Soberscove Press was launched in March 2009 by Julia Klein with the publication of Artists’ Sessions at Studio 35 (1950). Soberscove is eager to make accessible material that might otherwise only be available to specialists and/or that is out of print, as well as previously unpublished material that we find exciting.

Neoteric Art: What has been your favorite project/book to publish so far?

Julia Klein: So far I’ve published 4 books (there are three in progress right now), and each of these books has its own story and is important to me for a particular set of reasons. I truly don’t have a favorite, but since Artists’ Sessions at Studio 35 (1950), was the book that launched the press, it has a distinctive position. Upon graduating from college (Michigan), I moved to New York City and I lucked out and got a job working for George Braziller. He has been publishing since the early 1950′s and is currently 95 (ish) and still working on book projects. He has had periods of major success and periods of business difficulty, but he never sold out to a larger corporation and his publishing program continues to be, I think, a self-portrait and a catalog of his interests/self-education. www.georgebraziller.com. Working for George was an incredible experience. I learned tons, met amazing people and while I was there, first saw and became excited about the Artists’ Sessions transcripts when they came through as part of a larger proposal (a selected writings project) which ultimately wasn’t accepted. Shortly after that, I moved to Chicago and continued to think about Artists’ Sessions. Upon first reading the transcripts, I remember thinking, “Why did they not make me read this in art school!?” because the transcripts’ discussion of art resonated with me so much and also because they documented an interesting/important moment in American art history to which I felt indebted. Over the next 5 years, I took a lot of little steps until finally the book was published. These steps involved looking in archives for the original, unedited transcripts (not found); meeting with Robert Goodnough, painter and original editor of the transcripts; hunting down the reprint rights, etc. Although the transcripts are often referenced in Ab Ex literature, the only places to read them are either in the original out-of-print book or in a $45 Ab Ex anthology. My reprint of the transcripts is, I hope, helpful in connecting contemporary artists with a set of discussions from the past that continue to resonate while also offering a sort of historical snapshot of an unusual event.

www.soberscovepress.com

Matthew Woodward was born in Rochester, NY in 1981. He graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005 with a BFA and from there went on to earn his Masters in Drawing from the New York Academy of Art in 2007. Currently he lives in Chicago and is represented by Linda Warren Gallery.

Following a review and interview with Bad at Sports in early 2011, Woodward had three solo shows, all in Chicago. They were at Linda Warren Gallery, The Union League Club and at the Elmhurst Art Museum, which is up currently and has been reviewed in Art Critical. He is also currently in a group show, Ways of Making: Work on Paper, at Governors State University.

Recently, Woodward was artist in residence at the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program, through MICA, in Lehon, France.

He is currently scheduled to exhibit a new body of drawings funded by a CAAP award at the Chicago Cultural Center in May 2012.

Neoteric Art: You are currently part of a group show “Ways of Making: Work on Paper” with Michelle Grabner, Zach Mory and Alison Svoboda — curated by Elizabeth Whiting and Jeff Stevenson. How did you become acquainted with Elizabeth Whiting?

Matthew Woodward: I got involved with Elizabeth Whiting when I attended Katie Loomis’ show last year at the Union League Club where Elizabeth is the Curator. I sort of waited around all night while she talked to everyone, I wanted to introduce myself and ask if I could submit a proposal. The Union League Club has had, for years, this beautiful and intimate gallery space on their third floor for emerging artists. At the time it wasn’t open to submissions. You had to be asked, and so I asked for myself. And for a few months I tastefully hounded her until she agreed to allow me to submit some work. I ended up having a show called Or To Append the Canceled Lyrics about a year later.

Elizabeth is about as magnanimous a person to work with as you can get, and I’ve been really fortunate to have her in my corner. She passes on to me about every opportunity she finds. And so when her and Jeff Stevenson began working on this project, she came to me and asked if I’d be interested. I was.

Anyway, Ways of Making is actually a series of shows about a variety of disciplines in which the work selected is in some way still very much in touch with the actual process that developed it. It actually becomes quite an interactive frame through which to approach a show. And I think with an exhibit that focuses in particular on paper you’re going to find that raw, hands-on, manipulable transaction readily available.

