Neoteric Art: Give us a little history on yourself.

Gabriel Villa: I was born in 1965 in El Paso, Texas. My parents met and married in the 1950’s in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and had seven children, six boys and one sister. My sister is the youngest of my siblings and I am the youngest of the boys. My childhood was rich with love and laughter. I was three years old when my family moved into what became my childhood home.

Many things have influenced my life and my work including: Family, U.S Texas/Mexico Border Culture, American Sports, 1960’s Counter Culture, 1980’s Reaganomics, Indigenous and Western Art. I decided to become an artist when I was in my early twenties. However, the idea of someone making a living and identifying as an artist was something initially foreign to me. It was not until I started taking college courses that I met professors that identified as artists. Since, creativity and art production have been a priority and a constant in my life.

NA: Discuss your work/thought process when starting a new piece.

GV: Generally a work begins by something I see while walking, driving etc. It may be an individual in my neighborhood or it may be an object or scene somewhere in Chicago or while traveling. I’ve trained myself to take a mental snapshot of the location and eventually if this image keeps tugging at me I return to the site and snap a photograph.

Although I work with mostly painting and drawing I think of my work as archiving and constructing. I lift images from what I see in my surroundings. I am a scavenger of images. I am drawn to people and imagery that are emotionally charged.

Seeking subject mater is a crucial part of my creative process. I am interested in chance, randomness and surprise that “every day life” offers.

NA: Recently you’ve been focusing on drawing. Discuss your drawing and how it compares to your other mediums: painting, mixed media and public work.

GV: In 2008, after a long hiatus from drawing I returned to drawing and started working exclusively on paper. There was a lot going on and I suddenly decided to change directions. Something clicked in my head and I started to place an emphasis on creativity and idea rather than focusing on one particular art medium.

Prior to this period I was bit of a die hard painter, now I have a different point of view on art making. I believe an artist should select materials and applications that best support his or her concepts. Because drawing is very immediate it is better suited for certain goals. Painting, for me takes longer to resolve. Drawing is like a short story. Painting is like a novel.

NA: From 2005-2011 you served as director for Yollocalli Arts Reach, a youth initiative of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Please elaborate on your role as director.

GV: Yollocalli Arts Reach is an arts education and career-training program for teens and young adults. The Yollocalli model is based on creating a space for youth to partner with practicing artists, access the tools necessary to realize their own vision and build skills as emerging artists. Located in the heart of Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, Yollocalli is an open forum for experimentation in art making based on issues in art, history, and youth culture.

I started at Yollocalli Arts Reach in 2005 as the Youth Programs Coordinator and later was promoted and served as Director. It was a great job and I learned a great deal of valuable skills, including staff management, grant and curriculum writing, youth development, building community partnerships and of course working with many talented Chicago based artist.

NA: You recently exhibited at MDW Fair. How was your experience?

GV: Over all it was a positive experience. MDW introduced my work to a new audience. It was a pleasure to exhibit my work with artist Nicole Marroquin and work with Curator, Trevor Martin from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. MDW introduced me to the work of many Chicago Based artists including Trevor Martin’s Performance work. I met a handful of collectors, gallery directors and a handful of inquisitive art students.

I will continue to participate in these types of venues. It is one way for one’s work to be evaluated and every once in a while you connect with people that really get your work. My work calls to people who respond to personal, emotive –expressionist work. My work is definitely not entertaining or conceptual. I want people to feel as if they are walking into my brain when they are experiencing my work. Art venues like MD are a good way to start fostering an audience to one’s work.

NA: Discuss your recent book project, “The Art of Gabriel Villa”.

GV: A few years back I was teaching as an artist in residence at Cristo Rey High School, located in Chicago. There I met an instructor by the name of Francisco Pina, at the time also the editor of ContraTiempo. ContraTiempo is a Spanish art and culture newspaper that feature artists and writers. I introduced to my paintings to him. He became a supporter of my work.

Francisco approached me with the idea of collaborating on a self – published catalog. The catalog featured works from 1990- 2005. At the time no one knew who I was (many still don’t). I didn’t have any money and I had many paintings and drawings unfamiliar to many people. I accepted the idea and the partnership. My role was to raise money and write grants for the collaborative project, which I had zero experience. Long story short, we landed a few grants and convinced a few collectors to support the project and I started working at the National Museum of Mexican Art (Yollocalli Arts Reach) to raise the funds. I worked at NMMA longer than I intended to because I enjoyed it so much.

Professionally, this was a good move to self-publish. This got the ball rolling and people started to become aware of my work. This publication led to accepting many other opportunities.

NA: Regarding your art career, where would you like to be five years down the road?

