Went to some art openings last night. At Pace/MacGill was a photographer Jim Goldberg who I had first seen in a book he did called "Raised By Wolves" in which he documented street kids in San Francisco for 10 years.
In the words of one of the kids:
"You show us how we are and let us tell our own story. Young people will only listen if society lets them speak too. Make sure that your work tells true stories, show people that they are not the only ones who matter, and that they do not have the right to categorize kids, for that won't make them disappear."
Now he's showing some other older work — similar to the picture above but this other series contrasts images of rich and poor people accompanied by captions written by them. One of the poor young men pictured in this series was present at the opening, now older and bearded, dressed in a cowboy hat, boots... and spurs! He was talking loud to all who would hear — obviously proud to be a past subject and he was representing Goldberg's work to all who would listen.
There was another long wall piece, an autobiographical timeline montage that in less sensitive hands would have been a spilled drawer of pix from a stranger's attic glued to foam board. Somehow he managed to make the events photographed in his life resonant, touching and tragic — there were trips and travel — judging by the pictures these were inspiring and enlightening — lovers, relatives and children — sad partings and old age, birth and sex. There were years spent among the down and out, druggies and society's castaways.
There were collectors, some museum curators and a lot of art students at the opening, in contrast to the next one I went to.
Down to Chelsea to an opening of new work by Bob Rauschenberg, whom I've known for years, ever since he did a Talking Heads LP cover. The big Chelsea gallery was packed and Bob arrived in a wheelchair — he had a stroke a few years ago and part of his right side is paralyzed — but he's come back and, according to his partner Darryl, he's been working nonstop, and has at least 4 large international shows this year.
The new stuff is made of color photos that Bob took (I assume), transferred to canvas by first printing them on paper using water-soluble inks — then the paper can be placed on wet canvas and the image inks, or most of them, stick to the canvas. It makes the images look rough, imperfect, like color Xeroxes, but larger.
I liked these much better than some other recent shows of Bob's I've seen — I like when the use of photography is less painterly, and to be honest I always felt the drips and smears in much of his earlier work were guilty remnants of abstract expressionism, an attempt to give photo-based work the credibility of painting.
Anyway, these have none or little of that. There were lots of colorful images of orange traffic cones and roadwork, a subject I focus on sometimes, so I was a little jealous, too.
I ran into acquaintances from Bob's studio, folks from various print edition studios he's worked at — some folks I hadn't seen in a long time. Most of the other attendees were of a "certain" generation of the art world. Wild and crazy once, but hardly now — the men were in suits or jackets at least, most of them with gray hair like me, and some of the older women had oversized glasses that they might have worn glamorously in the 70s.
Then I biked to a dinner that the gallery owner was having for Bob at his Upper East Side aptartment. It's a part of town I don't venture into often, but this would give me a chance to say hi to some old friends and acquaintances outside of the crowded gallery scene.
The house was of course filled with art. There were real Picassos, hanging Calders and a giant Donald Judd on one wall. The windows looked north and south on the FDR drive, so one could see the Queensborough Bridge nearby out one side and from another window the east coast of Manhattan and the in the distance the Williamsburg Bridge downtown. Wow.
Meryl Streep said hello(!) Saying "we used to be neighbors" which is true, as we both lived on the same block of 12th Street a year or so ago. We'd never met. I asked if she'd ever seen the web posting that compared and contrasted her townhouse with ours when they were both up for sale last year — "Real Estate Celebrity Smackdown" I think it was called. Using images and descriptions posted by the various real estate agents they compared the exteriors, some of the rooms and the appraised value of the two houses. It was snide and pretty hilarious.
Sat with Sidney B Felsen, of Gemini editions in L.A., who does a lot of stuff with Bob. Jim Rosenquist and he are big jazz fans and when Jim was in New York he would hang at the jazz clubs. He began to tell stories of encounters he had. He met Thelonius Monk, who, when approached repeated over and over “Nitsky Noo, Nitsky Noo”, which according to Jim was the name of the child of a 50s comic strip character. Once Jim, a huge Monk fan, traveled all day with some friends to catch a concert that Monk was participating in. Monk came out, played exactly one note, and departed.
Jim was at a bar where jazzers hung out and in walked Miles Davis and in his raspy voice said "What mutherfucker is going to buy me a drink?" Jim took him up on the offer.
