Ars Longa Exceptum Plasticus

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"At this point there is nothing further that can be done with them, except to freeze them."

No, this is not the LA coroner talking about a certain pop star's endlessly resculpted parts, but the Walker Art Center's associate registrar, Joe King, talking about two works by Joseph Beuys in its collection, which are made from plastic that is starting to deteriorate.

This information comes from Weeping Barbie Syndrome Strikes Walker Art Center, posted by writer Marianne Combs on her State of the Arts blog for Minnesota Public Radio News on July 6. Combs, aware of the post on Slate.com (see below) went to the Walker to find how the institution's plastic works are faring. That's when she learned that when PVC deteriorates, the plasticizer in the material migrates outward, making the surface wet and sticky (first noticed on the pre-astronaut bambola); that outgassing can also damage adjacent works; and that the Beuys works are in freezer lockdown.

What do Barbie and Beuys have in common?

On July 1, Slate.com's Sam Kean asked and answered this question: Does Plastic Art Last Forever? Not Even Close. Apparently it cracks, browns, melts, weeps and smells. Oh, and it can explode, too.

Thanks to my blogosphere buddies C-Monster and Hrag Vartanian for their links to these stories. (And a shout out to Hrag for noting my review of Ed Winkleman's book in the same group of posts.)
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(Un)Common Threads, Part 1

Several current and recent exhibitions have as a common thread the, well, common thread--deconstructed, reconstructed, repurposed and carefully structured.

At the Anton Kern Gallery, Lara Schnitger (through June 20), showed an installation of knee-high hose stretched and knotted into a curtain that both divided and defined the gallery space. Looking at the gallery site, I see that the artist is no stranger to the use and reuse of commonplace materials.

Lara Schnitger at Anton Kern: White Cube Hosiery, 2009, nylon & wood, variable dimensions

At Yvon Lambert, Shinique Smith (Ten Times Myself through July 31), mines what the press release describes as "an autobiographical narrative"." In baling, compressing and amassing fabric as she does, Smith imbues these materials with palpable energy. I don't know her. I don’t know her story, but, man, I feel the a life force emanating from that work.

Above and below: Works by Shinique Smith at Yvon Lambert. No information on gallery website

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At Pavel Zoubok, Donna Sharrett (Reverb, through May 23) most certainly mines personal history. Her work is about memory, specifically the memory of her musician brother who died several years ago, but also the nature of memory itself. Exquisitely hand stitched, knotted and pieced, the work incorporates material elements given to her by friends and thus becomes a web of interwoven recollections that extends beyond the artist herself.

(While Reverb is over, Sharret's work is included in Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage, which runs through August 14 at the gallery.)

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Donna Sharrett at Pavel Zoubok, installation view

Donna Sharrett: The Long Black Veil, 2003-2008, rose petals, handmade rose beads, synthetic hair, guitar-string ball ends, pennies, blue jeans, cotton fabric, rings, bone beads and buttons, synthetic pearls, thread; 36 x 26 inches

Detail below

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In the Contemporary Art galleries the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Liza Lou is represented by Continuous Mile, a mile-long coiled rope of white beads that is laid in the form a cylinder. Lou employed a team of beaders from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to do the work. I first saw the sculpture at L&M Arts a few months ago, but since I couldn't photograph the work there, I didn’t write about it. I'm glad for the opportunity to revisit it here. You'll note it's placed near the museum's Damien Hirst sculpture but I must say this work, so simple yet so complex, blows that shark out of the water.

Liza Lou at the Met: Continuous Mile, 2007-2008, glass beads, cotton; loan from the artist, on continuous exhibition at the museum for two years

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At the Painting Center, Edward Shalala (Documentary Photographs, through June 20) takes the most minimal of materials, the thread itself, and makes the most fleeting of works, a temporary painting that consists of a continuous length of unraveled-canvas thread which is arranged in an airy coil on the ground. What remains as evidence is a black and white photograph. The work recalls both the manifestly material, Smithson's Spiral Jetty, and the evanescent, Ana Mendiata's spirals gouged into the earth.

