Art Institute of Chicago repatriated a 1,000-year-old stone carving of a Hindu god, which had vanished from northeastern Thailand in the 1960s and later was displayed at the museum. This theft triggered a surge of nationalist sentiment, including lyrics in a hit song by a Thai pop singer decrying the loss and the reluctance of the Art Institute to return the sculpture.

    I was encouraged that in a written statement provided to the press, Philadelphia Museum of Art director Anne d'Harnoncourt took responsibility, "We take the issue of provenance very seriously and would of course be ready to explore any questions about the history of the object with the appropriate Thai officials.''
  • Friday, March 04, 2005

    Monterey Art Museum Benefit - March 5th




    Gregg Chadwick
    Of Sleep and Skies
    33"x20" monotype 1999

    To be auctioned on Saturday, March 5th at the Monterey Museum of Art Benefit
  • MARCH 5

    Art Lovers' Benefit. 6-10 p.m. Saturday, March 5 at the Highlands Inn, Carmel. Food, entertainment and music. A live art auction will benefit the Monterey Museum of Art's educational programs. Tickets are $125 per person. Auction artwork may be previewed and absentee bids can be placed until Feb. 28. The art is in the Buck Gallery at the Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific St., Monterey. Information: 372-5477, ext. 66.
  • Collapse by Jared Diamond

    Collapse

    Jared Diamond's new book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" will prove to be as influential for this generation as Rachel Carson's, "Silent Spring" was to the embryonic environmental movement of the early 1960's. In "Collapse", Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" examines the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations This is an important book and President Bush better be reading it right now. Unlike most books of the moment, Diamond's "Collapse" is brilliantly written and persuasively argued. Diamond takes an unstinting look at the failures of past societies - from the deforestation and eventually depopulation of Easter Island to the vanishing civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Jared argues that,"environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways." In one of the book's most chilling sections, Diamond lists the countries around the globe with the most environmental degradation -coupled with unbearable population density- and then ticks off the same as contemporary global trouble spots. Rwanda, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan all make the list. Jared argues that change is needed to prevent the future demise of our 21st Century civilizations and that hard, political and cultural choices lay ahead. Jared teaches at UCLA and, lately, whenever I am in the student store on campus, I stop to look at the area devoted to his work and I think of this book's major question,” how can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?"

    Coming Soon: Opens- May 1, 2005
    The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County presents "Collapse?"
    this exhibition will draw on ideas from Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed".
  • "Collapse?" at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
  • To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen Now at Syracuse University

    The exhibition "To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen" organized by Chester Arnold at the College of Marin has now traveled to Syracuse University.

    faces of the fallen
    Photo by Ashley McDowell

    More than 1,400 paintings of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since March 2003 line the first floor wall of Syracuse University's Shaffer Art Building.

    The initial “Faces of the Fallen” originated when Chester Arnold at the College of Marin was moved by a story in The New York Times on U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Faculty and students at the college painted, drew and produced more than 1, 100 portraits of soldiers killed since the war began.

    Stephen Zaima, professor of painting in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, arranged to bring the exhibit to Syracuse University. Students, faculty, staff and Syracuse community members will paint an additional 350 portraits of soldiers who have died since the exhibit began at the College of Marin in November 2004.

    All of the portraits in the exhibition will eventually be given to the families of the soldiers depicted.

    Hours for the exhibit are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; and weekends 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Paid parking is available in Comstock Avenue lots. For more information, contact the Studio Arts department at (315) 443-4613 or jlwinne@syr.edu

    The exhibition which runs March 3-April 1 is free and open to the public.

    For me, the blank grey panels placed to mark individuals whose images were unavailable remind me of Gerhard Richter's work and give the entire collection an even more poignant presence.

    Wednesday, March 02, 2005

    The Kingdom of Siam

    Currently at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is the exhibition- THE KINGDOM OF SIAM: THE ART OF CENTRAL THAILAND, 1350-1800

    The Kingdom of Siam

    The exhibition is the first to focus on art from Thailand’s lost kingdom of Ayutthaya, and the first exhibition of classical art from Thailand shown in the United States in more than thirty years. This exhibition is rich in spiritual and artistic inspiration.
    The works are exhibited in chronological order, and according to the curators (classical Thai art authority Dr. Forrest McGill, the Asian Art Museum’s Chief Curator and Wattis Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art and M. L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati, Assistant Professor of Asian Art, California State University, Sacramento): three major themes are explored: the development of a distinct national culture; cosmopolitanism and the importance of trade; and art as an instrument of royal power.

