Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Horse's Mouth: "I want to be an artist."





“B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.'

'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.'

'But Mr J-Jimson, there must be artists.'

'Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,' I said, 'and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk.”

― Joyce Cary,
The Horse's Mouth




 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Quotes: Richard Diebenkorn




"I can never accomplish what I want – only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand."


"My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business."



"I don't go into the studio with the idea of 'saying' something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue."


"My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings."


"If you get an image try to destroy it."


"As a work progresses, its power to elicit and dictate response mounts. There seems to be an optimum moment when this power is at its greatest which just precedes the point where 'elicit' is no longer apt usage. 'Dictates' is the word for this condition and tyranny is the adversary." 


"When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony... I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy."


"I trust the symbol that is arrived at in the making of the painting. Meaningful symbols aren't invented as such, they are made or discovered as symbol later."




2014 Whitney Houston Biennial: I'm Every Woman

(click to enlarge)

The Last Brucennial 2014: "So this is it. The grand finale. The coup de grĂ¢ce. The Last Brucennial. It’s going to be amazing."

Melissa Staiger, Esoteric Structure, 2013, mixed media on panel, 19x19 in.



The Bruce High Quality Foundation 
and Vito Schnabel present:

The Last Brucennial
March 6 - April 4, 2014
Opening March 6, 6-10 PM
837 Washington Street
New York, NY 10014

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Emil Nolde @ Van Doren Waxter






Very happy I had the chance to see the Emil Nolde watercolor show on its final day at Van Doren Waxter on the Upper East Side.

Looking forward to their next show: James Brooks: Paintings and Works on Paper-1945 - 1949


Emil Nolde: Expressions in Watercolor
January 24 - February 28, 2014
23 East 73rd Street
New York, NY 10021