Edward Shalala at The Painting Center: untitled, documentary photograph of
raw linen canvas thread painting on basketball court at Sarah Roosevelt Park, New York City; c-print 11 x 14 inches, 2009

We follow the thread from Shalala's solo at the Painting Center to his inclusion in the current group show at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery (By a Thread, through July 24) . That's where's we'll go in the next installment later this week.

Note: Summer hours for many galleries are Mon-Fri. Please check before you go.

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Marketing Mondays: What Artists Should Know About Running a Gallery

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Recently I reviewed The Artist's Guide by Jackie Battenfield. Now in a lovely bit of publishing symmetry, there's a dealer's guide, How To Start and Run a Commercial Gallery by Edward Winkleman, about to be released by Allworth Press.

Ed has a gallery in Chelsea. He's also a widely read blogger, which you probably know already even if you haven’t been to his gallery. Ed's blog attracts an assortment of artists, dealers, collectors and critics who come in all degrees of intellect, anger, creativity, bitterness and kindness—in other words, an art world in miniature. His online generosity has flowed into his book, which in turn has flowed out of his experience as a respected New York art dealer.

While the book's intended purpose is to help a potential dealer understand how to start and run a commercial gallery, it also provides artists with a clear look at what goes on behind the scenes.
Why is this important?

For one thing, understanding the dealer's concerns and activities will help you present yourself in a way that complements the gallery's program. For another, it underscores the idea that artists and dealers are not so different. Here's Ed: "This is a business in which very little is stable . . . rent in your neighborhood will skyrocket, forcing you to find a new location (and consuming all the money that moving requires); and critics will inexplicably hate your latest exhibition. . . It never really gets easy. Some months you’re flush; others, you’re scrambling." Sound familiar?

Identity and branding; pricing; contracts and legal issues; logistics like crating, shipping, framing; cash flow; and the art fairs are all covered in specific chapters. Independent artists will find the information eminently useful. Though the crashing economy will undoubtedly require second-edition revisions in the Art Fair chapter, it's edifying to see how closely the submission process for dealers to art fairs parallels that of artists to galleries.

I found these chapters of particular interest to artists:

. Chapter 10, Staffing and Management Practices
Ed talks about job titles and responsibilities. Wondering whom to send your materials to? He explains the hierarchy. But more than that, when he tells you what it takes to run a gallery, you can see it's almost the same as what it takes to run a studio. We make, the gallery sells. But we all share the same tasks: photographing work and archiving images, tracking inventory, maintaining records, PR, packing and shipping, bookkeeping. I particularly liked reading about how several New York galleries divide the workload with staffers. The smaller galleries take on multiple tasks, just like artists.

. Chapter 11, Promotional Efforts: Publicity and Advertising
The information here will help an unaffiliated artist create her own promotional strategy. Better still, extrapolating that information, once you follow a gallery and understand the way it presents itself to the art world, gives you a way to approach that gallery.

. Chapter 14: Artists: Where to Find Them; How to Keep Them
Make a beeline for these 24 pages. Nothing takes the mystery out of the submission process better than learning how a dealer puts a roster together. Here's how Ed found/finds his artists, in order of frequency: "recommendations (including from other dealers), institutional exhibitions, open studios, cold call submissions."

. . . . . In other words: show, show, show, show and network, network, network. This goes along with what I know of dealers. Their websites may say "No submissions accepted at this time," but they are always looking. As for cold-call submissions, they are, confirms Ed, "the least productive means of finding suitable artists." If you must go this route, do your homework. "Every now and then an unsolicited submission will make your day. Either the artist has done his research and knows his work is a good match for your mission, or fate smiles on you."

Will reading this book automatically get you into a gallery? No. But it will give you insight into the gallery process. An artist who understands the system and is willing to do her homework to find the right matches and submit to the rigors of the process has a much greater chance of getting into a gallery she has targeted.--and equally, important, flourishing there.