And Elizabeth and Jeff did fine work curating this show. There is an obsessiveness to the handling of surface here that almost overrides the actual finished product. It’s seductive and you can see it happening all over the paper, like a memory has been turned inside out.

With Michelle’s work you want to walk into it and walk back and then walk up again and touch all over it. That thin beamstring texture of silverpoint light can be puzzling. I wanted to run my fingers over her drawings like a piano, to be perfectly honest. The mark making is painfully deliberate, and as such it becomes a pivot point that’s undeniable to the concept of the work as a whole.

If you look a Zach’s work, it’s the same. It’s awe-inspiring, and technically overwhelming and simple and manic and when you hear him talk about it it also becomes something else in a way that pulls the intensity of all this mark-making, which he wouldn’t be able to help doing anyway, into the scope of his intent. He marries the two almost seamlessly.

And with Alison’s work, too. There is no where to get bored, or even to start looking at this massive motheyed fractal map she installed. It looks like its going to flake off the wall like a huge mushroom cap. She has manipulated the paper in a way that mutes it’s connection with a specific materiality, it looks fragile and filmy and wet still and attempts a very corporeal interaction with the work.

www.mdwoodward.com
www.govst.edu/gallery/

Matthew Ballou is an artist and writer living in Columbia, Missouri with his wife and daughter. He earned his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Indiana University. He is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Painting and Drawing in the Art Department of The University of Missouri, where he has taught since 2007.

Neoteric Art: Regarding your new book, “Nine Texts”, what was your favorite subject or topic to write about?

Matthew Ballou: I always love writing about the processes of thinking about art and the methods of actually creating it. These two avenues come together in terms of experience itself, and that’s perhaps the most deeply rooted interest that I have. I think these things – process, method, and experience – unite most of the writing I’ve done over the years.

That’s why, for example, my short piece Thoughts on Loving Diebenkorn’s Work is closely tied to other essays like Art and Submission or On Intuition and Analysis. Though these two longer pieces seem to be more abstract and deal with art in slightly more lofty language, they’re really very much about the background that brings me to my appreciation of Diebenkorn or any other artist. I find myself able to look into other artists’ work – and my own – with much more rigor and determination after writing texts such as those. Writing like this is able to, as I describe in On Intuition and Analysis, help me integrate my analytical consideration with my intuitive experience (and vice versa). Constantly working on that balance feels appropriate.

Another subject that flows naturally from dealing with thought processes, working method, and reflecting upon experience is that of teaching. In some sense all of my writing is about how I’ve been taught, how I’ve learned to challenge myself, and how I’ve grown in my ability to bring this life of art to students. A piece of writing such as Subjectivity and Robert Henri was something that helped set the stage of what I’d learned so that I could try to express it to others. My writing has always been an interpretive tool for me first – I often work on essays for years before I feel I’ve got a handle on what they’re aiming to do. The writing helps me teach myself.

I’ve appreciated the way Neoteric has allowed me the flexibility to present my thoughts both formally and informally. One piece can be more off the cuff and reactive, while others can carry the reflective distance of years. I think seeing that range in my own process has illuminated the process/method/experience core that I’m most interested in as a writer.

BOOK BLURB

NINE TEXTS collects the writings Matthew Ballou crafted for Neoteric Art as a contributing essayist between 2009 and 2011. Touching on a wide variety of topics, from the work of Richard Diebenkorn and Andrew Wyeth to the challenging questions surrounding intuition and analysis, Ballou’s writings are centered in his own practice as an artist and educator. Highlights from this collection include Subjectivity and Robert Henri, Art and Submission, and Teaching Close Encounters.

Buy the book here.
See Matthew Ballou’s work at www.eikonktizo.com.

Derek Guthrie is a British artist, art critic, and co-founder of the influential art magazine New Art Examiner. In October 1973, Guthrie and his late wife, Jane Addams Allen, founded the New Art Examiner in Chicago. Known for decades in Chicago for his work in art criticism, Guthrie is credited with having helped introduce a new set of writers that would become prominent in their field. The magazine ceased operations in 2002. In November of 2011 with the help of editors: Kathryn Born, Terri Griffith and Janet Koplos, a book titled The Essential New Art Examiner containing past essays and articles will be published.