GV: Above ground.

www.gabrielvilla.net

Chicago January Openings – January 6, 2012
On the scene: It was surprisingly warm in the city. River North was jumping with Martina Nehrling’s always colorful works at Zg Gallery, Viktoria Sorochinski’s intriguing photographs at Catherine Edeleman Gallery, Carl Hammer Gallery’s interesting group show “Reflections From a Looking Glass”, John Fraser’s beautiful mixed media work at Roy Boyd Gallery, Barbara Cooper’s and Bob Nugent’s wonderful work at Perimeter Gallery, and Ann Nathan Gallery’s solid group show.

Spotted: David Loew at Catherine Edelman Gallery, William Conger and Judith Geichman at Roy Boyd Gallery, and MCA curator Lynne Warren getting on her bicycle in front of Carl Hammer Gallery.

January 13, 2012
On the scene: Wayne White’s provocative Ruscha-esque style text paintings at Packer Schopf Gallery…one painting sold for $14,000 opening night! Hipsters, Miller beer and a group show curated by Abraham Ritchie at 65Grand…good stuff.

Spotted: Tim Vermeulen and Nicholas Sistler at Packer Schopf Gallery.

January 14, 2012
On the scene: Saturday night opening at Hinge Gallery featuring a 6-person group show with standouts: Brent Houston and MaryKate Maher.

Spotted: Stephanie Burke and Jeriah Hildwine at Hinge Gallery.

Chicago is famous for its large geometric grid of streets. These streets are the framework for which the city’s rich and diverse population has built its neighborhoods. However, there is another network of roadways that is almost as large and almost as interesting as its streets. A secondary lattice of alleys, overlayed and offset from the streets is where the burg takes care of its dirty business. It’s a place where garbage is collected, parking is accessed and power is delivered. It’s also a place where many acts that aren’t meant for public view are carried out.

As part of its mission to introduce new art, this winter Neoteric Art will publish a book of studies by William Dolan that explore Chicago’s rich and diverse collection of alleyways. Here, we present the next three.

Alley Study 7 with Bricks | digital marker | 10½"x7"

Alley Study 8 with Snow | digital marker | 10½"x7"

Alley Study 9 with Oil Drum Garbage Cans | digital marker | 10½"x7"

Hildegard Bachert is co-director with Jane Kallir of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York City. It is the oldest gallery in the United States specializing in Expressionism and Self-Taught Art. Its predecessor, the Neue Galerie, was founded in Vienna in 1923 by the late Otto Kallir and was a principal exponent of German and Austrian modernism during the period between the two world wars. The list of prominent artists the gallery has championed includes Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, and Richard Gerstl among others.

Diane Thodos is an artist and art critic who resides in the Chicago area and was a student of art critic Donald Kuspit at the School of Visual Arts in New York City from 1987 to 1992. She also studied with printmaker Stanley William Hayter and abstractionist Sam Gilliam. She received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2002 and has exhibited most recently at the Kouros Gallery in New York City and the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago and is also represented by the Alex Rivault Gallery in Paris, The Traeger/Pinto Gallery in Mexico City, and the Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago. Throughout her art and writing career she has held a special interest in Expressionism and its history.

Diane Thodos: To begin with can you give me some background on Otto Kallir, the establishment of Galerie St. Etienne and how you became his partner in the gallery?

Hildegard Bachert: Otto Kallier founded the Neue Galerie in Vienna in 1923 and his first show was an Egon Schiele exhibition. He has specialized in Schiele ever since. He wrote the catalogue raisonné of Schiele’s oil paintings in 1930. He became a Ph.D on the side in something unrelated because he wanted to prove that he was not only good in his field but also had a very good general knowledge of art. At that time he championed the avant-garde artists Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Alfred Kubin – the latter became a good friend of his. He staged some other major shows too. He brought a Van Gogh exhibition to Vienna from Holland and a Lovis Corinth show from Germany, among others.

DT: What other artists did he know?

HB: Max Beckmann. He knew Beckmann quite well. He was also a publisher of books. He published books by Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka. In 1938 the Nazis came to power and Kallir had to leave quickly because he had tried to do some political anti-Nazi work before. There was a warrant out for him. The Nazis took over in March 1938. When they entered Austria they were received with open arms by the Austrians. He left with his family I believe in May or June of that year.

DT: How soon was it after the Nazi’s entered Austria that they left?

HB: The Nazis entered Austria on March 11, 1938, so it was about two months later.

DT: So he had to flee right away. But backing up a little I’m very curious to know any recollections you have regarding his relationships with the artists he knew. He had published prints with Max Beckmann and had intimately known several of the artists that he exhibited. Do you have any stories that describe what their personalities were like?