And here's the corollary to that: When the economy finally starts moving in the other direction, a new crop of passionate entrepreneurs will be poised to open their doors. Galleries need artists.

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Getting High in West Chelsea

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The view from the High Line, above (that shaped building is by Frank Gehry) and on the High Line, below. The plantings are native grasses and wildflowers

One recent weekday afternoon the omnipresent gray sky softened long enough for me to head over to the new High Line Park in West Chelsea for a look see. I climbed the stairs at 20th Street and 10th Avenue and began walking south in this narrow park in the sky.

Located on the elevated tracks of a former industrial freight railroad, the High Line is now a city park with a smooth concrete walking surface and wildflowers (!) in bloom, with just enough track left peeking through here and there to remind you of the origins of this bucolic gem. Thirty feet up from the traffic it's surprisingly quiet, and because bikers and bladers are not allowed the passeggiata is a far more serene experience than at the shoestring park along the Hudson, where unconscious walkers clog up the bike lanes and speeding bikers try not to mow them down.

The park is up there on the elevated line. You can ascend at 20th, 18th and 14th Streets. The stairs at 20th Street, below

Climbing, climbing . . .

. . . The idea of park doesn't really materialize until you're just about on top of it, below. Before the multimillion-dollar makeover you could look out the windows of various galleries to see patches of grass visible sprouting from the gravel, but not like this:

Originally built in the 1930s to carry goods from the 35th Street rail yards to warehouses that line the Hudson River down to Gansevoort, the High Line fell into disuse 50 years later. If you've been to Chelsea in the past two decades, what you saw was a rusting overhead monstrosity that delivered the frequent and numerous droppings of pigeons that roosted there, and until recently served as the anchor for the annoying look-at-me billboard musings of one Patrick Mimran, above. (The overhead is still underdeveloped above 20th Street. Ongoing work is expected to be completed next year.)

For now, it offers a pleasant stroll for 10 blocks, or half a mile. There are some odd segments. One is the overlook at 17th Street, left, a kind of amphitheater whose rows of seats are set to look down on . . . the traffic heading up 10th Avenue. The architects, Diller & Scofidio, did something similar with their media room for Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, except there the view is of the harbor. But I'm being picky. The amphitheater offers a lot of seats for walkers to sit and talk, have lunch, read the paper, and plenty of sky.

Commerce has asserted itself in some some pleasing and not-so-pleasing ways. Pleasing: Food vendors selling tasty snacks. I had a savory slice of leek and cheese pizza with a flaky crust from, I think, City Bakery. (That pretzel-croissant dough is a unique taste; it had to be City Bakery.) Not-so-pleasing: the gargantuan V-shape building that is the newly built Standard Hotel, which straddles the park with wide concrete legs and towers over it like something out of Transformers.

The Standard Hotel straddling the High Line

Speaking of straddling, there are some views right into apartment buildings that line the slender park, and word has it that a few residents are having sex for all to see. (What's weirder? Being the voyeur or the voyee?) That's gossip, though. I haven’t even seen doggies doing it—and that's because dogs are not allowed in the park.

Uh, I'm the voyeur with the camera reflected in the window of an apartment.

But enough talk. Let me show you some pictures that take you down to Gansevoort Street:

Above: At 17th Street, looking west to the Hudson

Below:

Looking east on 14th Street. The block you see here used to be the meat market, as in actual sides of beef hanging on hooks outdoors. Now it's home to such chi chi shops as Jeffreys. After midnight, it's still a favorite haunt for the tranny hookers. Talk about mixed-use zoning

As I ambled south, the leaden sky opened up. Sun!

That's New Jersey across the Hudson

The original rail line traveled through the center of several warehouses. Now those buildings are under renovation. . . .

. . . Inside one building is an installation by Spencer Finch, who traveled the Hudson photographing the color of the river. Those hues were translated to glass panes which now color the windows of a long stretch of outside/inside wall

Not sure who did this installation, but someone's been color coordinating

A raised bed for plantings; my favorite stretch of track, below

The end of the line: Washington Street at Gansevoort

Below: Cafes and clean streets. There's even a Helmut Lang boutique nearby

This blog is proudly Michael Jackson-free. No news. No gossip. No pictures. No interest.