Neoteric Art: Tell us more on the soon to be released book “The Essential New Art Examiner” and also some history on the magazine.

Derek Guthrie: After an absence for many years I returned to Chicago and gave a lecture at the Cultural Center on the New Art Examiner covering its birth which was a resistance to the then Chicago art elite that was determined that we should not publish. Art News was pressured to lift an article written by Jane Adams Allen and myself from the printing press a few days before publication.

The life of the NAE was turbulent and difficult as we were shunned by the MCA and also branded as ignorant art writers. I also in the lecture commented on the death of the NAE brought on by the incompetence of the last editor the late Kathryn Hixson and a lack luster board that was even bolstered by a massive grant from Lou Manilow. The magazine by then had already achieved a national status.

My comments and other stories caught the imagination of Kathryn Born of Chicago Art Magazine who with the help of Terri Griffith and Janet Koplos and past editors chose articles to be republished therefore making an anthology: “The Essential New Art Examiner”. I contributed an introductory essay along with Kathryn Born and Janet Koplos.

I am delighted not to have any part in the choosing of content as it proves the NAE was ahead of its time as many issues we introduced have meaning for a later generation. However the hostility that the New Art Examiner provoked continues. I hoped and expected with this event of recognition in the form of a book would lay to rest the idea that we were political incorrect.

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is having a reception and one day seminar on Art Criticism organized by the head of Art Journalism Jim Yood a previous Chicago editor of the NAE. After consideration SAIC decided that they would not support my travel expenses to attend. This has caused some frustration as I was looking forward to the occasion to make known that the New Art Examiner was in part determined by the values Jane Addams put into place by her niece, my late wife and co-founder of the NAE, Jane Addams Allen. I have some hope that another University in the Midwest will give me in the new year the opportunity to make clear these unknown facts that Jane Addams Allen was afraid to acknowledge her heritage publicly as she feared a backlash accusing her of grandstanding on her family name. She was correct as the NAE received a letter to the editor from a well known public personality that was printed as all letters to the editor were saying that she was not fit to carry the family name.

I have the belief that culture is suffering in the US as the Independent spirit that used to be present in Intellectual life is disappearing. Tribal politics dominate. The individual who does not fit in to the orthodoxies of celebrity culture and or academia is left aside. It is my hope that in the reissuing of opinion on art written without fear or favor will point to possibilities of originality that now find difficulty to surface in a very controlled and sanitized art world.

Buy the book here.

Paul Klein has long been an art advocate and proponent for art in Chicago. In 2006 his long-term contributions were acknowledged by the Chicago Society of Artists when he was selected as their 2006 Man of the Year.

For the past 6 years Klein has championed Chicago by writing and distributing ArtLetter, an online examination of art in Chicago. He is constantly visiting artist studios, galleries and museums; speaking with artists, dealers and museum curators and directors. Like no one else, he knows and understands art in Chicago and beyond.

He is the Managing Director of The Briddge Group in Chicago, the premier Art Succession Planning Group in the country.

Klein was the Art Consultant/Curator for the recently completed 2.3 million square foot expansion of McCormick Place. It was his vision to use solely Chicago and Illinois artists at the new convention center, where all the content of the permanently installed art is Chicago and Illinois specific.

Klein owned and operated Klein Art Works from 1981 to 2004. When he first opened in River North he established the area as a new art center. After his gallery was destroyed by fire in 1989, his pioneering move to River West led to the development of the entire area.

In over 20 years as a leading Chicago art gallery he established friendships with artists, collectors and civic leaders. He has always participated in his community and is highly respected by Chicago artists since the days his numerous survey exhibitions first brought attention to broad and diverse segments of the art community.