    On the day I visited, the galleries housing the traveling exhibition were crowded, yet hushed. Two Thai monks gazed reverently at the objects on display. The saffron color of their robes added a taste of Siam to the grey San Francisco afternoon.

    asian art museum

    More than neighboring kingdoms, including perpetual rival Burma, Ayutthaya was cosmopolitan and outward–looking. The 1600s and early 1700s were a period of great prosperity and cultural accomplishment, but in 1767 Burmese armies destroyed the capital. These conflicts were dramatized in the recent Thai blockbuster- "Suriyothai", which can be described as a sort of Thai "Gone With the Wind". The human suffering was great, and the loss of artworks and records incalculable. As one peers into the open cavity in the huge Buddha head in the lobby, its original sculpted flame crown torn off by time or battle, the costs of this warfare become clear. In our present era, with forces battling over territory and ideology in Iraq, the calm, internal gaze of the one who became awake provides hope for an alternate path.

    Monday, February 28, 2005

    Tastemakers and the Artist's Vision

    "There is indeed a downtown POV here in NY and elsewhere that likes to guard its favors. Downtown tastemakers will quietly rave about something or someone until that music or art achieves a relative popularity- then it is denigrated as having "been better when I first saw them". A lot of alt music publications and websites share this weird snobbism, it's a way of establishing a little in-crowd."
    -David Byrne, blog entry 01/30/05 from
  • david byrne's tour journal


  • at the met
    at the met
    photo by Gregg Chadwick

    I have been discussing the idea of artist and audience recently with a diverse group of fellow artists and collectors.
    David Byrne's take on downtown tastemakers seems quite apt. The importance of being the first to find a new artist and then to quickly denigrate them as their popularity grows seems to have a relation to our contemporary inundation with advertising campaigns extolling the new and the fresh, as well as our fear of aging or worst of all-irrelevance. Most artists I know, work in their studios for years guided by their own personal vision. At times our work is part of the moment or zeitgeist. At other times we are forging ahead into a dark wood, unsure of the final destination. If we are fortunate our audience makes the journey with us. Recently I had a conversation with Michael Hertzberg, who produced the comic masterpiece "Blazing Saddles" and worked with Mel Brooks on numerous other projects. As we spoke, a large photo of Mel Brooks in full Native American regalia beamed down on us. Michael expressed -"I don't think a true artist creates for an audience at all. Instead the artist works on finding their own vision. A sort of vision quest as expressed in many Native American cultures." It was a very bold statement and seemed to point out the responsibility inherent in creation and in the viewing of great art. More to follow...

    Sunday, February 27, 2005

    Photographer Zana Briski's "Born Into Brothels" Wins Best Doc at Oscars

    oscars

    Tonight's Oscars shed light on many fine performances. I was especially taken with Jamie Foxx's speech during the acceptance of his best actor award and Jorge Drexler's off the cuff rendition of "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from "The Motorcycle Diaries" which won best song. The film I am most intrigued with is Zana Briski and Ross Kaufmann's "Born Into Brothels"
    which won best doc.

    Summary follows from A.O.Scott's review in the New York Times:
    "Zana Briski, a New York photojournalist, spent several years in the red light district of Calcutta, where she ran a photography class for the children of prostitutes, encouraging them to document the squalor and the vibrant humanity that surrounded them. The seven children featured in this lovely documentary are not only Ms. Briski's subjects, but her collaborators, and it is thrilling to watch them discover their own artistic talents. This flowering is counterposed with a chronicle of Ms. Briski's efforts to get the children out of the red light district and into boarding school, a story that yields both optimisim and a recognition of just how cruel and intractable the conditions that face these children and others like them really are."

    Also see: Kids With Cameras

    kochi_pict1

    Friday, February 25, 2005

    Art that Schwarzenegger Needs to See


    Vietnam Women's Memorial

    In honor of the 11,500 women who served with the US forces in Vietnam. Most as nurses or connected to medical units. Dedicated in 1993 as part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall.

    Thursday, February 24, 2005

    Schwarzenegger Fears A Nurse in Uniform


    by Gregg Chadwick





    The latest California actor turned governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has picked a battle that he can not win. Arnold is a cartoon warrior. His opponents up to now have been mainly celluloid villains and opinion poll watching politicos. What Arnold has found out in his rash decision to issue an emergency order rolling back nursing ratios in emergency rooms is that California's top nurses are tenacious and brilliant: "Arnold behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "Nurses, teachers, home health workers -- it's vulgar how he's run roughshod over them. He's arrogant, and he's a bully."