A lady with big glasses is taken by the statement Bob wrote for his catalogue. She's going to read it aloud. Bob's sort of embarrassed and sort of proud.
Then the woman reappears and announces that Sigourney Weaver will be doing the reading instead. I didn't even know she was in the room. She borrows the giant glasses and begins — people poke their heads in from the other room full of chairs and tables. It's a charming inspiring paragraph, and she doesn't over dramatize it, as it's naturally funny.
Joannie, Sidney's wife and partner, spots Marc Jacobs and says to Sidney "Get to work!" as she pulls him out of his chair to make an introduction. Sidney isn't a pushy person, but he introduces himself and tells Jacobs about Gemini and Jacobs says he's opening his first L.A. store almost across the street from them.
Being a fashion designer he's naturally the most slovenly dressed person in the room, aside from Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim Museum director, who may be the most powerful person in the room, in some ways. Maybe it's a sign of status NOT to feel the need to dress up, in fact, maybe more status is implied if one intentionally dresses down. Jacobs is wearing baggy clothes and white running shoes and Krens entered wearing a nylon running outfit — though I'm sure neither of them were running recently. I'm in dress shoes, collared shirt and a pin striped jacket, dressed up for me, though I rode over here on a bike. (I find that if I pace myself I don't necessarily get sweaty while pedaling, so the skin-tight bike riding pants some folks wear seem an affectation to me — unless the person is seriously in training.
Talking with Christof De Menil whom I met through Bob Wilson years ago and with Keith Sonnier, the artist. Christof and Keith wonder who painted what appears to be an all blue painting on a wall nearby. The assumption is, of course, that it MUST be some important modern artist, it couldn't possibly be a nobody. I throw out Yves Klein, as it's blue, as does Streep's husband, a sculptor — but that idea is given the thumbs down.
Someone identifies it as an Ad Reinhart — an appropriately influential name in the modernist cannon — and points out that it's actually stripes of two different blues, so close in color and hue that the difference is almost imperceptible.
I look closer. I love this effect. I stare at it and it plays tricks with the eyes. Kind of like some of Bob Irwin's work... and that of his acolyte Jim Turrell. I stare and the dividing regions appear and vanish or become indistinct — it's a surprisingly retinal work for an artist who became known for intellectual games.
Bob and Darryl have temporarily relocated from Captiva Island, where his home and studio was, to Fort Meyers, FLA, the larger town on the mainland. Captiva was hit pretty hard during the recent hurricane bouts. Many of Bob's buildings were heavily damaged and the trees were uprooted and the place is a mess. Miraculously, no artwork was damaged, but the fish house, a little wooden structure on the end of short pier — where I once wrote some of the songs for my CD Uh-Oh while visiting there in the early 90s — was pretty much destroyed.
Dick Tracy’s associates:
Enemies: 3-D Magee (used killer ants), 88 Keys, Angletop, B-B Eyes, Big Boy Caprice (Tracy's arch enemy, and leader of the Apparatus gang), Big Frost (killer of Brilliant), Black Pearl, The Blank (face destroyed by gunshot), Blowtop, Bony, Breathless Mahoney, Broadway Bates, The Brow (Nazi spy), Chameleon (disguise expert), The Claw, Coffyhead, Cueball, Cutie Diamond, Deafy Sweetfellow, Doc Hump, Faceless Redrum, Flattop Jones (professional assassin with mis-shapen skull), Flattop Jr., Gargles, Gruesome, Haf-and-Haf, Headache, Heels Beals, Honeymoon, Itchy Oliver, Johnny Scorn, Larceny Lu, Lips Manlis, Littleface Finney, Matty Square, Maxine Viller, Measles, Miss Egghead, Mrs. Pruneface, Mrs. Volts, Mr. Bribery, Mr. Crime, The Mole, Mousey, Mumbles, Olga, Peanutbutter, Pear-shape, Perfume, Pruneface (Nazi spy), Puckerpuss, Putty Puss (able to change his features), Rughead, Scorpio, Shakey, Shoulders, Sphinx, Splitface, Splitscreen, Spud Spaldoni, Squareface, Tiger Lilly, El Tigress, Tonsils, Torcher, Yogee Yamma
Known Relatives: Tess Trueheart (wife), Bonny Braids (daughter), Junior Tracy (adopted son), Moon Maid (daughter-in-law, wife of Junior, extra-terrestrial, deceased)
Here is a comic book cover from 1955!:
