First in Houston, TX

The first art fair in Houston took place from the 16th till the 18th of September at the George R. Brown Convention Center with eighty-three galleries participating.

Greeted by a giant sculpture from Dubuffet, the visitor had no difficulty finding the galleries with each booth labelled with names and numbers and plenty of space in the aisles.

Twelve galleries from Houston, eleven from Miami, ten from New York City, South America and Europe were also represented.

Each gallery brought plenty of works in the mid-range prices (most a few thousand dollars, a few above 20 000) from not so well-known artists. The exhibitors were conservative and there was no "star" stealing the show.
New Orleans was represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery with a booth filled by Dan Tague's works.
The works from known artists were not of great quality like the only painting from Joan Mitchell or a few from Rauschenberg.

Warhol's works could be acquired at several galleries. Unsigned, they were authenticated by the "Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board". The Brillo fiasco would make me cautious when buying a Warhol (anyway his works are not on my virtual shopping list).
Overall, the fair was well organized, very pleasant. A catalogue with the list of the galleries made it easy to navigate. I found it somewhat dull without surprises from young artists. The Saturday crowd was well-behaved, the gallerists were wearing dark suits and black dresses and did not celebrate sales loudly with champagne like at the FIAC!

But art fairs are about business and the Houston fine art fair reports 6 millions sales and 10 500 visitors, a success for a young fair. It is also about educating the viewers and ultimately transform them into collectors.

photographs by the author

"Incarnation Incantation", James Rosenquist, 1989

"Sally with Skull", Milton Avery, 1946

"Untitled", Harold Shapinsky, 1984

Gordi, local artist and beyond

The Contemporary Art Center presents an interesting exhibition: "Patterns and Prototypes: Tina Girouard and Robert Gordy" curated by Dan Cameron.
Displayed across each other on the whole top floor, the two artists are from Louisiana. I had seen a few works from Gordy in the past, but never a whole exhibition composed by twenty-three paintings.

He exemplifies the Pattern and Decoration movement started in the mid-seventies. His paintings are a repetitive pattern of shapes, like stencils underlined by black lines in an attempt to add a third dimension. Human subjects with a Fernand Leger's flavor are scattered in these busy landscapes. The colors are sometimes bright, sky blues and white but mainly black and dark colors, with vibrant oranges, purples, greens. The paintings overall lack rhythm and could be repeated indefinitely, producing a wallpaper or fabric like feeling.

The pattern and Decoration movement was a weak response to Minimalism and did not produce memorable works. The paintings engender boredom and I did not find this technique inspiring.

Still, Robert Gordy, a local artist, reached a bigger audience due to his style which at the time was in favor.

photographs by the author

Sampling Warhol

Coincidence? It is a Warhol week: 30 Polaroid photographs, one silkscreen, a book of interviews and a movie.
The Newcomb Art Gallery on the Tulane campus presents Pop Shots: Polaroid Portraits by Andy Warhol. The exhibition consists of 30 Polaroid photographs of famous and/or rich models. The framed portraits are lining the walls of one room. Warhol would make fifty to one hundred of these photographs at a sitting and select one shot for the next step, a giant silkscreen portrait of the sitter. A local figure of New Orleans is featured with several Polaroids and the resulting silkscreen work. Warhol became so popular that the subjects were not hiring the artist, they were begging the artist to have a portrait made.

The same week, I found a book about Andy Warhol: "I'll be Your Mirror, The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews", consisting of Thirty-Seven Conversations with the Pop Master, edited by Kenneth Goldsmith, and spanning 30 years, from the 60's till the 80's. I learned a lot about how to interview a reluctant interviewee. Warhol was a man of few words. "What is Pop Art"? answer "Yes", etc... The artist was known to be shy, but his technique during the interviews becomes affectation. After all, he was eager to be in the spotlight. Warhol became more loquacious over the years and even volunteered some information about his lifestyle in his latest interviews including his thoughts about deeper subjects like art.

Finally, I watched a movie on Netflix "13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests", a succession of approximately five minutes movies lasting for a total of 59 minutes. Each clip is one actor filling the screen, just the face. The subjects are exercising their facial muscles in front of the camera and girls, boys, girls, good actors, manage to stay expressionless with an occasional show of emotion, like a fake tear. The last piece is a girl brushing her teeth for five minutes. The movies are in black and white and play with light and shadows. Considering that they were made in the 60's, they have some historical interest. Andy Warhol preferred to leave the movies unedited for fear of spoiling the subject. I have to confess, I fast forwarded the movie to last twenty minutes. The songs are worth buying the soundtrack.

What is Pop Art? The artist wants the viewer to define the art. We are used to the artist filling his/her work with meanings, symbols and the viewer looking superficially at the art. Andy Warhol braggs that he made the work in an hour for consumption and the viewers are giving value to the piece of art by spending time and money.

