Inverting The Onus

Alberto Sughi raised some very important and, for me, disturbing questions in his last Blog. Because the topics were close to what I had intended to post today I decided not to comment but rather to press some of those questions further, but the rightful place of this text would be somewhere in the string of comments to Alberto’s blog ‘Lo Studio’.

To: The Market! It’s logic! Conformity! Survival? I prefer to counter the following: The Studio! Lack of logic! Inconformity! Life - Art!

As artists we participate in the daunting task of making these two opposites come together without too much bloodshed. The task is ours alone because interest in lack of bloodshed is ours alone, the market and its agents merely see things from the vampire perspective of milking the cow – no sooner she dries up or the milk goes sour, they will unscrupulously have it done away with. If you happen to be the cow who’s teats are being manipulated you will, I will surmise, be inclined to enjoy it while it lasts. However, this does not preclude the fact that you have been manipulated. This does not rule out the truth that you fell for a pact with the devil and that this carries a price-tag that goes way beyond the 50% or 60% he charged you initially. Aspiring merely to be in the limelight is not unlike entering Dante’s description of the Inferno.


Jose Freitas Cruz on 09.30.07 @ 04:51 PM EST [more..]

Lo Studio

Sometimes the painter’s studio looks like an artisan’s shop where friends as well as clients pay a visit or just come in for a chat. There are days indeed when those visits become almost too many and therefore not much time is left for painting.
This morning I had the coffee break with my art dealer who has come to Rome from Florence to talk about some future work projects. He was still in the studio when the printer arrived with a large folder and the proofs of some new prints of mine. The bell rings again. I go to the door myself and I ask the photographer if he could postpone our appointment till tomorrow. I beg my guests to forgive me but now I have really to go back to my work. But it must certainly be one of these days and I have only just put on my white coat when I hear that Sergio Z. and Renato Z. have just arrived. “Sorry Alberto we are a little bit early”. I let them in and as they take their seats I call my assistant. Please I tell her would you start to clean the brushes and take the canvas off the easel.
I still find the encounters with those friends of mine with whom I share a lifelong friendship very interesting and also useful.
Sometimes our conversations are endless.



Alberto Sughi on 09.27.07 @ 09:57 AM EST [more..]

Alone With Stardust

Something happened to me yesterday for the very first time. I knew it would eventually.

I went to the movies, which I hadn't done for some time. Hollywood doesn't create many thoughtful films for adults, so why go? Anyway, I bought into the publicity for the Robert DeNiro/Michelle Pfeiffer film, "Stardust." It was billed as a "fairytale for adults." "Hmm," I thought. "Why not?"

I arrived at the theater at 2:25 pm ... right after I bought an "everything" bagel with cream cheese and a big chocolate cookie from Einstein's across the street and smuggled them into the theater. I wanted something to drink, but I'll die of thirst before I spend $4.50 for a large drink. I don't care if refills are "free." After a trip to the men's room, I settled into my chair at the very back of the theater and the lights dimmed. Then, I noticed.

I WAS ALONE.

Michael Corbin on 09.24.07 @ 06:47 AM EST [more..]

Artists for Art’s Sake

They Work Hard to Earn Your Business and Respect - Please Give It to Them

In the public’s eye, there seems to be two distinct notions of artists, the starving artist as a vestige of Van Gogh’s inability to sell his work to anyone but his brother and the celebrity artist as characterized by the current hype surrounding Damien Hirst. The facts are neither of these extreme examples epitomizes the life of most professional artists. Perhaps because Van Gogh’s work created the rare feat of being wildly popular with both the hoi polloi and art cognoscenti and because Hirst’s ability to publicize and promote himself and his work creates a seeming black hole of media coverage for other visual artists.


Barney Davey on 09.20.07 @ 01:14 PM EST [more..]

Hemingway's Greatest Love Was a Painting in the Prado

MADRID, Spain -- Author Ernest Hemingway was well known as a hot-tempered brawler, a barroom fighter, horseplayer and a hard drinker. His was a world of bullfights, deep-sea fishing and big-game hunting.
So it's difficult to imagine his becoming smitten with a painting on a museum wall of a beautiful woman.
Think again.
Hemingway's favorite city was Madrid. And one of his favorite hangouts there was the Prado museum.
"Hemingway loved the Prado," says his biographer A. E. Hotchner. "He entered it as he entered cathedrals."
His favorite Prado painting was Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of a Woman. According to Mr. Hotchner, "She was the girl whom he had loved longer than any other woman in his life."

