My Top 10 in Miami (January 2012)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by mlmcclung

Can the city’s galleries become anchors to an art scene that draws attention throughout the year? The city has truly developed into one of the great cosmopolitan cities, but the international, art-buying, jet-setters know when to be there. I guess I am wondering if the gallery scene will rise to the level of the fairs it hosts – can it? How do galleries even produce shows for the rest of the year.

A couple of months ago my partner & I headed down to Miami and I took a couple days to check out some of the art scene. I love to feel the energy that drives a growing art scene – but this time I left feeling a little empty. Maybe it was just me… I mean there are more galleries, right? The scene must be growing, but it kind of seems like a lot of what I found was specifically designed to attract the international art-fair developers.

Kawaii Universe? An entire warehouse of rainbow-colored stickers of cupcakes and sushi?

Walls on Wynwood? A couple years ago I took so many photos of the walls painted throughout the city – I was all over it . This time, I was just over it – it seemed so calculated and event-driven, lacking heart and spontanaeity.

A lot of the work I saw seemed to be screaming “Pick Me! Pick Me!” It is kind of like a pageant – if the work can be loud enough and colorful enough, maybe it will get noticed when the fairs come to town. I guess it’s not a bad marketing strategy and if I lived there, I would probably do the same thing. It’s just that the thoughtfully curated, well-developed shows were few and far between. Even some of my favorite spaces seemed to fall short with exhibits lacking programmatic coherence.

With all of that said, there is still a lot to look at and I know I only got to see a little bit – my top 10:

Robert Fischer’s “Quarry” at Charest-Weinberg
Romulo Aguerre “The Forms of Light” at Sammer Gallery
Richard Höglund, “Hysterical.Sublime..” at Gallery Diet
Karina PeisaJovich, “The eyes, sometimes” at Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Nick Gentry & Josafat Miranda at Robert Fontaine Gallery
Roman Vitali, “It Also Snows Inside” at now contemporary art
JeanPaul Mollozzi at Bakehouse Art Complex
Victor Sydorenko, ” The Levitation Series” at Black Square Gallery
Mira Lehr “209 Ignition” at Kelley Roy Gallery
Consuelo Castañeda, “Homage to Gego” at Hardcore Art Contemporary Space

Another Way to Go: 6 artists, 12 directions

Posted on January 26, 2012 by mlmcclung

I am really interested in the ideas of artistic voice, identity and recognition.

Over the summer I had a number of artists approach me with questions about their portfolios, marketing and pricing, etc. In looking at some of these I saw so many artists that were kind of all over the map with regard to style and technique – you know, the kind where each and every artwork looked like it might have been the work of a different person.

I advised them to pick something and stick with it for a while so they could really become a master at something and not be just okay at a lot of different things. I wanted them to tap into that part of themselves that really defines them – to find their voice. I believe that mature successful artists are keenly aware of their voice. Not to say that artists don’t explore different things – ideas get resolved in different media, subject matter changes, etc. As a collector and a consultant, what I want to be able to see is, that as the works change, I can still tell it is the work of one artist and not some other artist entirely.

This past year, I was invited to curate a show this month at VERTIGO Art Space in Denver (Jan4-February11; www.vertigoartspace.com) and so I used this line of thinking as the starting point for the show and – wow! I quickly realized what a hot button topic this is…almost everyone has something to say about it. A lot of artists feel basically the same way. Others think I am looking at it from a business point-of-view and that I didn’t get art at all. I think some were offended that I would point out consistencies in their work because there is such a drive to be original and fresh and authentic.

Some gallerists told me that they value creativity over commercialism – others pointed to the realities of business, that for a gallery to stay in business, eventually something has to sell and customers’ expectations often drive that process. Artists told me the art they were showing in the galleries wasn’t what they really wanted to be working on- that they want to try something new but that the gallery wouldn’t go for it. Critics were calling artists “Johnny One Note” because they had been there – done that – seen it before. One artist selected for this show told me that as soon as the “recognized” series changed in favor of something else, the collectors, critics & galleries stopped even looking at the work.

I looked at my own work – as an artist, I am almost always associated with the burnout vellum pieces, but then I go off and explore other tangents like the series of 3000 photographs of sidewalks or the watercolors or the monochromatic eggshell compositions.

As I continued with the exploration for this show, I really began looking at the various tangents or diversions that many artists take.

Over the holidays my partner & I had a party and there wound up being a great mix of people, some artists, some gallerists, some of his running buddies, mutual friends, neighbors, a little family. That night one our longtime friends came over to me and commented on my burnout vellum pieces – “You know I appreciate and I get where you are going with them, but when are you going to go back to those colorful paintings you did 10-15 years ago?” Later that same night, another friend came to me and wanted to know about some new etchings I had done, “You know I appreciate them and I like the use of color, but when are you going back to the monochromatic burnout pieces?”

