Update:
Since this essay was written, the Arts organization in question, is in fiscal difficulty. I take not an iota of Schadenfreude in their situation but if the organization has difficulty finding artists in CT, unsurprisingly the NEA had equal difficulty finding Art and return on art investment in the organization. OBVIOUSLY, there's a bigger problem than funding at work here.
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This is a second in a series of blogs about why good and great art in Connecticut are ignored.
The conversation I had with the Arts organization Visual Arts co-ordinator a few weeks ago yielded a nugget worth examining. After a series of exchanges that all ended with co-ordinator asserting that "We [her organization] just can't find artists [in Connecticut]" she mentioned that "maybe the people putting together a Connecticut Arts list will make it easier" [again I'm paraphrasing].
So I went home and looked them up - CT Art List. They had a pretty decent Facebook page that essentially aggregated Connecticut Art shows - not the worst thing that could happen. But what piqued my interest was their Artist Gallery page. Here they display the names of Connecticut artists and a .jpg of their work.
This gallery gives the impression that they're aggregating a comprehensive list of Connecticut artists of the kind my delusional arts organization friend "just could not find". So I submitted my name and a representative piece of work and waited.
About a week later I received a generic letter that stated, "We have received your application and we are carefully reviewing it. If you are chosen, you will have a page/section created on our Curated Image Bank. If you are not, we encourage you to keep on creating and continue to follow CT ArtList on Facebook, Twitter and on our website. Please submit any events you may have or you know of and we'll do our best to get them up on our site."
The minute I received this I was tempted to write, "Why call yourself Connecticut Art List if you have no interest in artists in Connecticut?" But I didn't, thinking that I'd let this play out.
So days later, I start poking around their website. What's this?
"The curated image bank currently features 28 artists from every corner of the state, and in all different stages of their careers. An overwhelming majority of the featured artists are graduates of Connecticut art schools- most with advanced degrees."
Soooo... "Curated" basically means academically credentialed artists [only]. Sweet. Art history teaches us that that's where most great art comes from or, as the Borat character might say, - NOT!
Rather than rant and rave about this site, their pretentiousness, and the tone-deaf claim that it's some kind of art list representing state artists, let's chalk it up as yet-another-me and mine-first-self-serving art site looking to cash in on the suckers who get signed up.
This isn't new or news. Brooklyn Art Project gave me the same rash. There are others. They advertise themselves as being a resource to you when in fact you are an unpaid, unrecognized asset [potential web consumer] to them.
The sad, pernicious fact is that CT Arts organizations that receive government funding are gamed to serve very specific, inside constituencies. Their ties to academia and their closed-minded ideas about art and appetite for monopolizing art funding and venues exclude independent artists from the game.
As artists we are emotionally manipulated into feeling sorry for the poor self-serving bureaucrats who "just can't find..." us. In business, these people would have to explain their conflicts of interest but in the art world we treat them like the victim.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Artists Worthy of Attention
I recently had two conversations about the state of art in Connecticut that I'm fairly certain are probably very much the same elsewhere.
In one conversation, someone intimated that they knew a docent who was familiar with the review and acceptance criteria to be considered for a one person show at a local museum. According to this reliable source, applications would be dismissed unless an artist had been mentioned as an "Artist Under Forty" to watch or someone whose CV had already included a show of distinction at a museum or gallery of renown.
The second conversation was with a representative from a big city Arts Organization who was visiting one of the many open drawing sessions available to artists in the area.The meme had been floated that the individual might be instrumental in curating a show of drawings from such drawing sessions.
So the individual spent a few minutes speaking with this one and that and got to me.
My first question was, "why doesn't your organization promote more local artists?" I will paraphrase what followed.
Leaning to me, the person confided, "We try, we really do but *we just can't find* artists in Connecticut [presumably worthy enough for consideration]. We have a yearly show that you can apply to have a show to that used to be called, Artists under 40 but we changed that. This year we feature an artist who used to live in Connecticut."
I pointed out a handful of worthy artists in the room saying something to the effect, "Here they are!"
The person then said, as if the people in the room were invisible, "I hear there's another drawing session... [elsewhere]."
"Yes, and there are good artists there too." And I mentioned this one and that. "So why can't you promote local artists [and I wasn't speaking of hobbyists]?
Again. "I told you we have *such a hard time* finding artists in Connecticut."
"But isn't that part of your job [given that the organization uses local contributions to run itself]?"
"We have so little money to work with..."
"Then why not hold pop-up shows in all the empty storefronts in Hartford [...Bridgeport, Willimantic, Norwich...]?"
Oh, I don't have time for that - I had to drive to New York to pick up work...[for the next show].