HB: He had a very close relationship with Alfred Kubin and had invited him to come to the gallery’s exhibitions. Kubin was a loner. He always had to be convinced to come to Vienna. He lived in a small town in a little house close to the German border near Passau. It was a little castle-type place that Kubin called Zwicklet. He was a very imaginative and decent kind of person, but also very difficult although Kallir got along very well with him. In fact at the beginning their relationship when they didn’t know each other well Kallir wanted to convince the artist that he could produce perfect reproductions of his art. Kubin claimed it was not possible so Kallir allowed himself to prove it. He published two facsimile reproductions of watercolors which he had printed by the renown firm of Arthur Jaffe. They used a Heliochrome process that involved making reproductions without using a screen. The watercolors he reproduced looked almost the same as the originals. That’s how he convinced Kubin that he was a serious dealer and cared about quality. Kallir was not a printer himself but he only worked with master printers.

DT: What was it in Otto Kallir’s background that made him seek out such extraordinary artists who had such profound expressionist and imaginative abilities? This was quite prescient on his part as an art dealer, similar to the way the French dealer Ambroise Vollard foresaw the significance of Picasso’s work. What were the aspects of Kallir’s character that drove him towards Expressionist art?

HB: That’s kind of a long story. Even as a boy he was a passionate collector. To sum it up Kallir became a dealer to feed his habit as a collector.

DT: A collector of Expressionism?

HB: A collector of everything that was of historical importance. He was a “Renaissance” man. When he was young he was terribly interested in technical things like aeronautics. He wrote to the Wright brothers in 1903 when he was only 9 years old. It was at the time they had their first flight at Kitty Hawk. He knew all about human flight and wrote a book about it that was published when he was about 19 years old, so his background was not in art. His father was a lawyer. He grew up in a well-to-do bourgeois family.

DT: In Vienna?

HB: Yes. He was originally oriented towards becoming an engineer. After serving four years as an officer during WWI he went to engineering school in Vienna where, being Jewish, he encountered so much anti-Semitism that he gave up the profession.

DT: This prejudice existed in the medical professions and the sciences, and so on.

HB: Everywhere. This was not only in Austria but in Germany as well.

DT: So his career became diverted because of anti-Semitism?

HB: Exactly. From having previously published a book he developed into a bibliophile and apprenticed at the bookstore of Thomas Heller who was also a young man. It was there that he started to meet artists. He said art is also of historical importance and the first works that he bought and collected were a batch of Gustav Klimt drawings.

DT: It ‘s amazing that he had already had an instinct for the top art in Vienna.

HB: He saw art, he saw culture, and he saw history. He knew what was important and over time he developed a fantastic eye for art, but he didn’t stop collecting aeronautical material as well. He collected manuscripts of great historical importance in literature, music, science, and history. Not mere autographs, that didn’t interest him. It had to be a document of importance.

DT: A manuscript of some kind or a letter – something from the hand of the person.

HB: Right. He was very interested in Austrian history so he had many important manuscripts such as those by Kaiser Franz Josef and Archduke Rudolf, the son of Franz Josef who committed suicide. He also had musical manuscripts of importance by Mozart, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and many people he knew personally.

DT: Which musicians did he know personally?

HB: He knew Arnold Schoenburg, Richard Strauss and Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. The latter was the librettist for Strauss. He knew him very well in fact – they were very close friends. So what became his passion? As a young man he published several books on art and literature and then apprenticed at the Galerie Würthle in Vienna where he soon became a kind of partner to the woman who was running the gallery.

DT: How old was he at that time?

HB: I think he started there around 1920. He was born in 1894 so by then he was 26.

DT: It’s remarkable that he was already very developed by that age. He had already become a partner in a gallery that was at the center of the avant-garde art scene in Austria.

HB: At the same time he became the director of the art department at the Ricola Verlag Publishing House in Vienna and published more books, mostly on art. The art books are what really survived and are very important today. The most important publication he produced with the help of the Ricola Verlag (he didn’t have enough money to do it on his own) was a portfolio called Das Graphische Werk on Egon Schiele that contained etchings and lithographs which were posthumously published. Egon Schiele died in 1918 and the portfolio was published in 1921. At that time it was popular and had been beautifully bound, presented and numbered. That’s when, with cooperation of course, Kallir started to become acquainted with the whole art establishment. The forward of the portfolio was written byArthur Roessler, one of the major supporters of Schiele whom Kallir knew very well.

DT: So Kallir never got to know Schiele personally but came to know about his work through contact with the galleries and art scene?

HB: Exactly. So that launched his career. In 1923 he left the Galerie Würthle and founded his own gallery, the Neue Galerie, which is now the name of the museum here in New York.

DT: So the museum was named after Kallir’s first gallery?

HB: Indeed.

DT: As an homage.

HB: It’s an homage and it’s an amazing continuation of the spade work Kallir did all his life. He knew many Austrian artists personally – some who are not well known in this country like Otto Rudolf Scatz anGerhart Frankl. Oskar Laske has a certain reputation in the United States. The Busch-Reisinger Museum has two beautiful works by him but they are not famous. To put an artist on the “map” takes a lot of time and you can only do that with top artists.

DT: It seems that the art world had only so much space at the top.

HB: It seems that way unfortunately.

DT: Or else it’s possible that you’re not recognized within your time.

HB: Exactly.

DT: For some art careers recognition comes much later. For example the Feminist Movement of the 1970’s brought more attention to the work of Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, and Camille Claudel creating a new historical appraisal of their work and careers. There can be a delay of recognition based on what the culture is, what the society is, and what critical consciousness is recognized at the time. You mentioned Kallir knew Max Beckmann personally and had worked with him to produce prints. How did they come into contact?

HB: He came to Vienna and was friends with relatives of Otto Kallir. Through them Beckmann met Quappi, his second wife, so there are many connections. Our previous exhibition was of Marie-Louise Motesiczky who was a student of Beckmann. Quappi was a friend of Motesiczky so you can see how certain relationships came together around Kallir.

www.gseart.com

Part 1 of 3

Neoteric Art: Give us some background information on yourself.

Sam Still: I was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, and shortly thereafter moved with my parents and older sister to a small town near my father’s birthplace in South Carolina. Our family would continue to grow with the addition of 2 more sisters and a brother. My mother was from a suburb of Philadelphia. My childhood was filled with alcoholism and violence.

Beginning at age 6, we made yearly visits back to Philadelphia to see may mother’s family. On that first visit my father took us to New York City. We rode the subway and visited the Empire State Building. My father stated emphatically that cites were disgusting and dirty and could not understand why one would actually want to live in one. I was mesmerized.

My mother’s father was a practicing artist in Philadelphia where he owned a frame shop and offered copies of famous paintings to his clients. He never received recognition for his own work. His 2 sisters, that I never met, taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There were original oil paintings by my grandfather throughout the house growing up. My mother did draw small faces quite often but they were never discussed or saved. My father was a tool & die maker and owned a small firm where in later years I worked on and off until I was 18. I did torch cutting of metal, welding, milling machine and lathe turning of both metal and fiberglass.

Making art has always been with me as a means of closing out the rest of the world. In the first grade I was sent to the principle’s office with a collage I had made. I handed it to Ms. Pauline, she took it, studied it for what seemed like forever, handed it back to me, told me I would be a famous artist one day and to please get back to class quickly. It meant nothing to me. As I got older, I drew cars, houses and maps of imagined cities. Purchased my first rapidograph pen at 15 to facilitate a black for tires that I could not get with a pencil. Was given my first car at 15 with a gas credit card, asked my father if I could keep the car, drive less, but buy art supplies, he said no.

Started to cut classes, would drive many times more than 100 miles out of town, stop for a burger and return. I did this for two years without anyone noticing it though my father did inquire several times why my gas charges seemed excessive. Forged a fair number of sick passes, as I look back I realize schools at that time looked the other way when confronted with an uncomfortable situation. Did not graduate, acquired my GED at 18. Did apply to The Art Institute of Atlanta at 18 and Ringling School of Art at 19, was accepted in both, went, dropped out of both within weeks.

Married three times. First marriage and frame shop at 19 in South Carolina. To supplement income I would make small drawings using a rapidograph pen with overlays of watercolor and sepia ink. These would be sold at small weekend mall shows throughout South Carolina. I had quite a handsome pegboard display if I may say so myself. The drawings were of barns and other ramshackle structures. The structures always had a “brick” foundation and in each brick I would right profanities, only visible if one knew they were there. Generally, I would take twelve drawings, six with profanities and six without. Without fail, the ones with profanities would sell first and many times those six would be the only ones that would sell. My relationship with my father was strained at this time so I did not sign any work with my first and last name as I our names were the same, instead I used Aaron, my middle name. First marriage failed.