I’m now more interested in the issues around the idea of having that identifiable, sellable body of work … the advantages this affords an artist and the potential challenges of restricting creative exploration. There is a balance between the exposure and commercial success that recognition provides and the harness restricting creative exploration.

The 6 artists that I included in the show present 2 pieces – one that would be from their recognizable body of work and then another that is unrelated and not immediately identified as belonging to the same artist.

Tyler Aiello, Courtesy of Space Gallery, Photo by Westword.

Eric Michael Corrigan, Courtesy of Walker Fine Art, Photo by Westword.

Lorelei Schott, Courtesy of Sandra Phillips Gallery, Photo by Westword

: Jimmy Sellars, Courtesy of Sellars Preject Space
: Phil Bender, Courtesy of Pirate : Contemporary Art,; Photo by Westword

Sangeeta Reddy, Courtesy of William Havu Gallery

Phil Bender, Courtesy of Pirate: Cotemporary Art

Sangeeta Reddy, Courtesy of William Havu Gallery

Lorelei Schott, Courtesy of Sandra Phillips Gallery

Andy Warhol’s Shadows at the Hirshhorn

Posted on December 13, 2011 by mlmcclung

I don’t know about you, but I guess size matters. When I see a big painting, I typically wind up spending more time trying to take it all in. I guess there is some unwritten equation size=profundity.

However, when I took in the current exhibition of Andy Warhol’s shadows, any ideas that I should pour over each nuance of color or textural drip were immediately dispelled. The piece is comprised of 102 panels and stretches nearly 450 feet around the second floor of the circular museum.

Indeed rather than take my time, I found myself wanting to go faster and faster – I would have run if the security guards would have let me. I felt like I was caught inside an Eadweard Muybridge zoetrope – not certain if I was the viewer or the subject.

I have a feeling this is appropriate – Warhol himself said it isn’t art, but rather disco decor. The paintings are of no discernible objects – speculation running from architecture, to cardboard maquettes to erect penises. The big bold colors are applied with floor mops in crude bravura strokes. Sure, it gives reference in terms of color and context – alluding to the AbEx painters and minimalists, to Duchamp’s questioning of iconography and Man Ray’s experiments from the 1920’s.

For me, ultimately it is just fun…it’s thoroughly exhuberant and fleeting – lasting as long as it takes to run through it.

The show goes to mid-January, so check it out if you can.

Warhol Shadows at the Hirshhorn Musesum

Clyfford Still Museum Opens

Posted on November 17, 2011 by mlmcclung

Last night my partner and I went to the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum here in Denver. WOW! It is amazing!

The inaugural exhibit it thoughtfully curated – offering a chronological view of his work spanning his career. I think, for me what struck me the most was seeing the evolution of the work. The show clearly presents a progression beginning with landscapes and portraits, quickly leading us into his exploration of abstraction and ultimately his readily identifiable expressionist pieces.

I was anticipating the darker, heavier pieces that represented his agrarian roots during the depression but didn’t anticipate the lighter, more cheerful works. These treasures, hidden for so many years, are a bit like giants awaking from their slumber – still stretching out and beginning to tell their stories.

The rooms are perfectly proportioned and sequenced to showcase his art with carefully constructed vantage points revealing from one gallery, the next. The honeycomb ceiling allows natural light to permeate the concrete building, providing ideal viewing conditions while louvers protect the artwork from the damaging sun. The two-story building, designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture is refined – it is an elegant solution to display the work and to house art being stored, archived & researched.

ABOUT CLYFFORD STILL

Clyfford Still’s work was marked by expressive brush work, and abstracted forms – the blending of color, texture and shape to create something entirely new. His shift away from figurative and surrealist styles in the late 30’s and early 40’s happened nearly a decade before other artists including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman began the pursuit of what is now known as Abstract Expressionism. His estate, along with that of his wife, has been left to the city and will be maintained by the museum – it represents the bulk(94%) of Still’s life work – some 2400 paintings, works on paper and sculptures.

At the Clyfford Still Opening

My Picks for Portland

Posted on November 13, 2011 by mlmcclung

This past week, I had a great trip to Portland, OR. It was only my second time visiting the City of Roses, but I have to say that I really like it. It has a cool urban vibe and offers city living in a truly gorgeous setting alongside the Willamette River with the mountains in the distance. There is definitely a coffee culture – and that is fine by me; I tried several, with my favorites being Barista in the Pearl District and also NW Coffee over in Goose Hollow. The food was great – beginning with a delicious pastrami sandwich at Kenny & Zuke’s and ending with northern Italian at Nel Centro (oh, and a stop by St. Cupcake…yum!)

The city has a convenient free shuttle that runs in the heart of the city. I typically like to get a sense of a place by going through it block by block so, as is normal for me, I walked and walked and walked – into different neighborhoods, up into Washington Park (overlooking the city) and through the downtown districts.

Portland has an growing artist community and a number of galleries that devote themselves to promoting local and regional artists and a few that showcase national and international talents. At the Portland Art Museum, I enjoyed revisiting the contemporary collections. They had a really beautifully curated exhibit on Japanese prints – it led visitors through 3 centuries of printmaking and placed the art trends in the context of societal evolution.