    The AP reports how these events started "in December, when a small group of nurses gathered at a state women's conference to protest Schwarzenegger's decision to side with hospitals and limit the state's nurse-to-patient ratio. With his wife,Maria Shriver in the audience, Schwarzenegger responded to the protesters by saying, "The special interests don't like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butts." The nurses union denounced his comment, and the attacks on the governor have escalated since."

    "The arrogance of taking on teachers, nurses and other professions where women are underpaid, overworked and vital to society is beyond the pale," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights."But Arnold is someone who treats women as objects, so it's natural for him to have a tendency to disregard and devalue professions that are made up of women."

    Last week, critical care nurse Kelly DiGiacomo had a ticket to attend the Sacramento premiere of Governor Schwarzenegger's new film-Be Cool: Get Shorty II. While seated in the audience, in her nurses’ uniform, DiGiacomo was approached by an undercover officer who demanded to see her ticket and pulled her out of the audience. DiGiacomo was then detained in a small back room where she was interrogated for an hour by an undercover officer while other officers guarded her. She was then held for another 30 minutes before her release.

     “It’s appalling that the highest constitutional officer of our state feels a nurse’s uniform is threatening, and is unwilling to allow a working nurse to attend a public event,” said CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

    “RNs have a right and a very good reason to protest the governor’s rollback of patient care protections to please his corporate healthcare donors. His attempt to suspend First Amendment rights for RNs because they advocate for patients, not for corporate interests, is deplorable,” DeMoro said. DeMoro also blasted the governor for “a disgraceful waste of public money to fund his private security detail to harass nurses.”

    Arnold's emergency order, made at the request of the California Healthcare Association (the lobbying arm of the hospital industry), puts tens of thousands of Californians at risk for mortality, medical errors, and infections. The California Nurses Association has called on Arnold to:

    1. Maintain the 1:4 minimum ratio in the Emergency Room at all times.
    2. Implement the 1:5 ratio in Medical–Surgical Departments.

    also see schwarzenegger vs. nurses:

  • sfindymedia.org


  • The California Nurses Association has suggested to call and e-mail the Governor's office: Call 916-445-2841, extension 7 during business hours and leave a message saying:"I am offended by your remarks about nurses and I oppose your attack on the safe staffing ratio law.”
    E-mail the governor at governor@governor.ca.gov and cc CNA at press@calnurses.org.

    Wednesday, February 23, 2005

    Rock n' Roll Suicide

    by Gregg Chadwick

    Hunter S. Thompson's recent self-inflicted death brought to mind Elliott Smith's tragic suicide as well as Kurt Cobain's and Mark Rothko's from years before. We mourn their loss and as Moby says about Hunter on his blog- "the world is a lesser place without you." But our society also sneers at those who take their own lives- confusing mental illness with cowardice.

    The visionary artist David Best will have none of that and his Temple of Honor constructed at the Burning Man arts festival in 2003 was created and burned as a contemporary, propitiatory offering of sorts for all those who have committed suicide. The interior of the Temple of Honor was lined with handwritten names, pictures, photos and poems for the lost. These scraps were burned with our prejudices for those whose internal struggles proved too much. We miss Hunter's ragged wit and Elliott's soulful Beatlesque music and Kurt's fiery presence and Rothko's vision. In my mind I picture all of them together like angels listening with compassion to the sorrows of the world in a chapel lined with the paintings of Mark Rothko.




    david best, temple of honor aflame
    burning man 2003
    photo by Gregg Chadwick

    Thursday, February 17, 2005

    the curve of a back and the desert floor

    by Gregg Chadwick


    I just got back from a weekend at Joshua Tree with a group of writers and actors. We talked deeeply about the process of creation. And I spoke about what inspires me. The writer Phil Cousineau would describe my processs of artistic discovery as "pulling moments" from the hustle of life. Each of these pulled moments undergoes scrutiny and at times reverie. Some become a source for new work. For me the desert landscape encouraged visual metaphors. The sweep of the huge rock formations reminded me of the curve of a woman's back- a sleek movement across a canvas perhaps. Now it is up to me to carry these thoughts into the work.





