11 March 2010

go get 'em

I once dissed William Powhida for his snarky drawings about the Art World, and was subsequently impressed by his response to my “art crit lite”… He’s clearly not a guy to shy away from dialogue (nor provocation!) Well, Powhida has certainly found his place these days, what with his scathing and well-circulated cover for the Brooklyn Rail laying bare the machinations of the New Museum’s current show of Dakis Joannou’s collection. If you’ve missed out on the discussion, you’ve probably been hibernating, since it seems just about everyone’s been talking about it since November. (Try here here and here to start…)

Now, Powhida and Jennifer Dalton have been running a project at the Winkelman Gallery called #class to create a place for broader discussion and critique of the way the Art World works. I am sad I’ve missed so many great events there, but am planning on going by for some of the last ten days to see what’s going on. Will it be more of the usual social jockeying, or a chance at real discussion? From what I can see on the blog (with a livestream!) people are having a great time. After months contemplating the void (or gazing at my navel, depending on your perspective) I am desperate for some conversation and engagement.

UPDATE: Everyone loves Billy now. Go get ‘em, man

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8 March 2010

I guess I've made it now

my photograph Shortness of Breath, 2004

painting by Alexander Tinei, seen at the Volta art fair this past week

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7 March 2010

R.I.P.

Sad news today…

I can only say I’m glad to have been briefly caught in the dark light of Mark’s genius. His music has meant so much to me.

from Sparklehorse, "It's a Wonderful Life"

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3 March 2010

thank you

I can breathe a bit now, and with that breath I want to thank Paul Karabinis and the students and good folks in Jacksonville for hosting me last week, and for reminding me just what the damn point of all this is…

I’ll admit it – the last few months have been really difficult, what with hardly any paid work and long days and nights in the studio, working much faster than I am used to doing. I prefer the slow ponderous drag of daydreams, not the high-pressure deadlines of an approaching show, but who ever has that luxury? I had a backlog of things I had started or sketched, and it was great to get at them finally, but I never realized how important reverie is to making good work. So many great ideas and details come from the glance and wander….

Luckily, it is, in fact, quite easy not to go out and spend any money in New York (particularly if one likes cooking at home as much as I do) although I think my friends have started to give up on me some… Indeed, I have rarely been happier than in those small moments of pure artistic myopia, thinking of nothing but the piece in front of me. It’s just a shame that reality keeps knocking on the door, demanding to be let in. It’s those moments that make the Art Life seem so sad and ridiculous. Why work so hard on little silly things that so few people will see? Why dig around so deeply in the uncomfortable depths of one’s life? Why not be a Responsible Citizen and work all day for someone else to pay your bills on time…? (Okay, I know the answer to that last one.)

One sure way to get the other answers is to surround yourself with people who actually appreciate what you do, and with talented students eager to dive into the same water you’ve been treading for years. There’s nothing better than having someone understand your little artistic in-joke, or to see the fire lit in someone’s eyes by the same spark that got you going, way back when… Again, I can’t thank them enough.

And now, onward.

Dan Estabrook, At Sea at Daniel Cooney Fine Art

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14 January 2010

waves

Lordy… As I finally get ready to show my At Sea work next month, the waves are all around me. Tonight at the Drawing Center in Soho is Sea Marks, with drawings by three artists, partly inspired by the sea. Just now I saw this review by Donald Kuspit of paintings by John Millei. They look gorgeous.

I’m gonna take a break and read Rachel Carson and see if I can’t finish this show…

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1 January 2010

sacred failure for the new year

Although I have recently been avoiding most Art mags – more out of laziness and poverty than principle – I have become quite a fan of Proximity Magazine. Issue 6 has just come out, with another interesting piece on photography by Rod Slemmons, and a lovely bit on excess and sacrifice by Noah Berlatsky. He is speaking of Batille’s notion of the world’s excess – its “accursed share” – and his recounting of the old Native American custom of potlatch as a way to gain rank above one’s enemies by giving away the greater gift. Artists, he suggests, are the closest contemporary practictioners of potlatch, sacrificing their work and selves to counteract the excess in the world, but often too willing to trade in their gifts just for money or more base exhibitions of status.

And yet…

That is not to say that all artists are inevitably defiled. On the contrary, if any contemporary figure attains to Bataille’s ideal of pure sacrifice it is one particular kind of artist — that is, the failed artist. Note that by “failed” here, I do not mean the artist who has missed commercial success, but has underground cred or aesthetic bonafides, or who is discovered and lionized after his death. On the contrary. When I say “failed” I mean “failed.” I mean an artist who profligately, copiously, obsessively works on creating objects that are, literally — by everyone and forever — unwanted. Creators of tuneless songs that never achieve dissonance; of ugly canvases too self-conscious to be outsider art; of doggerel verse too banal for even the high school literary magazine — in them, the excess of the universe is annihilated. Genius, love, life are exchanged for neither lucre, nor cred, nor beauty, but are instead simply thrown away. Failed art is permanently wasted, and it is therefore sacred. Squatting amidst the gross outpouring of sublimity, the ugly, the thumb-fingered, the clichéd piece of crap, is alone sacred.

Addendum: The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World

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29 December 2009

Romeo, O, um, Romeo

Another beautiful celebration of failure, from NPR

We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet … or do we? A new off-Broadway production tells the story of the star-crossed lovers without bothering with any of Shakespeare’s hallowed words or intricate plot twists. Instead, it relies on the fuzzy recollections of people who read it in high school.

The show’s creators called unsuspecting people on the phone and asked them what they remembered about Shakespeare’s classic love story. The result is a hilarious mishmash of half-recalled quotes, mixed-up plot points and wild digressions — all performed in the traditional Shakespearean style. Romeo and Juliet is a production of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma and runs at The Kitchen theater in New York City until mid-January.

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