Glamour of the high modern studio

Tonight I found this archive for Ernst Scheidegger. He documented some of European modernism's most provocative elements at work in their studios. When I was a young and curious painter I got my hands on some copies of Arts magazine published in the 50's. One issue in particular featured an article with Giacometti. In the photo spread he's smoking cigarettes and pointing at things in his studio in France in Paris. The place is entirely covered in shit that's been scrapped from his paintings and sculptures. In my twenties this was impressive. Seeing all of that chaos and the tension left so ambivalently in the corners of his space served as a spectacular illustration for my own modern life.
I remembered those photo's recently while I was reading through M.J.J. and M.G.'s, The Studio Reader. In particular it was the essay by R.S. He was writing marvelously about Dekooning and the studio that he had had constructed for himself in the space of the then new Not-In-New-York-World. It was the 60's and he was an enshrined Bill and as touched a Bill as he could be while Ab-Ex started it's lilt-ward ebbing.
I thought to myself, how very fond we are of the past and its ample fantasia... How different, how very discrete these silly boys now seem. Pretending to be so primal and earnest that they bristled within their unique dioramas. But from our own scatter blind world of refusion and lamentable butterflies it seems that we can tug at the corners of their shoe boxes. We can recreate the pale light of their crimes and bask away. We can jostle a cigarette or right a fallen prop with the careful flick of a thumbnail.

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The apologist and the appraiser have decided to stay put

dashed wet and grim Oh now, Reagan of steel glitter in pants with which to shake them on down. Oh now, I shit you not for these are the things. Yes in any order you should choose these are the things to please please me, Oh Yeah. - Unmarked letter signed, A to A They'll say to me that it's safe to say so much for ubiquity, for disenfranchisement, and the terrorism of privilege. They'll say to me, With all of the effects from these profoundly toxic effects, is the project of our shared humanity effectively being dismantled. Are these the idle thoughts and sad tidings of despots and the tyrant kings inside of their comfortable towers of raised muck. As I've said before, They're not so far gone as to be gone for the good of all. This is plain to be seen in a world of bent backs and gross hyperbole. I'll sit in any unused doorway. I'll be beside myself while every door is locked. I'll dream of the halls and listen as the curtains, the drinking, an...

Piles of leaves: Letters Campaign

Suddenly old but feeling perfect, my wet underwear is on the the floor. It's gathered round my ankle. Myko laughs, just as wet and full of piss as ever. The violence of our togethering already feels like more than something. I reach out, taking the back of her neck with my hand. She's stepping in as I lean over to write; Dear, Temperance, October, and Brine, You are more than a place to me. More than walls and simple chimes, but I'll write to you anyway. This you'll know as you read my words. From here beside the lark's buttered breast, from under the heavy lids and the bright side kettle where we'll hum. We'll hum together, Bunny. Dickens be damned, we're now brightly doomed. Soon enough we'll see, the forest within the trees. To you, Tigre PS. are more or only this bed, maybe the floor too. We spend the day in, ordering takeout and hiding under the sheets. I get up and pee while Katt is talking about Milton. Her mouth's open, it's as rou...

Not the Willem DeKooning Retrospective (Not Even Close)

Willem DeKooning, Excavation (1950) oil on canvas Yesterday at work I bumped into this piece by Donald Kuspit on DeKooning's retrospective over at Artnet . Then this morning I bumped into this one on L Magazine's site, by Paddy Johnson . I don't know that Paddy Johnson demystifies DeKooning as much as she takes issue with his pallet, declaring it repetitive and boorish en masse. By contrast, Donald Kuspit writes an article painting DeKooning as a sadistic brute inextricably tied to the modern tradition in general and Picasso specifically. Together they make for some interesting reading, particularly as Kuspit never addresses the show itself in favor of drawing his conclusions from individual works. While Johnson seems to wear the show like an imaginary wool shawl, noting it's uncomfortable, out of style, and the zipper is broken. But she doesn't seem to get to a place that addresses what was actually there either, only what she felt was missing or to her mind ...

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