bcc-512b Oil on Linen 24 x 18 inches 2012

bcc-3875 Oil on Canvas 48 x 60 inches 2012

Initial Public Offering refers to the exhibit of paintings by Pete Smith at the Station Gallery, Whitby, ON. The financial trade of objects is implicit in the title and references the launch of private stocks to sell to the general public to buy. In this case, the seller, artist/painter,  is taking his/her true place by implicating the public gallery space.

Pete Smith is shown in the video at the entry to the exhibit, painting in outlines of enlarged puzzle of shapes transferred to one wall of the gallery. And, my first impressions of the object, the painting on canvas in the first room, is the coolness, not the cool factor, tho it is there, but the coldness of the abstractions, shapes, edges, colors, and paint; flatness, some textures and impasto blobs of paint with swipes of the brush, or with the top of the blob trimmed off flat. Brush strokes are sometimes visible, not really needed, perhaps.

Images appropriated from another source, such as, Ingrid Calame, comes to mind, which takes us to another place of reference;  automobile culture and industry and it’s traces, motor technology, tires, etc. She, and a team or crew of people on locations, trace outlines of tire marks, liquid spills, etc. which she takes back to the studio to trace again into a drawing and transfers to canvas or another surface. She uses enamel paints on aluminum.

Ingrid Calame, From #268 Drawing (Tracings from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the L.A. River), 2007, enamel paint on aluminum, 36 X 72 in.

Ingrid Calame, Bb-AAghch!, 2003, enamel on aluminum, 72 X 72 inches

In the exhibit brochure, written by the curator, Olexander Wlasenka , Initial Public Offering is a comment on the in-be-tween in-be-tween. It filled Smith’s stalemate with his previous 5 year project.  This has me thinking, this was done in the past by artists without the aid of computer technology. Later in her career, Lee Krasner, collages parts of her ripped up previous work on canvas and paper, sometimes unhappy with entire series, to create new canvases. Abstraction overlayed, jagged, with hand made gestures and cuts, black, various greys, sketchy lines, and spots of color, seams show, and edges like glass splinters, such as in Imperative, from 1976. Expressionism varies again in paintings such as Vernal Yellow, 1980.

Lee Krasner, Imperative, 1976, Collage on canvas 50” x 50” National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Lee Krasner, Vernal Yellow, 1980, Oil, collage, on canvas, 150 x 178, Ludwig Collection.

The source of Smith’s paintings are his previous work, sold or not. He runs digital photos through Flash, the software program; transforming and morphing them from one to the next creating an animation of thousands of in-be-tweens (the number of tween is the title, i.e. bcc-2343). What appears to be void of content, but for color and brushstrokes, because Smith does include them, the paintings hearken back to minimalism. Flash animation software produces the outline in-be-tweens, like a coloring page, that Pete Smith paints. The process seems empty and thus any expressionist content, like a gesture or brushstroke, seems empty too. The abstractions seem similar to minimalist work, but after reading that they are from his previous hand-made work, the painting’s seem warmer to me.

The animation Blind Carbon Copy is included in the exhibit in a separate room with the overlapping noisy loud soundtrack of songs intertwined like the outlines of the tweens. What occurs is the seller/buyer, artist/viewer, perhaps finds out about the notion of content and decision making, when made mechanically or by hand/body, of area, surface, gesture, paint and object-hood . The obvious notion might be to ‘color in’ the shapes of the outlines, but that’s just boring. Color choices and brushstrokes are completely subjective, and can be all about the persuasion to sell and buy.

William Powhida | Some Asset Class (Digital) Paintings – Color Fields (panel component), 2013, graphite and watercolor on panel, 19 x 15 inches. Photo courtesy of Charlie James Gallery.

William Powhida | Some Criteria For Evaluation, 2013, graphite and watercolor on paper, 22 x 15 inches. Photo courtesy of Charlie James Gallery.

From the New American Painting review, by Trevor Spaulding @ Painting in L.A, about William Powhida, Bill by Bill, @ Charlie James Gallery, L.A. and the trailer below. The cynical artist takes on the art world, love it!

