Memorial Art Gallery – Page 2

January 26, 2009August 26, 2019

A Very Important Privilege

"Sum ll Series", Gloria Ortiz-Hernandez drawing at MAG "Leaded" show — “Sum ll Series”, Gloria Ortiz-Hernandez drawing at MAG “Leaded” show

Peggi’s mom gave us a subscription to Smithsonion Magazine and January’s issue had a great article on the Metropolitan’s Van Gogh “Night Vision show. The author tells how Van Gogh, the best drawer ever, was kicked out of an early drawing class and he quotes Van Gogh telling a friend, “I aim to paint with such expressive force that people will say, I have no technique.”

Turning from abstraction to storytelling, the work Philip Guston created in the last ten years of his life was roundly criticized as being clumsy, crude, artless, cartoony, affected and klutzy”. Guston is quoted as saying, “I got sick and tired of all the purity.”

Musa Mayer, writing in her memoir of her father, recaps a talk Philip gave to a group of students at the University of Minnesota in 1978. He ended his talk with the following remark. “Isaac Babel gave a lovely ironic speech to the Soviet Writer’s Union and ended his talk with the following remark, ‘The party and the government have given us everything, but they have deprived us of one privilage. A very important privilege, comrades, has been taken away from you. That of writing badly’.”

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January 25, 2009August 26, 2019

Museum Quality Trees

Margaret Explosion at the Memorial Art Gallery opening for"Leaded" — Margaret Explosion at the Memorial Art Gallery opening for”Leaded”

Ken and Peggi spent the longest time discussing whether the tree that was positioned between them was real or fake.

I took this shot with the timer while we were setting up in “The Pavillion” of the Memorial Art Gallery for the opening of “Leaded”, a drawing show featuring ten artists. I was expecting a lot more drawing but the work was all executed with lead.

The contract called for Margaret Explosion to pay five, fifty minute, sets starting at 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10, the first two hours where for the patrons. We made up songs most of the night only covering three or four of our own in the last set. The band sounded really good in here and we are really happy the MAG invited us to their party.

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January 6, 2009February 4, 2020

For Alice

Philip Guston painting entitled "Reverse" at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY — Philip Guston painting entitled “Reverse” at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY

I’m reading a book by Musa Meyer, Philip Guston’s daughter, called “Night Studio”. Wow. There’s a good chunk of therapy in there. It is impossible to be a great artist and a good father. Philip Guston is no saint unless you redefine “saint”. And I do. Saints, to me, are heroes. They are not all good and that makes them more godlike. Philip Guston is the patron saint of existentialists.

His late paintings are his best. They blow me away. What more could you ask for in a painting? They are meaty as hell, ugly and beautiful at the same time. And heroic. The MAG in Rochester has one of the late paintings called “Reverse”. It’s a painting of the back of a stretched canvas leaning against a wall. There is an incredible sense of form like R. Crumb. Probably a white wall but not in Guston’s hands. This is a whole environment. There’s a bare bulb from his closet childhood and a chain swinging like the light has just been turned on. The confrontation has begun.

This is my favorite painting in the Memorial Art Gallery’s collection and it manages to get better each time I see it. The MAG has put it in the best spot in the whole place. Its almost has its own room. And there is even a bench across from it, not some dumb piece of art but a bench you can sit on. Look for this painting.

Give It Up For The Little Guy

Russian Icons from the show at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester NY

We finally made it over to the Russian Icon show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. We intended to go with Peggi’s mom but she hasn’t been getting around very well. Yesterday was the last day of the show and I was glad to see that it was really crowded.

I loved this piece, entitled “Archangel Deisis with Christ Emmanuel”, from about 1650-1700. It looks downright contemporary or at least from this century’s “seventies”. The youthful Christ in the center looks cocky and mischievous, his head full of big ideas. And the former top dogs, Archangels Michael and Gabriel, respectfully give it up with a dose of healthy suspicion.

Deep Feelings

There was a new guy in our painting class last night doing these abstract, big bang sort of paintings. He is also a fly fisherman so he and our painting teacher, Fred Lipp, spent a good deal of time talking abut locations and lures. I was thinking they ought to come over and catch a few of the flys in our house. We had the doors open round here while we gave them two coats of fresh paint and collected a few. I had one wake me up by insisting on landing on my nose.

Fred was relentless last night as well he should be. “What is this?”, he exclaims as he reaches for his grey paper to cover the offending “neck” in my case. “It looks like a tree stump”. My father, who is set up right next to me, gets as merciless an assault. In his case Fred covered half the painting and told him, “There’s your painting”. He was left with a beautiful Maine lighthouse. My father said, “Hey. I pay for this class”. You get what you pay for and we have it no other way.

Fred has a beautiful watercolor on display in the faculty show at the workshop right now. It’s called “Moving On Out…” Why wasn’t he chosen for the upstate biennial that’s currently on display in the MAG? There is no good answer.

We finished a new sheet music cover today for Tony Stortini. This piece is called “Deep Feelings”. Jack Handy comes imediately to mind. How many design firms are still doing sheet music covers these days? Tony is on a creative roll. We already did art for “Hearts of Gold” which he wrote for his daughter and “Tippy Tap Joe” which was dedicatedf to his brother, Nunzio. Peggi stuck Nunzio’s head on tap dancer that she found online.

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