Shortly after going through this circular logic a little more, the art detective moved to the next person.
There is a special kind of insult that is experienced when someone "looking for artists" looks you eye-to-eye and confides that they "can't find them."
I've been making art since I was a young child and off and on for about fifty-five years. I'm familiar with the games and fairly indifferent to them. But every once in awhile... it stings.
In one conversation, someone intimated that they knew a docent who was familiar with the review and acceptance criteria to be considered for a one person show at a local museum. According to this reliable source, applications would be dismissed unless an artist had been mentioned as an "Artist Under Forty" to watch or someone whose CV had already included a show of distinction at a museum or gallery of renown.
The second conversation was with a representative from a big city Arts Organization who was visiting one of the many open drawing sessions available to artists in the area.The meme had been floated that the individual might be instrumental in curating a show of drawings from such drawing sessions.
So the individual spent a few minutes speaking with this one and that and got to me.
My first question was, "why doesn't your organization promote more local artists?" I will paraphrase what followed.
Leaning to me, the person confided, "We try, we really do but *we just can't find* artists in Connecticut [presumably worthy enough for consideration]. We have a yearly show that you can apply to have a show to that used to be called, Artists under 40 but we changed that. This year we feature an artist who used to live in Connecticut."
I pointed out a handful of worthy artists in the room saying something to the effect, "Here they are!"
The person then said, as if the people in the room were invisible, "I hear there's another drawing session... [elsewhere]."
"Yes, and there are good artists there too." And I mentioned this one and that. "So why can't you promote local artists [and I wasn't speaking of hobbyists]?
Again. "I told you we have *such a hard time* finding artists in Connecticut."
"But isn't that part of your job [given that the organization uses local contributions to run itself]?"
"We have so little money to work with..."
"Then why not hold pop-up shows in all the empty storefronts in Hartford [...Bridgeport, Willimantic, Norwich...]?"
Oh, I don't have time for that - I had to drive to New York to pick up work...[for the next show].
Shortly after going through this circular logic a little more, the art detective moved to the next person.
There is a special kind of insult that is experienced when someone "looking for artists" looks you eye-to-eye and confides that they "can't find them."
I've been making art since I was a young child and off and on for about fifty-five years. I'm familiar with the games and fairly indifferent to them. But every once in awhile... it stings.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
John E. Melecsinsky at the Miss Porter's School Gilbert Gallery Review
Visual Art
John E. Melecsinsky at the Gilbert Gallery, a review by Frank W. Krasicki
The Gilbert Gallery at Miss Porter’s School on 60 Main St. in Farmington, CT is hosting a one-man show of ink drawings, pastels, and paintings from August 27 - September 29. There are 48 pieces on display and they represent a micro retrospective of the work by one of Connecticut and the nation’s finest living Artists.
John Melecsinsky often prefers to be called John Mel by friends and acquaintances and signs his work JEM. He doesn’t care for titles either. The work in the show is numbered but don’t let that fool you. Many of the pieces have a back story that John is willing to share.
John’s pen and ink drawings are simply exquisite and disarmingly sophisticated. The work in this show consists of either flowers or nudes. These are careful studies of flowers aching to bloom, John captures the moment in which these subjects anticipate opening to the world. And John’s pen and ink flowers, like Robert Mapplethorpe's Lily photographs and Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings, drip with unspoken, erotic irony. Melecsinsky is a master of line, posture, and a sneaky, subtle abstraction that transforms his subjects ever so imperceptibly. You’ve never seen flowers. This. Way.
When the subject of his pen and ink drawings turns to the human figure the result is even more interesting. All John’s drawings are frugal exercises. The human figure is captured by very few strokes of the pen. And these strokes are ever so lightly drawn - just enough observational detail to capture the ribs, the toes, the magnificent hands, and the contorted husk of body. These drawings embrace minimalist sentiments even as they softly abstract the viewer’s sense of space. These are not always single point of view drawings. Often John’s drawings introduce many individual points of view concatenated together as visually plausible yet impossible visions.
The subject of Melecsinsky’s pastels and oil paintings is often Italian landscape. A long time ago, John was adopted by Florentines and John’s love affair with Italy is in full display in this show. John’s Italian landscapes are to pastels what Degas pastels are to ballerinas. John’s pastel and oil technique is called Divisionism the separation and composition of autonomous dots marks of color that invite the viewer’s eyes to blend the colors - the colors are not mixed on the paper or canvas.
The result is that his pastels shimmer with rare clarity and energy. His landscapes breathe and have a life. And the color effect is breathtaking. The pastels are almost shocking in detail.