This is the art of Warhol, the viewer is filling the cans of soup with symbols, the interviewer is answering the questions, the reader is reading between the lines, the moviegoer is making up his own plot.
His works are a commercial success and he has given a flavor to Pop Art: superficial and empty.

Andy Warhol has become an icon, by picturing famous persons he has become famous. He claims to be the ultimate artist: money and fame. His philosophy? Pop. Business acumen or art? "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is best art".
One can be impressed by the amount of material produced at the Factory and some of the movies are still sitting at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, unseen. Warhol liked to document his life with movies or tape recordings. Anxiety? Precursor of reality TV shows? Performance art?


Warhol succeeded in making the viewer create not only the art, but also the artist.


Photograph by the author:
"Tina Freeman", Andy Warhol, 1975

Ten

"Lives of the Artists" from Calvin Tomkins gives a view of ten artists personal lives. With the material gathered during interviews, casual visits, the art critic who sometimes shadows the artists during their daily activities let the reader "meet the artist".

We learn that Damien Hirst's mind is clearer after a night of drinking, Cindy Sherman is nice, Richard Serra is irascible and ruthless. These artists have nothing in common other than "their works and lifestyles embody the future of contemporary art" Each chapter is the length of an article from the New Yorker, they were initially published in the magazine.

The author's friendly relationship with the artists does not preclude him from making critical remarks about their works.

A glimpse into their lives feeds our thirst for celebrities. What made these ten artists famous? Circumstances, talent, tenacity, pure luck...

Peaking into the lives of Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney, make them accessible and also vulnerable. These articles are not biographies, they focus on the "petite histoire".

The ten artists include: Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman,Julian Schnable, Richard Serra, James Turrell, Matthew Barney, Maurizio Cattelan, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, John Currin.

After reading this book, we understand their world better and ultimately their creations.

photographs by the author

Old Palace, Young Artists

Artbanka Museum of Young Art is presenting a temporary exhibition during the Summer months in the empty Colloredo-Mansfeld palace built in the 18th Century, just off Charles Bridge on the Vltava River in Prague.

The crowd is thick in this area full of tourists. Everyone is taking a peek at "Guns", the installation from David Cerny in the courtyard and the cameras are clicking. Sculptures of nudes peaking out of the windows greet the visitors and give a human presence to the facade. It is a great introduction. Most of the crowd walks by and retreats to the streets. I decide to pursue the visit which is organized in three parts for each wing surrounding the courtyard: renowned artists, fine art schools, and the third dedicated to groups and contemporary young artists.

It is an adventure, climbing stairs, getting lost in living rooms with faded mirrors, giant fireplaces and painted ceilings, backrooms, corridors, more stairs... and a flurry of Czech and Slovac young artists works: a flavor of decadence in sink with the art pieces. Works from known artists like Jiri Cernicky, Jiri Davis, Ugo Rondinone and more are side by side with works from less known young artists. The visit is full of surprises like on the top floor, lost , forgotten, a sculpture "Merda d'Artista", provocative, so unexpected, hidden so it can be discovered. The second wing holds works from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava, Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Arts, Technical University in Kosice and at the upper level, Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. I cannot remember all the works, so I took a lot of pictures."Superstar" from the group Kamera Skura occupies the stairwell of the third wing and a whole floor is dedicated to graffiti also works from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and solo shows. To top this off, in an adjacent building, the installation from David Cerny, "Shark", a sculpture of Saddam Hussein handcuffed in a glass tank, a parody of Damien Hirst's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living".

The number of works is such that it is overwhelming. All major art schools from the Czech and Slovac Republic are represented in a dilapidated palace which is in itself another side of the visit. The result is eclectic, in some areas the works are labelled, in others the name of the artist is missing, most likely due to hasty preparations. The overall impression is an exhibition full of energy, surprises, bursting with ideas, stimulating and fun. It is rare to see the works from art professors, well known artists, students, unknown young artists, group works displayed at the same event.

The combination of location, timing, size and content are predicting a huge success for this exhibition.

Let's not forget Artbanka's goal to promote young artists. This exhibition gives them an opportunity to display their works mostly related to eternal themes of love, death, war but treated with originality, humor, passion, in an historical setting.

The art world in the Czech Republic is alive and well with this new generation of artists.

photographs by the author:

"Guns" David Cerny

"Pegasus Semtex", Jiri Cernicky, 1997

"Superstar", Kamera Skura art group

"Live Your Life", Vladimir Skrepl, 2011

"Fucking 15 Minutes" Reality art group

"All My Bad Thoughts", Kristof Kintera

Tears of Mud... or Gold

Water is falling from the sky and the streets in the city are becoming torrents by the minute. Yesterday, I was flying over Holland...then, coming home, over the Louisiana swamps: same feeling of endless waters surrounding the land as far as the horizon.

