23 May - Prada & Risk

If I were to attempt to follow my thread of musings in the art world and how they manifest in the form of this blog, the common denominator may be my belief in the manifest value of taking risks. Through the works and minds of such disparate characters as Olaffur Eliasson, Marcia Tucker, Alanna Heiss, Bruce Nauman, Dave Hickey, Robert Irwin, Lady Gaga, and Banksy (to name but a few), I have explored the ways that taking risks -- and being uncertain of their outcome -- incites dialog, innovation, fury, passion, transformation.

In the June issue of Vanity Fair, Ingrid Sischy (former Editor and Chief of Interview Magazine) reports on Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli's approach to fashion, life, and the creation of the remarkable art collection that will be presented publicly for the first time in conjunction with the Venice Biennale next month. The Prada Foundation's new home is a 65,000 square foot 18th-century plaza on the Grand Canale in Venice. Sischy describes Prada and Bertelli as collectors dedicated to risk and outside-the-box ideas in the arts, supporting extraordinarily ambitious projects, massive in scale and frequently volatile in nature. "When it comes to materials and logistics, says Prada, 'we are attracted to the nightmares.'"

Prada and Bertelli are remarkable for their approach to collecting. They are unique voices amidst the predictable and often clichéd accumulations of high profile art collectors. Not interested in the checklist of heavy auction hitters and the art stars of the moment, "Prada and Berletti have become legendary in the fashion and art world for making their own rules. But they are also believers in careful study; thus, when they decided in the early 1990's to focus on modern and contemporary art as collectors, and to create a foundation that would support outside-the-box ideas, theirs was a commitment."

Contemporary art can create space for independent thought beyond conventional structures and tacit social boundaries. It can electrify minds and create new conduits to experience life, with its issues and conflicts. Prada and Berletti are clearly active and engaged participants in an important international art dialog that involves innovation, originality, and risk. Describing the inaugural exhibition to be presented next month, Sischy asserts that "new ideas don't come along that often, but the exhibition provides a kind of petri-dish environment in which they can cook. Or think of it as a jam session, with artworks riffing on one another thanks to evocative or provocative juxtapositions - Prada likes surprising couplings and unexpected combinations in her fashion as well as her art."

Promoting the possibilities of art, what Tate Director Nicholas Serrota describes as "the nerve endings of contemporary art," requires an openness and excitement in the face of uncertainty rather than the assurance of subscribing to the costly and commercial status quo. Art critic and curator Dave Hickey stated that “if you don’t take risks, if you confirm the prescience of previous investors, you acquire no power, create no constituencies, and have no effect. So you must take risks."

In the Vanity Fair interview Prada states it is "better to make mistakes than be totally correct. We want to do something alive… The whole idea was to try and do something that could help produce new ideas in the future. However much we criticize art for being commercial, it is still a place for freedom and thinking and creativity."

Images: Photographs of the Prada Foundation by Sam Taylor-Wood for Vanity Fair, portrait of Prada by Guido Harari

23 Feb - The Ferus Gallery

LAUNCHPROJECTS - Last week I had the remarkable opportunity to meet Irving Blum. Internationally renown art dealer and the force behind Los Angeles' legendary Ferus Gallery, Blum was a pioneer in the promotion of the post-war artists of the 1960's on both coasts - discovering and championing artists such as Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Larry Bell, Ken Price, Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns.

Last night I decided to watch the documentary The Cool School to learn more about the Ferus Gallery and Blum's tremendous impact both in Los Angeles and New York at that time. The Cool School uncovers and interviews virtually all of the artists, friends, collectors, and minds behind Ferus to explore how this short-lived gallery forever transformed the Los Angeles art scene. As the documentary describes, "the gallery managed to do for art in Los Angeles what the museums previously could not. Even though their modalities were as disparate as assemblage art, abstract expressionism and Pop, Ferus artists shared ideas, goals, workspaces and a lasting vision."