    Gregg Chadwick
    Silk
    38"x48" oil on linen 2002 

    Wednesday, February 09, 2005

    Alexander and Jane Eliot

    "Intolerance is the father of illusion and evil deeds.Tolerance is not its opposite; tolerance is neutral. The opposite of intolerance is creative imagination, sympathetically exercised in the service of ever illusive truth. The people I trust and admire take that path. Scholars, scientists, priests, and philosophers have helped guide me ... A fiery legion of artists and writers flung wide the gates and beckoned my near- sighted soul to go deeper"
    -Alexander Eliot, "The Timeless Myths"

    esprit d'escalier
    esprit d'escalier
    30"x20" monotype 2005
    inspired by the vision of alex and jane eliot

    In Japan, individuals of extraordinary talent and vision are recognized as living national treasures as they live out their later years. The American intellectual couple Alexander and Jane Eliot should be given honorary Japanese citizenship and awarded that honor. Recently when I met with Alex and Jane in their warm Venice bungalow I was struck by their graciousness and humility. The front room is crowded with treasures gathered from their years together. And their minds are full of some of the twentieth century's most important memories.

    Alex was the lead art critic for Time magazine from 1945 until 1960. His articles on the growth of American post-war art and the rise of New York as the center of the art world were unsigned per Time's policy of that era. But he was able to gather some of the most pertinent information into his volume,"Three Hundred Years of American Painting" - published in 1957. The book was a huge success and along with a Guggenheim grant enabled Alex and Jane to move to Greece to further their studies of art and myth and to raise their children in an international atmosphere away from what President Eisenhower labeled as the growing "military-industrial complex."

    It pains them both to watch as the current administration stokes the fires of international conflict and evokes the painful memories of fascism. Jane is unstinting in her criticism of the Bush presidency, "I was a child in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. And I know what fascism looks like." Then her memories flood in and she points to a blackened metal circle suspended on her sculpted grotto that fills a wall in the front room. The grotto is a sort of historical-mythic manger with elements gathered from their years of travel and Jane's countless friendships with writers and artists. Jane recounts a moment from her childhood as she watched a fire set by Franco's soldiers destroy a Spanish church. She stood transfixed in its red glow. Jane watched the sculpted saints burn and then the halo above Mary fell free as her wooden body was engulfed in the flames. The glowing orange circle hit the ground and rolled across the plaza eventually landing at Jane's feet. She hurriedly grabbed the halo and hid it in her bag. As a child it seemed a sign of hope for peace. And again we need that hope.

    Alex Eliot
    alex eliot
    from the black mountain project

    The conversation turns to Alex . "Yes, I met Matisse in the south of France in his later years" Alex says. "He wasn't well and Matisse was making those vibrant paper collages while confined to his bed. Well, I was given an audience with Matisse and as I was leaving something got into my head. There was a question I needed to ask. I had made it to the top of the mountain as it were and I was not going to leave without finding out the answer. I had gone to Black Mountain to learn to be an artist and then on to the Boston School of Fine Arts but I needed to know from the master. So I turned back to Matisse and asked,"What should I do next?"
    In response Matisse propped himself up on his bed and like a mantra repeated one word -"Draw, draw, draw ..."
       
    In a recent review Alex set forth what can be considered his views on the visionary nature of art:
    "Art is not just a matter of keen observation and craftsmanlike representation. At best, it's a visionary process. The great American philosopher William James posited that the consciousness of humanity as a whole is transmitted as "beams": "Glows of feeling," James said, "glimpses of insight, and streams of knowledge and perception float into our finite world." A true masterpiece of any art transmits transcendental "rays" in the Jamesian sense."

    In his book "Sight and Insight" Alexander Eliot describes a Chinese painter who, upon completing his masterwork, paints a door in the foreground, opens that door - walks through and is never seen again. I expect Alex and Jane to find that door and to walk through together leaving their art and writings as clues for us to find our own path.

    Sunday, February 06, 2005

    one love

    Bob Marley would have turned sixty today. Marley's life was brief but his legacy has been long and widespread. His music brought the hopes and dreams of the African diaspora into homes and clubs worldwide and was influential in dispelling the notion that important music was created only in the economic powers of Western Europe and the United States. Marley's gift was to cast the music of rebellion into infectious rhythms that lifted the spirit without abandoning the reality of political struggle in an unjust world.

    bob marley

    "In this great future, you can't forget your past."
    -Bob Marley, "No Woman, No Cry"

    In Kingston, Jamaica and for the first time in The Rastafarian holy land of Ethiopia crowds gathered to hear Bob Marley's songs of freedom and his hope for a united Africa. The Associated Press reported that in Ethiopia's capital- Addis Ababa -tens of thousands attended a memorial concert entitled "Africa Unite'' after one of Marley's songs. African stars paid tribute by performing at the concert, including Youssou N'dour and Baaba Maal of Senegal and Angelique Kidjo of Benin. Marley's five sons, his widow Rita and other former members of Marley's band the Wailers also performed.