(The Lack of) Women Artists at MoMA: Saltz on FB, Reprinted on Winkleman

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The indefatigable New York and New York critic, Jerry Saltz , is leading a spirited discussion of gender inequality at MoMA. Starting point--for this leg of the discussion, at least--is the report on his Face Book page of his meeting with Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the museum. (Not sure if it's kosher to link to FB this way?)

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Comrades in struggle: The Guerrilla Girls, left; Saltz

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A snippet: "Temkin stated that work by women artists has been rotated into the collection over the course of the last two years, and that the FB protestors and I were not taking this into account. I acknowledged this but said that even with these substitutions and changes the percentage of women artists on these floors did not rise, and that these adjustments weren’t enough. (If you count the works of art, rather than artists, the figure drops to four percent women.) "

With Saltz's permission, Edward Winkleman has reprinted the critic's report.

This is a discussion worth following, wherever you follow it. If you're on FB, I think you can jump in to comment.

Marketing Mondays: Career Q&A with Jackie Battenfield

As promised, I'm back with a short interview with Jackie Battenfield, whose new book The Artist's Guide, was the subject of a Marketing Mondays post two weeks ago. If you've leafed through the book, or even simply read my report, you know that Jackie is a strong advocate for artists taking control of their careers. Since Jackie interviewed me for her book, I thought I would turn the tables and interview her for my blog.

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Jackie signing copies at her book launch at the Cue Art Foundation in New York City on June 18. Pics below are from the same event

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JM: Jackie, what has changed most since you started helping artists take control of their careers?
JB: When I first started lecturing there was no Internet. I think that [change] is huge. More than ever before in history, artists can connect with potential audiences. Also, the art world has expanded in that artists are engaged in more media work, video installations, combining media, erasing the boundaries between disciplines. It's all melded.

JM: Yes, but recently the art world has shrunk financially
JB: That has affected artists, but artists are pretty accustomed to living on margins. Not to underestimate how difficult it is to lose part-time job opportunities or a support network, but I'm hoping artists will use this time do the kind of planning they need to do to get through the future ups and downs. My book is about making a living in any economy.

JM: How?
JB: Hopefully every chapter of my book pops one myth after the other. For instance, the idea of supporting yourself only from sales of your work is a myth. Even very successful artists diversify their income, turning it into real estate or investments. Artists with successful gallery careers are teaching or doing freelance work.

JM: You talk a lot about 'multiple income streams.' There's a great little drawing in your book showing a woman on a platform supported by many poles: art sales, teaching, investments, residencies, grants, bartering, freelance.
JB: Multiple income streams ease out the big ups and downs. Very few artists are comfortable with a 24/7 studio practice. It’s very isolating. They have other talents and needs. Turn those into a source of income.

JM: For example?
JB: For example, I love working with other artists, so lecturing on career issues satisfies part of my personality, fulfills part of my income stream and it gives back. My tax preparator is an artist who loves numbers, my yoga teacher is an artist, and many of my friends have turned different skill sets into part-time work.
 

An animated Jackie and her rapt audience at Cue

JM: You also talk about generosity.
JB: You can give advice and time, and it may not come directly back from that person, but the generosity of spirit comes back. If you know of an opportunity and you don't share the information with others, don't think you'll be the only person who applies. If we model ourselves on generosity, others are more likely to be generous too.

JM: What was your biggest surprise researching the book?
JB: How difficult it was to turn the information I had been teaching for so many years into a readable text. It's one thing to give a talk and make up a one-page handout, quite another to turn it into a whole chapter in a book.

JM: What advice would you offer to artists?
JB: Artists often see No where there is no No. I noticed this when I was running the Rotunda Gallery [in Brooklyn]. An artist would approach me during an opening or on the street and ask me to come up and see their work. I'd say, 'Call me next week and we'll try to set something up,' and nine times out of ten they never followed up. I was pretty shocked at how often artists didn't follow up.