Entered my first juried exhibition (in S.C.) with work more abstract in nature, got rejected. Depressed and lonely, overdosed on a variety of medications left by my first wife whom had worked at a hospital pharmacy. Unsuccessful suicide. Fearing another attempt, committed myself to a mental institution in South Carolina, realized that was not the answer for me. Produced two drawings while there, got out one month later. I then naively evaluated where I might find an audience for my work. Looked at LA, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Couldn’t afford my car, so LA was out, New York was almost bankrupt, Chicago was too cold, so I settled on San Francisco, it is 1975 now. Greyhound had a special cross-country ticket that I could purchase for 75.00. That meant I could travel from S.C. to California and still have 150.00 left over. I had sold all my worldly possessions for 225.00 to facilitate an escape. My mother told me I was running away and I agreed and stated “not fast enough”.

After an 80 hour plus cross country bus ride I arrived in San Francisco. Having only spent 15.00 on nabs (type of snack crackers) and soft drinks, I did have 135.00 left. San Francisco was big, scary and exciting. I found a room on California Street for 130.00 (monthly) and the deposit was kindly waived. Now with 5.00 left, I plotted my next move. Purchased more nabs, a soft drink, (and made a pig of myself) some paper and a pen. That first evening I copied ten resumes to hand out the next day. Being very intimidated by the world in general, I didn’t ask anyone how to use public transportation so I walked all over S.F. and hand delivered my hand written resumes to ten frame shops on Friday. No responses. Saturday I pawned my last possession of value, my Seiko wrist watch for 6.00 and purchased an extremely delicious mushroom pizza and a two liter bottle of a root beer. I was depressed again, but at least in a new world.

Having no phone, an extremely kind frame shop owner from Noe Valley actually came by the rooming house on Tuesday and offered me a job. I worked that Wednesday and at the end of the day asked if I could get paid. She said yes and I ate that evening. Things were looking up. Unknown to me, the owner was opening a second shop in Berkeley. Three months later I was the manager of that shop and given a company vehicle to take home every evening, all beyond my wildest expectations.

Six months later I was married to the manager that had suggested that I be contacted for the job. She was from the south and was not put off my heavy southern accent. As an artist, she enlightened me to the practice of entering juried exhibitions and creating an exhibition history. Within 18 months, her mother passed and we relocated to New Orleans to care for her father. Second marriage failed.

By this time I was established in New Orleans with successful frame shop. 1990 and life is bumping along, third marriage to a wonderfully understanding woman, a great family with 2 young sons, great neighborhood and a convertible! Life was good!

By 1998 bored with framing and making art in a much more serious manner in terms of contemplating the process. Sold my business in 2000, packed up the family and moved to New York City. I try to make most of my decisions on a deathbed scenario; what would I think on my deathbed about not trying to become a successful artist in New York and staying in New Orleans with my somewhat easy existence.

I could not bare the thought, so here I am in Chelsea cobbling together freelance jobs to stay afloat and selling drawings. The draw of New York was a financial one, in a very basic way I felt I could derive more income (even with a higher cost of living) than in New Orleans. This has proved to be true for my work. On the other hand I was extremely naive regarding the art world in countless ways, and it has been the most difficult endeavor I have ever been involved with.

Now in my 11th year living here, I finally know my drawings have evolved to a point that I feel very positive about my practice and the future on all levels except age. Closing in on 60, I know that is the biggest hurdle to overcome on so many levels, alas it is too late in the game to turn back so I continue to move forward.

NA: Discuss your work/thought process when starting a new piece.

SS: I have never felt as if I’m creating new work. The most recent drawing connects to the previous drawing and so on and on. Each work is simply a variation on the previous, no matter what the medium.

NA: Elaborate on the overall idea behind your “online” exhibitions.

SS: That the work is obviously for sale. I am asking for the sale. At this point, I’m not really sold on the idea of the online exhibitions, but always need to explore. The death bed scenario at work.

NA: Discuss your most current online exhibition, “Forty New Drawings”.

SS: Nothing really to discuss. I make the work and whether it speaks to people is not my concern.

NA: Earlier this year you were part of the “An Exchange with Sol LeWitt” exhibition at MASS MoCA. Please elaborate.

SS: I enter juried exhibitions that have no entry fee and this was one. Nothing unique re being chosen. I did not know the juror.

NA: Who/What has been an influence on your work?

SS: Working in my father’s machine shop as a young man. Welding, acetylene torch cutting of metal plates, turning metal on lathes etc. The hard edges and flat surfaces are in my drawings. The very first job I did for my father was sweeping his shop on Saturdays. This was a 4000 square foot building and I did a very sloppy job the first time. He took me around on an inspection and pointed out all of my inadequacies has a sweeper. His lesson to me was to do every endeavor with the utmost respect, no matter how seemingly unimportant, and to do it with the very best of my ability.

After arriving in New York I started to read as many art related books, magazines and articles in an attempt to place myself in and art historical context. This did not happen. To place my work in any context is not my job. My job is to make work relevant to my needs.

