The Process is the Idea which is the Process

The paintings of Magnus von Plessen fall in the center of the philosophical and conceptual debate around painting itself. His paintings are built of paint and also of the physical removal of paint, in a way that immediately invites the viewer to think on painting as a physical object in and of itself. The construction and physicality remain obstinately present, even as the viewer drifts into the 'imagery', often traditional portraits, self-portraits, or architectural/interior views. A student of traditional European painting, von Plessen suspends us in a place with any resolution: the imagery is impaired by the physicality; the physicality broken by the invitation of imagery.

From The Art Institute of Chicago "Focus" Series:
Plessen’s canvases are built with a careful amalgam of discrete vertical, horizontal, and diagonal applications, alternatively thick and translucent, resembling bars: “The one straight stroke has to denote all that is supposed to be happening in the painting,” he says. Regarding Felicity, which he has at times called Felicity, 146 Brushstrokes, the artist states, “on one occasion I counted up the number of strokes in a painting. I was able to reconstruct the time in which the work had been painted. . . . It is not what I see that determines where I put the brushstrokes. They tend rather to follow a mental image of what I can touch. That’s what makes them so independent. But you can only do it in places; you can’t cover the whole painting that way. You can’t grasp hold of everything. The things you try to grab hold of slip away.”

Through the intersecting ideas of the vertical/horizontal line as a structural atom (representative of everything, crucial and perfectly expressive) and the addition and subtraction of these vertical and horizontals we experience the created experience of creation: we are taken to the act of creation itself, to the relationship between the eye and the mind, which again von Plessen alludes to with the idea of "touching" within the mind.

That his created experience of creation, mental and physical, yields an image which quotes a traditional portrait is an even greater feat. But without said image we would not work so hard in front of his paintings: the imagery keeps us looking, expecting, and putting together. (We tend not to work for abstract paintings, we assume that what we see is what we get). Von Plessen's experimentation with the mental mechanics of painting excites me, I feel along for the ride in his world of construction and creation, where the focus rests on the process of both artist and viewer.

The Little Air

The artist Jacob Hashimoto works with traditional Japanese kite forms-- handcrafted of bamboo sticks, off-set prints and string-- and catches the air. His kites are hung together, creating 'works' which read on the surface and yet are swaying in the wind. Other directions of his work include installations with similar air-displacers: wooden trees with balloons as leaves, a beautiful hanging of white bamboo discs which move in the air whenever a viewer passes by.

These delicate moves, registering the change in air and environment, are the spirit (it seems to me) of Hashimoto's work. Instead of fixed objects, his are alive and responding to their surroundings. There is mobility and also delicacy: the thin paper, the small amount of air needed. Air we would not have even notice-- but these works are designed to be attuned to the subtle atmosphere.

The Commute

"Something for the Commute", a three-person show at brookyn fire proof, includes the work of Karla Wozniak (and Ethan Greenbaum and S.E. Nash). (Until Jan 13 2008).

The image above, Latitudes, Panama City Beach, FL, is a iconic American landscape, the kind Wozniak typically presents us with. Void of irony or malice, her work feels both optimistic and loving, as she caresses this American Utopia with her line.

Interest in signage, especially quirky, vintage americana. Interest in the fraternity that franchised signage brings to divergent landscapes. These paintings and works on paper remind me of riding in the car of my childhood, surburban signage passing above, comforting with its mysterious promises.

what are you looking at?

A show of Banksy works-- prints, some original works on wood and canvas, some quirky "installations"-- is on view at Vanina Holasek on 27th street Dec 2- 29 2007. Apparently this show of Banksy's work is unauthorized by Banksy-- a symbol of the machinery of the art world turning on its own.

The unauthorized show in NYC is perhaps not more than the shaking of a cash cow, yet it touches the very conundrum of Banksy. Banksy, a British graffiti artist who has been writing on the streets of Bristol, London, and wherever else he finds himself since the late 1980's, now finds himself very much in the art world spotlight. Graffiti is illegal in the UK, as here, and Banksy has attempted to maintain his anonymity even while his profile is on the rise. Our hunt for Banksy reflects our hunt for all we treasure and yet which evades us: we must trap it, and unravel it, in the process extinguishing it.

It is also a story of worlds colliding. Graffiti writing is by definition self-expression in public, to a wide public audience, without the presence of self, ego or identity-- not that writers don't have these, but that they are channeled through the work, not alongside it. Nowadays, in the ship on fire that is our contemporary art market, the personality is essential to understanding and appreciating the artwork. A recent New Yorker interview with Jeffrey Deitch notes that he "admires most the [artists] whose work is indistinguishable from their life." This is the view often taken by people who are not artists, a demand for virtue of some sort.

What separates Banksy from other graffiti writers is his aesthetic, and his intended audience. Banksy clearly has a keen and sensitive mind. His work is cutting (anti-government, -war, -coppers, -media, -culture, etc) and also incredibly sentimental. I would venture that it is his romantic disposition that has driven all of this: a desire to make a grand statement, the belief that it would stir others, and the continual return to doing. A true cynic would never have kept it up.

In the framework of language, his work trades in the currency of recognizable imagery, paired with a "true" statement-- a statement which evades our sugar-coating, they way we are programmed to think when we see something, even if that thought is not really ours. In example: a Banksy work in which across an empty wall-level billboard, Banksy writes: "The joy of not being sold anything". This is the pairing of something which you are numb to-- the continuous presence of advertising-- with the sudden realization that it doesn't have to be so.

That Banksy has had to remain anonymous-- for obvious legal reasons-- initially kept him on the outside of an art world which honors the celebrity. Now, in full reversal, he is a celebrity-- a celebrity of the mind and media. His "stuff" gets harder and harder to do, as people seek him out in the night, cameras ready.

I think in a way Banksy is one of our cultural heroes. We have so few of them now. Someone who gives to all of us a sentimental and bold gift, that frees us for one minute from the dull rigidity of our expectations. Someone who defies the societal machine we give so much of our lives to, a defiance that we feel by proxy when we apprehend his work. Then again, maybe Jeffrey Deitch is right after all: we seek to ascribe virtue, passion, dedication, heroism, and asceticism to our artists. Those qualities long since vanished from American culture, we look for them in the world of fantasy, of infinite possibility, of art.

More on Banksy:
A New Yorker article on Banksy May 2007.
Interview with Banksy by Simon Hattenstone.