JM: Speaking of No, you've got a great line in the book: "If I'm not being regularly rejected, it means I'm not pursuing opportunities." Would you talk a bit more about rejection?
JB: Rejection isn’t personal. It’s not an indictment of your work. Just because someone likes and respects your work doesn’t mean they want to represent it or curate it into a show. There are a lot of other reasons why the work might not be selected. I don’t mean to say that rejection is not painful, but you have to keep at it. One Yes wipes out a hundred Nos.

Want to read more one on one? Amber Hawk Swanson interviews Jackie for the latest issue of the NYFA Current.

Three Smart Projects

(The discussion is still going strong at The Vanity Galleries post.)
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What interests me in general, and for this post specifically, is the way creative people tap their typically broad range of talents. Here, those talents are in service to broadening the arts dialog and offering opportunities to artists and an art-supporting public.
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1) Sharon Butler of Two Coats of Paint, is the blogger in residence at PBS's Art 21. She'll be at it for a couple of weeks. Check it out here. A strong visual artist (see below), Butler is also a very good writer who covers a lot of interesting territory. She also Twitters.
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2) I hate this economic downturn, but I love that artists can come up with something like 246 Editions, a print project run by artist Matthew Langley. Working out of Virginia, Langley is selling limited-edition digital prints of artists' work at truly affordable prices. "It's really about getting people to understand how living with art is a great thing," says Langley, who considers the income "micro grants for the artists."

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Left: Sharon Butler, Scanned Sketchbook, 2009, archival pigment print; right: Steven Alexander, Trans, 2009, archival pigment print. Images courtesy of 246 Editions

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"We want to connect people with art," says the blogsite--aka Langley. To that end, the project is offering new editions every week in two sizes: 8.5 x 11 for $20 in an edition of 100; and 11 x 14 for $50 in an edition of 50. (I've already ordered prints by Steven Alexander, Sharon Butler, and Matthew himself, and I have my eye on one by Douglas Witmer, too.)

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If you're in town: All the 246 Artists will be showing at Pocket Utopia with an opening on the 16th of July. "It is going to be Austin Thomas's last show at Pocket Utopia," says Langley, "so it will be great (I hope) but bittersweet as well.".

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3) Not planning to spend your weekends in the Hamptons? Michael Lyons Wier, of Lyons Wier Gallery in Chelsea, has announced an Art Bazaar at his gallery. A limited-run event, it's ingenious and generous (there's a $20 entry fee, but entry is first-come-first served), and looks to be an opportunity for both artists and art collectors. "We are excited about thinking outside of our 'white' box , says Lyons Wier.

Read on (info verbatim from the e-mail message), but get the specifics from the gallery website before schlepping your stuff over:

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Art Bazaar

Starting: Saturday, July 4th, 10:00 am

Dates: July 4th thru Aug 16th (Weekends only )

Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 10:00am-8:00 pm

Address: 175 Seventh Ave @ 20th St.

The Art Bazaar is an open call to all artists on Saturdays and Sundays, beginning July 4th thru August 16th, who wish to display and sell their artwork at Lyons Wier Gallery. The gallery doors will open at 8:00 am for artists to install their work and the Art Bazaar will open to the public at 10:00 am. Artists will be admitted on a "first come, first serve" basis, and admittance will cease once the gallery is full. Participating artists will be fully responsible for setting their prices and for hanging and selling their work during this two-day period. Each artist will be allocated an area to exhibit and must be present during the entire time.

