One of the things I have yet to note about the Moakley exhibition is the thrill for me personally in having the opportunity to show anywhere within a 30 mile radius of Ellsworth Kelly.
Ellsworth Kelly was commissioned to create 21 colored panels for the Moakley Courthouse that are a permanent installation there, and some of which can be seen from the gallery my work is currently hanging in at the courthouse.
See above for some shots of Kelly’s work at the courthouse.
I will digress a bit more on Paul Hayes Tucker, the champion human being, stellar art historian and educator, and personal mentor that helped shape many of my ideas about art and art history during my visit to UMAS/Boston, when I complete my new work meditation regarding water lilies…. But for the time being, the connection is that my first critical work on an artist was on Ellsworth Kelly for Paul Tucker’s class, Art Since 1940, some ten years ago.
I tried to dig up the old paper, but can’t seem to find it. I think I titled it “Tension” which was in reference to Kelly’s use of color and shape in energized contrast to the spaces he showed in.
Needless to say, this connection, and the idea of showing with Kelly, has been a thrill for me. When I first looked at the space I was in awe that I might show with work I respected so very much.
In my old job, before I was art full-time, every once in a while someone would catch wind I was an artist and invariably the Kelly panels at the Moakley would come up. “So, what do you think of the colored squares?” Or, “You’re an artist, what do you think of that work at the Moakley?” always with disdain. “Tell me, those thing are worth like a million bucks?”
I would sometimes explain how they might be worth a million a piece someday, if not currently, and that Kelly actually took the commission below market for his work, or how “colored squares” might not be the best description. But most often I resorted to genuine pure honesty:
You mean the Ellsworth Kelly’s? Yes. They are amazing.
I once had the privilege of seeing Kelly’s piece “Sculpture for a Large Wall” from 1957 in person in NYC and it was thrilling (see above… pic from pantherhouse.com ). It is likely my favorite work by the artist, and I stumbled upon it almost by accident (interestingly after seeing Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipses," as Serra is referenced below).
And while Kelly isn’t in my posse of huge influences (the de Koonings, Rothkos, O'Haras... etc.), some of his ideas on art have been very, very influential to me. One of the debates at the time of his brekthrough, as always, had been the role of art versus the role of decoration… what is art versus what is decoration. This was pre-earthworks and site pieces ( a la, Smithson, Walter de Maria, etc.... the notion of taking art completely out of the hands of the mediators— gallery owners, curators, etc) and Kelly said something to the effect that art shouldn’t just hang on a wall, art should be the entire wall. He envisioned a world of walls built of paintings. Often when I have a blank canvas on my wall I wonder if I should create, transcend, build, or destroy a wall. Something like Frost’s “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and I attribute the birth of some of these ideas to Kelly.
So, all that is a great way of saying that I am happy to show with Ellsworth.
The other thing that has occurred to me lately (maybe in connection to this and maybe not) is how difficult it is to make public art. Mostly, I have been thinking of Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc.”
Tilted Arc is studied in a lot of art history classes as kind of the height of the difficulties of creating public art. Here is a blurb from PBS.com:
“In 1981, artist Richard Serra installs his sculpture Tilted Arc, in Federal Plaza in New York City. It has been commissioned by the Arts-in-Architecture program of the U.S. General Services Administration, which earmarks 0.5 percent of a federal building's cost for artwork. Tilted Arc is a curving wall of raw steel, 120 feet long and 12 feet high, that carves the space of the Federal Plaza in half. Those working in surrounding buildings must circumvent its enormous bulk as they go through the plaza. According to Serra, this is the point, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."
Ellsworth Kelly was commissioned to create 21 colored panels for the Moakley Courthouse that are a permanent installation there, and some of which can be seen from the gallery my work is currently hanging in at the courthouse.
See above for some shots of Kelly’s work at the courthouse.
I will digress a bit more on Paul Hayes Tucker, the champion human being, stellar art historian and educator, and personal mentor that helped shape many of my ideas about art and art history during my visit to UMAS/Boston, when I complete my new work meditation regarding water lilies…. But for the time being, the connection is that my first critical work on an artist was on Ellsworth Kelly for Paul Tucker’s class, Art Since 1940, some ten years ago.
I tried to dig up the old paper, but can’t seem to find it. I think I titled it “Tension” which was in reference to Kelly’s use of color and shape in energized contrast to the spaces he showed in.
Needless to say, this connection, and the idea of showing with Kelly, has been a thrill for me. When I first looked at the space I was in awe that I might show with work I respected so very much.
In my old job, before I was art full-time, every once in a while someone would catch wind I was an artist and invariably the Kelly panels at the Moakley would come up. “So, what do you think of the colored squares?” Or, “You’re an artist, what do you think of that work at the Moakley?” always with disdain. “Tell me, those thing are worth like a million bucks?”
