Spiritual, universe, cross breeding, cusp, pleasantly calming

Result #1

Spiritual, universe, cross breeding, cusp, pleasantly calming ills, radicality, frankness, adult humor, sensuality, ecstasy, and dematerialization, as William Carlos Williamss famous aphoristic formulation puts it, are at once fearful and elated. They are brought to their senses by a work of our own making, no matter how passionately we want to believe we have made it, not to be served up to some patronizing aesthetic hierarchy. All of this, then, is mostly in terms of what I prefer not to have anything to do with anything, but to leave my own hand behind.Surely it is a wonder that a country so often but never quite confident of its artist-man could have had such great reason to cast off everything, no matter how many paintings are currently on display. But what if one were to measure the material richness of an art that has been hiding out in plain sight? It would seem, to me, that such a thing as depth is everywhere; if one would just try to grasp what lies beyond the surface, one would probably find a rich but desolate world.This exhibition, which features an impressive number of powerful works by twenty-two artists, is a remarkable show of the best of these artists. This summer, several of the artists have had their first show in New York, including renowned sculptors Jo Bochetti and Jean-Michel Serraldo, who together with one more must-have artist, Max Ernst, are currently promoting their highly personal, intimate, intimate and fascinating multi-media sculptures. These are rather successful, though not nearly as exciting as a gallery show; the work is not as energetic, funny or even self-contained as the show. Its the sheer strength and pure density of the figures, their self-contained forms, their sense of pithy humor, that are the most compelling. The sculptures are, quite frankly, as powerful as anything you would find in a store room.

Result #2

urns, vintage jars, shelf after storage, wallpaper, and shelf. By cultivating a scummy world, Jung masterfully deploys a variety of image systems to inoculate the body against the onslaught of desire. But only in this fashion can the viewer find a real possibility for escape. As much as art objects are thoroughly annihilated, the emotional realm, such as Jung thought, is immune to the kind of self-regulating, abstract logic that affirms the permanence of the object. And yet the monochrome painting, for all its diffusive power, still has its way with the body, as a zone of de facto esthetic innocence. It is this inner innocence that Jung sought to expose in the decorative, even sentimental, realms of popular culture, or as the essence of subversive art. But instead of seeking an innocence at odds with the desperately artificial, Jung was scorning the simulacrum, the simulacrum. His art was relentlessly nostalgic, refined, artisanal, and delectable. It could be described as a plant for change.

Result #3

Spiritual, universe, cross breeding, cusp, pleasantly calming vernacular. Her first solo exhibition in the US was titled The Divinity of the Body and was organized as a work in progress. Riffing on things like Jim Clark and A. R. Penck, the show included, among other objects, a bedsheet with a full sheet of white paper, arranged in a grid. The sheets were being cleaned and colored to mimic moss. The paper was produced by a not-for-profit religious group called the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There were no chairs in the room, and the only spectator was a kindhearted male priestess who read aloud from the texts on display.The visual overlap between Riffing on the divine and on the human is reflected in the two shows titles. In the catalogues, the divinity of the body is labeled at the top, the human at the bottom, the panel at the top, and so on. (The label Body and Divinity is missing from the catalogues.) Similarly, the cross has the divinity of the body in its name. And Riffing on the human and on the divine is the same. It is Riffing on the human who is in communication with the divinity.The status of these two shows was often tense. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse was first held in London, where it introduced a film by Martin Freeman, The Collapse of Rome, 2006, with a sequence of drawings and stained-glass casts of the citys buildings. (The imagery is modernist, in the sense of the tendency of modernism to suggest a harmonious order in chaos.) And Riffing on the divine was linked to a live installation, The Resurrection of Christ, 2009, by the mysterious Scottish artist, known for his performance of dead subjects, David Ferrell.

Result #4

ikebana, movie, art history, reading, Holy Spirit. Their vividness and their multivalent presence give the piece a living, breathing quality. Heavily infused with symbolism, it reveals itself in the moments when a literal or spiritual truth is revealed, or when the world is forced to unfold in an elegant form. All are presented in this delicate and thoughtful work.Because of the complexity of the titles and their meanings, the viewer has to consider them thoroughly, without applying any will or even some concept of grandeur. Man in his own body, in his own present form, is subject to a deeply felt, self-possessed mystery, a darkness. In Man with a Flying Wall, for example, the broken wall behind the wingless wall is punctured by a highly disturbed, open wound. Is it a depiction of a broken wall, an organ in a beak? Is it a wound, a scar? A full or partial organ, it is the most profound and crucial, the most characteristic and crucial element of man. And yet we cannot feel the pain of the broken wall, not even though we know how to read. The symbol of wisdom and of the vital force, wisdom and energy, it is a sacred sign.

Result #5

Spiritual, universe, cross breeding, cusp, pleasantly calming vernacular, the mythic, hum. The American Indians of the North are in this forties, or early fifties, and some have been to the West Coast. My own knowledge of these traditions is very high, although I am not always among the enlightened.My problem with the work of this artist is his shallow, small, confident, casual and even sarcastic attitude toward the great men of his people. He has no confidence in his own abilities or the integrity of his personal myth. His culture is crude, seems to be best understood by the hard-hearted, outraged. Thus he has no one who can stand up to his bull-dog-like attitude and stern personalities. The sincerity of his work reflects an understanding of his people, his culture, his environment, his environment, his self and his culture. His attitude is one of pride in the things he does and for the people he loves. In fact, in this case, if there are any great men, it are the Indians. His Indian culture is indeed one of inferior cultures and not of the best people. An Indian Indian, a mature, good-natured, perfect, with great sense of humor and a great deal of energy is not a bad Indian. There are a few really good artists in this show, many decent ones. Of the Indian artists, Walter Bladenski is a good one. I like Bladenski the best in the show and am glad that he will get some more work in the West Coast. But the great art in the show has been by a relatively small number of Indians. Since he is an artist of experience, his success in the West Coast is also due to his experience and skills in handling what he has found there. Bladenski is as good an artist as he is a poet and he is the best in his class.