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."

18 January - DJ Ruscha

LAUNCHPROJECTS - Ed Ruscha played guest DJ last for Southern California National Public Radio station KCRW. Part of their Guest DJ Project, he played Jessie Belvin "Good Night My Love," Mason Williams "Them Sand Pickers / Them Sticker Gitters," Hank Ballard "Annie Had a Baby," Sleepy La Beef "Little Bit More, and Eddie Ruscha (yes, son of Ed) "The Rose."

From the radio station's website:

Ruscha’s work exposes him as an outstanding thinker with revolutionary contributions to our visual language. This list of musical favorites offers a peek for onlookers to connect intimately with his inspirations. It’s a benevolent paparazzi. Which makes the small tale of his last pick even sweeter.

A person like Ed Ruscha is a significant icon creating significant icons. He’s a major contributor to the birth of the Pop Art movement. He’s an artist. Ed Ruscha doing KCRW’s Guest DJ Project… this is exciting news.

Ruscha works with minimal and simple images that leave a surprising and glorious heft in the afterglow of their impressions. Constructed with the same minimal principles, hearing Ruscha’s picks of Doo Wop, blues and folk make sense. Of course it’s the music he grew up with, but it’s also the music he chose to grow up with. These genres are composed with simple arrangements that produce organic, sincere and real music. Without pomp and artifice, people exist in the lyrics. Stories and a human element. I see this in Ruscha’s work — stories, people and so much beautiful commentary in his artwork’s seeming simplicity – all ideas spoken with just a few visual notes from artist-songwriter Ruscha.

Ruscha’s final song selection was one of his son’s, also an artist and a fairly active DJ, Eddie Ruscha. He discusses the innocent song naming process that involved his grandson’s participation. Listening to the story, it’s hard not to acknowledge that Ruscha’s proud of his family and loves the sanctity and intimacy that art creates, the tale closing with, “…and that’s how these things get done.”

Here is a link to hear Ed's selections in his 10 minutes of DJ fame: KCRW - ED RUSCHA

images: Ed Ruscha in front of an iconic painting, Ed and Eddie for GQ Magazine.

13 January - Sweet Marina Abramovic

LAUNCHPROJECTS -

Park Avenue Winter,

one of the New York Times, New York Magazine and New York Observer's best new restaurants in New York City,

is collaborating with the non-profit Creative Time to team up with artists including Marina Abramovic, Janine Antoni, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and Michael Rakowitz to create seasonal dishes over the next few months.

Abramovic is first, collaborating with chef Kevin Lasko on a $20 dessert called the Volcano Flambe. As described by Florence Fabricant in the New York Times "Its core of dark chocolate ice cream is covered with meringue, decorated with gold leaf and a swirl of spun sugar, bedded on chocolate cookie crumbs and flambéed with rum. The artist's booklet of off-beat recipes, 'Spirit Cooking,' and an MP3 player with a talk by her accompany the dessert." I eagerly await Antoni's dish, though I can't seem get the image of her 2008 piece "Eureka" out of my mind when imagining her in the kitchen... (image above).

Santa Fe is an ideal place for such innovation and collaboration. I picture Patrick McFarlin whipping up Thiebaud-esque confections at Coyote Cafe and Clayton Porter plating wild board dishes at the Compound. How about convincing the likes of Larry Bell, Ken Price, Sherrie Levine, Susan Rothenberg, and Richard Tuttle to participate? Brian Knox and Bruce Nauman could surely cook up something spectacular and bizarre at Aqua Santa. I would eat out every night just to see what artists dream up with the inspired chefs in our community. Even better if a local non-profit benefits.

Creative Time's mission statement asserts that they are "thrilled when art breaks into the public realm in surprising ways... We like to make the impossible possible, pushing artists beyond their comfort levels, just as they push us beyond ours. In the process, artists engage in a dynamic conversation between site, audience, and context, offering up new ideas about who an artist is and what art can be, pushing culture into fresh new directions." This collaboration is precisely an enactment of that mission and I would love to see a non-profit in Santa Fe activate our community beyond the visual arts in a similar fashion. SITE's SPREAD is certainly a start - but I encourage our community to keep pushing the boundaries of how art can function in all of our daily lives.

11 Jan - Alexander Calder & the Benefits of Needlepoint

LAUNCHPROJECTS - Last Monday's "Antiques Roadshow" was a lesson in the appreciation of art. And that the knack for needlepointing could get you much further than you might expect. The piece in question was an Alexander Calder mobile made around 1950. The owner had inherited the mobile from her aunt who had been an acquaintance of Calder. The aunt, a great fan of his work, had invited Calder to a cocktail party and gave him a needlepoint pillow she had done of one of his earlier works. Apparently Calder was astounded, and a couple of days later returned with the mobile as a thank-you for the pillow. In short, she believed it to be worth around $30,000. The appraiser, Christopher Kennedy, informed her that it "had increased in value a little since then" and informed her that it could conceivably fetch over $1M at auction. He proceeded to say "not bad for a pillow." Which got me thinking, I might just take up needlepoint.

