I have one painting, Having in Mind, in the upcoming group exhibition “Inside/Out” at Ellarslie:

The Trenton City Museum @ Ellarslie
Cadwalader Park, Trenton
August 2 - September 14, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 9, from 5pm-8pm

To paraphrase an oft-cited (and sometimes misattributed) quote about tourists, “If it’s group show season, why can’t we shoot them?”  Many of the galleries in Chelsea have group shows on display as their final exhibition before August recess.  Not that there’s anything wrong with group shows, but if you go to Chelsea often it does mean that you’ll get to see some pieces you’ve seen before.  Because many of these shows are just collections of the gallery’s artists, there might not be any curatorial theme to the show beyond, “Here are our artists.”

One group show that does have a common theme is the nice collection of representational work at George Billis Gallery.  “City Light” contains a plethora of cityscapes by gallery artists.  Friend of a friend Andrew Jones has a fine oil painting in the show (”Bank Street Twilight”), part of his ongoing quest to capture the light on the stoops and iron railings near his NYC home.  Other memorable work at Billis includes some Rackstraw Downes-like panoramic cityscapes as well as a collection of very small, square, detailed street traffic scenes.

At Allen Gallery, Sharon Weiner’s exhibition “Dreamscicle” includes a number of corpuscular abstractions that are the stars of the show.  These layered paintings are full of red blobs that read as blood cells or, perhaps, figures.

The only other show I visited in Chelsea that really kept my attention was the Philip Pearlstein show at Betty Cunningham which contrasts some of the artist’s work from the 1960’s with work from the 1990’s through today.  I’ve always liked Pearlstein’s paintings and always enjoy studying them carefully, from composition to coloration to paint application.  In the early works, it’s mostly the figures who take center stage, though they are often cropped mid-limb for abstract purposes.  Later on, Pearlstein includes all manner of props (such as a Michelin man and a zeppelin).  I find that I can’t help but think about the artist’s process when looking at these paintings — what was the studio like, how did he choose the props, were the models posing at the same time?  As I’ve mentioned before, one of my criteria in evaluating an exhibition is whether it makes me want to go home and paint, and this one certainly does: as you look at the works you get a visceral feeling of palettes, paints, mixing, layers, and composition.  (And for some extra fun, I sometimes like to see who else has signed the guest book.  For this show, I signed right under art critic Jerry Saltz and artist Robert Bechtle, whose work I enjoyed at this year’s Whitney Biennial.)

I’ve been trying to post blog entries about shows that I’ve seen before I see reviews of those shows by others.  By doing this, I hope to both calibrate my eye as well as to declare my opinions untainted by the views of professional art critics.  Due to a busy schedule, though, I wasn’t able to write up this report on the J.M.W. Turner show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through Sep 21) prior to seeing the review by Roberta Smith in the New York Times.  She managed to capture my impressions of the show exceedingly well:

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘J.M.W. Turner’ is a beast of a show. With nearly 150 works in oil and watercolor spanning more than half a century, it will either win you over or wear you out. Or it will alternate, gallery by gallery, or wall by wall, as the art swings between overblown and moving, inspired and mechanical.” [Roberta Smith]

This is precisely the way you feel as you go through the show.  You see one piece of inspired, creative, brushy, abstracted mood, followed by rather boring, repetitive, flat seascape.  Having long admired the two large Turner paintings in The Frick Collection’s west gallery, I was expecting more work along those lines, beautifully capturing light and reflection.  I must admit that I hadn’t realized that Turner was so very… maritime.  If scenes of boats thrashing about in storm-tossed waters don’t do it for you, you’ll get tired of this show rather quickly.

Given that many of the works are expressive seascapes with brushy paint, it was surprising that so many of the surfaces of these paintings were relatively flat.  Not much in the way of crusty paint peaking off the canvas.

My favorite painting in the show was probably Saltash with Water Ferry (1811), which was beautifully composed and rendered and had a compelling mixture of crisp and soft edges.  This was one of the few paintings where, upon closer examination, the figures didn’t look cartoonish.  In most of the other works that include figures, it seems as if Turner couldn’t quite decide how much detail he should include.

It’s worth seeing this show, as it’s the first major retrospective of Turner in America and a chance to see a good chunk of his output all at once.  But one final quote from Roberta Smith:  “It is almost as if his drive to capture nature or history in motion was so intense that it didn’t leave room for anyone else, including the viewer. Maybe that’s why despite all his hard work and even the majesty of his vision, you can emerge from this exhibition impressed but oddly untouched, even chilled.”

I’ve just finished a painting entitled, “Arising” (30 x 30 inches, acrylic on panel).

In Euro-update update, the Cognitive Daily blog addresses the age-old question, “But is it art?”, with an amusing and heated discussion about whether a photo of a person staring at three white canvases is art (a follow-up to an earlier post about whether the three white canvases themselves are art).

The discussions are enough to make your head hurt but it’s interesting to see how passionate people still can be about this subject so many years after Duchamp (and Warhol, Prince, Minimalism, etc., etc.).

My own two cents: If something is created with the intent of being art, then it’s art; or, if something is displayed with the intent of being art, then it’s art.  Quality is an entirely separate matter, raising issues of taste, market forces, influence, originality, creativity, technical standards, and yes, intent (if the intent was to create three blank canvases, then the artist succeeded; if the intent was to create a lush green landscape, then the three blank canvases don’t do a good job).

Okay, this isn’t really an art-related post, but I loved the title ;-)  This is a photo of my humble garden and the weather event yonder.