Melecsinsky no longer paints. “I just gave it up”, he says with a shrug. The Italian studies in this show were painted decades ago in this same divisionist technique. Yet these oils are strangely beautiful. A number of these paintings exhibit are starkly delineated by incestuous color that curls, twists, and wraps itself within the subject; a garden, a view, or a courtyard. Divisionist paintings look vaguely Pointillistic but are not. By the hands of a master artist Divisionism is more sophisticated than Pointillism. These paintings are unusual that way. These pieces belong to an art history yet to be written, an American art retrospective yet to be curated.
Included in the show are works that date back to Melecsinsky’s formative years as a young artist. It’s a show that illustrates a process of artistic growth and exploration through maturity
and now the peaceful bliss of line drawing and pastel. John is often a gallery sitter on weekends at the Art League of New Britain where he quietly works on the more painstakingly detailed works surrounded by the artwork of Connecticut’s emerging art scene. For art lovers who care to meet the artist, he will engage you in enjoying the art in the gallery or relating tales of his latest yearly visit to Florence, Italy.
The reception that was held on September 22, attracted a large, wonderful mix of patrons that included many fellow artists, friends, art lovers, and visionaries.
Miss Porter’s School website is: www.porters.org and you can call the Visual Arts Department for Gallery visiting hours: 860.409.3701. The Art League of New Britain website is: http://www.alnb.org .
John E. Melecsinsky at the Gilbert Gallery, a review by Frank W. Krasicki
The Gilbert Gallery at Miss Porter’s School on 60 Main St. in Farmington, CT is hosting a one-man show of ink drawings, pastels, and paintings from August 27 - September 29. There are 48 pieces on display and they represent a micro retrospective of the work by one of Connecticut and the nation’s finest living Artists.
John Melecsinsky often prefers to be called John Mel by friends and acquaintances and signs his work JEM. He doesn’t care for titles either. The work in the show is numbered but don’t let that fool you. Many of the pieces have a back story that John is willing to share.
John’s pen and ink drawings are simply exquisite and disarmingly sophisticated. The work in this show consists of either flowers or nudes. These are careful studies of flowers aching to bloom, John captures the moment in which these subjects anticipate opening to the world. And John’s pen and ink flowers, like Robert Mapplethorpe's Lily photographs and Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings, drip with unspoken, erotic irony. Melecsinsky is a master of line, posture, and a sneaky, subtle abstraction that transforms his subjects ever so imperceptibly. You’ve never seen flowers. This. Way.
When the subject of his pen and ink drawings turns to the human figure the result is even more interesting. All John’s drawings are frugal exercises. The human figure is captured by very few strokes of the pen. And these strokes are ever so lightly drawn - just enough observational detail to capture the ribs, the toes, the magnificent hands, and the contorted husk of body. These drawings embrace minimalist sentiments even as they softly abstract the viewer’s sense of space. These are not always single point of view drawings. Often John’s drawings introduce many individual points of view concatenated together as visually plausible yet impossible visions.
The subject of Melecsinsky’s pastels and oil paintings is often Italian landscape. A long time ago, John was adopted by Florentines and John’s love affair with Italy is in full display in this show. John’s Italian landscapes are to pastels what Degas pastels are to ballerinas. John’s pastel and oil technique is called Divisionism the separation and composition of autonomous dots marks of color that invite the viewer’s eyes to blend the colors - the colors are not mixed on the paper or canvas.
The result is that his pastels shimmer with rare clarity and energy. His landscapes breathe and have a life. And the color effect is breathtaking. The pastels are almost shocking in detail.
Melecsinsky no longer paints. “I just gave it up”, he says with a shrug. The Italian studies in this show were painted decades ago in this same divisionist technique. Yet these oils are strangely beautiful. A number of these paintings exhibit are starkly delineated by incestuous color that curls, twists, and wraps itself within the subject; a garden, a view, or a courtyard. Divisionist paintings look vaguely Pointillistic but are not. By the hands of a master artist Divisionism is more sophisticated than Pointillism. These paintings are unusual that way. These pieces belong to an art history yet to be written, an American art retrospective yet to be curated.
05/15/2024 - update
Before John died, John corrected my reference to Divisionism. He spoke about visiting Italy and being fascinated by the native trees that glimmered when the slightest breeze caught their leaves. He flicked his hand back and forth from palm to backhand. *That* is the effect he capyired in these paintings.
Included in the show are works that date back to Melecsinsky’s formative years as a young artist. It’s a show that illustrates a process of artistic growth and exploration through maturity
and now the peaceful bliss of line drawing and pastel. John is often a gallery sitter on weekends at the Art League of New Britain where he quietly works on the more painstakingly detailed works surrounded by the artwork of Connecticut’s emerging art scene. For art lovers who care to meet the artist, he will engage you in enjoying the art in the gallery or relating tales of his latest yearly visit to Florence, Italy.