NA: Name a few art magazines and/or online art sites that you pay attention to.

SS: None really. I am basically only looking for no cost juried exhibitions to enter.

www.samstill.com

Images:
Top. 5:37 PM April 27, 2011, 2011, ink on paper, 30″ x 38″

2. Runner, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 9″ x 14″ — Drawing rejected from SC exhibition that proceeded suicide attempt.

3. Sanity/Insanity, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 10″ x 10″ — Drawing produced in Mental Institution. Which opening led to what?

4. Psychic Waterfall, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 11″ x 9″ — Life is an up-stream endeavor.

5. Second Chance, 1978, pen and ink on paper, 4″ x 36″ — Second chance in S.F. Box is up-righting itself.

6. 1:45 PM June 27, 2011, 2011, ink on paper, 30″ x 38″

Chicago is famous for its large geometric grid of streets. These streets are the framework for which the city’s rich and diverse population has built its neighborhoods. However, there is another network of roadways that is almost as large and almost as interesting as its streets. A secondary lattice of alleys, overlayed and offset from the streets is where the burg takes care of its dirty business. It’s a place where garbage is collected, parking is accessed and power is delivered. It’s also a place where many acts that aren’t meant for public view are carried out.

As part of its mission to introduce new art, this winter Neoteric Art will publish a book of studies by William Dolan that explore Chicago’s rich and diverse collection of alleyways. Here, we present the second three.

Alley Study 4 | digital markers | 18½"x14½"

Alley Study 5 Near the President's House | digital marker | 18½"x14½"

Alley Study 6 | digital marker | 10½"x7"

I never gave much thought to Mark Rothko or his large colored soaked canvases but with the play Red in town and a planned tripped to Houston where the Rothko Chapel is located I would get my fair share of the man.

Red is about Rothko and a fictitious studio assistant during a two year period when the painter was commissioned to create several large paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in NYC. The play was fantastic—full of energy. I tend to forget that painting can transcend time and place. Both the act of painting and being a spectator of the work can be a very spiritually moving event. Red reminded me that painting is very human.

It was then off to Houston and the Rothko Chapel. I didn’t know what to expect except some Rothko paintings and some sort of chapel. The magic was in the conflation. The first thing that struck me was the quietness of the chapel. The stillness was beautiful. I don’t know if I ever equated quietness and beauty before but I do now. And of course there were the paintings. The paintings hovered on the walls. As time passed I felt I was becoming one with the paintings…with the stillness. The whole space evoked inspiration.

Both of these experiences are making me give more thought to Mark Rothko.

A review of Red from Time Out Chicago is here.
www.rothkochapel.org

I came to the auditorium at 112 S. Michigan with high hopes for an engaged debate on art criticism in Chicago and expected a lively discussion about the recent book The Essential New Art Examiner – a republication of seminal essays from the Chicago-based magazine which began in 1974 and ended in 2002. I had been a writer for the New Art Examiner in the late 90s until its demise and was rather itching for a conversation. But this was not to be. There were glints of subjects that could have sparked rich topics of conversation – Jim Yood the moderator had started out by saying the NAE had “challenged authority and power” – but for the most part the panel proved that art criticism in Chicago does nothing of the sort today, and worse still would simply have no idea of what this meant. As far as the conversation went the pot never got to simmering let alone boiling.

For me this is a rather sad state of affairs. I had to wonder how the “elephant” in the room – major issues surrounding art world power, control and impenetrable art theory – remained invisible to most of the seven panelists. What seemed more visible were the “emperor’s new clothes” – art writing that responded to the kind of and inbred art world thinking that pours out of art schools like SAIC. This is the situation that has displaced critical consciousness and inquiry. Perhaps I was wrong to be surprised considering the style of the media and blog-based writing reflected by most of panelists– Jason Foumberg of New City, Abraham Ritchie and Steve Ruiz of Artslant.com and Lori Waxman of the Chicago Tribune.

In saying so I do not wish to overlook the considerable efforts of two of the panelists – Kathryn Born and Terri Griffith- who do not profess art world training but whose indispensable efforts brought the recent Essential New Art Examiner into existence. Students in art departments all over the country retained their old copies of the NAE because they got dynamic art discussions and answers which they could not find on the pages of Artforum or Art in America. We live in a time of commercial and institutional – dare I say corporate – influence which makes independent structures with alternative points of view, like the NAE had once offered, rare and valuable particularly today. Creating the new book is an important step in sustaining this value. One of the panelists, the former NAE editor Ann Wiens, was thorough in discussing the particular 1980s art world background she came from. She was interested in bringing in “lots of peoples points of views” to the NAE and mentioned the time she spent working with the New York art critic Donald Kuspit. Her answers to questions were well grounded and brought a sense of Chicago art history that was useful, stressing the magazine’s importance to the city as the only source “chronicling the work being made at the time “and “interested people who mattered in our community.”

