Considération
se représenter
a review of Eating the Beard
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Eclipsing the Garden
a review of Under the Big Black Sun
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As Monstrous - and as Nuanced - a Retrospective as Possible
a review of de Kooning: a retrospective
Getting Stoned
a review of Stone: A Legacy and Inspiration for Art
by Hans Christ and
Hans Rudolf Reust
by Paul Schimmel et al.
STONE
A Legacy and inspiration for Art
by Jake Harvey et al.
Michaël Borremans was born in 1963 in Belgium and spent the early years of his exploration of art in the fields of photography and design. As this intriguing and exceptionally well presented monograph reveals, those years of training polished his observing eye and ability to appreciate spatial relations, factors which when he turned to painting have served him very well indeed. 'The subject is an object to me', he has stated. His scenes of single figures or groups of figures are essentially motionless, as if frozen in time, a significant aspect is that they represent 'clichés and other elements that are part of the collective unconscious...Sure, there is nothing there. On the other hand, all is there'. His figures are in many ways unremarkable or mundane, simply performing stationary tasks in a moment of time. Some would ask 'why paint them' until the viewer becomes more sensitive to the manner in which Borremans paints: his brush strokes are deliberate, almost abrasively confident, as though what he is saying about what he is seeing is a personal dialogue between the artist and the 'model'. Yet it is just this manner of confidence that lends his paintings a sense of timelessness and importance.
Borremans palette is muted for the most part: browns, grays, musty colors define the image and only occasionally does he add bright color to jar the eye as in 'The German' where a muted man is manipulating a cascade of bright red bead-like balls. Another aspect of his work is his frequent use of the top of the figure alone, placed inconspicuously on a table top: the meaning? Or he may paint only the lower trouser legs and shoes as a portrait. At other times he complete the standard concept of a portrait, as in 'the Avoider', which is a painting of a young bearded man, head to toe, clothed in a pink shirt, white pants, no shoes, and holding a walking stick as he confronts the viewer. Or he makes loud statements as in the painting 'People must be punished.' But by far the most frequent 'subject matter' of each of his paintings is simply a person, looking down, an object either present or absent, and the titles he attaches to these conundrums may seem to bear no affinity for the work.
One aspect of Borremans' output that has not been addressed sufficiently in the past is his combination or mutual influence between his painting and his films and if for that reason alone this book is well worth owning. Michaël Borremans is rapidly becoming one of the most talked about artists in the art scene today. This Monograph proves why. Grady Harp, September 11
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This comprehensive survey examines the fertile and diverse output of California artists during an extraordinary period of American history. The years between Richard Nixon's resignation and Ronald Reagan's election as president were difficult ones for America. Artists in particular were sensitive to enormous divisions in the country's moods and beliefs. Examining art-making in California during a tumultuous transitional period, this catalogue accompanying a remarkable exhibition features approximately 125 California artists working in a wide array of media: from installation art to representational painting, from conceptual art to performance art, and from video to photography. Penetrating essays by leading art historians, critics, and curators explore the history and development of pluralist art practices throughout California; the artists' responses to questions about race, gender, politics, and war; and the emergence of new movements and trends such as punk, post-studio art, and postmodernism. Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981 is part of Pacific Standard Time, an initiative of the Getty.
~ JES ASAXA, 2020
MONSTROUS
Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997) was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and moved to New York as a stowaway in 1926 and became a art of the Abstract Expressionism movement along with Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, and Adolph Gottlieb. His output over his long productive career was enormous - even in the period when he was so poor that he had to paint with black household enamel on canvas. This book is a fine catalogue for the MOMA Retrospective that has impressed museum visitors with the fecundity of his talent. The curator for the exhibit is John Elderwood who states that his goal in presenting this mammoth retrospective was to 'reveal the extent and depth of Willem de Kooning's artistic achievement in as concise a manner as is compatible with so prolific and long-lived artist.' The exhibition as well as the catalogue book presents the works chronologically, no mean feat when many of the works bear no date. The concept s sound as it shows de Kooning's growth from figuration and representation in general to abstraction. Yet no matter how abstract his paintings became (as for example in 'Excavation, 1950') the artist maintained an obsession with painting women. Granted many of his Women paintings seem to have little to do with the corporal realization of the full figure, but these women stand as sentinels of development throughout the artist's life. The reproductions of de Kooning's works, whether painting, drawing or sculpture, are superb and give the reader an overwhelming sense of the artist's vast resources of creativity. Woven though the book are explanations and commentaries about each phase of de Kooning's life and work that illuminate his art as no other book has been able. Willem de Kooning said 'There's no way of looking at a work of art by itself. It's not self evident. It needs a history, it needs a lot of talking about...it is a part of a whole man's life.' And probably no other retrospective (exhibition and book) understands those thoughts better and accomplishes the artist's concepts as well as this.
~ Grady Harp, 2020
STONED IDEAS
Stone: A Legacy and Inspiration for Art is a photographic journey through the traditional processes of extracting stone, showing the beauty of the material, and the way it is used today in contemporary sculpture.
Stone: A Legacy and Inspiration for Art offers an introduction to the traditional techniques of stone carving and reviews methods of extraction that are dying out. The authors traveled worldwide learning, interviewing and photographing these unique processes. The photographs in this book show the stunning results. The book then goes on to look at the work of crafts people today in contemporary stone sculpture.
This beautiful, visually stimulating book, explores the delights of contemporary stone sculpture and stone carving. Stone is a major resource and inspiration for artists, craft-workers, and scholars in many areas, and also has huge attraction for a wider public, given its high visual impact, dramatic footage and timely re-evaluation of often hidden professions. The book portrays the beauty of stone and the relevance of deeper investigation into its existence in general and, more specifically, contemporary sculpture.
~ SHARONE QUINSTIEN, 2020