In recent years, because of his Chicago focus at McCormick Place and his plain-speaking ArtLetter he has become the go-to guy in the expanding Chicago art scene, advising artists and cultural institutions daily. Paul has also started Klein Artist Works, a mostly online course to empower artists and deliver success on their terms. He lives in Chicago with his wife Amy Crum, and their children.

Neoteric Art: You teach a mostly online course, called Klein Artist Works, to empower artists and deliver success on their terms. What are the most important criteria for a successful career?

Paul Klein: Thanks for asking. There are 3 main factors to a successful art career. Since the art world is a place where quality, desirability and beauty are entirely subjective, there is no absolute that says one work of art is better than another. It is solely a question of what resonates.

Therefore an artist needs to make art that is distinguishable from (all) others. That’s Number One.

Second is that artists need to drive their own careers – get their ass in the game and the world.

And third is that the art should be good.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of numbers. If you get your art in front of 5,000 people it should not be difficult to get 25 people who love it. And those 25 people will take care of you and create more collectors.

My job is to demystify the artworld, make introductions, build relationships, generate opportunities and deliver personalized strategies so that artists may more easily navigate their path.

Next session starts September 13th.

www.kleinartistworks.com

Professor Richard Shiff received his Ph.D. from Yale University and holds the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and directs the Center for the Study of Modernism. His scholarly interests range broadly across the field of modern art from the early nineteenth century to the present, with emphasis on French painting and post-war American and European art. He has been particularly involved with theory and criticism. His publications include Cezanne and the End of Impressionism (University of Chicago Press, 1984), Critical Terms for Art History (University of Chicago Press, 1996, 2003), Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné (Yale University Press, 2004), and numerous studies of critical and methodological issues. His latest book Between Sense and de Kooning (Reaktion Books) will be released in October of 2011. Recent essays have focused on Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Robert Mangold, Donald Judd, Chuck Close, Bridget Riley, Georg Baselitz, and Terry Winters, among others. He is now at work on three book projects: an interpretive account of Willem de Kooning (Reaktion Books), a study of the tension between practicing art and practicing criticism (Routledge), and a collection of his earlier essays (University of Chicago Press).

Neoteric Art: There are many books on Willem de Kooning, what makes your book, “Between Sense and de Kooning” unique and different?

Dr. Richard Shiff: Between Sense and de Kooning stresses the extreme degree to which de Kooning resisted classification of his attitude toward art, the art he was making, and himself as an artist. A number of others in his generation had a similar attitude but I would argue that de Kooning was the most effective at pursuing this position. As a result, his art mystifies most interpreters even today; neither social, nor biographical, nor psychological, nor formal modes of analysis produce satisfying, non-contradictory results for this art and this artist. My book relates de Kooning’s various studio techniques to his resistance to concepts of progress, development, the avant-garde, historical determinism, and any form of hierarchical, cultural value. This is why there is a gap “between sense …”–the sense we customarily make of art–”… and de Kooning.”

Buy the book here.

Founded in 2010, Autumn Space is a non-profit art space serving emerging artists in Chicago.

Neoteric Art: What is Autumn Space all about?

Brad Carter: Autumn Space is all about giving the Church in Chicago the opportunity to serve the city’s artist community. In turn, the gallery has become a unique resource to the Church and others because the community gets to engage with the best emerging artists in Chicago.

Holy Trinity Church of Chicago, which I attend, approached us with the idea of starting a church-backed art gallery. The church pays the rent and provides a donor-base to support the expenses of putting on high-caliber exhibitions. My partner, Seth, and I get the privilege of choosing young artists that we believe are moving the art conversation forward, curating, and promoting exhibitions that represent their visions, with no strings attached.

Our 2011 fall lineup of exhibitions, I think, clearly represents our curatorial tastes. Featuring the work of artists Brian Hubble, Matt Taber, Tim Graham, Diego Leclery, and Tony Lewis, the art we show is often cerebral with a concerned eye on art-historical context.