Aside from this most of the discussion was lost in space. I could not grasp the basis out of which most of the panelists interpreted art, and perhaps this is because they write for media formats and publications that don’t demand it. There was the sense that the younger writers are looking for answers but do not know where to find them. In an art world lacking critical consciousness and suffering from amnesia about its history it’s easy for writers to cling to self-reference and the centralizing mechanisms of the mass media. This makes the art world boring and complacent. Plenty of descriptive art writing abounds, but there is no stabilizing force which allows coherent meanings or interpretations to emerge. I could not discern how these writers linked art with human experience or life outside of the artist’s self-proclaimed intentions. Most of the writers on the panel had started their careers after the NAE had disappeared, which goes some way in explaining the loss of a “center” for the discussion of art in Chicago. The NAE was a “town square” to use Ann Wiens’ metaphor, where artists could meet and discuss – it was a focal point for debate. Jim Yood as moderator was talkative and humorous, but his questions offered no real challenges or issues of controversy. Conversation was mostly anecdotal and nostalgic, ever cycling around details of the New Art Examiner’s past without hitting any target of deeper interest or sparking debate. Finally things came to life during the question and answer session by a few older members of the audience. One question brought up discussion of the time when Kathryn Hixson, the last editor of the New Art Examiner, had mismanaged the magazine to the point of bankruptcy and how this continues to remain a sore spot for many who knew how important the magazine was to Chicago’s ever-fragile art infrastructure. The NAE was originally created as a bulwark against censorship “without fear or favor.” In its last days it looked more like an imitation of Artforum.

I was alarmed by the incuriousness of the panel as well as the SAIC students in the audience. The narcissistic attitudes of artists have been deeply inbred by countless art programs over the past 30 years. This has lead, for the most part, to a fairly uncritical acceptance of what is being taught. Donald Kuspit once said we have gone beyond self-censorship to self-ignorance, which makes for quite an Orwellian situation. The framework of power over what is considered art – disseminated from art school to gallery to museum – is effective because it is invisible. For all of the contemporary art world’s claim to being “liberal” and “progressive” it is deeply conservative at heart, and the panel discussion was point in case. Yes the doors to the auditorium were open, but in a sense the public was not really invited. We live in an art world – I would call it a “post-art” world – where meaningful human content and experience is ignored and where the purveyors of culture don’t seem to know the difference and couldn’t care less. That is the real crisis.

Diane Thodos is an artist and art critic who lives in Evanston, IL. She has written for The New Art Examiner Art on Paper, and Dialogue magazine among others. She currently writes for Artcritical.com and Neotericart.com and has written numerous artist catalogue essays. She is a 2002 recipiant of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and had a 2009 retrospective at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago in 2009. She is represented by The Kouros Gallery in New York City where she exhibited in 2011. The Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago, the Alex Rivault Gallery in Paris, and the Traeger/Pinto Gallery in Mexico City also represent her.

As part of its mission to introduce new art, this winter Neoteric Art will publish a book of studies by William Dolan that explore Chicago’s rich and diverse collection of alleyways. Here, we present the first three.

Alley Study 1 | digital markers | 6"x6¾"

Alley Study 2 | digital markers | 9"x6¾"

Alley Study 3 with Snow | digital markers | 8½"x6¾"

Ellen Lanyon & Philip Pearlstein: Objects/Objectivity
Valerie Carberry Gallery
Chicago
September 16 – November 5, 2011
www.valeriecarberry.com

Ellen Lanyon and Philip Pearlstein are artist friends who share outings to collect antiques, flea market finds, and vintage toys – the theme on which exhibition title Objects/Objectivity is based. The articles they find inhabit distinctly different worlds in their art. While Lanyon has always expressed an overt emotional attachment to the items that populate her fantasy-based imagery, Pearlstein renders his antiques and toys with a harsh objectivity that can sometimes exude unsettling feelings lurking behind their attempt to mimic life.

Both Lanyon and Pearlstein had technical drawing training early in their careers, which helps to explain a common interest in mechanical objects. Pearlstein’s first job as a machinery draughtsman influenced the stark “objectifying” realism he brought to his nude figures. Mechanical renderings operate somewhat differently in Lanyon’s work, becoming props that mix up and recombined with other objects as though performing on some subconscious theatrical stage.