POWHIDA Trailer from Charlie James Gallery on Vimeo.

OR

SEE – the home web site > http://williampowhida.com/wordpress/ for Bill by Bill and lots more…

Mary Beale, self-portrait, 1685

Liu Hong, Fish in Amnesia. (2007)

Diane Edison, Self-portrait (shadow). (1996)

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann, Self-portrait in Front of the Easel, (1858)

I could see spending many hours at  Figuration Feminine. Now this should put to rest or at least add to the substantial list of women artists/painters, for the men and women who disbelieve their existence. And, chisel away at the stone canons of western art. For me, this is what is best about the web. Gathering, sorting, dispersing. The list by date, I believe, is by birth date. The site subtitle is just the beginning, these women painted more than the subject of woman, however, part of the work is done here for a study on how women, in this case mostly white, are depicted, and how…

Myrtille Henrion Picco is the author and painter.

Click on the image below to take you there.

Figuration Feminine: Peinture de la femme par la femme/paintings of woman by woman (web site)

Capanna, Puccio (First half of the 14th century)
The Virgin and Child Enthroned Between Angels, the Annunciation, and Female Saints

Fra Angelico, The Coronation of the Virgin

Master of the Misericordia (Italian, about 1360-70), Saint Eloy in His Goldsmith’s Workshop.

Given a gift of a tour over the weekend; paintings on wood pieces from buildings of devotion, and home, from Florence, Italy, 14th century are at the AGO, Toronto.  This is an AGO and Getty Museum collaboration and it is beautiful and wondrous and curious to see the 90 works. Many of the book’s pages, or panels, are together for the first time in 200 years, more or less, having been separated in 16 different museums, galleries, or private collections etc.. And, I have to remind myself, these art works are 600-700 years old! The colors and materials are still brilliant. The exception are few, two pieces demonstrated the damage and deterioration of time and elements, hanging side-by-side.

This is the early renaissance, before perspective, volumes, and a range of colors are to appear. I am struck by the overwhelming figurative and pictorial quality of the time, in this exhibit. Narratives appear like the first comic book strips. Perspective is flat. Texts and music are not mass produced, but a handmade undertaking. Close to the end of the exhibit there is a round table with pigments and minerals, tools, and medium laid out, with a display of the process of illumination, and gilding.

Having worked in publishing and made handmade books I liked to know more about the process, and will search this out; the guild artists must have bound single sheets, and painted single sheets and would have worked on many over a long period. The craftsmanship of the guild is remarkable if you think about it. Many of the artists go unnamed.

And, of course, it is all in the details. Many of the figures stand stiff, wearing stiff material, especially when categorized, and positioned in flat arched, rectangular or circular space, however, their face, hair, heads, hands, feet, halos, and coverings reveal the life of the figure. How the flesh color is achieved identified the artists to the researchers/curators.

I have to say, by the end of the exhibit, I had enough of pictures of the crucifiction, lamentation, and ascension.

Revealing the Early Renaissance: Stories and Secrets in Florentine Art, ends June 16, 2013

“In the early 1300s, the population of Florence relied on its artists to make its ideal world real through imagery that conflated the earthly and the ethereal. This exhibition inspires us to consider the weight of such a major civic commitment to art and to revel in the limitless potential of human creativity.” (from AGO.net description)

More pics of the installation in the article The Art Gallery of Ontario Illuminates the Renaissance, online at The Torontoist

Another look, and more, with The Getty online, Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance.

Patti Smith Tours Revealing the Renaissance, by Sasha Suda, coordinating curator. (ago.net)

Paterson Ewen (1925-2002) Halley’s Comet as Seen by Giotto, 1979, Acrylic and fluorescent paint on galvanized steel and gouged plywood. 229 x 244 cm.