    In a letter published in Sunday's "Jamaica Gleaner" American reggae historian Robert Roskind wrote,"this concert is much more than entertainment and an honouring of Jamaica's best-known artiste and healer. This evening will be a call to every Jamaican individually, and to the nation as a whole, to claim their God-given destiny to teach love, forgiveness and compassion in their lives. We as individuals need to answer this call. Jamaica as a country needs to answer this call. And the world needs this example of healing through one love.''

    Saturday, February 05, 2005

    faces of the fallen

    Chester Arnold, the visionary Bay Area painter who exhibits at the Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, has inspired his students at the College of Marin to create a moving exhibition of memorial portraits of American troops killed in action in Iraq. According to the
    San Francisco Chronicle
    Chester Arnold encouraged his students to take on the project after the United States military death toll in Iraq reached one thousand killed in action, "Perhaps ‘Faces’ can change the political debate,” said Chester Arnold. “Instead of ‘red states vs. blue states,’ I hope that we can find common ground as we did after September 11th.”




    In the College of Marin’s “To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen” exhibit art students and faculty have painted portraits of American troops killed in Iraq – more than 1200.

    From the
  • College of Marin's website:
    “Faces” has tapped into a river of emotion in towns and communities across America, many of which have brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors and friends in Iraq. More than 100 news outlets have profiled the exhibit, including ABC-TV national news and The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and New York Newsday. Now, every day the college receives heart-felt responses from family, friends and others around the country needing a chance to remember and reflect on our losses. Some request portraits of their fallen relatives. Others ask that the exhibit tour the country, or be posted online. Visitors have come from as far away as Tennessee to see the faces of their loved ones.

    January 18 through February 22, 2005
    Monday - Friday
     9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
    Saturday, Sunday
    10:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
    Art Gallery, Fine Arts Building
    College of Marin
    835 College Avenue
    Kentfield, CA 94904

    For more information about this exhibit, call 415-485-9494.
    I had the pleasure to create monotypes for the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art's Monotype Marathon alongside Chester Arnold last June and now applaud his courage in tackling this war in his classes and his art.
    Also see:
  • Arlington
  • Veteran's Day
  • Update: Now at Syracuse University, New York
  • Wednesday, February 02, 2005

    David Best's Chapel of the Laborer

    Update: Chapel to be torn down today- Thursday, February 3rd

  • Throughout the day yesterday, people came to see, photograph and touch the towering structure. Some left notes tucked in the building's walls complimenting the work.

    "What a wonderful temple!!! I love everything about it. Please let it stay!!!" read a note signed "Sharon."

    Some were in Spanish, such as one signed by Carlos Diaz that described the chapel as "bonito," or pretty.


  • by Gregg Chadwick

    david best- chapel of the laborer
    David Best - Chapel of the Laborer, San Rafael
    photo by Alan Dep



    David Best set out to build a temporary chapel for day laborers in San Rafael, California, "I wanted to break into a poor community, to build a central location where the laborers could reflect," said Best to Leslie Fulbright of the San Francisco Chronicle. "But the city has made us all illegal -- the Virgin Mary, the day laborers and me."

    David Best
    Temple of Honor - Burning Man 2003
    photo by Gregg Chadwick

    David Best is known for his massive yet elegant wood and paper structures created as temples of memory in the Nevada desert each year for the Burning Man Arts Festival. Best's creations become convergence points for reflection and prayer without the heavy handed overlay of dogma and guilt found in many organized religious spaces.

    "This is where people come to buy groceries and make phone calls. It's a hub, and a place where someone can go and sit and cry about not being with family," Best said of the San Rafael space chosen for his chapel.

    On Tuesday Councilman Cyr Miller stopped by in an attempt to persuade David that the city supported Best's art. Moments later, Best invited a Guatemalan immigrant to sit down inside the shrine and was promptly reprimanded - "That is not allowed," Miller said then threw up his hands and sighed saying he had no choice but to demand the removal of the chapel.