The artists at The Front in New Orleans, are talking about one of the essential element of life and its interaction with humans.
The first room looks like the cavern from "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" with containers filled with swampy water. The installation from Brandon Ballengee and Andrew Pasco, 2011, called "Tears of Oshun", refers to a benevolent, generous and kind goddess of the Yoruba religion... with a temper. Isn't it the definition of water, essential to life but also creating havoc and death? The installation makes us feel like water is a new commodity, stored in barrels, so scarce. Could it become the new gold? Too much? Not enough? Potable?Polluted? "Tears of Oshun" is a stark reminder of a worsening problem, the imbalance between the resource and the population.

Walking through a labyrinth of barrels, the visitor reaches the second room, where John Kleinschmidt and Andy Sternad redesigned the floor of the gallery with stone-like decorations. I feel like jumping from one to another...which I do. The flooring is a decoy created with plastic containers filled with water. The result is a squishy, uneven ground and I am sinking. It becomes very realistic with each step producing a watery noise. This is a reminder, what we see from the sky is very deceptive. The land with the shrubs, the trees, is...wetlands and keeps being erroded to a critical point.

Good water, bad water, tears of mud or gold?

Photographs by the author

"Tears of Oshun" Ballengee, Pasco, 2011

Installation, Andy Sternard and John Kleinsmidt

Steiner and Visual Arts

Who is Rudolph Steiner? A giant photograph of the "philosopher, architect, sociologist, humanist and visionary" greets the visitor, along a description of his life and his accomplishments at the DOX, Centre for Contemporary Art, located in a northern neighborhood of Prague.

Steiner (1861-1925) is the founder of Anthroposophy, an esoteric philosophy with links to Theosophy. Its goal is to develop inner spiritual knowledge, independently of sensory experiences. Steiner applied his theories to various fields, including agriculture, medicine, pedagogy, architecture, dance, music (he developed eurythmy) and more. He designed the Goetheanum in Switzerland and several other buildings and his pedagogical movement is still widely followed with over 1000 Waldorf schools worldwide. He never claimed to be an artist, he was a philosopher.
What is the impact of Anthroposophy on the art? Artistic expression becomes a path, a medium to create a bridge between spiritual and material worlds. The art inspired by Anthroposophy is aimed at the awakening of inner spiritual energy.

The Dox presents two exhibitions: "Thinking without Limits: Inspired by Rudolph Steiner" and " Rudolph Steiner and Contemporary Art". The first is didactic and starts with writings from Steiner displayed in glass cases, followed by photographs and the paintings from artists who lived in Prague and Vienna at the start of the 20th century. Occultism, Theosophy and other esoteric philosophies influence the subjects of the works. The artists, among them Alois Bilek, Joseph Vachal, Karel Novak, Frantisek Drtikol, are unknown to the me and I found most the paintings mediocre. To my surprise, Kandinsky who was exposed to the theories of Steiner during his stay in Vienna, was not mentioned. The symbols found in his works evoke some similarities with Steiner's blackboards circles, arrows and lines representing the universe and also our inner self. Kandinsky went beyond the theory and built a spiritual world through his creations.

The exhibit flows without transition and the visitor is exposed to works from international artists, in search of spirituality, not necessarily related to anthroposophy. Among them, I discovered Joseph Beuys who was deeply inspired by the theories of Steiner and also used blackboards as a media. I found new dimensions to the works from Anish Kapoor and Olafur Eliasson. "When I Am Pregnant" (1992), a sculpture from Kapoor, is glowing from inside and creates a surrounding halo on the wall. It reaches perfection in smoothness, roundness, whiteness and ultimately purity. An area is dedicated to Olafur Eliafsson with "Before the Star Lamp" (2010) and "Power Tower" (2005). Plays with lights, reflections, shadows, create an ever changing world from the source with a whole universe of satellites. I noticed the sculptures from Karel Malich who was deeply inspired by Steiner's philosophy. He transforms a common material into ethereal creations floating in space. Steiner's works are represented by several of his famous blackboards, drawn spontaneously during his lectures to illustrate his theories. These were teaching tools and without the comments of the lecturer, are staying silent and hermetic. The exhibition with more than 70 displays, includes works from Giuseppe Penone, Mario Merz, Helmut Federle, Tony Cragg and to consider their philosophical dimension give them their full impact.

Thought provoking, it renews the interest for a philosophy which has still a strong impact on today's art and most likely centuries to come...
a reminder that Rudolph Steiner's legacy lives on.

photographs by the author:

"Atlantis" Richard Pollack Karlin, 1914-191

"Power Tower" Olafur Eliasson, 2005

"When I Am Pregnant" Anish Kapoor, 1992

sculpture, Karel Malich, 1976-1980