Kenojuak Ashevak (1927 – 2013), Lithograph

On a recent visit, I absolutely loved seeing up close early lithographs by arctic artists, curated by Linda Jansma, such as Kenojuak Ashevak in a compliment to the Arctic Photos by Richard Harrington. Ashevak is relatively better known in Canada for her graphic lithographs of birds and mythical animals and people. The detail, below, shows the graphic texture made with simple lines. The colors are brilliant and stunning, lovely. I believe these are from the 1960s.

I’ve included a link to an NFB documentary that stars Ashevak and her family. It’s dated, but the echos of pattern in nature and the drawings and subsequent lithos are striking. In it you see the work of the stone cutter as well, inking, and pressing an onion skin like paper and finally, drying prints.

I read briefly that this process changed to lino on wood, because of the lack of stone material. There is the book, History of Inuit Art by Richard Crandall, that describes the early days of the formation of the print studios, and carving, at Cape Dorset.

Ashevak, detail of lithograph above.

Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak by John Feeney, National Film Board of Canada

In one of the hallways of the RMG, there are some art works from the collection of Terri Lipman, curated by Linda Jansma. These are works by women artists only, from Lipman’s collection. This is interesting for me for a few reasons. The pieces are ‘home’ size, smaller than gallery/museum size. You get a sense of what this particular individual collects, rather than a public gallery in this case, set in a public gallery.

Follow the links, as many of the work are by contemporary artists, so in many cases this is not a typical sample of the artist’s work. Here, the ‘wall’ art prints, framed, paintings, drawings, fabric pieces dominate. A few pottery pieces are included as well on glass covered wall plinths. What follows are pics (not the best photos) of some of my favorites from the lot.

Ellen Lanyon

Maxine Springer

Lisa DiQuinzio

left top/bottom, Libby Hague; right top, Joy Wolfenden Brown; right bottom, Pegi Nicol MacLeod

Heather Goodchild, fabric works.

Laura Carlin.

Polia Pillin (1909 – 1992), Vase with woman and horse. n.d.

Finally, some of the estate of Aleen Aked (1907 – 2003) was received by the RMG and this was noted in the gallery with some of it. This is a lousy photo but I wanted to include it. While most of the Aked paintings I’ve seen are very sweet in colors, her figures of black ‘working’ women remind me of Isabel McLaughlin’s women friend painters figurative work, such as Prudence Heward, who stayed with her at her home in the Caribbean.

Aleen Aked

for starters…

Kenojuak Ashevak (1927 – 2013), CCCA Timeline with images,  Cape Dorset artists contemporary site.

Ellen Lanyon, home web site.

Lisa DiQuinzio, tumblr archive images

Laura Carlin, blog.

Polia Pillin (1909 – 1992), here are more samples of her work on etsy.

Heather Goodchild, home web site.

Libby Hague, home web site.

Pegi Nicol MacLeod (1904 – 1949), NGC home page with bio and images.

Joy Wolfenden Brown, @ millennium gallery page.

Aleen Aked (1907 – 2003), D&E Lake Ltd. fine arts.

The Pageant of Painting: From the Byzantine to Picasso, Pierre D’Espezel & Francois Fosca, New York: Abrams. 1959

Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory, Lucy Lippard, New York: Pantheon Books. 1983

The Art of the Western World: From Ancient Greece to Post-Modernism, Bruce Cole & Adelheid Gealt, New York: Summit Books. 1989.

3 more books in my collection, and I’m trying to read all at the same time, with short spans of reading, speed reading, and flipping through sections. I’m becoming a collector of popular and not so popular painting [pre][history] books. Each of these books are by Art Historians. The only thing that marks a difference here is the pre-history to contemporary art inclusion of Lucy Lippard’s, Overlay, and my indecision to include Lippard’s book, because it, in my mind, is more likely to be read by artists/painters, and students.