The reception that was held on September 22, attracted a large, wonderful mix of patrons that included many fellow artists, friends, art lovers, and visionaries.
Miss Porter’s School website is: www.porters.org and you can call the Visual Arts Department for Gallery visiting hours: 860.409.3701. The Art League of New Britain website is: http://www.alnb.org .
Monday, August 6, 2012
Monet's Garden at the Botanical Gardens in New York
Saturday (a scorcher) Kathy and I visited the Monet exhibition at the Botanical Gardens in New York.
Sad to say, I found the exhibit disappointing. This is not to say that visiting the gardens is a waste of time or money. The Botanical Gardens are a great way to spend an afternoon.
However, the Monet themed exhibit simply did not live up to expectations. What I had expected was a recreation of the actual gardens. What the exhibit is is simply an arrangement of flowers that Monet's garden contained. This is all nicely arranged but unimpressive.
Likewise, there are but two Monet paintings on display. These supplemented by dozens of enlarged photographs of the painter and his garden. The photographs of his current garden are bland. The exhibit also features a BBC video about Monet which is available on YouTube and is a snoozer.
They would have been far better served showing Waldemar Januszczak's superior take on the Impressionists.
Here's a takeaway;
Sad to say, I found the exhibit disappointing. This is not to say that visiting the gardens is a waste of time or money. The Botanical Gardens are a great way to spend an afternoon.
However, the Monet themed exhibit simply did not live up to expectations. What I had expected was a recreation of the actual gardens. What the exhibit is is simply an arrangement of flowers that Monet's garden contained. This is all nicely arranged but unimpressive.
Likewise, there are but two Monet paintings on display. These supplemented by dozens of enlarged photographs of the painter and his garden. The photographs of his current garden are bland. The exhibit also features a BBC video about Monet which is available on YouTube and is a snoozer.
They would have been far better served showing Waldemar Januszczak's superior take on the Impressionists.
Here's a takeaway;
Gustav Klimt at the German Museum
Friday evening, Kathy and I joined some friends in attending the Gustav Klimt show at the German Museum in New York. As a first of the month Friday evening, the show was free beginning at 7 p.m.
Needless to say, the line stretched halfway around the long city block. The show is great as was the HEINRICH KUEHN AND HIS AMERICAN CIRCLE: ALFRED STIEGLITZ AND EDWARD STEICHEN exhibit upstairs. A fascinating study of the photographic pioneers.
Rineke Dijkstra At the Guggenheim
This is my informal review of the Rineke Dijkstra Reytrospective currently at the Guggenheim.
I must first disclose that I am rarely a fan of photographic attempts at art. Unlike just about any other artistic medium, photography is so cheap and easy and voluminous that it seems to drown itself in oceans of ubiquitous mediocrity.
I left the Dijkstra Retrospective a fan of her artistic work and merit. The images used to advertise this show I think do it a disservice. The photos of gangling teenagers are inseparable from one another. Like Warhol, Dijkstra's context is serial. A single photograph lacks the ambient charisma that viewing a series of these pieces offers.
In one series, Dijkstra's photos of teenagers posing at the edge of a beach present an intellectual sweetness that is hauntingly familiar to adult viewers. The subjects are all too humanly average. these are not fashion models. These are pictures of the human limbo that teenage immaturity force us all to endure and transcend. This juxtaposition of teenagers standing on a beach that exists at the whim of nature beautifully complements the natural insecurity that these models in fact embody. These photos represent an uncertain in-between space and time. This is the power of these figures.
Another series are a set of videos of young people dancing. Again, I must confess that I rarely care for art videos. They demand precious time and often fail to deliver a value add beyond what could have been a still piece well done.
Dijkstra's videos however isolate each dancer in a neutral space that acts as a metaphysical void through which we watch their actions. And this is key - while their dance is a performance, the performance exists within a documentary set of actions to which we bear witness. There is a beginning, middle, and end to all of Dijkstra's videos. The middle sections are what the subjects think its all about.
The beginning and end sections serve to frame and subvert that premise. The result is neither a narrative nor a story. These dance videos are studies in the human behavior of young adults - first as self-conscious subjects and then as actors through which the music unleashes the sub-conscious. The videos are hypnotic and riveting.
My wife and I attended this show together. Kathy took advantage of the audio headphone commentary device and I chose not to thinking that it would not add value to what I wanted to simply enjoy as an artist looking at other artists. It was a mistake on my part. The audio commentary includes interviews with Dijkstra's subjects who talk about their experiences as subjects, what they were thinking, and how they view it now.
