Artists "Review" Artists, continued

Two days ago Richard Schemmerer reviewed one of my drawings for the Artists "Review" Artists project. Now my review of one of his paintings has been posted on Thinking About Art.

Read my review here.

Artists "Review" Artists

There's a review of one of my drawings over on Thinking About Art.

J.T. Kirkland, artist and author of the blog, has been running the Artists "Review" Artists project, giving artists a chance to review the work of other artists, and to have their own work reviewed.

My work is reviewed by Richard Schemmerer, who chose to write a poem for his insightful review.

You can read it here.

The Armory Show

Yesterday I went to The Armory Show. The last time I went was 8 or 9 years ago when it was still held at the 69th Regiment Armory, not on Pier 94 on the Hudson River. I'm glad I got there as early as I did, because when I left around at around 4PM there was pretty big line to get in.

The whole thing left me pretty disgusted and a little discouraged. The whole place smelled like fresh paint and carpet fumes (they laid carpet down inside the pier...why?!). Tons of newly built walls which will probably just end up in a landfill by tomorrow. It seems like a lot of effort and a lot of waste to generate for a 3 day exhibition. But I guess it's not really an exhibition; it's all about selling as much work as possible.

Since I haven't made the rounds through the galleries in a while, I figured an art fair might be a good way to see a lot in one day. I was right about seeing a lot...wrong about it being a good way. I don't have many pictures. There was way too much to take it all in, so I kind of just shut down and walked around on auto-pilot. Most of the work didn't really grab my attention, although I did see some stuff I liked. Sarah Sze had a sculpture/drawing thing made out of a laser-cut ruled notepad. That was good. I do have a shitty picture of that. I'll upload that later tonight.

EDIT: Here's the Sarah Sze picture I promised. It looks much better in reality. My camera distorts straight lines and takes blurry pictures. Also the white balance was set incorrectly.

AS FAR AS THE MIND CAN SEE

Yesterday I saw the Lawrence Weiner retrospective, AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE, at the Whitney. Afterwards, my mind was racing with images, questions, and ideas.

According to Weiner, it is equally valid whether he or someone else fabricates his work or no one builds it at all. Most of his work is not built and exists only as text. A work's media are often listed as "text and the materials referred to." Whether you see the actual materials or the text, the important thing as a viewer is completing the material relationship in one's mind.

This got me thinking that perhaps the work is not even dependent upon being written out in language. Weiner's work could also be passed on orally. Imagine this: If I were to tell a friend the title of one of Weiner's pieces that he had not yet seen, he would have received all of the necessary information to complete the piece in his mind...basically he would have "seen" the piece the moment I told him about it.

However, Weiner often manipulates the text, using special fonts, colors, word positioning, and punctuation marks. But there is no reason the work couldn't communicate the artist's intent if it was spoken or existed typed out as a simple sentence in a generic font. I'm not totally sure if he aestheticizes the text because as an artist he cannot just let it be, or if he chooses to format it the way he does in order to further support the content embedded in the language. I'm leaning towards the latter.

The other thing that I can't figure out: Some of the pieces were listed as being part of someone's private collection. What exactly do these people own? If the work only exists once completed in the viewer's mind, then the object or text is just the stimulus for the mental image. By seeing (or hearing about) the work, you already "own" it.

He was walking around the gallery while I was there. I should have just asked him.