In The Pageant of Painting and Art of the Western World general interest, for the general audience, painting’s history starts at Christian catacombs, and/or church mosaics and the society imposed on artists. Painting comes off as glorified and a male endeavor, which hails those who change the world.  The Abrams, 1959 edition, of The Pageant of Painting intends to outline the ‘development of European painting’ and only easel painting, ‘which can be transported more or less easily from place to place’ (foreward). The Summit Book, 1989 edition, is from the PBS series Art of the Western World with host Michael Wood. Online episodes of the PBS Television Series can be found online. In the introduction, Micheal Wood, writes, ‘This book begins with classical Greece, and interpretation that has been standard since the late eighteenth century, when European theorists proclaimed Greek art as artistic perfection’ (pg.ix).

In Overlay, Lippard begins with ‘stones’ and an anecdote about a walk she takes in England. She overlays stone arrangements from pre-history, archaeology and anthropology, and aesthetics, to contemporary artists stone arrangements. Lippard covers topics of Feminism, Forms of Time, Nature, Places and Journeys, Ritual, and Graves/Gardens. By bringing the interests of artists together across thousands of years, in this way, new meaning and purpose is opened/revealed to and for the reader.

I will be searching out Lucy Lippard’s other books in what seems a series, Lure of the Local, Mixed Blessings, and On the Beaten Track, and of course the Pink Swan.

Hurtig Publishers, Alberta: Edmonton, 1983.

Of  3 (or 4) books, which are survey’s of art work and artists and considered those to write the canon of Canadian Art, this is Contemporary Canadian Art (1983), by David Burnett & Marilyn Schiff. (another find at a thrift store! $5cdn.) I’m enjoying reading it for content and context, which is sometimes told and learned in art schools, and the subtleties found elsewhere. This is definitely a must text for schools, for teaching, and important for us in that way, however, or thankfully, a beginning, and more than surface read.

It has depth, in telling, and many color photographs of artworks. The writers maintain a focus on ‘Canadian’ content and meaning (see more on that following).

Guido Molinari once said about his paintings, and quoted: “The reason for my work is to fulfill the universal givens relative to the activity of painting itself, that is to say the objectification of reality in relation to my subjectivity. “

Guido Molinari, Green-red Serial Mutation, oil on canvas, 1966

(click on image to go to a great essay on the Semiotics of Rhythm, by Louis Hebert, University of Quebec (eng/fr).

The writers actually address an earlier post here, on the attention Joyce Wieland received in the 70s in Canada. Wieland was deeply hurt that her short films were not included in the NY film archive, when her films were highly recognized in New York City.

The difficulty with Joyce Wieland’s art works are described in CCA, qualified first as .. “the earlier contribution of Joyce Wieland, both in ‘collective creation’ and in feminist issues, should not be overlooked. …

[but] There is also the practical problem that a major part of her contribution has been in film-making, which perhaps has made her work less easily accessible. But in addition there is the difficulty faced by an artist who chooses, as Wieland has done, to work in a variety of media, each of which may interest a somewhat different audience. The impact of  a continuous body of work can thus be fragmented, its direction and context made difficult to define and assess. …

Wieland’s interest in a wide variety of media has been a characteristic of her art from the beginning.”

Wieland’s films were made less accessible in part because of exclusion, not necessarily because the media of film was less accessible.

The tone is very different about the mixed media practice for Micheal Snow’s (who happens to be Wieland’s husband when in NY) art works, and in film, which, “stands apart from categories, styles, and movements, and yet it is involved in them all. At one level it has been a critical examination of various contemporary artistic movements from the 1950s to the present at another level it engages the broader issue of what representation by artistic activity means. That it is complex and demanding is without question; that it is amongst the most important work of our times rests in our engagement with its complexity and demand.”

Couldn’t we say the same for Wieland’s film works?

The relationship between cultures and traditions are part of what is [so called] ‘Canadian’. In the introduction, the writer’s state:

We have decided not to include the art of the native peoples. We felt that to survey the arts of the native peoples without being able to develop their relationship to the cultural roots and traditions of those peoples would be to do so not only superficially, but improperly.

It would be better said were the introduction to read, we made the decision to cover the cultural roots and traditions of the European white male signifier [instead].

That was 1983 when the book was published, and with content from earlier years, and an indication of where we have been, or is it?