Another video installation involves a multi-screen exercise in which school children attempt to explain a Woman Weeping painting (presumably a Picasso) that we as observers never see. The result, again, is (almost too predictably) fascinating. But it works and it works well. A similar video shows up later in the show in which a young girl is asked to listen to her favorite op song. The girl reveals herself to be most comfortable singing along. The silences in between reveal the insecurity of self.
There are numerous other series that represent the body of Dijkstra's work and I recommend them all wholeheartedly. This is an outstanding show. The fact that it is coupled with Art of Another Kind and the Thannhauser Collection is just all the more reason to prioritize this show when you are in the city.
I found the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit disappointing. I must remain neutral about the Kandinsky show - he is simply one of my very favorite artists of that period. Always a treat to see.
I must first disclose that I am rarely a fan of photographic attempts at art. Unlike just about any other artistic medium, photography is so cheap and easy and voluminous that it seems to drown itself in oceans of ubiquitous mediocrity.
I left the Dijkstra Retrospective a fan of her artistic work and merit. The images used to advertise this show I think do it a disservice. The photos of gangling teenagers are inseparable from one another. Like Warhol, Dijkstra's context is serial. A single photograph lacks the ambient charisma that viewing a series of these pieces offers.
In one series, Dijkstra's photos of teenagers posing at the edge of a beach present an intellectual sweetness that is hauntingly familiar to adult viewers. The subjects are all too humanly average. these are not fashion models. These are pictures of the human limbo that teenage immaturity force us all to endure and transcend. This juxtaposition of teenagers standing on a beach that exists at the whim of nature beautifully complements the natural insecurity that these models in fact embody. These photos represent an uncertain in-between space and time. This is the power of these figures.
Another series are a set of videos of young people dancing. Again, I must confess that I rarely care for art videos. They demand precious time and often fail to deliver a value add beyond what could have been a still piece well done.
Dijkstra's videos however isolate each dancer in a neutral space that acts as a metaphysical void through which we watch their actions. And this is key - while their dance is a performance, the performance exists within a documentary set of actions to which we bear witness. There is a beginning, middle, and end to all of Dijkstra's videos. The middle sections are what the subjects think its all about.
The beginning and end sections serve to frame and subvert that premise. The result is neither a narrative nor a story. These dance videos are studies in the human behavior of young adults - first as self-conscious subjects and then as actors through which the music unleashes the sub-conscious. The videos are hypnotic and riveting.
My wife and I attended this show together. Kathy took advantage of the audio headphone commentary device and I chose not to thinking that it would not add value to what I wanted to simply enjoy as an artist looking at other artists. It was a mistake on my part. The audio commentary includes interviews with Dijkstra's subjects who talk about their experiences as subjects, what they were thinking, and how they view it now.
Another video installation involves a multi-screen exercise in which school children attempt to explain a Woman Weeping painting (presumably a Picasso) that we as observers never see. The result, again, is (almost too predictably) fascinating. But it works and it works well. A similar video shows up later in the show in which a young girl is asked to listen to her favorite op song. The girl reveals herself to be most comfortable singing along. The silences in between reveal the insecurity of self.
There are numerous other series that represent the body of Dijkstra's work and I recommend them all wholeheartedly. This is an outstanding show. The fact that it is coupled with Art of Another Kind and the Thannhauser Collection is just all the more reason to prioritize this show when you are in the city.
I found the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit disappointing. I must remain neutral about the Kandinsky show - he is simply one of my very favorite artists of that period. Always a treat to see.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
WAH Salon Show Closing
Last week, I managed to captue a few snapshots of the closing hours of the WAH Salon Show. S. David was there reciting poetry and numerous artists were socializing. Here's a few pictures of the festivity.
 |
| Jeffrey Berman chatting with an unidentified patron |
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| Bienvenido B. Banez |
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| Poet Bogar Alonzo |
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| My entry, Bull Market, lower center painting |
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| Bogar inviting everyone to his poetry reading after dinner |
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| S. David bringing a smile to Yuko |
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| S. David explaining Milton to Yuko |
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| S. David offering a poem about the piece he's pointing to |
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Dynamic View Gotchas
I converted my art blog into a dynamic view. The instant I did it wiped out months of work in gadgets, links, and related material.
I had to start tis blog to recover all that material.
The next thing I learned is that dynamic links won't act as RSS feeds to other blogs such as this. Double bummer.
I had to start tis blog to recover all that material.
The next thing I learned is that dynamic links won't act as RSS feeds to other blogs such as this. Double bummer.
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