The concepts and motivation behind both the success and closure of Ferus is further described by Blum in a 1977 interview with Paul Cummings. Blum describes that even with the excitement and rush of Ferus' exhibitions and openings, "there just wasn’t a heck of a lot of activity. There wasn’t a lot of movement, there really wasn’t. And the awful thing about selling out there, especially at the beginning, was that there was simply no pressure. So if somebody said, well, if you told somebody the price of a painting, they would say to you, “Fine, all right, let me think about it.” You’d say, “All right.” And they would think about it for a month, or two, or three and be relatively sure that when they came back into the gallery, that thing would still be there... And virtually every time out, it was still there. So they could take as much time as they liked to consider buying whatever it was they had in their head to do. Whereas in New York, if you see something and it’s really terrific, and if you say to the dealer, “Well, let me think about it,” the dealer will generally say, “Well, certainly, take 48 hours. I have other interests, I have other people coming in to look.” And you know that that’s true. In California, it simply wasn’t true. I couldn’t say, “Look, I can only give you 24 hours.” They would laugh! They would say, “Who else would buy that, for God’s sake?” And you couldn’t answer. And they’d be right, you know".

When Cummings questioned Blum what he had learned over decades of dealing emerging and established art on both coasts, Blum responded that "if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have had other thoughts about doing the gallery business. I probably would have gone ahead and done it in any case, but at least I would have had a sounder base from which to operate. I would have known that it would have taken me six or seven years just to get even for example. That was something I had no idea of at the very beginning. And I would have understood that showing younger people or unknown people takes forever and is largely a thankless, difficult, expensive matter."

Our conversation followed the thread of both the documentary and the interview. He was extraordinarily generous and forthcoming about his experiences and his insights resonate deeply as we consider LAUNCHPROJECTS' current endeavors and what we ultimately aspire to accomplish. Blum's energy and enthusiasm for the art world continues to be contagious, his charm exhilarating. Transformation, passion, and honest examination of time and place is clearly a foundation to sustained growth and continued relevance in this capricious and mercurial world of art.

Images: Irving Blum, The Ferus Gallery Storefront, The Ferus gang, 1962. L-R, Ed Kienholz, Allen Lynch, Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John Altoon

21 January - Anne Truitt, TURN

LAUNCHPROJECTS - I am in the process of reading Anne Truitt's book Turn. Captivated with her work since I encountered First years ago (pictured above, left), I have since wanted to know more about the woman who made these pared down, elegant, powerful sculptures. Turn is a graceful journal of her thoughts and views on life, art, family, aging, and humility. I will blog more about specific sections of her writing - as with Weschler's stunning biography of Robert Irwin this is a book that I am reading slowly to take each word and insight as deliberately as it is written.

Her 5th of January, 1984 entry discusses meeting two curators from the National Gallery to discuss the cleaning of her sculpture Spume which had become dirty since it was acquired in 1972. She describes revisiting Spume after so many years, "one hundred twenty inches tall by 25 1/2 inches wide by 13 1/2 inches deep, luminescent blues and violets, it loomed over me. I straightened up to face it. In the first second of looking, I did not recognize it as my own work and only felt its presence, with an involuntary shudder. I was so taken aback that I rocked on the feet. 'What on earth - ?' were the first words that came into my mind, along with the very particular sharp tension I sometimes feel when I am making my work: as if I were being forced face to face with a mystery equally threatening and alluring."

She describes telling these "practical men with an object to deal with" that the best way to clean her sculpture is with soap and water, which took both curators aback - they were accustomed to complex problems with elaborate and expensive solutions. These important and otherwise occupied men stirred in Truitt a keen awareness that "once again my sculpture is a bother because it is large and has a delicate surface. Despite years of self-discipline, I can never entirely avoid identification with my work and when it is thought bothersome I feel as if I were myself criticized. I have thought a lot about this aspect of my work and wonder sometimes if the vulnerability of my sculptures does not combine with their size to awaken the subtle hostilities evoked when women retain innate delicacy even while asserting their existence."

So utterly in touch with her work and its deep resonance, Truitt throughout her journal epitomizes the force that exists at the intersection of confidence and vulnerability. Searingly truthful about both her wisdom and her limitations, Truitt once stated that life experiences are "the ground out of which art grows." Truitt lived a simple yet fertile and joyful existence. Her life and sculpture bring to mind a quote that Truitt's peer Louise Nevelson stated in a lecture in 1980. "True strength is delicate."