The following is the appraisal transcript from the PBS website. The video and an interview with the owner in on the PBS website.

GUEST: It's a mobile by Alexander Calder, and Calder gave it to my aunt. My aunt and uncle were having a cocktail party, and Calder was visiting friends of theirs who were invited to the party, so they took Calder along. And my aunt was very creative, and among other things, she had done a needlepoint pillow of one of Calder's works. And he was astounded. He'd never seen one like that before. And so she gave it to him, and a couple of days later, somebody appeared at the doorway, and he had given her this mobile as a thank-you for the pillow.

APPRAISER: You've owned this for a while-- since 1985, I believe.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And you had a slight restoration to it in 1986. Some of the colors were touched up a little bit.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: And clearly that's going to have an effect on the value, to a certain degree. This was originally given to your aunt in 1958.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: But this probably, as far as the actual date of construction, dates a little bit earlier than 1958.

GUEST: Oh, yes. I think it's... early '40s was a guess.

APPRAISER: Alexander Calder essentially invented the art form known as a mobile.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And it became very iconic of 1950s modern art. And I think the late '50s sort of marks a turning point where he begins to concentrate more on larger installations. It's made on very thin wire, and then these are usually either aluminum or an anodized, weather-resistant material that.. slipped in and then very delicately soldered. And you can see in here where all of the knots and joints, all put in, in a very balancing kind of format. He always liked the use of primary colors. This back one is a little bit more of an orange, and some of the other appraisers on the set thought this might be a little bit unusual for a color. We should mention the Alexander Calder Foundation.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: Which is a major element in both identifying the work of Alexander Calder, authenticating it, and I believe that you had sent some letters, some documentation.

GUEST: We've sent the documentation and a transparency, and they just said they would need to look at it in person, and we haven't gone to New York to do that.

APPRAISER: Calder Association is, like any foundation, is set up so that an artist's work are not diluted. And that's why they're very diligent about keeping up to make sure that things are authenticated so if that they are sold, that they do have that stamp of approval...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...or of authenticity. I know that earlier, back in the late '80s or '90s, you had an approximate value of what it was worth?

GUEST: The man who restored it said at least $30,000.

APPRAISER: It's gained a little bit in value since then. We worked on the values to somewhat of a consensus and it still needs to be validated. Based upon that, a fair auction value, the range is somewhere between $400,000 and $600,000.

GUEST: How much?

APPRAISER: $400,000 to $600,000 at auction as somewhat of a wholesale price. Right now, Alexander Calder's market is extremely hot, and in a good retail setting, it would not be at all inconceivable that this very small, wonderful piece of art could probably break $1 million.

GUEST: Oh, my God.

APPRAISER: Not bad for a pillow.

GUEST: Oh! My problem is, I've got one mobile and two children. (both laughing)

APPRAISER: I'm sure your husband, who is watching off-camera, will be equally happy with the good news.

GUEST: (laughing): Oh, I think so.

Images: The Calder in question, my newest how-to book (the man approach might be best for my skill set)

6 Jan - SITE Santa Fe SPREAD

LAUNCHPROJECTS - I had lunch today with Irene Hofmann, the recently appointed Director of SITE Santa Fe, to hear about SPREAD, SITE's new community-based granting initiative.

Based on the models of FEAST in Brooklyn and inCUBATE in Chicago (with other iterations in Portland and Minneapolis) SPREAD is a recurring public dinner designed to generate community-driven financial support to fund artistic innovation. At each SPREAD dinner, participants pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they receive dinner and a ballot. During dinner, the SPREAD audience will hear short proposals from up to eight artists for innovative and yet-to-be-realized new projects. The eight finalists will be selected by a small group of community artists, dancers, performers, filmmakers and curators. Diners will then cast their votes for their favorite project. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded all of the funds collected at the door to realize their project. In cash (see image above).

We immediately responded to a grass-roots initiative entirely dependent upon community engagement and the concept that anyone willing to spend $15 - $50 to participate equally mattered in how the money would be awarded. The direct relationship between those providing funding and those receiving the grant creates a immediacy and transparency uncommon in the art world. Further, the more supportive the community - attendance of diners, donations of food and other goods from local businesses, financial support - the more successful each local granting cycle becomes.

Although these small grants will never replace larger granting organizations and major-donors who are indispensable to the success of the arts in our community, small amounts can add up to a lot. These micro-grants empower the community and provide an opportunity for many promising New Mexico artists to realize goals they would not otherwise have the means to achieve.

