Thanks for the shoutout to Houston, my hometown. I am intrigued by the Laura Rathe Art Gallery. I will have to check it out.
I used to attend a series called “Looking at Art” conducted by Marshall and Victoria Lightman. We would meet once a week for several weeks and visit two art galleries a night where the artist was usually present to speak about their work. They focused mostly on contemporary art.
I don’t believe Rathe’s gallery was on any of our art tours. So, thanks for the introduction.
Excellent essay. I really related to this you wrote: "The work shapes you as much as you shape it." and this as well, "A form that no longer needs to say anything in order to be something." For me, my home, the way I dress and even think is very much how my art is and/or it's the other way around too. And I love how you studied those "ruined" billboards in Mexico and were so deeply inspired by them. My eyes immediately goes to how everyday things in life, in stores, the sidewalk, inside cars etc are juxtaposed in ways that I take in and am inspired by. Life inspires us and we inspire life (and substitute 'us' for 'our art').
Cecil, when you write: "And I came to see this practice as more than just a visual strategy. It became a kind of philosophy of attention. A way of engaging equally the negative and positive spaces and shifting them back and forth and using texture and color and form and composition as a painter would do - pulling the type out of the land of utility and into painterly culture."
You are indicating a breakthrough attributed to Jasper Johns, who painted FLAG in 1954-1955. The encaustic painting straddled the fence of being a flag and a representation of a flag. Johns said the painting was something "the mind already knows." This is perhaps what you refer to when you cite "utility" (meaning the use of the flag as a national or regional symbol of something) and artifice (painted representation). In that there is tension and something significant about how we perceive reality, or as you put it, a philosophy of attention.
Thanks for the shoutout to Houston, my hometown. I am intrigued by the Laura Rathe Art Gallery. I will have to check it out.
I used to attend a series called “Looking at Art” conducted by Marshall and Victoria Lightman. We would meet once a week for several weeks and visit two art galleries a night where the artist was usually present to speak about their work. They focused mostly on contemporary art.
I don’t believe Rathe’s gallery was on any of our art tours. So, thanks for the introduction.
Excellent essay. I really related to this you wrote: "The work shapes you as much as you shape it." and this as well, "A form that no longer needs to say anything in order to be something." For me, my home, the way I dress and even think is very much how my art is and/or it's the other way around too. And I love how you studied those "ruined" billboards in Mexico and were so deeply inspired by them. My eyes immediately goes to how everyday things in life, in stores, the sidewalk, inside cars etc are juxtaposed in ways that I take in and am inspired by. Life inspires us and we inspire life (and substitute 'us' for 'our art').
Cecil, when you write: "And I came to see this practice as more than just a visual strategy. It became a kind of philosophy of attention. A way of engaging equally the negative and positive spaces and shifting them back and forth and using texture and color and form and composition as a painter would do - pulling the type out of the land of utility and into painterly culture."
You are indicating a breakthrough attributed to Jasper Johns, who painted FLAG in 1954-1955. The encaustic painting straddled the fence of being a flag and a representation of a flag. Johns said the painting was something "the mind already knows." This is perhaps what you refer to when you cite "utility" (meaning the use of the flag as a national or regional symbol of something) and artifice (painted representation). In that there is tension and something significant about how we perceive reality, or as you put it, a philosophy of attention.
Yes, 'the Land of Utility' I decided to make this response into an article posting in a few minutes...