    The chapel was to be part of Art Works Downtown's new exhibit- "Offerings and Sanctuaries".

    From the Chronicle:"Phyllis Thelen, president of the nonprofit art association, said this is its first venture beyond the gallery walls. She said that although the city was very helpful with finding locations and getting permits, officials had no choice but to condemn Best's project after the owner complained.

    "We've been back and forth all morning," Thelen said Tuesday. The owner "said her insurance company threatened to cancel her policy. It's unfortunate, especially because the manager thought she had the authority to approve it."

    Call or fax the city of San Rafael and express your disapproval. David Best is a major artist and the City of San Rafael was fortunate to have him take part-
    Contact information below

    City of San Rafael
    1400 Fifth Avenue
    San Rafael, CA 94901

    Main Fax # (415) 459-2242
    _________________________________

    ELECTED OFFICIALS



    MAYOR ALBERT J. BORO

    First elected to Council in 11/87;
    elected Mayor in 11/91;
    re-elected in 11/95, 11/99 and 11/03.
    (Term expires: 11/2007)
    (415) 485-3074

    COUNCILMEMBER GARY O. PHILLIPS

    First appointed to Council in 2/95;
    he was then elected to same position in 11/95;
    re-elected in 11/99 and 11/03.
    (Term expires: 11/2007)
    (415) 485-3074


    COUNCILMEMBER PAUL M. COHEN

    First elected to Council in 11/91;
    re-elected in 11/95, 11/99 and 11/03.
    (Term expires: 11/2007)
    (415) 485-3074
    (415) 455-9550 (phone & fax)


    VICE-MAYOR BARBARA HELLER

    First elected to Council in 11/93;
    re-elected in 11/97 and 11/01.
    (Term expires: 11/2005)
    (415) 485-3074
    (415) 457-9820 (phone & fax)


    COUNCILMEMBER CYR N. MILLER

    First appointed to Council in 6/96;
    he was then elected to same position in 11/97 and 11/01.
    (Term expires: 11/2005)
    (415) 485-3074
    (415) 258-9519


    GARY T. RAGGHIANTI, Part-time City Attorney

    First appointed City Attorney in 11/84;
    he was then elected to same position in 11/87.
    Has been re-elected every four years.
    (Term expires: 11/2007)
    (415) 485-3080

    Thursday, January 27, 2005

    6o Years On


    by Gregg Chadwick



    Raising the Red Flag Over the Reichstag, Berlin May 2, 1945
    photo by Yevgeny Khaldei

    Today near the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp world leaders gathered to remember the camp's liberation in 1945 by the Red Army. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke proudly of the Soviet soldiers who gave themselves to free Auschwitz: "They switched off the ovens, they saved Krakow," Vladimir Putin said of the Soviet soldiers. But Putin also said there was still much to be ashamed of in the current situation."We unfortunately still see signs of anti-Semitism in our country."

    I am reminded of the great Russian war photographer Yevgeny Khaldei. I had the honor of meeting him almost ten years ago when the end of the cold war seemed to mark an era of future peace, Yevgeny's body was starting to fail but his mind was sharp and his descriptions of the struggle against the Nazis were vivid. As a war photographer,Yevgeny adhered to the ideological confines of his superiors. It can be argued that despite the circumstances he managed to remain a true artist. "Some people think that we could do nothing at all unless we were told to do it", Yevgeny said," but the war gave one the freedom to make one's own decisions. We knew our superiors would not publish all our photographs, but we still made the pictures."

    A heroic life is made up of extraordinary moments lived in the context of daily existence. Despite the horrors of Nazism and the war as well as the deprivations he suffered for being Jewish, Yevgeny was still able to see the beauty and courage hidden within the details of his experiences and offer us hope for the future. Yevgeny said," I have always tried to make photographs that will be interesting to look at today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow."

    The recent string of anti-Semitic attacks across Europe , the widely publicized photograph of Prince Harry, third in line to the British throne, wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party earlier this month and a walkout by far-right German legislators during a minute's silence for Nazi victims on Friday, have raised concerns that the horrors of the Holocaust are being forgotten. It is my call as an artist not to forget, but instead to create art in the spirit of Yevgeny Khaldei that marks the moments of our time.