3 Jan - Missing Helmut Lohr

LAUNCHPROJECTS - It was with great sadness that we learned of Helmut Lohr's passing on Christmas Day. A bright and shining heart, incredible intuition, remarkable contributions to the art world. We have lost an elegant and pioneering voice in art, performance, music, energy work, and experimental science.

I first met Helmut in the Spring of 2001. A recent transplant to Santa Fe from Paris to direct EVO Gallery, I stood in the crowd at one of our first openings frankly wondering what I was doing in Santa Fe and feeling a little lost. At that moment a stunningly handsome gentleman who beamed with a tender and slightly mischievous grin walked up to me. I held out my hand to formally introduce myself and Helmut enveloped me in a hug, whispering in his thick German accent "thank you for joining this community."

That was the beginning of a long and tender friendship. I was still very young and new to the larger art world, Helmut taught me that heady conceptual art can also be beautiful, heartfelt, and energy-giving. Helmut managed a large exhibition schedule throughout the world and together we created exhibitions, performances, and interventions in Santa Fe, Minneapolis, New York, London, Frankfurt, Munich, and Ruhr. Although an internationally celebrated artist, Helmut chose to relocate to New Mexico to lead a solitary and peaceful existence on Rowe Mesa. On the Mesa he created lush gardens, built a contemporary home, nurtured koi ponds and water lilies, and made his extraordinary objects of art. The entirety of his existence was artful and everyone who made the pilgrimage to see him on the Mesa came back restored, inspired, joyful.

Helmut leaves behind a legacy of innovation in art, music, energy work, and performance. He also leaves an important lesson in generosity and true love. I will always remember his beautiful face and generous smile, deep and joyful laugh, and the way he looked so deeply into my eyes when we talked that words often felt superfluous. We are all so sad to see him go.

In the words and memories of other friends and admirers:

"What a loss. His performances were the most ethereal experiences. He brought a teddy bear from Germany when my son was born. I'll definitely miss conversations with him. I'm sure his soul is in a beautiful place. He was a gentle and beautiful person." - Jon Carver

"A kind, loving human being. Balanced, sensitive, creative, interested. He will be missed." - Ylise Kessler

"Helmut was a kind and gentle man. I met him only briefly two years ago after an introduction by Cyndi at Helmut's studio in Rowe. In the few hours spent at his home viewing his art and enjoying tea, I remember Helmut's generous and open heart. He will be missed by all those who were lucky enough to have met him." -Ben Lincoln

"He was such a good person. I remember driving with you to visit his studio on a beautiful day many years ago. He used to enjoy sitting in front of Downtown Subscription and I would go over and chat with him. He was also a brilliant artist. We will all miss him." - Edward Borins "Our beloved Helmut... love to you in all of our great loss." - Alexandra Eldridge Love to all in our great loss. Let us all practice love, compassion, and kindness in memory of Helmut Lohr.

16 Dec - Albright-Knox Acquires Works

LAUNCHPROJECTS - The Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York acquired works by Patrick McFarlin and Eric Tillinghast to be added to their permanent collection. LAUNCHPROJECTS applauds our artists on this great achievement.

When Louis Grachos visited Santa Fe this past summer we had the opportunity arrange a studio visit with Patrick McFarlin to preview the works in our then upcoming show, Obituaries and (mini) Masterpieces. These pieces represented a departure for McFarlin. Eulogizing the work of those who have come before, he placed obituaries and masterworks into new and unexpected contexts, thereby recreating and reframing our assumptions of fame, mastery, and the anticipation of originality.

Grachos was already deeply familiar with McFarlin's work as they worked together for McFarlin's solo exhibition at SITE Santa Fe in 1996 when Grachos was then Director. He immediately responded to this new body of work and began the process of acquisition at that point. The five Patrick McFarlin pieces Grachos ultimately selected from this series were all of Joan Mitchell, one miniature painting, George Went Swimming at Barnes Hole, 1957 (pictured above) was based on the original already included in the Albright-Knox collection.

Grachos was also very familiar with Eric Tillinghast's work, and several of Tillinghast's pieces are already in in the Albright-Knox permanent collection from an earlier donation by Natalie and Irving Forman. The Pools portfolio selected by Grachos is a 24-piece collection of unique images of swimming pools, all depicting a different shape and color of water. In the words of Internationally acclaimed artist and critic Harmony Hammond "in Pools, Tillinghast reworked appropriated photographs of swimming pools. From a distance, the resulting condensed-down shapes— both familiar and strange — read solid turquoise. It’s only upon very close examination, that variation in water depth, reflection of light on the surface, and the side of or steps into the pool are discernible." To read more about this body of work please refer to the review by Jan Adlmann published in Art in America.