There is no price structure, no visual filter for inclusion and no politics for entrance other than a willingness to show up, step-up and sell the work. At the end of the seven-weekend period of the Art Bazaar, the top selling artist will be awarded a solo exhibition at Lyons Wier Gallery in 2010.
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Summer Guest House at Marcia Wood Gallery

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Summer Guest House, at Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta

Installation view: Summer Wheat, Excerpt from a Prison Letter, 2008, sculpted and sewn wax and oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches; Betsy Cain, shop, 2009, reflective tape on stop sign, 24 x 24 inches; four of my paintrings from the Silk Road and Vicolo series; Mary O' Horo, Dust and Wave, 2009, ink and acrylic on panel, 6 x 24 inches

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June 26 - August 1, 2009
Opening Reception Friday June 26, 7 - 10 pm
This evening is also in conjunction with the Castleberry Hill Artstroll

Click here for more

Summer Guest House is an eclectic gathering of artists mixing it up at a summer happening. Marcia Wood Gallery artists have invited regional artists as their guests to exhibit work in this delightful visual conflation.

Guest Artists are Betsy Cain, Lisa Clague, Lorie Corbus, Mary Farmer, Julio Garcia, Scott Griffin, Rocky Horton, Lance Ledbetter, Mia Merlin, Mary O'Horo, Shana Robbins, Rocio Rodriguez, Ben Steele, Summer Wheat and Cosmo Whyte.

Host Artists are Frances Barth, Amber Boardman, Philip Carpenter, Monica Cook, Mary Engel, Jason Fulford, Marcus Kenney, Alan Loehle, Joanne Mattera, Chris Scarborough and Pamela Sunstrum.
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The opening on Friday, June 26, during the Castleberry Art Stroll. Click here for a link to my exhibition page, which shows images of my work and that of my guests, or go right to the gallery site, where you can see a sampling of everyone's.
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Three Blog Questions (Help!)

1) Is there a way to save my blog to my hard drive, or to get it onto a flash drive, in the format it's in? .
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2) What do I do when I've reached my blog limit? (I'm at about 68% now)
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3) If I decide to go go a different site, how to I take all my blog posts with me?

Marketing Mondays: The Follow Up

(The discussion is still going strong at The Vanity Galleries post.)

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In the Comments section of the Marketing Mondays on Defining Success (two weeks ago), artist Henry Bateman offered this anecdote: "Being introduced to the director/curator of a class 'A' gallery and have her say 'So you're Henry Bateman!' Is that success? The question is being asked by my bank balance."

I responded: Tell your bank account to shut up for a spell and enjoy the moment. Then follow up.

Today we talk about the follow up. I don’t know Henry, so I hope he doesn’t mind that I use our exchange as a jumping off point. His situation is a good one, because he has an opportunity to pursue the interest shown him.

If I were Henry, here's what I might do:

. Send a postcard to the director/curator saying that I enjoyed meeting her, and that as an artist it's always gratifying to have someone in her position be aware of my work. I'd invite her for a studio visit. Need I mention that the postcard would have an image of my work on the front and the URL to my website?
. Alternatively, an e-mail saying the same thing, with a live link to my website.
. . . What I wouldn’t do: Tell her I think I'm perfect for her gallery and that she should give me a show. Or ask her to give me a show. I would not call her.
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. I'd invite her to my next solo show if it's local. A note on the invitation, or a note with the invitation is sufficient. If I had a catalog for the show I'd definitely send it, along with the invitation. I might acknowledge a shared esthetic sensibility, if that were the case.
. If the show is going to a distant gallery, I’d invite her for a studio preview before I send it off. (In fact, if you have a good local following, why not have a "send off" party before the work leaves your studio? Sure, you’re exhausted from the effort of getting the show finished, but since you’re already running on fumes at that point, why not go the extra mile.)
. . . What I wouldn’t do: Overwhelm her with a package with all the images, the resume, the statement. Since she's already aware of me and my work, an update with links is sufficient
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. If she responds positively, I'd prepare a small packet of materials for her, something she can hold onto (ideally) and dip into when she's conceptualizing a show. Dealers and curators may not tell you this, but they often watch an artist from a distance to see where that person is showing, what kind of critical response the work gets, what the buzz in the art community is about the artist. Curators, especially, hold onto catalogs and postcards
. If there's absolutely no response to any of this from the director/curator, I'd probably keep her on my mailing list and leave it at that
. . . What I wouldn't do: Interest or no, I would not hound her. She's busy, I'm busy. She's now more aware of me than ever because of the recent exchange and my followup. Mailing list followup is all I would do from here on out until I receive a followup from her.
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. And of course I'd visit the gallery regularly. You want a relationship with a gallery? Show up. Relate! Dealers don't operate in a vacuum. They appreciate knowing their creative efforts are appreciated. If you like the show, say so. Say why. Don't offer a dissertation, just a few smart and kind words.
. . . What I wouldn’t do: I would not interrupt a dealer is s/he's busy. And I definitely would not go into the dealer's office to initiate a conversation.
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Artists: How do you follow up?
Dealers and Curators: What kind of follow up do you prefer? Or not prefer?
Everyone: Just to put this whole discussion into perspective, read This Summer, Some Galleries Are Sweating, by Dorothy Spears in the June 19 issue of The New York Times.
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(And speaking of following up, next week I'll have a short interview with Jackie Battenfield, author The Artist's Guide, the book I reviewed last week, along with some pics from the book party at Cue.) .