As for the galleries, I visited about 15 and found them to run the gamut from co-ops to commercial – some conceptual, some great and others, not so much. I generally find the gallerists to be very friendly and approachable, willing to talk about the artists, the shows and the galleries. Below I list my favorites:

Lee Kelly @ Elizabeth Leach
Jim Riswold @ Augen Gallery
Roll Hardy @ Laura Russo Gallery
Fritz Liedtke @Blue Sky
Ellen George @ PDX
Jack Davidson @ Pulliam
James Boulton @ Pulliam

Jim Riswold – Don’t Shoot We’re Camels

James-Boulton – Orionid #1

Lee Kelly @ Elizabeth Leach

Use your Museum Membership

Posted on October 13, 2011 by mlmcclung

Even if you have have just a little bit of time to spare, go ahead and use your membership(s). Visiting a museum doesn’t have to be an all day event – in the past week I visited the Denver Art museum once as part of a work project and then I went back a second time by myself, just to look at 2-3 pieces.

Instead of planning your museum excursions to be ‘do-it-all, see-it-all’ outings, try popping in once in a while and looking at just one exhibit or even just a room.

I know we all run around from place to place and meeting to meeting with less and less time to ourselves. Allow the museums to offer you a break, a moment to pause and enjoy.

David Schnell 'Aussicht', 2005 at Denver Art Museum

Fred Sandback at MCA Denver

Posted on October 11, 2011 by mlmcclung

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.” Michelangelo

The Sandback show at MCA Denver is terrific!

His installations of thread barely create structure but capture the “apparitions” of monumental planes and forms throughout the space. The pieces slice through the rooms, highlighting the building itself and then go on to challenge the viewers’ perceptions by redefining – breaking away from the physical walls and illustrating planes of nothingness that exist concurrently.

When I first saw the show, I thought it seemed solemn and a bit serious – it’s so structured, so minimal and so devoid of color. If you felt this way, then I would definitely encourage you to see it again. It is uplifting and hopeful: the optimistic gestures allow the viewer to see the museum as constructed and then offer a glimpse of what could be…of something more. It makes me happy.

My “Top 10” Art Shows in NYC (Oct 2011)

Posted on October 10, 2011 by mlmcclung

This past week I went to NYC to see the first art shows of the season – Wow! What a season it is…this year the museums and galleries are really hitting it out of the park with major retrospectives and beautifully produced shows. De Kooning at MoMA heads the pack, but there were great shows everywhere. The galleries are ambitious – they are showing an awful lot of incredibly expensive works (moderately priced works in the $100k-500k+ range) – I did see works range from as little as $500 going beyond the $1m mark.

Of course there is no real way to cover it all, especially in 4 days. I only barely scratched the surface but what I did get to see was amazing. I walked up and down the city (100-200 blocks a day) and managed to squeeze in 5 museums and about 60 galleries. Of course I experienced the NY gallery snobbery… I understand it though as I was out of uniform. I wore my sneakers instead of Pradas and I opted for a white jacket instead of Black…I was actually told that I looked like I was auditioning for “Miami Vice.”

I tend to have a voracious appetite for all things visual so I ate it up; there were a lot of shows that I could have lingered over for hours to look at all the nuances of the works, but I set out with a mission to take in as much as I could so I literally kept moving the entire time.

Usually when I travel I like to compile a “Top 10” as a record for myself and to share, but with a so much going on, I couldn’t really bare to whittle it down past 7 museum shows and 15 gallery exhibitions:

Museums

De Kooning @ MoMA
Cy Twombly Sculptures @ MoMA
Lyonel Feininger @ Whitney
David Smith @Whitney
Master Painters of India (1100-1900) @ the Metropolitan
Frans Hals @ the Metropolitan
Hans Peter Feldman @ Guggenheim

Galleries

Do Ho Suh @ Lehmann Maupin
Leandro Erlich @ Sean Kelly
Agnes Martin @ Pace
Frank Stella @ Paul Kasmin
Milton Resnick @ Cheim & Read
Nicholas Krushenick @ Gary Snyder
Ronnie Landfield @ Stephen Haller
Ad Reinhardt @ Pace
Nick Cave @ Jack Shainman
Jenny Saville @ Gagosian
Ethan Murrow @ Winston Wӓchter Fine Art
Nathan Slate Joseph @ Sundaram Tagore
Monroe Hodder @ Andre Zarre
Andy Denzler @ Claire Oliver
Paul Winstanley @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash

With any luck I will get to go back in November and continue the expedition – places I was really eager to see but missed this time around included the Neue Galerie (they are installing an exhibition of works from Ronald S. Lauder’s Collection), The Noguchi Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the New Museum down in the Bowery. I didn’t make it over to Williamsburg or DUMBO this visit so they will be a must and I only got through about half of the Chelsea neighborhood.