At times in history the church has been one of the largest patrons of art. The partnership makes sense because both parties address remarkably similar questions and interests. Autumn Space is part of this continuing relationship.

www.autumnspace.com

Laura Cartwright is a Chicago raised artist who refined her skills with a degree in fine arts from Columbia College in Chicago’s south loop neighborhood. Upon graduating, Laura spent several years doing custom work in and around the Chicago area for both corporate and private clients. In late 2009 Laura was contracted to lead a design team tasked with creating a customized art program for the newly developed P.H. Towers by Westgate in Las Vegas. The concept the team came up with was the Towers Gallery, now on display in the lobby of the P.H. Towers by Westgate. Conceived as a customized gallery living within the lobby, Laura’s vision is to update the gallery periodically in order to keep the space fresh and interesting as time passes.

Coming out of the experience in Las Vegas Laura teamed up with her business partner, Brian Cuttica, to form Revolving Collections Gallery. The vision was to improve on the concept conceived in Las Vegas by expanding our services so that any business looking to enhance their space with a tailored art program could do so in a cost effective way. We continue to offer these great services today. Our simple process ensures a positive experience that result in an art program reflecting your culture, message, and identity.

Neoteric Art: What inspired you to start Revolving Collections Gallery?

Laura Cartwright: There really are three reasons why we started RCG. One, I was inspired to start Revolving Collections Gallery to help support all the wonderful local talent that wasn’t getting shown and noticed. Secondly, at RCG we wanted to be able to bring amazing art to the public for sale. We felt that there is a large population of people that love art and love to buy art but don’t frequent galleries for what ever the reason and don’t know where to buy it. So, we felt that we would be the middle man pairing the public and artists. Lastly, I was inspired to start RCG to be able to provide fantastic art for our clients, the people who display the work. A way for anyone and everyone to be exposed to great art at an affordable price and not have to settle for the framed poster.

www.revolvingcollectionsgallery.com

Patricia Albers is a writer and historian of modern art. Her books include Lady Painter: A Life of Joan Mitchell, Published by Knopf; (2011) and Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, Published by Clarkson Potter; (1999) and University of California Press; (2002), which earned a starred review by Publishers Weekly and was selected as a Best Book of 1999 by the Library Journal. She also published Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance, Published by Jean-Michel Place; (2000), the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name she co-curated for the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Arles Photography Festival, and City Art Museum (Helsinki). Albers has also written numerous articles and catalogue essays, most recently Joan Mitchell: Painting as Cathedral for the exhibition “Synethesia: Art and the Mind.” She has received a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Grant and Ucross Foundation Writing Residency. She holds a B.A. in art from the University of Iowa, an M.A. in French from Middlebury College, and an M.A. in art history from San Francisco State University.

Neoteric Art: What got you interested in writing a biography on Joan Mitchell?

Patricia Albers: I got interested in writing a biography of Joan Mitchell because I’d long admired her art. The timing seemed right too since most of her friends and colleagues from the ‘40s and ‘50s were elderly when I interviewed them, and many have now passed away.

I was also interested in the relationship between Mitchell’s circumstances (for example, a childhood home where people like Edna St. Vincent Millay and Carl Sandburg came to dinner, and Thornton Wilder would tell her bedtime stories), her character, her abilities, even her neurology, with her art. Without being simplistic, where did her art come from? What were her motivations? What was her achievement?

Finally, so many people, including avid museum-goers and art students, still find abstract art unfathomable or semi-fraudulent, as if certain art world types were pulling a fast one on a gullible public. I wanted to write a book that showed readers the complexity and skill of Mitchell’s work but also made it more accessible and potentially meaningful to them.

Buy the book here.

Gail Levin is the author of Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, Becoming Judy Chicago, and most recently Lee Krasner: A Biography, plus many other books on twentieth-century and contemporary art. She is Distinguished Professor of Art History, American Studies, and Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center and Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Neoteric Art: What inspired you to write about Lee Krasner?

Gail Levin: I was inspired to write a biography of Lee Krasner to set the record straight and to change the conversation about her life and work. I was bothered by inaccuracies that exist in other books and articles. I met Krasner when I was a young graduate student in art history and came to know her well during her last decade. She was a remarkable woman and artist. I wanted to tell that story.

More on Gail Levin here.
Buy the book here.
Gail Levin’s “One Question” on her biography on Edward Hopper here.