I would sometimes explain how they might be worth a million a piece someday, if not currently, and that Kelly actually took the commission below market for his work, or how “colored squares” might not be the best description. But most often I resorted to genuine pure honesty:
You mean the Ellsworth Kelly’s? Yes. They are amazing.
I once had the privilege of seeing Kelly’s piece “Sculpture for a Large Wall” from 1957 in person in NYC and it was thrilling (see above… pic from pantherhouse.com ). It is likely my favorite work by the artist, and I stumbled upon it almost by accident (interestingly after seeing Richard Serra's "Torqued Ellipses," as Serra is referenced below).
And while Kelly isn’t in my posse of huge influences (the de Koonings, Rothkos, O'Haras... etc.), some of his ideas on art have been very, very influential to me. One of the debates at the time of his brekthrough, as always, had been the role of art versus the role of decoration… what is art versus what is decoration. This was pre-earthworks and site pieces ( a la, Smithson, Walter de Maria, etc.... the notion of taking art completely out of the hands of the mediators— gallery owners, curators, etc) and Kelly said something to the effect that art shouldn’t just hang on a wall, art should be the entire wall. He envisioned a world of walls built of paintings. Often when I have a blank canvas on my wall I wonder if I should create, transcend, build, or destroy a wall. Something like Frost’s “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and I attribute the birth of some of these ideas to Kelly.
So, all that is a great way of saying that I am happy to show with Ellsworth.
The other thing that has occurred to me lately (maybe in connection to this and maybe not) is how difficult it is to make public art. Mostly, I have been thinking of Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc.”
Tilted Arc is studied in a lot of art history classes as kind of the height of the difficulties of creating public art. Here is a blurb from PBS.com:
“In 1981, artist Richard Serra installs his sculpture Tilted Arc, in Federal Plaza in New York City. It has been commissioned by the Arts-in-Architecture program of the U.S. General Services Administration, which earmarks 0.5 percent of a federal building's cost for artwork. Tilted Arc is a curving wall of raw steel, 120 feet long and 12 feet high, that carves the space of the Federal Plaza in half. Those working in surrounding buildings must circumvent its enormous bulk as they go through the plaza. According to Serra, this is the point, "The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer's movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes."
The sculpture generates controversy as soon as it is erected, and Judge Edward Re begins a letter-writing campaign to have the $175,000 work removed. Four years later, William Diamond, regional administrator for the GSA, decides to hold a public hearing to determine whether Tilted Arc should be relocated. Estimates for the cost of dismantling the work are $35,000, with an additional $50,000 estimated to erect it in another location. Richard Serra testifies that the sculpture is site-specific, and that to remove it from its site is to destroy it. If the sculpture is relocated, he will remove his name from it. “
The pic is from PBS.com as well. And interesting to note the other connection, of the Moakley being a GSA building as well.
Mostly I have been thinking of this sculpture as I have been thinking of artist as prophet. The controversy around this was the alleged lack of access to public space.. that is, in order to get in these public buildings, people had to walk around the arc.
How interesting that in post-9/11 America we now take this lack of access as the norm. Not only security clearance— for instance, to get into the Moakley you need to pass through metal detectors, check in electronics, present 2 forms of ID— but also these barrier-type physical stoppers are the accepted now. Take a walk around downtown Boston, or any urban environment, and all skyscrapers have these stoppers built around them so a car with explosives can’t drive up and blow up the building. So, I now claim Serra as an artistic prophet— viewing the future of access/blockade and rendering it 20 years ahead of time.
Mostly I have been thinking of this sculpture as I have been thinking of artist as prophet. The controversy around this was the alleged lack of access to public space.. that is, in order to get in these public buildings, people had to walk around the arc.
How interesting that in post-9/11 America we now take this lack of access as the norm. Not only security clearance— for instance, to get into the Moakley you need to pass through metal detectors, check in electronics, present 2 forms of ID— but also these barrier-type physical stoppers are the accepted now. Take a walk around downtown Boston, or any urban environment, and all skyscrapers have these stoppers built around them so a car with explosives can’t drive up and blow up the building. So, I now claim Serra as an artistic prophet— viewing the future of access/blockade and rendering it 20 years ahead of time.
A stretch? Maybe, but why not? And why have a blog if you can't proclaim random ideas like Richard Serra is a prophet from time to time?
For more on Paul Hayes Tucker, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Prophets, Kurt Cole Eidsvig, or Fall Out Boy (I am currently browsing their videos on YouTube as I write this) check out your friendly neighborhood Google.
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