Lanyon’s work bears some similarity to the art of Seymour Rosofsky and is rooted in the surreal, and fantastic images of the Chicago-based Monster Roster art group of the 1950’s. Lanyon clusters her objects into skewed interiors where one cannot tell exactly where the tiled floor meets the striped wallpaper. All manner of porcelain creatures, gadgets, cards, and items of nostalgia clutter these spaces with a whimsical disregard for logic. They often are energized with a strange, sometimes lugubrious, inner life. The animal presences in her paintings are particularly noticeable and seem to act like the ringmasters at the circuses being performed around them. In one painting a porcelain fish in a red velvet suit glowers at the viewer with its large glassy eye. In another a monkey uses a snake to squirt tea into a cup. Birds peep through windows and spring out of clocks. Animal effigies appear to be the silent guardians of a secret world. Space becomes unstable, topsy-turvy, and surprising. Bright colors burst through the surface in jazzy patterns while other areas are rendered in ghostly outlines. The aura of nostalgia embedded in her objects do not make them “sweet.” They exist in a world that teeters between irrational whimsy and the grotesque. There is a darkness that exists within the sentiment she feels for her objects, which makes them both tragic and imaginative. Like Seymour Rosofsky Lanyon’s scenarios are often haunted by a sense of bittersweet loss that brings both a personal and expressive life to her arrangements.

Ellen Lanyon
Fisch, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

By contrast Philip Pearlstein is well known for his stark objectivity painting the nude. He is famous for posing his naked figures under harsh, glaring lights that emphasize their “objectness.” Their static and somnambulistic expressions prevent the sparking of erotic desire, as does the rendering of flesh with veins, sinew and hair in all its particularity. The introduction of objects present new formal challenges to these figural arrangements. In this exhibit items like duck decoys, puppets, and other toys are rendered in the same harsh and unsentimental light as the nudes. Like Lanyon, the animal effigies in Pearlstein’s paintings act as a kind of psychological lynchpin, looking at us with open eyes where the nude’s gaze does not. Yet humans and objects co-habit a common space with uneasy awkwardness. A “Gulliver” sized foot is lodged on a “Lilliputian” sized model of the White House (a bird house in actuality). Two nudes are surrounded by a jumble of duck decoys that have truly “wooden” expressions. An uncanny deadness emanates from the leering expression of a Mickey Mouse doll on a unicycle, similar to the opaque expression of a wooden rabbit marionette placed between two nudes in a different painting. In another arrangement an old copper butcher’s sign is placed in front of a nude woman, seeming to trap her – compositionally – into a corner. The silhouettes of a knife, cleaver, and saw overlay her body, making her flesh seem all the more delicate and vulnerable. In another painting a model airplane on a vertical flying pole pushes to the front of the picture plane, crowding the foreground and directing attention away from two nudes that are seated below and behind it. The toy plane presents a kind of visual dissonance – a compositional mechanical “noise”- that contrasts with the human presence. Unlike Lanyon’s paintings there is no whimsy, sentiment, or nostalgia embedded in Pearlstein’s items though there are strange juxtapositions that arise between the nudes and objects, sometimes hinting at a surreal otherworldliness. In each case the object’s inner deadness makes the nudes come to life by sheer contrast. His inert animal effigies attempt to mimic life, but their harsh realism renders this mimesis as a strange phenomenon. There is something a bit frightening about the lifelessness in many of these objects that ends up animating Pearlstein’s otherwise pallid figures. The inertness of his articles reinvigorates the sense of human presence in his paintings, and emphasizes the existential fact of their aliveness by contrast.

Though both Lanyon and Pearlstein have interests in nostalgic objects their paintings result in quite different outcomes. For Lanyon, magic can upset the rules of reality and imagination can twist space and memory. In Pearlstein’s work, realist empiricism reveals a disconnection between the human aliveness and unliving matter – rehumanizing the human presence as a result. Both artists have maintained humanizing artistic traditions – whether through Surrealism or Realism – which stands in distinct contrast to the postmodern spectacles and conceptual ideologies of the current art world. This certainly goes along way in explaining the integrity of their artistic survival in these all too dehumanizing times.

Philip Pearlstein
Two Nudes and four Duck Decoys, 1994, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches

Ellen Lanyon
Hanafuda, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

Top image:
Philip Pearlstein
Mickey Mouse, White House as Bird House, Male and Female Models, 2001, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches

Diane Thodos is an artist and art critic who lives in Evanston, IL. She is a 2002 recipiant of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. She had a 2009 retrospective at the National Hellenic Museum in 2009 and is represented by The Kouros Gallery in New York City where she exhibited in 2011. The Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago, the Alex Rivault Gallery in Paris, and the Traeger/Pinto Gallery in Mexico City also represent her.