  • also see:art for a change: the art of liberated auschwitz
  • Saturday, January 22, 2005

    Game 6 -Red Sox, Death & the Critic






    White Noise
    60"x60" oil on linen 2002

    Don DeLillo's first film, "Game 6", is being screened at Sundance tonight. For those in Park City this evening find your way to a ticket. DeLillo is the masterful novelist whose work includes Underworld, Mao II, The Body Artist and White Noise (which inspired my painting of the same title). The film sounds intriguing and like much of DeLillo's work the screenplay is darkly humorous.
    Michael Keaton stars as a playwright and lifelong Red Sox fan who skips out on his new play's opening night, October 25, 1986, to catch Game 6 of the World Series. While a merciless, gun toting critic, played by Robert Downey Jr. views the play in disguise, Michael Keaton watches in horror as his beloved Red Sox fall to the Mets. In the original draft, discussed in an interview with Don DeLillo by Jennifer Altman in the Los Angeles Times, the playwright and the critic eventually engage in an artist's gunfight (doesn't Chris Burden come to mind?). The only victim - the critic's cat. Bowing to pressure DeLillo rescued the cat in re-writes. Don DeLillo decribes his work as the "mixing of ordinary life with an occasional cosmic meditation."

    Directed by Michael Hoffman




    Michael Keaton in Don DeLillo's Game 6

    Thursday, January 20, 2005

    reading neruda




    Gregg Chadwick
    ciudad de la memoria
    38"x38" oil on linen 2005
    Private Collection, Beverly Hills

    At times a work of art from years before still speaks directly to the present moment. I was reading Neruda today miles away from the coronation in D.C. This mix of Neruda's words and my most recent painting, "Ciudad de la Memoria", seemed to spark something new and important while at the same time bringing light to America's dark shadows.


    "La United Fruit Co."

    Cuando sonó la trompeta, estuvo
    todo preparado en la tierra
    y Jehová repartió el mundo
    a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
    Ford Motors, y otras entidades:
    la Compañía Frutera Inc.
    se reservó lo más jugoso,
    la costa central de mi tierra,
    la dulce cintura de América.
    Bautizó de nuevo sus tierras
    como "'Repúblicas Bananas",
    y sobre los muertos dormidos,
    sobre los héroes inquietos
    que conquistaron la grandeza,
    la libertad y las banderas,
    estableció la ópera bufa:
    enajenó los albedríos,
    regaló coronas de César,
    desenvainó la envidia, atrajo
    la dictadura de las moscas,
    moscas Trujillo, moscas Tachos,
    moscas Carias, moscas Martínez,
    moscas Ubico, moscas húmedas
    de sangre humilde y mermelada,
    moscas borrachas que zumban
    sobre las tumbas populares,
    moscas de circo, sabias moscas
    entendidas en tiranía.

    Entre las moscas sanguinarias
    la Frutera desembarca,
    arrasando el café y las frutas
    en sus barcos que deslizaron
    como bandejas el tesoro
    de nuestras tierras sumergidas.

    Mientras tanto, por los abismos
    azucarados de los puertos,
    caían indios sepultados
    en el vapor de la mañana:
    un cuerpo rueda, una cosa
    sin nombre, un número caído
    un racimo de fruta muerta
    derramada en el pudridero.

    - Pablo Neruda

    "The United Fruit Co."

    When the trumpet sounded, everything
    on earth was prepared
    and Jehovah distributed the world
    to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
    Ford Motors and other entities:
    The Fruit Company Inc.
    reserved the juiciest for itself,
    the central coast of my land,
    the sweet waist of America.
    It re-baptized the lands
    "Banana Republics"
    and on the sleeping dead,
    on the restless heroes
    who'd conquered greatness,
    liberty and flags,
    it founded a comic opera:
    it alienated free wills,
    gave crowns of Caesar as gifts,
    unsheathed jealousy, attracted
    the dictatorship of the flies,
    Trujillo flies, Tachos flies,
    Carias flies, Martinez flies,
    Ubico flies, flies soppy
    with humble blood and marmelade,
    drunken flies that buzz
    around common graves,
    circus flies, learned flies
    adept at tyranny.

    The Company disembarks
    among the blood-thirsty flies,
    brim-filling their boats that slide
    with the coffee and fruit treasure
    of our submerged lands like trays.

    Meanwhile, along the sugared up
    abysms of the ports,
    indians fall over, buried
    in the morning mist:
    a body rolls, a thing
    without a name, a fallen number,
    a bunch of dead fruit
    spills into the pile of rot.

    -Translated by Jack Hirschman from The Essential Neruda