Ron Butler on 09.17.07 @ 08:14 AM EST [more..]

Short-Term Memory Loss

Recently, I've been dealing with short-term memory loss issues. Presently, the prognosis is cloudy, possible causes; maintenance medication, stress, genetics, or another unknown circumstances yet to be discovered. How fragile we are...

I suppose the answer will wash out eventually. Perhaps, the symptoms will disappear and leave no shred of evidence. At this precise moment, I'm trying to case it up to the shock of turning 55, and trying to visualize becoming a senior citizen. As an artist of imagination, my fear is of losing the creative aspect of my nature. Growing through life, I have always had an inordinate fear of losing my sight - it never occurred to me that notion might mean losing my mind.

Without a complete gathering of facts, I consider the process of thought, as it pertains to creativity - my creativity. It occurs to me, how I begin to focus upon an idea, or begin to meld out an image - either in my mind - or from that part of my seeing something that begins a process of capturing it. First I allow it to electrify my synapses - I know my pulse changes, then, I begin some chosen method of capturing the moment outstanding. That can be by memorizing, allowing a puzzle of words to come together, drawing, or recording - either mechanically, digitally, musically, physically, or only mentally. Some sights I become acquainted with, are not to be altered except through the rose-tinted memories of them I take with me - forever etched in my mind.


Brad Michael Moore on 09.13.07 @ 10:32 AM EST [more..]

The Perfect Moment

There have been perfect moments in my life that I have pressed in my mind for future examination. Times when my kids were small. Times when I was a young adult or even an older one. Each of these moments is significant and wonderful in its completeness. Pure happiness. There are not many of theses gems committed to my memory. In my painting there are fewer. I rarely have a perfect moment of happiness in my work. Sometimes the result of a long struggle with a painting produces satisfaction with parts of the completed work. Occasionally, I feel uplifted when someone is touched by my efforts. But pure happiness? YetŠ..I keep working towards that goal: perfection in my work. I think that as I get older, the idea of improvement towards the result of creating a good work if not a perfect one, drives me more than anything else.


Ellen Fisch on 09.10.07 @ 08:11 AM EST [more..]

Art works on church tower...Beatles on organ...

I am continuously trying to find new ways to communicate art.
On 24 August 2007 during the ”Hedensted by Night” festival, I and organist Carsten Thomsen performed an ART EVENT.
It started shortly after sunset at 9.05 p.m. and it ended with a fireworks display at 11 p.m.
By means of a projector, a computer and other equipment I showed my recent art works in size 20 x 30 feet on the top of the crystal white Hedensted Church Tower.
At the same time organist Carsten Thomsen played an organ concert.
Beatles music of course.

A brand new composition of 18 Beatles melodies was created for this purpose.
This composition is conceived and performed from the point of departure which my art represents “Colorful Simplicity”.
Never before has Beatles music been interpreted in this way. “Colorful Simplicity”.
The Beatles' music is played very true to the Beatles' original concept of the music, but without the organist focusing on anything else but communicating the Beatles' music to the audience melodically in a seemingly effortless performance.
Very close to the essential ideas of the Beatles’ music are the ideas of my art.


Asbjorn Lonvig on 09.06.07 @ 04:00 AM EST [more..]

Yaba-daba-doo! [Here we go again]

Taking time off in July wasn’t such a good idea, it left the whole of empty August ahead of me. The summer is the season for the Big Art events – Venice, Basel, Kassel, Muenster – and loads of less publicized though not necessarily lesser shows, but it is definitely not the time to schedule a Solo, [In Europe] It’s not the season! It’s not the best of times to hand out your portfolios or wiggle yourself into a group show either, chances are your art-book will be left on the desk only to be more easily wiped aside with the bulk of unsolicited mail that accumulates while the decision-makers were away.



Jose Freitas Cruz on 09.03.07 @ 09:32 AM EST [more..]