The Collecting Life

(The discussion is still going strong at The Vanity Galleries post.)

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Dorothy and Herb Vogel in the kitchen of their one-bedroom New York City apartment, surrounded by a tiny fraction of their collection

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I am in love with two elderly collectors! I’m talking about Herb and Dorothy Vogel, subjects of a touching and inspiring documentary, Herb & Dorothy, by Megumi Sasaki. A postal worker and librarian respectively, now both retired, they spent every free moment looking at art and every spare dollar buying it.

Focusing on unknown artists at the beginning of their careers, the Vogels amassed on a shoestring a world-class collection of Minimal and Conceptual Art that is a snapshot of the New York art world in the 60s and 70s. Their criteria: “It had to be affordable and it had to fit into the apartment,” says Dorothy in the film.

Herb, left, and Dorothy, far right, in the studio of Pat Steir (back to camera)
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Recently they donated their collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It went intact, some 4000-plus works. The Vogels had a pretty good eye. The “unknowns” turned out to be the likes of Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis, Richard Tuttle, Robert and Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Chuck Close, Donald Judd, Christo and Jeanne Claude, and Pat Steir—many of whom pay homage to the Vogels in the film, some quite humorously.

Those are the facts. But it is the story of the Vogels themselves—told through interviews, photographs, archival footage of them traipsing through SoHo, and of more current scenes of them with the artists—that is the heart and soul of this film. To tell you more is to take away the pleasure of seeing that story unfold.

I have two suggestions: Go see the movie. Start buying art.

Above: Dorothy and Herb at the national gallery of Art, viewing their names recently added to the Donor Wall

Below: The collectors in Central Park a couple of years ago at the opening of the Christo and Jeanne Claude installation, The Gates.

View the trailer here

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Witmer, Patterson at Painting Center

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These Painting Center shows are down (April 22-May 23), but I didn’t want them to pass unnoticed at JMAB. Douglas Witmer 's Field and Stream, a group of small easel-size paintings was in the small Project Room. Field and Sream is the name of a hunting and fishing magazine (not sure if it's still published), so I assume Witmer's reference is to his terrain of solid color placed over an aqueous background of foggy and mutable gray. The balance of materiality and ephemerality, geometric and atmospheric, is just right.

Above: Douglas Witmer installation; below: an individual work. Sorry, neither the gallery website nor the artist's website gives specifics, and I don't have them in my notes, but the work looks to be oil on linen

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In the larger gallery up front, Carrie Patterson 's work was part of a three-artist show called Placing Color. I responded to Patterson's aproach to painting: numerous discrete canvases that appear to be built into one, and indeed her references are architectural.

Carrie Patterson, from the group show Placing Color. This work: 18 ft. St. Francis Xavier, 2008, acrylic on linen, 75 x 32 x 2 inches

I also liked the visual conversation that took place between her work and Witmer's, particularly those broad strokes of color asserting themselves over the whisper of unprimed or lightly stained canvas. Read more here.
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