Inuit Modern, an exhibition of Inuit sculpture (mostly) at the AGO, Toronto, comes to mind. It revealed so much that is the cultural mix, see the comments at ago.net; and Norval Morisseau whose work may problematize the ‘Canadian’ painting narrative, or Daphne Odjig, and Carl Beam, etc…

Hilma af Klint, 1862 – 1944, sketch/note book.

Installation of paintings at Moderna Museet, 2013.

Hilma af Klint, Svernen, 1914.

Hilma af Klint, What a human being is, 1910.

Hilma af Klint, De tio storsta, no2 Barnaldern, 1907

The paintings by Hilda af Klint, 1862-1944, completed from 1907 to 1930s-40s, are completed with as much as 4 years in between where she painted nothing. One of her first endeavors is a series of 10 very large paintings. What is quite amazing, is that they are unseen until recently. Stored in a cold cellar on a farm north of Stockholm, the artist, as told by her family, requested they not be seen by anyone until twenty years after her death, but it may have taken longer.  Af Klint paints abstraction before Malevich, Kandinsky, and more. Her painting’s are moving. A medium, with the common interest of the turn of the 20th century, af Klint listened to her guiding spirits and not the people around her in the medium or spiritualist field, described well in research by Sandqvist. The case study presentation by Gertrud Sandqvist (below) is worth a listen.

Af Klint’s paintings are exhibited in major centres such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and LACMA (Los Angeles), and others, now and again Moderna Museet (Stockholm).

Books printed as well, some difficult to find, rare.

Painter’s Table has exhibit links and 2 videos, promotion from the Moderna Museet in Swedish (but it doesn’t matter if you don’t know it), which has great views of the variety of art works and note/sketchbooks. The research lecture in English with Gertrud Sandqvist, which is long and worth watching/listening, who talks about the artworks of Hilma Af Klint and her methods, and instructions and guidance by spirits. (see included below)

Ethereal Kiosk (wordpress blog) has a 1st person account and great photos of the exhibit, artworks installed, in Stockholm, Feb. 2013.

Frieze essay, Spirited Away – Occultist, Mystic, and Painter: The life and legacy of Hilma af Klint, Ronald Jones and Liv Stoltz, Issue 135, Nov.-Dec. 2010

Moderna Museet, Hilma Af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction, exhibit until May 26, 2013.

The recycled plywood work of Henrique Oliveira, Sao Paulo, recently caught my eye for its beautiful bulging wood forms, and the neighborhood placement of such artwork. Every neighborhood could due with some temporary sculptures, statements, whatever, in my estimation, for obvious reasons. But, Oliveira’s work is interesting for its material which is recycled plywood pieces from the streets of his home city, and neighborhood. He was/is also a painter.

All photos copyright with the artist or photographer.

Kim MacConnel, Selections from The Beach Collection (Installation), 1975–present.

KPBS interview with Kim MacConnel, where he talks about the Beach Collection and his thinking, references, and choices of the 70s.

Kim MacConnel install of 70s and 80s work at the Salomon Contemporary, 2010.
(click on image to go to ArtCat info)

Cynthia Carlson, “Schwangunks”, 1976, 11 x 23 x 2”, acrylic paint, collection of the artist. (click on image to go to artist web site)

Cynthia Carlson, “Wallpaper Installation” , 1976, Hundred Acres Gallery, New York City. (from artist’s web site)

Cynthia Carlson, Wallpaper Detail.

Kim MacConnel and more art at home space.

Thank you Value Village again! (I bought the book at a VV store near the University with a well established Visual Arts program.)

The Pluralist Era: American Art, 1968-1981, by Corinne Robins, helps me to understand the full story, more of the story, another story, of the 70s in New York City. It helps me to understand the vocabulary of ‘art movements’ from the descriptive talk of the day. It introduces me to a wider variety of art making, when it gets to feeling sooo narrow.

The two painters, probably well known to many and in the states particularily, interested me in regards to painting other than minimalisms. Pluralism still exists today, however, now you have to track many many more galleries (so says MacConnel).