Works from both series are currently available at LAUNCHPROJECTS - please contact the gallery for additional information and availability.

10 Dec - The Art of Perception

LAUNCHPROJECTS - I am reading Robert Irwin's biography as slowly as possible. There is so much to it - it is subtle and complex and inspiring, much like Irwin's work itself. Learning more about Irwin's work and approach to life and art is shifting the way I consider and describe the highly complex and outwardly minimal paintings of LAUNCHPROJECTS artist Phil Binaco.

Philip Leider wrote in an exhibition catalog for a 1966 Irwin exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of art, "what Irwin manifestly wishes to do is to slow the viewer down, to prepare him, in effect, for an encounter. A certain measurable duration of time is necessary before one can even see what there is to be seen, so that the viewer will either see it the way Irwin wants him to see it or he will - quite literally - not see the painting at all".

This catalog excerpt is quoted by Weschler in Irwin's biography, then he goes on to describe witnessing a couple literally "not see" one of Irwin's 7-foot dot paintings hanging in a museum. Standing next to it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art "a couple walked into the room. The young woman, gesturing with a sweep of her arm, sighed in mock exasperation 'See, this is what I mean.' Her friend smiled knowingly... and the two moved quickly on. They had literally not seen a thing - one does not, one cannot in that amount of time. She was just sick and tired of having museum walls cluttered with empty white canvases."

Engaging, slowing down, allowing the energy and the beauty of what appears upon first blush to be "nothing" to reveal itself to us is a luxury that many of us choose not to take. There are certain artists - Phil Binaco, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Agnes Martin - whose work we will literally miss if we do not take the time to wait and truly look. With time and attention these paintings open, they vibrate and "blush" as art critic William Wilson described in a Los Angeles Times review. They give back to us. In Weschler's words "engaging the picture, we in turn engage the wonder of our own perceptual facilities. As in so much of Irwin's later work, for a few moments, we perceive ourselves perceiving."

Pictured: Robert Irwin, Phil Binaco, Agnes Martin

7 Dec - Oscar Munoz and Cali, Colombia

LAUNCHPROJECTS - I am currently reading a great biography of Robert Irwin written by Lawrence Weschler. I will blog in detail about the book when I finish it, but reading Weschler's thoughtful words and interactions with Irwin reminded me of meeting him in 2007 in conjunction with The Disappeared Collaborative Project in Santa Fe.

This project originated as a single exhibition curated by Laurel Reuter at the North Dakota Museum of Art and consisted of twenty-seven living artists from South America who have made art about "los desaparecidos" or the disappeared. As the original exhibition press stated "these artists lived through the horrors of the military dictatorships that rocked their countries in the mid-decades of the twentieth century". The Lannan Foundation invited Reuter to New Mexico to discuss the exhibition and the result of the conversation was a collaboration by nine arts organizations throughout the community, including the Center for Contemporary Arts (where I was the Visual Arts Director and Curator at the time), SITE Santa Fe, the Lannan Foundation, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. The organizations presented exhibitions, lectures, films, and workshops.

I decided on behalf of the Center for Contemporary Arts to curate a solo exhibition of works by Colombian artist Oscar Munoz. Munoz is one of Latin America’s most significant artists working today, more so now since his video piece Re/Trato (pictured above and included in the CCA exhibiton) was later selected by Robert Storr for Think with the Senses Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense for the Venice Biennale and by Sarah Lewis and Daniel Belasco for SITE Santa Fe's current Biennale, The Dissolve.

Ben, another CCA board member, and I traveled to Cali, Colombia to meet Munoz and get a first-hand look at his work, life, and tour Cali. We arrived to find a teeming art community amidst an otherwise impoverished and ramshackle city. This was due in large part to a small exhibition space founded by Munoz, Lugar a Dudas (Place for Doubts) in which he inspires younger artists with group exhibitions, film screenings, artist talks, and an extensive art library. Within the 36 hours we were in Cali, Munoz coordinated 14 studio visits with emerging Colombian artists. The artists were inspiring and extremely talented, each creating unorthodox and frequently political work that placed their lives in jeopardy to express their discontent with the Colombian government. Many of the artist's medium was cocaine because it was more readily available and inexpensive to use than paints or charcoals.

Lawrence Weschler states in the exhibition catalog "The challenge in these societies is to find a way of reclaiming the dead and honoring their presence in a manner that nonetheless stil allows room for, indeed, creates room for the living." Lugar a Dudas and Oscar Munoz' approach to his work, his city, and the potential of its youth was just that. Utterly inspirational.

Pictured: Me, Ben, Laurel Reuter, Oscar Munoz and others at Lugar a Dudas, Re/Trato video still