April 2017 Archives

The NFL Draft is being held tonight at the top of The Rocky Steps. Which is another name for the courtyard of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Which has a giant Greek temple facade. But which apparently didn't work for the NFL folks' shot, so they built a replica of a piece of the museum facade into their set, in front of the museum.

I just finished reading some Sturtevant repetition and simulacrum a few minutes ago, and there's surely plenty to say about mediated images in circulation. But I think the real takeaway here is the NFL's Sforzian backdrop lighting game is flabby and weak.

THEY BUILT A FAKE ART MUSEUM ON THE NFL DRAFT STAGE IN FRONT OF THE ACTUAL PHILLY ART MUSEUM [csnphilly, h/t @briansholis]

Installation shot: Untitled (I Can See Russia From My House), 2017, 15' x 10' x 6', dye sublimation printed carpet, bolts, washers, lumber.

I'm psyched to announce the public installation of a new work, Untitled (I Can See Russia From My House), in Warrenton, Virginia. It is a dye sublimation print on carpet, mounted on a wood support.

I suppose it could also be installed indoors, but it would lose a lot of the impact; it really is a piece that is best come upon in the course of daily life.

Untitled (I Can See Russia From My House), 2017, washer and bolt installation detail

The carpet is affixed to the support using bolts and washers [above]. Longtime Kremlin watchers will note that the image, of the south facade of St. Basil's Cathedral, is here reversed.

Although an installation shot from December 2016 shows unrelated works installed nearby. It is the artist's intention that this piece be viewed and appreciated on its own. Despite what you might assume, it is currently not for sale.

The Mellow Pad, 1945-51, by Stuart Davis, co-founder of the American Artists Congress in 1936, image: whitney.org

This edition of Better Read features a speech delivered by Michigan Republican congressman George Donderos on the House floor on Tuesday August 16, 1949 titled, "Modern Art Shackled To Communism." I came across quotes and excerpts from this speech while researching the American Artists Congress, the group that brought Picasso's Guernica to the United States for a fundraising tour in 1938.

Dondero made several fiery speeches against modern art during this, the McCarthy era, repeatedly accusing modernism and all its subsidiary "isms" of being a vile foreign-led Communist plot to destroy American art and values.

Near as I can tell, this is the first time Dondero's complete speech has been available outside the Congressional Record, which turns out to be a lot harder to get ahold of than I expected. I am currently preparing a compilation of all Dondero's art-related speeches, and the responses they engendered from the accused, the threatened, and even, surprisingly, the nominally allied. Because even I have a hard time listening to a robot for 26 minutes, the complete text of Dondero's speech is included after the jump.

Download Better_Read_013_Dondero_Communist_Shackles_20170417.mp3 [26:49, 39mb, mp3 via dropbox greg.org]

The first draft of history. History written by the victors What even is it? The barrage of nonsense comes so fast and thick and is so full of bullshit that the very notion of history feels out of date. Which is probably someone's point. Or at the very least, in someone's immediate interest.

Do you even remember the outrage when the Japanese Prime Minister's Press Office released publicity photos of Shinzo Abe meeting Donald Trump at Trump Tower on November 17th, which revealed that Ivanka and Jared were sitting in on the meeting?

And then like two weeks later, the Times kind of buried the lede that at that very moment, Ivanka's fashion label was negotiating a licensing deal with a Japanese apparel conglomerate whose majority shareholder is a development bank owned by the Japanese government.

Oh, hands were wrung, potential conflicts of interest were ruminated upon, denials and assurances were floated. And it all turned out to be bullshit, and that was also the same time Jared and Ivanka were in fact preparing to take up offices and jobs in the White House.

So maybe that's a power of a painting: the ability to slow things down, even just long enough to have an impact, to make something stick, to give some context. It rewards the exercise of looking, looking longer, and looking back.

Campaign Ends April 26th: Our Guernica, After Our Picasso: A Kickstarter

I'm not saying we should commission GWB to paint this, but I'm not saying we shouldn't https://t.co/gVUVtN31UF

— gregorg (@gregorg) March 17, 2017

I swear, I tried not to do it, but the image was too strong. In the days since I started drafting this Kickstarter campaign, I quit several times. And then history kept catching up to this image. In fact, history started lapping it.

So yes, we need to mark this moment, this look on Chancellor Merkel's face, on all our faces, when it was still possible to not believe what was happening before our eyes. And there's only one painter who can do this moment justice. Unfortunately, he and justice are not really in a great spot right now, so we're gonna use #chinesepaintmill and the Thomas Kinkade Editions Pyramid.

Our Guernica, After Our Picasso: collaged details from Michael Kappe/dpa photo, George W. Bush painting, and Picasso's Guernica

In my darker moods, I imagine a series of paintings of such moments will come- Angelus Novus looking back and piling JPG upon JPG at his feet as the storm irresistibly propels us into the future. Can our brush-wielding Chinese allies capture the essence of Trumpian corruption with authentic Bushian flourish? Can we spread the resulting image(s) to the four corners of the warming, flooding earth to bear adequate witness? Let's start with one and see.

Back "Our Guernica, After Our Picasso on Kickstarter now

UPDATE #1 After just a couple of days the project has gotten over halfway to its funding goal, thanks!

It has also been the subject of reportage by Will Fenstermaker at Artspace [who is also a backer, write what you know!] and AFC ["that's a lot of layers to unpack for what's essentially a meme" I do not disagree!]

On the more depressing news front, today, Day 3, might pass without a single new backer. Perhaps everyone's too stunned at the floating of #Ivanka2024 by The Daily Caller [not linkin', look it up], and worrying how a painting can somehow head off this meta-disaster. It probably can't, but there's a lot to be done in the mean time.

I've also noticed that backers are a savvy bunch. Folks seem to prefer the lower-priced, smaller prints at this stage. Possibly, I thought, because you're reluctant to put up larger amounts of money for an artwork that you've 1) not seen because 2) it doesn't exist yet.

It might be useful to reframe the entire project as a single conceptual piece, in which case, the physical manifestations are secondary to its core expression. But it's still natural to wonder how it'll look, especially if you're contemplating getting a big one. I'm trying to think up a solution for this. Any advice or thoughts are welcome. And thanks again for spreading the word!

UPDATE #2 WHOA IT IS HAPPENING, THANKS! THE BALL IS ROLLING, THE CAMPAIGN IS CONTINUING. LET'S BUILD THAT PYRAMID AND LAUNCH A WHOLE BUSHMASTER CYCLE OF PAINTINGS TO DOCUMENT THIS THING!